Neil Francis & POEM's Thomas Janak
After seeing his favourite Band Erasure
perform in London in 2014 Neil Francis made his way to the tube and while
waiting on the platform he just started singing Erasure’s “A little respect”
with everyone present joining in. A mobile phone recorded clip of Neil’s
impromptu acapella rendering of the classic track made it onto youtube where it
has been watched by a global audience over 20 million times, which turned Neil
into a youtube sensation.
But the story doesn’t end there – he has now
recorded with Erasure’s support act Shelter and others and is well on the way to becoming a thought after singer himself. Recently Neil sang at a ’30 years
Erasure’ party where Erasure’s Andy Bell himself showed up and Andy & Neil
sang “A little respect” together on stage that night.
We talked to Neil about his youtube video and
all that followed and more.
LISTEN HERE