2009’s Sounds of the Universe was similarly excruciating (except “In Chains”-that song was pretty dope). Last year’s Delta Machine was unlistenable. They haven’t released a great album in over 20 years. And Playing the Angel was good, not great. "We used to talk to him on our way to the airport."ĭepeche Mode's UK tour starts at London's 02 Arena on May 30.Let’s face it: Depeche Mode haven’t released a good album in nearly a decade.
"But we never used him correctly," reflects Gore. We ended up using him a lot, sorting our own problems out." "That was meant to be for Dave," laughs Fletcher, "but he never spoke to him once. But unlike on a previous tour, just after Gahan began his recovery, the Sounds Of The Universe live travelling party will not include a therapist. The newly settled Depeche family have made it through to record another career landmark. If you add up the number of units you are consuming it's frightening." "I realised the amount I was drinking was far too much for too long. "I'm one of the weird people who gave up drinking halfway through a tour," he laughs. Gore suffered from panic attacks and medicated with alcohol, but he's been teetotal for three years. "Yes, but I don't want to go into it," says Fletcher. He'll say, 'You can't do that', or 'What will my mum say?'"īut the voice of the man in the street has had his troubles too, suffering a nervous breakdown on one tour. "He pulls us back if we ever go off in a direction that's too arty. "I see Andy as the voice of the man on the street," he smiles. There's been some debate about Fletcher's creative input in the band. His writing songs has made Depeche much closer, because he's much more confident within the band now." "He said a few things then, but it was important for him to succeed. "There was a bit of bravado from Dave when he did his first solo album," offers Gore. Upstairs, Gore, with his curly corn-coloured locks, and the dour Fletcher consider their singer as objectively as they can. "There's a lot of fighting with the missus, trying to interfere with how she's running the home," he grimaces. Even now when he comes off tour he's restless. Gahan himself was a teenage delinquent and quite a handful for his single-parent mum. The 16-year-old is going into the 'I hate you' phase. I have two other kids in New York who are nine and 16. "I live in New York and he's here in England so I don't see him all the time, but we do talk every other day. Jack's 22 this year, a young man, but I still think of him as a little kid. "I think I'm getting to be a better dad," he admits. It's a relationship he has done much to try to repair. Speaking of which, when I enter, Gahan's arranging lunch with his son Jack on the phone. Sometimes it's fine, sometimes it's, 'Get the f*** out of my room'.Ī dysfunctional family? Of course we are.
"We had our moments offstage, but you spend a year on the road and it's like brothers together. It was really focused," says Gahan puffing on his cheroot. "The last tour, performance-wise, was one of the best we have ever done. While Gahan breaks smoking regulations in the basement suite of a London members' club, Gore and Fletcher are talking in a room two floors above. The other band members - Martin Gore and Andy Fletcher, both 47 - also had periods of addiction, depression and mental instability. But like any other story in that department, you get lost." There was something about the isolation and weirdness of going into that utopian world that was attractive. "I should have listened more carefully to what all the people like Bowie, who I grew up listening to, said about it. "It was the cliché of being the rock star, indulging it, having fun but losing track of everything else," admits Gahan today. Later, he apparently attempted suicide, and was declared clinically dead on at least two further occasions. In 1995, he was the most obviously smacked-out musician I have interviewed. But they went on to even greater glories, conquering the world with their melodic, perverted and compulsive sound.ĭave Gahan, 46, has been drug-free for several years, but up close his lean, wrinkled and unshaven face has the mark of a man who took his leather-clad rock god role too far. The group were feared to be a spent force when founder member and major songwriter Vince Clarke left back in 1981. That they are still together at all, let alone on the form captured on new album Sounds Of The Universe (see review below), is a remarkable achievement.
In their 29-year career, Depeche Mode have sold 75 million albums, scaled the peaks of electro and goth pop heaven, and tasted the bitter fruits of rock hell.
How the trio escaped THEIR demons to make a great album
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