Depeche Mode Devotional Tour Gear (1993-1994)

Depeche mode keeps things simple onstage: no amplifiers. Every sound, from keyboards to guitar to drums, runs through the P.A. system: a Brittania Pow Flashlight System.

David Gahan and the backup singers use Samson Synth radio microphones with EU 757 capsules.

Martin Gore plays a Roland A-50 and Alan Wilder plays an Akai MX1000, each controlling two Emulator Emax II samplers; Andrew Fletcher has another pair of Emaxes. Each pair is hooked up in parallel, so if one were to malfunction, the other is ready. But "I don't remember an instance when we had to go to a spare," says Wob Roberts, the keyboard technician. Samples come from strange and sundry sources, including old analog equipment.

The piano onstage is a Korg 01/W Pro X transplanted into a grand piano body. For downstage keyboards, Fletcher and Wilder use Philip MIDI line drivers.

Away from the keyboards, Gore plays either a Gretsch Country Gentleman or a copy of a Gretsch Anniversary guitar, strung with Gibson strings, from .010 to .046 gauge. Dick Knight copied Gore's original Gretsch for stage use, using Gretsch parts but adding more wood in the body to cut down on feedback.

Wilder's drums are mostly Yamahas: a 22" bass drum and 12", 13", 14" and 16" tomtoms. He uses Noble and Cooley piccolo and 7" snare drums and Zildjian K cymbals: a 22" ride, an 18" China, 16" and 18" crashes, a 6" splash and 13" hi-hats.

And don't forget the tapes: two Sony 3324's, one of them a spare. Of the 24 tracks, Depeche Mode only use 14, because many of the songs were dubbed from a 16-track Tascam that used 12 tracks for sound and four for sync. "As soon as anyone sees the size of the machines, they think the whole show is on tape," says Roberts. "But it's just bass and drum parts and a couple of sequences. This band does not mime."

(source: http://www.tuug.fi/~jaakko/dm/keyboards.html)

DESPAIR MODE

Depeche Mode, the 1980s British band, still sells millions of records,
yet singer Dave Gahan slit his wrists and recently nearly died of a
drug overdose. What went wrong? [INLINE]
Depeche Mode in the 1980s [INLINE] `Even after all the success, they
were still just lads from Basildon who had put together a band in the
back room. But when Dave moved out to LA, the rock-star thing caught
up with him'
[INLINE]
Just Can't Get Enough: Dave Gahan, left after his drug overdose. The
AA pamphlets, above, were found in his car.

Dave Gahan, hip-thrusting lead singer if the British rock band Depeche
Mode, narrowly avoided becoming the latest stop on Hollywood's
notorious Graveline Tours 10 days ago. The company whisks sightseers,
in converted hearses, on ghoulish excursions around town, with the aim
of showing them exactly where the stars died.

Gahan had been found unconscious, in the early hours of the morning,
on the floor of his room at the trendy Sunset Marquis hotel just off
Sunset Boulevard. The hotel lies midway between the Graveline tour
stop where River Phoenix died of a drug overdose on the pavement
outside the Viper Room club, and the bungalow at the Chateau Marmont
hotel where John Belushi OD'd, fatally, before him.

According to police, Gahan had injected himself with a speedball - a
heart-jolting, intravenous concoction of heroin and cocaine - and
passed out. The police said they had found syringes and a "sizable"
amount of cocaine in the bathroom.

After being released from hospital, Gahan, 34, was charged with
posession and being under the influence of controlled substances. He
was released on $10,000 bail and in due to appear in court on June
18t. As he walked out of the jail, an apparently contrite Gahan
aplogised on television to his fans and to his mum.

Graveline Tours has had its eye on Gahan ever since Depeche Mode
became of of the biggest rock'n'roll successes in the world. And one
of the most unlikely. Akthough only one member of the band, Alan
Wilder, has ever claimed to be a competent musician, Depeche Mode has
managed to outsell and outlast a ll the bands that emerged from the
New Romantic era of the early 1980s.

Where now are Soft Cell, Heaven 17, Orchestral Maneuvers in the Dark,
Spandau Ballet, Frankie Goes to Hollyword and Culture Club? As Duran
Duran were desperately planning a comeback in 1990, international
sales of Depeche Mode's Violator album topped 6m.

It was the ultimate revenge of the "wimps with synths", the "knob
twiddlers", "America's favourite Euroweenies", as Depeche were tagged
by the vicious British press. They would never let the band forget
their origins as a bunch of unpreposessing Basildon lads who wore
frilly shirts and cheap makeup, and gleefully discussed their
favourite colours in Smash Hits, the magazine for prepubescent girls.

Despite their attempt to transubstantiate into heavy-duty,
leather-clad rockers, Depeche's musical offerings of synthesized
religion, safe bondage, and low-brow teenage angst - hits such as See
You and Just Can't Get Enough - never won over the critics. "J D
Salinger in lederhosen," one reviewer called songwriter Martin Gore's
quest for deeper meaning.

Friends say that Gahan's headlong dive into drup-induced oblivion came
from the desperate desire to be taken seriously, to erase for ever the
embarassing teenybopper label. The former window dresser, whose father
left when he was five, and whose mother spent much of her time on her
Salvation Army work, was determined to re-emerge as a contender to
rock gods such as Bono and Kurt Cobain.

Gahan left Britain for Los Angeles after the band's 1990 Violator
tour. At the same time, he echoed his father's departure by leaving
his first wife, Joanne, with whom he has an eight-year-old son, and
hooking up with Teresa Conroy, who had been the band's American
publicist, eventually marrying her and moving into a grand house in
the Hollywood Hills, where "he was surrounded by sycophants and
leeches", according to one friend. It was an unhappy and nearly fatal
move.

"I just went of f to LA and did all those classic guru-meeting,
refinding my spirit things - or finding my spirituality - and the
classic debauched things as well," Gahan told Q magazine last year.

"As hippie as it sounds, I had to find out what Dave Gahan wanted to
do," he said. And what did Gahan discover about himself on his
spiritual quest?

"It doesn't matter if it's in a bottle of vodka or if you're banging a
needle into your arm," posited the newly reflective Gahan, "at the end
of the day, you're going to the same place - which is oblivion - and
it's going to kill you."

"The others were back in England and Dave just took himself out of the
loop," says a close friend of the band. "There was nobody around to
tell him he was being a fool, as there would have been in England. He
lost his hold on reality."

Gahan credited Teresa Conroy for initiating his transformation,
introducing him to the new generation of alternative rock bands such
as Alice in Chains and Jane's Addiction that were beginning to drive
Depeche Mode and their ilk of the playlists of the hip radio stations.
"He became embarassed that Depeche Mode weren't a guitar band like all
the new Seattle bands," says one band insider.

"The great thing about Depeche Mode was that they were never caught up
in the whole rock-star thing," says another associate. "Even after all
the success, they were still just a bunch of lads from Basildon who
had put together a band in the back room. But when Dave moved out to
LA, the whole rock-star thing caught up with him."

By now he was rootless, cast adrift from his first wife and son and
without - bar Conroy - any secure anchor in LA. Conscious, too, that
while he was the band's front man, it was Gore who was the brains
behing the band, Gahan was seeking an identity. He was sporting a
goatee, he had taken up body-piercing and he was almost completely
covered in tattoos. He was babbling incomprehensible new age
California-speak that he had begun to parrot from a "spiritual
advisor" he had aquired and whom he insisted the band took on their
next tour.

The other group members were horrified when Gahan turned up in Madrid
for the recording sessions for the last, much less succesful album,
songs of Fith and Devotion. Gahan demanded that they throw away their
trademark synthesizers and pick up guitars and drums, which none of
them could really play. The sessions collapsed in disarray. "I think
the rest of the band were pretty scared of me," Gahan told Rolling
Stone. "I was pretty powerful."

"I think Dave's easily influenced and I don't think living in Loas
Angeles has had a good effect on him," says Wilder, diplomatically.

During the last tour, despite the daily presence of Dave's
psychotherapist and spiritual advisor, the problems between the band
worsened dramatically. Only one thing seemed to hold them together -
mony, "It felt as if it was over," says one person who toured with
them, "the energy, the buzz, was gone."

One band member, Andy Fletcher, left the tour before it even finished,
ostensibly to be with his wife when she gave birth, but really, claim
insiders, because he had allegedly suffered a breakdown, brought on,
they suggest, by his increasing guilt and embasarrment about the fact
he'd never really had any significant musical role.

By midway through last year, Gahan's second marriage was falling
apart, and in Augst the depressed singer was briefly admitted to
hospitale after what appeared to be a suicide attempt. "I drank a
bottle of wine and swallowed a handful of Valium," said Gahan at the
time. "That combination is really stupid. I walked into the bathroom
and saw a razor blade and slashed it across my wrists real hard. It
was a spur of the moment thing. I cut real deep, so I couldn't deel my
fingers any more."

Now Gore and Fletcher are worried that, even though Gahan's latest
drug debacle has not killed him off, it may mean the death of the
band. There are doubts that the new album will ever be finished.

"Since January, the record company has been telling us that they've
recorded four or five songs and that the album was going to be out in
June of July," says Richard Blade, who, as a DJ on LA's KROQ, was
instrumental in the late 1980s and early 1990s in Depeche Mode's west
coast success, "but now they've pushed the release date back to
February 1997 and I doubt that tey're even going to make that."

"The band is on very shaky ground," Blade adds. "The next album is
make-or-break."

Gahan's court appearance may be make-or-break, too. A drug conviction
could stop him recording or touring in America. Even the resilient
Depeche Mode would not survive that, and even if he overcomes his
problems with drugs, Dave Gahan may find that he has only succeeded in
reinventing himself into a gilded obscurity. He is a long way from
home. Graveline Tours won't care where he dies. Christopher Goodwin,
The Sunday Times
_________________________________________________________________

This article was taken from UK Newspaper The Sunday Times, June 9th
1996.

NME article on Dave incident

Going... going... Gahan... ?

DAVE GAHAN narrowly escaped death for the second time in less than
a year last week. Responding to an emergency 911 call at 1.15am on May
28, from an unnamed woman saying that she was Gahan' roommate, deputies
of the West Hollywood Sheriff' department and paramedics knocked down
the door of Gahan's room at the Sunset Marquis Hotel, Beverly Hills, Los
Angeles. They found the 34-year-old Depeche Mode singer unconscious in
the bathroom. They also found a "sizeable amount" of what they believed
to be a mixture of heroin and cocaine, as well as drug paraphernalia.

Gahan was rushed to Cedars Sinai Medical Centre for emergency
treatment where staff confirmed that he had been treated for a drugs
overdose. He was kept under police guard while in hospital and as soon
as he was discharged, at 8.30am, he was arrested and taken to the West
Hollywood Sheriff's Station where he was booked for possession of
controlled substances, a felony offence, as well as charged with being
under the influence of a controlled substance, a misdemeanour. He was
released at 12.30pm on $10,000 bail.

This is the second time in under a year that Gahan has been rushed
to Cedars Sinai for emergency treatment. In August 1995, he was admitted
to the hospital with "lacerations to the wrists consistent with being
slashed with a razor blade", according to the Sheriff's department.
Statements from Depeche Mode's management and record company followed
denying that Gahan had made a suicide attempt. Spokespeople for Gahan
said that he had "accidentally cut his wrists during a party at his
home". The Sheriff's department would not confirm whether it was Gahan
who had dialled the 911 emergency number. Shortly before the accident,
Depeche Mode co-founder Andy Fletcher had left the band and Gahan had
split with his second wife, Theresa.

Following the latest incident, Gahan's record company, Mute, who
have had the band under contract since 1981, have been tight-lipped
about the singer. However, sources close to him do admit that he has
problems. One American friend said that he doesn't believe that the
latest incident was a suicide attempt. He claimed Gahan had been
undergoing treatment for drug dependency for at least two years, since
the band came off their Devotional Tour in 1994. Another source said
that he had just come out of a 12-step drug rehabilitation programme,
shortly before his overdose. If that is true it would suggest that the
overdose was more likely to have been the result of an accident than a
suicide attempt. Also, the presence of another person in the room with
Gahan, the woman who called 911, would make a suicide attempt seem less
likely.

The hospital would not confirm whether or not Gahan had been
injecting the heroin/cocaine cocktail. In medical circles this
combination is known as a Brompton's Cocktail and is sometimes
administered to terminally-ill patients, particularly those suffering
pain from cancer. Known colloquially as a 'speedball', the combination
is favoured by many junkies because of the euphoria that the two drugs
bring: the cocaine gives the user an immediate rush of energy, awareness
and clarity while the heroin smoothes out the 'come-down' effects from
the cocaine, which gives only a short-duration high.

Many users inject larger quantities of 'speedballs' that they would
of heroin, which can lead to overdoses. Also, if a user had just been
through rehab and was drug free, their level of tolerance to the drug
would have been diminished and would have made the user vulnerable as
soon as they injected quantities they were used to while a regular user.
Other famous 'speedball' victims include the comedian John Belushi.

When NME's Gavin Martin interviewed Depeche Mode in September 1993,
during the Devotional Tour, he found Gahan very obviously ill, his arms
bruised and scratched. Martin was later told that this was as a result
of the singer being bitten and scratched by fans. In interviews, Gahan
denied that he had a drug dependency problem, although he once admitted
that he drank too much.

Formed in Basildon, Essex, in the early-'80s, Depeche Mode were
originally lumped alongside the electro/futurist scene presided over by
DJ Stevo. The band made their recording debut on his Some Bizzare
compilation alongside Soft Cell and Blancmange. Depeche Mode scored
their first hit with 'New Life', a pristine electronic pop track written
by Vince Clarke, who left to form Yazoo and later Erasure.

The band established themselves primarily as a pop act in the UK,
though in the US and Europe were taken more seriously. By '87, the time
of film-maker DA Pennebaker's documentary 101, they were a massive
stadium act, certainly as big as U2 and garnering the same critical
acclaim Stateside as the likes of New Order. They also built up a
fanatical, almost religious following in Europe. The music became
darker, moving away from the optimistic 'new town' pop of their
early-'80s debut album, 'Speak And Spell', through to the grandiose,
almost humourless 'Songs Of Faith And Devotion' in 1993. Depeche Mode
had been working together on new material. Martin Gore had written new
songs and they were due to go back into the studio in August.

At present no-one seems to know how these plans will be affected.
The album is tentatively on the release schedules for the first quarter
of 1997. Whatever Gahan's personal and drug-related problems, he now has
to contend with a potentially more serious legal issue. Possession of
heroin can carry a jail sentence although the amount found in the hotel
room is still unknown and it is not known if the drugs belonged to
Gahan. It is unlikely that a prison sentence will be handed out to
someone of Gahan's standing, though a condition of any probation will be
that he attends a rehabilitation programme approved by the Los Angeles
courts.

[bong] Article on DM

After years of singing about alienation, depression, and tragedy--
the very reason many gay youth have bowed to Depeche Mode for the better
part of two decades-- frontman Dave Gahan took his martyr role to a literal
extreme. His heroin addiction led to a suicide attempt and then a
near-fatal overdose. "It's a classic case of 'Be careful what you wish
for,'" reports Gahan, now addiction free and in the midst of plotting out
the band's next video the day we meet at the Essex House on New York's
Central Park. "I was thinking that what I was doing was really cool, part
and parcel of being a rock star-- then tortured artist shit."

Coming four years after their last album, ULTRA (Mute/Reprise) is
Depeche Mode's remarkable resurrection, an album filled with compelling
dramas like "Sister Of Night", recorded while Gahan was still in the throes
of addiction, and the dark single :Barrel Of A Gun".

"Recording 'Barrel Of A Gun,' I was in a place of 'I fuckin' hate
this shit, I hate myself,'" Gahan recalls. "I was using up all of my
chances. I'm ranting about this monster I had created: 'this horny creep,
who looks in need of sleep that doesn't come, this twisted, tortured mess,
a bed of sinfulness.' That was exactly how I was feeling."

It sounds like Martin Gore, the band's lyricist, wrote these songs
as a way of getting through to Gahan-- a notion Gore rejects as "ludicrous"
but Gahan is willing to entertain. "It's Matin's business, but I thing
he's looking at himself, too, and his struggle with his own destiny," says
the singer. "I think in some way I get to deliver a message of maybe hope
and faith, through music, through my voice. Martin once said to me that he
feels like he get his songs through God, but he has to channel them through
me. Once I got clean on this album, I felt that again."

The fact that alienated queer teens have been turning to Depeche
Mode's songs since the band formed 17 years ago is not lost on Gahan.
"They're people who try to get really honest about who they are, and it's a
struggle then to be accepted," says Gahan, fingering a CD single by a
beefcake named Sam Walker, whose house version of the Mode's "Just Can't
Get Enough" is popular in gay clubs. "And I always feel like that, and I
think Martin does too. I'm an incredibly sensitive person, almost to the
point where I feel like it's me against the world. There's a comfort and a
sensitivity that comes Depeche Mode's music or my voice. You can have a
belief in it."

And even a sense of humor. The tongue-in-cheek album title, Gahan
says, was picked "because it's like a detergent commercial or something:
ULTRA, the new and improved Depeche Mode, the clean and sparkling version.
The version that actually brought joy to my heart."


Writer: Ray Rogers

Article :: Depeche vs. Drugs (long)

The following article appeared in the Winnipeg Free Press for
May 1 accompanied by a large picture from the SOFAD era.

DEPECHE VS DRUGS - Techno leaders find silver lining in new album
(Mark Brown - The Orange Country Register)

Depeche Mode was determined to not let drugs stand in the way of music.
After all, that had gone on long enough.
So the band members had their PR firm track down every negative article
written concerning the group and drugs, suicide attempts, arrests, etc.,
and send them out to every rock critic in the nation. With singer Dave
Gahan now clean and sober, and a strong new album, Ultra, they figured
they'd face the music once and get it over with.
Guess Again.
"We sort of had the idea if we did one main feature, we could clear the
air and move on. Obviously, it was a very naive idea," chief songwriter
Martin Gore said by phone.
"We've sort of resigned ourselves to the fact that people are
interested in sensationalism," he continued. "It wasn't the main point.
But Dave feels a need to be honest in interviews, and maybe it has a
therapeutic quality. Obviously, we realize the damage it does to us.
That's what people focus on and they disregard the music."
That'll change. After two years of nothing but trouble -- including
Gahan's highly publicized West Hollywood arrest for heroin and cocaine
possession last year -- Depeche Mode returns with the timely album
Ultra. The leaders of techno music are back just as the movement is
getting new respect and fans.
To be fair, Gahan wasn't the only one in trouble. The Denver Police
Department has Gore's mug shot on file from a 4 a.m. hotel-hallway
arrest involving a loud boom box and a bad attitude.
But Gahan's antics, including drug arrests, overdoses, and more than
one near-death experience, far overshadow Gore's misdemeanor
disturbing-the-peace beefs.
"I'm trying to set some better priorities in my life," Gahan explained
separately. "It can all go away tomorrow. I'm talking about my life,
really. I have my life back today. One of the things was definitely the
process of getting through and making Ultra and finishing up with an
album that is very good and we're all very proud of. It's kind of
against all odds, you know?"
Gahan wasn't concerned that the British band -- which first hit big in
the early 80's with songs such as Just Can't Get Enough, People are
People, and Master and Servant -- would possibly lose everything just as
electronic music has finally come around to the mainstream.
"Trends come and go. They make no difference to us. We had our biggest
success ever at the height of grunge," Gore said. "We created a niche
for us at the height of our career. Whatever happens to be in or out is
irrelevant."
And despite the pain and wasted time that Gahan's problems caused the
band, there is a silver lining.
"In some ways it maybe takes a bit of pressure off us, because no one
expected an album at all, let alone a good one," Gore said.
Ultra was recorded in 15 months, with sessions breaking down after
Gahan was unable to perform.
"There was a time there when everyone, myself included, wondered what I
was trying to do here," Gahan recalled. "I was sitting on the fence for
a long time. I'm very grateful today that I can get up in the morning
and make a choice. It didn't feel like that for a long time."
What did it feel like?
"There were a lot of personal things going on in my life. It wasn't any
one thing. I created a lot of the war zones that were around me. A
junkie is the most self-centered, selfish person in the world. They just
can't help it. It's just the way they are."
In addition, keyboardist Alan Wilder left, leaving Gore and Andy
Fletcher to carry much of the load.
"Because there were so many changes this time around, we didn't set
ourselves and great goals," Gore said. "We went into the studio with a
very relaxed attitude: Let's get back together, see how we're getting
on, see how things go in the studio without Alan."
The band had been hanging by a string for years, and Gahan thought he
could tough it out, despite his addictions.
"I'm very driven. I always showed up, no matter what was going on,"
Gahan said. "Fletch brought that up. It was hard for the to point the
finger at me and say 'Man, you're looking really bad,' because I was
always showing up and doing the show and giving it my all. I'm a great
showoff. I can stand up there and be king for two hours."
But sessions for Ultra proved to be too much.
"When we started this album, 90 per cent of the time I was still strung
out, and the rest of the time I was sick from kicking," Gahan recalled.
"It became very obvious that physically I wasn't able to stand up in
front of a microphone for more than an hour without wanting to lay down
and die."
"There were definite times during the recording of this record that I
felt we wouldn't get it finished. I had to start thinking about
finishing it as a solo artist, which I don't really want to be," Gore
said.
So Gore and Fletcher kept working on the music. It was during this time
that Gahan left for his overdose in Hollywood. That led to his momentary
death and lingering drug charges.
But it was that episode that forced him to deal with his addition. When
he finally rejoined the band, he was renewed.
"Most people tend to ignore the fact that Dave was clean and healthy
for half the recording of this record, because that's not news," Gore
said. "The last six months of this record were a breeze."
Despite Gahan's seemingly healthy lifestyle, the band is avoiding all
temptation, including what would undoubtedly be an insanely lucrative
summer tour.
"We decided not to tour this time, which is a very big decision. And
we've walked away from it. We don't feel we can survive another tour,"
Gore said. "Our last tour was 14 months long. When we got to the end of
it, we had massive band communication breakdown problems. We lost a band
member, and we don't want to go through that again."

THE Q100 INTERVIEW: Dave Gahan

- How the devil are you?

Very well, thank you very much to anyone out there who cares. I know my
mum does. And my son does. And my wife does. I'm very well. To be honest,
at the end of the tour I wasn't very well. But now I'm a lot better.

- What do you think of when you read Q?

I really love it and I'm not just saying that. Probably bought every
issue, and on Melrose (Avenue, LA) it's about 20 bucks! It's probably the
only magazine that hasn't got as big an ego as the people it writes
about. I like the re-issue stuff, reading loads of stuff about John Lee
Hooker or whoever.

- So, what about the tour? There were a lot of rumours...

I just pushed myself a bit too hard in lots of ways. There was a lot of
debauchery. Primal Scream were on the road with us. That didn't help!

- It's said that you don't have a manager any more, you have a guru.

"Spiritual adviser" (laughs). We have a spiritual adviser whose name is
Jonathan Kessler. A dear friend. If it wasn't for Jonathan, I don't know
where we'd be.

- Primal Scream used to have a spiritual adviser. Excellent sort of '60s
"gentle cat", always carried a Sky Saxon album...

Gentle cat! Oh, that's classic (laughs). Yeah, I've probably met him.
Bobby's so classic. He's so "tragically beautiful", Bobby.

- What's _your_ spiritual adviser like?

Looks like a hippy. Hair down to here. Big muscles. He started out as an
accountant and turned out to be the only person who became a real friend
of every member of the band and could work between us. He has nothing to
do with the music. Just "karma" stuff, if you like.

- You've re-married to a girl who is famously fond of long hair, beards
and tattoos.

I don't know about beards. She likes long hair and tattoos. My back's
completely covered in one tattoo. Eight hours of tattooing, two four-hour
sessions. I'm totally covered in them now. I've even started having some
removed (lifts left sleeve to reveal unsightly scar tissue).

- Have you had the old "Prince Albert" done?

No. The Guishe. I'm pierced in the Guishe, which is supposed to be the
most sensual.

- You have a ring through your _scrotum_?

Right underneath there, yeah (laughs)! I can tell you it was the most
painful a couple of seconds. I got it done the day after Teresa and I got
married. We got back to LA and I wanted to go and kind of do something
special. I thought, I really want to get a ring, you know, but I don't
want to _wear_ a ring. So... (shrugs, expression of pride coupled with
excruciating pain). I guess I'm a kind of weird chap, really. I'm
constantly surprising myself with my mentality!

- What difference does it make?

I'm able to laugh at myself a lot more.

- No I mean the ring through your scrotum.

Oh, this (points)! I'm sorry. It makes a lot of difference. There's quite
a lot of things you can do. You can use other apparatus. You can hang
things around.

- (Legs crossed, horrified) What are we talking about here? Weight-lifting?
The old bar-bells?

Not bar-bells, no! (Mysteriously) Small is good. Small is big... You
know, I just went off to LA and did all the classic guru-meeting,
re-finding my spiritual things - or _finding_ my spirituality - and all
the classic debauched things as well. Experienced every side of
rock'n'roll you've ever heard about.

- On the scale of nought to Led Zeppelin...

Oh, I probably went a little bit further. I think I pushed myself to the
point of becoming this caricature of a rock star that was so good he was
in danger of killing himself.

- The promoters were worried you wouldn't turn up. Is that true?

Yeah... I mean there were things going on in the press - which one of
Bobby or I would be the first to croak? - which we laughed at. But at the
same time, Bobby would tell press people, Look, please don't give Dave
any more problems, he's having enough trouble getting through customs as
it is.

- You apparently had a doctor on tour?

Yeah, we've had doctors. And we're probably the first band to have a
full-time full-paid psychiatrist on the road with us.

- So, straight offstage and on to the couch?

Well, _I_ didn't, but just about everybody else did.


- You had doctors to ensure you got on stage?

Anything to get you into the spirit to get up there and do that thing.
What happens is it starts to regress. If you're not having fun doing
anything - whether that be singing in a band or taking drugs or whatever
- and it's becoming a chore, and you're not enjoying what you're doing
then don't do it. Stop it. That's what I decided to do in every way. I
came away from the tour with two broken ribs, haemorrhaging from the
inside. I mean, it was 180 shows! I pushed myself too far. My body was
going on nothing. I landed on the crash barriers and cracked two ribs. It
took me 24 hours to feel anything as I was so drunk. Next day I was in
incredible pain. I told the spiritual adviser, Jonathan, and we went off
to a hospital and they wanted me to stay in for a while. And I said,
Look, I don't want to go into one of those places, I'd rather go and do
this on my own. So I got a little cabin up in Lake Tahoe and just kind of
disappeared. I was all strapped up for three weeks...

- This was a clinic, a drying-out place.

Yeah, it was everything. And mentally as well, trying to get back down to
earth really. It was an incredible amount of fun but it took its toll. I
didn't realise how much till I stopped, 'cos your body can take an awful
lot of damage and pain.

- So Primal Scream turning up was a real help.

(Laughs) Yeah, I like to party. And they were fresh people to party with.
We had fantastic times, sitting up till seven, eight, eleven in the
morning, in my room, with Mick Jones yabbering on at me, You gotta eat!
You gotta eat!

- That must be worrying - when Mick Jones tells you you're too thin.

Yeah! But the guy's a lot weller now than he's been in the past. We'd be
all sitting around, classic, all in little corners of the hotel room,
Bobby there. But it was getting silly. Basically, if you're getting to
places everywhere you're going and the first thing you're trying to do is
score, if that's your priority then you've got to stop... _I_ think.

- Is this all of Depeche Mode?

Nah, just me! (Smiles wearily) All on my lonesome, now.

- How do they feel about this?

Really upset I'm sure.

- Were they worried you wouldn't turn up on stage?

I think some of the times, yeah. I think they'd probably look at me and
think, Is he going to die tomorrow? It doesn't matter if it's a bottle of
vodka or if you're banging a needle into your arm, at the end of the day
you're going to the same place - which is oblivion - and it's going to
kill you in the end. Fifteen years of partying and having fun, it takes
its toll, and I'd like to think I've kind of got away with it.

- Tell us a joke.

I think the joke is probably that I'm still here.

Depeche Mode Discovers Guitars

FASHION VICTIMS

After a decade of near-faceless (and guitar-less) superstardom, Depeche
Mode strives to get personal with the new Songs of Faith and Devotion


Depeche Mode doesn'Òt get any respect. Just ask lead singer David Gahan
that is, if you can single him out of the quartet'Òs lineup. To this day, he
is approached bu purportedly devout fans who mistake him for the group'Òs
songwriter and ever-so-infrequently contributing vocalist, Marting Gore.
Gahan recently traded sanitary synth-pop couture for biker
chic-shoulder-length black hair, an emaciated frame embroidered with
tattoos- a change that should help distinguich him fomr his impish,
goldilocked compatriot.

Or ask Gore, who says people concentrate too much on the Depeche Mode'Òs
synth-pop instrumentation and not enough on its songs. Sure, he appreciates
all the recent revisionist critical attention lavished on his band. After a
decade-plus of guitar less devotion to the hi-tech trinity- synthesizer,
sequencer, sampler - the group'Òs 11-album and innumerable-single / remix
catalog is being revisted in light of the pop-culture explosion of rave,
techno and other machine-flued dance musics. He is likewise thankful that
Depeche Mode no longer is pigeonholed with Spandau Ballet, OMD and other MIA
British 'ÑNew Romanitc'Ô bands of the early 'Ñ80'Òs. But all things said, the
song-writer would rather be remembered as a songwriter- and not be credited
with 'Óthe demise of the song,'Ô which is how he sums up the resultof rave'Òs
jubilant fetishization of mundlessness, fad and surface pleasure.

Or ask Alan Wilder, who remains to all but the most loyal fan the group'Òs
anonymous newcomer, though he joined Depeche Mode more than a decade ago.
The rest of the band call him Musical Dierctor, which still understates his
almost single-handed responsability for the band'Òs sound. Abetted by
producer Flood, Wilder costructed virtually everything that the group'Òs new
album, Songs of Faith and Devotion, pumps through your stereo speakers,
aside from Gahan'Òs sad-eyed baritone and Gore'Òs occasional boy-tenor and
tremendous Curtis Mayfield-flavored Guitar. 'ÓPeople have no conception of
the detailed work that goes into making a record these days,'Ô Wilder says at
Olympic Studios in Barnes, just a brief cab ride southwest of central
London. 'ÓAll this technology is designed to give you an emotional reaction,
and that'Òs why it annoys me when people say, Isn'Òt your music robotic
because you use synthesizers?'Ô Because we go to such lengths to make sure
that the technology gives you some kind of feeling.'Ô

Or ask fourth and final Depeche Mode member Andrew Fletcher. Long since
having relinquished any musical input, he oversees the group'Òs business
cockney, Fletcher or 'ÓFletch, as the others call him, can readily quote
market research, publicity strategies and sales figures, both past and
projected. 'ÓIn essence, we'Òre apacket of cornflakes, 'ÓFletcher states flatly
in a small pub across the street from Olympic Studios, where Wilder is
finishingremixes on the new album'Òs second single 'ÓWalking in my Shoes'Ô and
Gore is absorbed by a televised soccer match. (Gahan spends much of his time
with his second wife, an American in Los Angeles, where he was interviewed
separately.) 'ÓWe'Òre a product'Ô, says Fletcher, 'Óand we appeal to certain
type of person, But we try not let that bother us at all. We just realy try
and concentrate on making a good record.'Ô Yet for all his detailed knowledge
of audince demographics, Fletcher still can;t comprehend haw Depeche Mode
acquired its gloome-merchant reputation. 'ÓObiously, compared to Kylie
Minogue, we are doomy,'Ô he concedes.

The mistaken identities, unflattering idolatry from this year'Òs pop models,
and a reputation for mechanical, sullen music certainly have not hurt the
band. In support of its las album, 1990'Òs Violator, Depeche Mode toured to
1.2 million faces, the last 75,000 of whom attended a single concert at the
Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif. An album-signing appearance at a Wherehouse
record store in Los Angeles required more than 130 police officers to
disperse at least 10,000 fans.. Of course, Southern California has always
been a Depeche Mode stronghold ('ÓWe were long considered a Sest Coast act in
America,'Ô says Fletcher of the early days, 'Ónot bad for a group from
Basildon'Ô), but multi-platinum album sales have established the band'Òs
global stature.

Even pop-culture'Òs intelligentsia have caught the bug. Producer Brian Eno,
whose 'Ñ92 Never Net album shows him to be more comfortable than Gore with
the 'ÓGodfather of Rave'Ô title, contributed two resoundingly ambient remixes
of the otherwise pile-driving 'ÓI feel you,'Ô the first single off the new
album. And last year, film director Wim Wenders (Paris, Texas, Wings of
Desire), who had worked previously with Depeche Mode fellow Mute Records
compatriots Nike Cave and Bliza Bargeld, struggled for months to tempt the
band from a year'Òs sabbatical to contribute a song to his movie, Until the
End of The World. He received 'ÓDeath'Òs Door,'Ô one of the band'Òs best, a Kurt
Weill-flavord firge whose bluesy flavor and acoustic sensibility heralded
the band'Òs new direction on Songs of Faith and Devotion, with its hallmark
gospel, blues and swaggering guitars.

Not bad, indeed, Certainly not for a boand whose leader and primary
songwriter dropped out after a single album. From the start, back in 1980,
Depeche Mode (French for 'ÓFast Fashion'Ô) was one man'Òs idea, that man was
neither Gahan, Gore, Wilder nor fletcher but Vince Clark, who departed ofter
releasing Speak & Spell and its hit single, a bit of keyboard-driven disco
called 'ÓJust Can'Òt Get Enough.'Ô

Though Depeche Mode clearly has survived the loss, and Clarke'Òs later
success wiht Yaz and Ereausre seems more an odd footnote than anything else,
Fletcher reflects the entire group'Òs sentiment (all are in their early 30s
when he says, 'ÓVince was important to the concept of the band. Without him,
we wouldn'Òt have know where we were going. He was the driving force. It'Òs
weird, really. Idon'Òt think he ever regretted leaving. I think he felt he
could do it all by himself, and it'Òs true-he could.'Ô

So could Depeche Mode .

A so-called 'Óquiet period'Ô followed the highly successful debuut, when the
tree remaining members, Gahan, Gore and Fletcher, issued A Broken Frame. But
1983'Òs Construction Time Again announced the arrivals of Alan Wilder and
free-lance sample-innovator Gareth Jones, who later worked with industrial
heavy Einsturzende Neubauten. Recalls Gahan, 'ÓWe were experimenting with
sampling for the first time. We were going out on the streets, kicking
things, smashing things and getting really into it. 'ÓThe album marked the
sonic inventiveness that would both butress later weak efforts, such as
1986'Òs Black Celebration, and push Gore'Òs best compositions ('ÓPeople Are
People, Master and Servant ,Clean') over the top.


Wilder flirted with wongwriting, but soon retired to the shadows of the
studio, leaving those instincts to his solo proyects, under the name Recoil.
Three singles packages targeted the band's growing audience around the time
of the Some Great Reward sturio album (1984) 1987's Music For the Mases
showed the band changing orientation, from scattered singles to coherent
albums. 1989 brought Depeche Mode 101, an unusually frank tour fil
documentary, directed by D.A. Pennebaker of Monterey Pop fame, and 101, a
live double-album.

Violator arrived exactly a decade after the band signed with its English
label, Mute, and for the first time introduced a guitar into the mix, with
the lead single, "Personal Jesus," the band's hardest-driving song yet.
"People still miss that," says Gore. "The main point of that song is the
guitar riff. People still consider us an electronic band. And it was
followed bu "Enjoy the Silence." The main riff on that, again, was guitar.
Half of that song was guitar," he trails off, somewhat incredulously.

Well, you can't miss the guitar on Songs of Faith and Devotion. "Walking in
My Shoes" sets a Johnny Marr nod over a hip-hop beat. "Mercy in You" rocks
a la U2's "Bullet the blue Sky", no doubt thanks to flood, who assisted the
Irich band's Achtung Baby sessions this new album-production credits include
Nick Cave and Nine Inch Nails. And the bottleneck-riddled "I Feel You"
one-ups "Personal Jesus".
>From the opening tire screech through the reousing chorus of closer "Higher
Love," the album is permeated by Martin Gore agressive six - string.

"I'm convinced that we wouldn't be today if we has signed to a major
label," Marin Gore states succinictly. "After the initial succes of Speak &
Spell, A Broken Frame was a very quiet period for us. It didn't do nothing,
but it didn't do anything astoundig, and think we would have fallen into
second-album syndrome and would have been dropped bu our third album."

Signed to Sire in the U.S. Depeche Mode remains with its initial label,
Mute, in England. The last of the original post-punk U.K. independents-
Rough Trade (The Smiths, the Fall) and Factory (New Order, Happy Mondays)
having folded in the past two years- Mute is headed by Daniel Miller who,
after a stint in the Normal (best known for "Warm Leatherette," covered by
Grace Jones), bult his label around industrial and synthpop bands. "It's a
miracle that we were actually able to turn down all of this money that was
being offered." Says Gore of their choice to sign with Mute over suitors
like CBS (now Sony Music), "and it's obviously turned out in our favor.
We've always had lots of freedom to do whatever we want." The Band only
recently signed its first contract with Miller; says Fletcher, "It only
really covers what happens if Daniel dies."

Miller has production credit on the band's early efforts, but proved as
laissez-faire in the studio as he was in the office. The presence of
producer flood on Depeche's Violator and now, Songs of Faith and Devotion no
doubt explains the increasing coherence, the sense of sounds meshing, that
eluded previous records. But the band's haphazard history is the welcome
price paid for a managerfree existence: no svengali, no guru, no master,
just some scraped knees up the pop-music hill. Says Fletcher, "I suppose if
we'd just said, 'Ask the manager' all along, we wouldn't have actually
learned as much as we have." (Integral to the Depeche Mode's satelite team,
photographer Anton Corbijn [pronounced "Kor-ben"] first directed a video for
the band in 1986. Known for his countless Spin covers and prevalent work
with U@ and R.E.M., he now coordinates all the band's visuals. Says
Fletcher of Corbijn's high profile, "It is a concern. We have to work hard
with him to try and make our stuff different, because it's very easy for him
to lapse." The sleeve for Songs of Faith and Devotion, the band's first
studio album to feature their faces on the cover, does smack of Achtung Baby)

Gahan quotes Flood on the subject of the band's unorthodox hierarchy, "He
said to me that Al is sort of the craftsman, Martin's the idea man and I am
the Attitude."

Whisch leaves us with Fletcher. "Well, Andy isn't musical at all," says
Gore, clearly a bit more confortable with the subject than the other
members. "He has absolutely no interest inmusic. He's never bought a record
to my knowledge. He's not only not interested in learning to play an
instrument, he doesn't have interest in actually wanting to listen to music.
So, being in a band and having no interest in music meant that he had to
have interest elsewhere, so he tries to deflect all the flack of the
business side away from the rest of us, and allow us to concentrate on
making a record. And if decisions have to be made, he has to" -he pauses- "
He'll come to us and say, 'Look, they wandt us to do this, what do you
think?' And we'll have a discussion about it."

Fletcher responds to the obvious question: "Why am I in a band? It was
accidental right from the begining. I was actually forced to be in the band.
I played the guitar and I had a bass; it was a question of them roping me
in. I was never really that interested. Even when the band got going, I was
just there for the social bit of it. And all of a sudden we started to do
well. It was, rather than sort of making myself into a superb muso [British
slang for overly dedicated musician], I tried to go in a different
direction." Asked if he ever sees Fletcher retiring from performing, Gore
responds, laughing, "Maybe we shouldl set a fax machine up for him on stage."

Fletcher's non-musicality remains the second-oddest facet of Depeche Mode ,
the first being the fact that Martin Gore rarely sings his own songs (just
twice on the new album: "One Cares, and "Judas" with middle-eastern echoes
of Peter Gabriel's Last temptation of Christ score). Gahan sings everything
else, having written not a single sylable of what are ofthen hihgly personal
lyrics. Yes the arrengment in only unusual in pop music since the rise of
the singer-songwriter. And even then there are precedents, like the Whos'
Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey, and Rush's Neil Peart and Geddy Lee. But
with Depeche Mode, the situation is compounded by Gore's single-minded
thematic agenda and deeply emotional content.

"IT is weird," admits Gahan. "It's really strange. I suppose, when I sing
the songs, I feel they're mine. I really get into the words. Martin writes
from experience, especially his experiences with the band. And becausewe
spend a lot of time together, you'll experience it as well. So lots of times
I feel really close, actually, to Martin's lyrics, and especially the last
two albums, this one and Violator.

"It's either religion or sex with Martin, pretty much, or somewhere in
between the two. But they're pretty close anyway, let's faceit"

True enough. Having long since dropped the subjects of society's ills ("New
Dress," "Everything Counts") and overt religious criticism ("Blasphemous
Rumours, " "Nothing"), Gore has focused closer with each record on
interpersonal relations; themes of absolution through love and obsesive,
sadomasochistic sexual longing pervade Violator and Songs of Faith and
Devotion. What keeps the material fresh on the new album is its infusion
with gospel abnd blues, natural elements further amplified by Wilder's live
drumming and the ubiquitous ringing of guitars. "I've always been fascinated
by religion," Gore says, by way of agreement, "Which has come out of my
songs anyway. I just haven't tried to make the music be so obviously
religious before." (Ad for the album's relatively upbeat mood, Gore credits
the birth of his first child, now a year and a half old.)

The gospel elecates Gore's lyrics, especially on "Get Right Me," complete
with backng chorus. (Along with the "One Caress" string section and the
Uilleann pipes on "Judas," this is the first time the band has commissiones
outside musicians). The chain-gang-flavored "Condemnation" is the new
record's best cutmarrying its most inventive sounds (Rattling chains,
resonant block backing vocals) and far and away Gahan's best singing. The
work compares favorably with Aretha Franklin Fan George Michael's fwe
sterling pop achievements, "Freedom 90," "Iwant your sex" and "Father

Songs Of Faith And Devotion - BIOGRAPHY (c) 1993 International Music Publications

The new, and tenth, Depeche Mode album "Songs Of Faith And Devotion" is one of the most eagerly awaited albums of 1993. Their last album "Violator" was their most successful to date and after the tour finished, playing to 1,200,000 people over eight month
s, the group decided to take a years' sabbatical.

It took the young Essex group only three weeks to record their first album, Speak And Spell, in 1981. The new work was made by David Gahan, Alan Wilder, Martin Gore and Andrew Fletcher over an eight month period from April to December 1992, with long brea
ks between recording and mixing sessions in Madrid, Hamburg and London. "Your standards go up," Martin explains. "It takes longer until everybody is happy. And we've tried so many things before that, to be experimental and different takes longer." One of
the secrets of the lasting appeal of Depeche Mode has been that they are indeed different from any group and any trend. Their music is always a welcome alternative to whoever and whatever happens to be in vogue. The voice of their lead vocalist Dave Gaha
n is one of the most distinctive and riveting in rock. Writer Martin Gore deals with subject matter that doesn't even occur to most lyricists, let alone get expressed in song form. Musician Alan Wilder stays on top of the latest developments in recording
technology, with added input on the two albums from co-producer Flood. As Alan explains, "He has the rare ability to be able to step back and have a producers' perspective but also the technical know how to be completely hands on with all the equipment.
He's now become a crucial member of our team, and his contribution is vast" .

The group Queen, who were born in the seventies and survived through the eighties were long considered the classic example of how four very different individuals could maintain a professional partnership that was in all their interests, realising that peo
ple don't have to be the best of personal friends to work well together. With Depeche Mode, conceived in the eighties and destined to outlast the nineties, there has been the pleasant discovery over the years that the four members have naturally gravitate
d to different tasks, respect each other's performance in the separate jobs and have no desire to compete. In simplistic terms, Dave is the singer, Martin the songwriter, Alan the musician and Andrew the co-ordinator. "I think this is the way a modern
band should be", says Andy, referred to as Fletch. "If more modern bands were like that, they could run their affairs more successfully.

Important financial matters that might bore many artists fascinate Fletch. "I liaise with our accountant, our office staff and our business staff and I really enjoy it to be honest. It's important to keep an eye on merchandising and royalties. Mute, our r
ecord company, didn't have a computerised accounts system until recently, so it's a good thing Daniel Miller (who founded the label) is one of the most honest people I've ever met. We've got one of the best record deals in the music industry."

"There has been a natural delegation of responsibility. ' Alan confirms. ' I've always had a strong interest in the production side. A lot of the time its myself and Flood who are 1eft there in the early hours of the morning, doing what we call 'screwdri
ver' work. It's sifting through bits of performance and restructuring it, which bores Martin most of the time and Dave to an extent, but I actually quite enjoy it."

"I prefer the writing," Martin confirms. "Although you know you are creating when you're in the studio. You're starting totally afresh when you're writing. I've always found it a fascinating process. Sometimes I'll look at a song that I've just written a
nd think that I know where it came from."

Some of the most startling Depeche hits have had religious themes, including the 1984 UK top twenty hit "Blasphemous Rumours" and in 1989-90 "Personal Jesus". I've always had a fascination with religion", Gore admits. "I don't really understand it, but
I've always longed for some sort of belief. A few of the songs on the new album have a sort of gospel feel."
One of them, "Condemnation", is a particular favourite of Dave Gahan. "I think that's the best lyrics and melody I've ever been given to sing and the best vocal I've ever sung", he affirms. "I wish I could have written it." Other group members are full o
f praise for his performance of this and other songs on the album.

"With this record we've tried to make Dave sing in a different way," Alan explains. "In simple things, like raising the register of the song so he has to sing higher than he would normally, forcing him to approach songs differently and making him go ove
r and over things, trying different environments in which he hasn't sung before, not using headphones like we normally do, anything to try and get a different performance. He's responded really well. Dave has a very good attitude. He's willing to try thin
gs even if he doesn't understand why he's being asked to at the time. He knows that by repeatedly going over things eventually something will click and a special moment will occur". With "Condemnation", the new recording environment turned out to be a mar
ble-tiled garage in the Madrid villa.


Five key singles in Depeche's career can be identified. The first is "Just Can't Get Enough", their initial UK top ten hit in 1981 and the record that came to typify their technopop sound with founding member Vince Clarke, "before the group was a d
emocracy," as Fletch quips. Early Depeche Mode material continues to sell to new fans. The second crucial Depeche single was "Everything Counts", a 1983 UK hit that brought criticism of the music business into the airwaves and introduced an adult tone to
the young band's music. As Fletch points out, the group had the freedom to make this statement because of its close relationships with Daniel Miller's Mute Records in the UK and Seymour Stein s Sire in the US.

"People Are People" was a particularly important record. It achieved what is still the group's highest British chart position (4) and introduced them to the American top twenty in 1985. Despite these distinctions, it is one of Martin Gore's least
favourite compositions. "It's just not very subtle," he mourns. "I like the songs to be ambiguous enough for people to get their own meaning from them." Martin broke new ground for top forty radio with the lyrics of "Personal Jesus,"
one of the best selling 12-inch discs in American history and their first US gold single. As happened with Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the USA", many listeners read their own meaning into the song. "We often get fans coming to concerts with meanings tha
t are a million miles away from what I intended," Gore related, "but they still seem very passionate about what they feel. I like that."

A final key single was "Enjoy The Silence", the first Depeche US top ten single and another million seller. In Britain this was chosen Best Single of 1990 by the listeners of BBC Radio for the BPI awards. Now a new group of songs stand ready to join t
his select list. First in line is "I Feel You", chosen as the single both because of its infectious appeal and because its hook line "this is the dawning of our love" seems symbolic for the return of the musicians to listeners' attention. Other tracks inc
luding "Condemnation", are likely to follow. One piece noteworthy for its distinctiveness is "One Caress" on which Martin sang live to the accompaniment of a twenty-eight piece string orchestra.

With this album Depeche Mode continue to make musical progress. As Alan explains, "We've placed the emphasis on performance, using sequencers and other technology to re-arrange it in a way we couldn't if we were simply playing through the entire song
Wilder himself will be playing more live drums on tour and Gore will come forward more to play guitar. Gahan is as fervent as an artist can be about his new work and the opportunity to perform it live.

"I'd like to feel that this music will lift people and make them feel better about themselves and better in whatever they do. I'm just trying to push myself further. Central to Depeche Mode's determination to excel as a group is its' members awareness tha
t each of the other individuals are performing at peak standard. "I value what Dave does on stage," Alan says, "Without his performance as a front person we would be a very boring band to watch. There are very few good front men around, and I think he doe
s it well."

Gahan returns the compliment to Wilder in a discussion about his studio technique. "Alan will sit there for twenty four hours until it's right. It s very special to me when people care that much about everything and want it to be that good. That s
what is unique about Depeche Mode. It has been three years since Depeche Mode issued their last album, Violator, which achieved career high chart positions of two in Britain and seven in America. 1990 was spent on the World Violation Tour, which ended at
Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, and 1992 was predominantly devoted to recording the new work. In between band members have managed to get some personal time off from the virtually non-stop schedule that has given them nine top ten UK LP's in nine releases
and D.A. Pennebaker's documentary film Depeche Mode 101, filmed in part at the Pasadena Rose Bowl concert in front of 75,000 fans.

The way Depeche Mode feels about returning to the road is best summed up by Dave. "We're getting to a stage now where the music's moving onto a higher ground, and it really moves me. The most important thing in my life right now is to get out and br
ing this
music to the fans, now it's the circus, now it begins."

Depeche Mode will play near you in 1993.