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Interview
by SashaS
15-10-2001
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| Depeche Mode |
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Touring mode
Depeche Mode’s longevity hasn’t dulled their touring desire nor corrupted the band’s firmly grounded roots.
Depeche Mode have been around for 21 years and their success has warranted two single-collections to be issued, so far; the original one had been released back in 1985 with the second instalment following in 1998. And, the latter was a great compilation, a double-CD subtitled ‘The Singles 86-98’, the 20 known tracks and one brand new recording. ‘Only When I Lose Myself’ was the band’s first recording by the remaining trio since the release of Number One album ‘Ultra’, a year before. They followed that with an extensive world concert schedule and the new one, the ‘Exciter Tour’, is taking in 24 countries over five months.
During such long tour the members usually miss the most are their nearest and dearest and enduring long hours of travel and even longer hours of waiting for the showtime. We went asking Martin Gore and Andrew Fletcher what do they do during the long periods of hanging about?
“I have my porta-studio,” Gore retorts instantly, “and spend long periods of time writing songs, playing with sounds, experimenting…Then I watch some television and read a bit. Sometimes I take walks and it is great because I’m not Dave. I can walk around and, although I’m often recognized, it is never really like in his case, he can’t go anywhere or do anything without attracting a lot of attention. It must be awful…”
“I tend to spend long periods of time on the ‘phone,” Fletcher confines, “talking to my wife and kids; then, I have to talk some business as well because I own a restaurant my wife runs in London… I also like to watch some football on television, when it is a season…”
Riders in the night
Andy supports Chelsea and his restaurant is near their ground in Fulham. Luckily his fame is even lower-profiled and he can enjoy the anonymity of it all. That spills over on the road and their ‘star’ personae fail to emerge; asking them about ‘riders’ on their contracts – special requests that in the case of The Rolling Stones mean a table-tennis table and a fully decorated and functioning restaurant backstage, to name just two – is a rather revealing about them as people still firmly anchored to the reality.
“There is nothing really on a rider,” Fletch states firmly, “that we couldn’t do without. There is nothing on a list that we needed and there is nothing specific there that would make our life on the road terrible.”
There must have been some debauched times when they went all-extravagant and demanded that certain colour of candy is removed from packages before a display?
“We carry our own bar-football table,” Gore suddenly admits, “wherever we go and that’s about it. We don’t eat at the venues anymore, we hardly have any drinks…”
“The way we look at the riders,” Fletch displays his economic colours, “it is the old business question – who pays for it all? We are well aware that flowers backstage, special décor and everything, it is us who are paying for.”
“At one show we had a rain-forest backstage,” Gore laughs loudly, “and we asked to be removed. All we need are some chairs, some beers, some water, and that’s it. We are a very reasonable band, believe me.”
Humbled by time, again
Gahan recently announced that he’s planning a solo album and intends to have name guests on the album, such as PJ Harvey and Björk, explaining that it would mean not the end of the band but “There's things I want to say and experiences I want to put down that would better suit a solo album." Was there ever a serious consideration to call it all off, during his (drug) period, perhaps?
“There must have been,” Gore practices diplomacy, ”but there have never been any guarantees in this business and bands can stop working for variety of reasons. Our future depended on Dave but, luckily, he weathered the storm and now we feel stronger and more confident than we’ve ever been.”
“We were on the brink of splitting up,” Fletcher is more blatant, “few times and in particular after the break we took following the ‘Devotional’ tour. What’s kept us going is music and it is still good. It is nice position to be in and the past two years have been the best. I think that we have become closer after what happened with Dave.”
Depeche Mode have never been the ones to trade on the established standards but constantly serve few surprises by forever remaining outside of genres, cliques, vogue. Andrew Fletcher concurs with the premise and is proud to point out “We’ve always stuck to the punk and indie ideals we grew up with and have been able to release records that are a bit off the wall.”
Tour dates:
17 & 18 October – Wembley Arena, London
20 October – Evening News Arena, Manchester
21 October – NEC, Birmingham
08 November – Depeche Mode perform at the MTV Europe Music Awards
SashaS
25-2-2005
Depeche Mode release 'Freelove' single 05 November 2001 on Mute
Depeche Mode's album 'Exciter' is out now on Mute
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