Alison Moyet reunites with Vince Clarke for first time in 16 years

Apr 20 2008 By BILLY SLOAN

IT is hard not to feel like an intruder when I meet newly reunited 80s chart-toppers Yazoo.

Just minutes before, Vince Clarke and Alison Moyet have come face to face for the first time since the band's bitter split in 1992...so they have plenty of catching up to do.

Alison, 46, said: "It's the first time we've spoken in 16 years.

"There was a nervous moment when we first saw each other again. Here was a face which was so familiar yet I hadn't seen him in so many years. It felt very odd."

Vince said: "During those years, we'd emailed each other a lot and I always felt it would be a relaxed and natural reunion.

"I'm totally useless on the phone and specifically didn't want to talk to Alison by phone before we met."

Vince and Alison will have to recapture their old magic fast. They are reuniting Yazoo for their first concert tour in 25 years.

The pair - who rocketed to fame in 1982 with smash hits Only You and Don't Go - will play the Clyde Auditorium in Glasgow on June 4 as part of their Reconnected UK Tour.

They are also releasing In Your Room, a four-disc box set which includes their two albums, Upstairs At Eric's and You And Me Both.

Despite their success there remains a feeling that Yazoo's career was one which simmered without really being brought to the boil.

Alison said: "I initiated the reunion using the 25th anniversary as an excuse. It was something I'd wanted to do for years. I wanted to sing the Yazoo stuff live and couldn't do it without Vince.

"We only did 24 dates when we released our first album and never toured the second album.

"I felt I'd been denied something by not playing our songs live. Our material was much more than just a couple of hit singles. There was depth, darkness and poetry to a lot of our songs.

"Fans will get the chance for the first - and possible last - time to hear us play those songs live."

Vince has taken a break from his "day job" with hit pop duo Erasure, formed with singer Andy Bell.

He said: "Musically, I've been with Andy for 20 years and nothing is going to change that.

"I'd never have re-formed Yazoo if it had made Andy feel uncomfortable or threatened.

"I emailed him and asked for his opinion and he replied, asking for six tickets for our first show."

When Yazoo split in 1983, Alison enjoyed a successful solo career with hits, Love Resurrection, All Cried Out and That Ole Devil Called Love.

She is delighted to be making music again after being prevented from releasing albums for eight years following a bitter legal wrangle with a former record company.

Alison said: "I never wanted to go solo. Vince and I had a very quick climb up the mountain then he suddenly b******d off.

"I was thinking, 'Oh don't leave me' but I can understand why he did. I was difficult at that stage so the split became much bigger than we intended."

Vince added: "We just never really got to know each other. We were both very young and shy. We weren't good at expressing the way we felt and got a bit paranoid."

Alison added: "It wasn't as if we'd been touring for years or hanging out in the pub. We didn't know each other so when things went wrong it was kept inside and became very bitter."

Alison hated pop stardom and the pressures of fame.

She admitted: "I was in the midst of a bit of mental illness - deep, deep depression - and it just wasn't a good time for me. I was always a bit of a dark character and didn't know how to deal with it.

"I was rubbish at being a pop star. I was on my own and had no-one to share the joys – or half of the miseries - with. I hate talking like that because it always sounds so ungrateful.”

Alison’s formidable presence also led to her getting a reputation for being “difficult” within the music industry.

She said: “I did shout and bawl but if people actually listened they’d have realised I wasn’t getting at them.

“My father was a French peasant. He was a real streetfighter. There wasn’t one single dinner where he didn’t bang his fist on the kitchen table to make a point. That was normal life for me.

“Vince was very English and didn’t behave like that. I think people would have found me difficult and coupled with the fact I was shy and defensive made for this spiky character.”

Vince first heard Alison sing with an R&B band called The Screaming Abdabs in Southend FC social club. He thought her voice was fantastic and asked her to do the vocal on a new song he had written, Only You.

He said: “Alison came to my flat in Basildon and stood in my kitchen and sang it.

“I took the demo to my record company but they didn’t seem interested. My songpublisher heard it and we got the money to record a full album."

Vince was portrayed as a pop "phantom of the opera" figure, carefully steering his vocal protegee to stardom.

He said: "I didn't have any master plan. I just wanted to get enough money to make records.

"I didn't even think it was particularly interesting putting this bluesy R&B voice with cold electronic music because I didn't think my music was cold."

Alison said:“I knew nothing about electronica but at the same time I was incredibly attracted to this intense, dark character.”

Their first appearance on Top Of The Pops in 1982 – performing Only You – was a disaster.

Alison said: “We bumped into Paul and Linda McCartney back-stage and they were wonderful. But all the young acts were real a*******s. Nobody really mixed.

“I was so nervous as I’d never lip synched before.

“The noise of the TV audience was so loud I didn’t hear the intro and missed the first line. I just made it to the microphone for the second.”

In their years apart, Vince concentrated on family life with his wife Tracy and their son Oscar, two.

Alison has three kids - Joe, 22, and daughters Alex, 19, and Caitlin, 11 - and is married to teacher David Ballard.

She also tried her hand at acting and appeared in hit musical Chicago in London's West End, playing kailer Mama Morton opposite Denise Van OUten as Roxy Hart.

She said: "I'd always hated musicals. They're a bit naff. And me and an American accent didn't go too well together - it was all a bit too Dick Van Dyke.

“But I did enjoy Chicago because I loved the routine of the theatre. Doing eight performances a week for seven months helped me become a much better singer.”

Vince and Alison hope they can reach a new generation of fans.

More importantly, the surprise reunion has helped them pick up the pieces of their relationship.

Alison said: “It’s a great chance for us to renew our friendship as people. We never had time to do that to start with.

“We had funny tangled feelings but you grow up, look back at what you’ve achieved together and feel really blessed to have had that person in your life.

“You come away with a strange ethereal love.

“Vince opened a creative door for me which may never have happened and that was a real blessing.”