A world without Depeche Mode? Surely that’s like describing a planet without ice cream, a universe without Mars, an Ireland without the west, considering the band have been part of our musical landscape for so long now. But that disturbing rumour has been doing the rounds since the band’s Exciter tour wound down. When frontman Dave Gahan and chief songwriter Martin Gore released solo albums (in Gore’s case, a collection of cover versions), it only served to fuel the fire of a final split.
True, the band have had their troubles over the past decade. There was Gahan's heroin addiction, the departure of longtime Mode member Alan Wilder, and ever-growing murmurs of unrest in the camp. However, sitting in a central London hotel, both Gore and Andy ‘Fletch’ Fletcher seem completely at ease, comfortably back in the musical womb that is Depeche Mode, their spiritual home for 25 years now.
“I think on Dave’s solo tour, he was doing interviews and saying some things that might imply that there wasn’t going to be another Depeche Mode album,” admits Fletch, “but I think he was just trying to bolster his confidence because he was out on his own. When we had a meeting, it was very amiable and friendly: in fact, the whole atmosphere around this album was the same. It was the easiest Depeche Mode album to make for a long time.”
Playing The Angel, their 11th studio LP in total, is far more uptempo than recent offerings.
“It’s more upbeat...in a gloomy sort of way!” Martin Gore smiles. “It’s a little bit faster, which is unusual for us these days. The last two records have been very sombre.”
Recorded in Santa Barbara, New York and London, with Ben Hillier (Elbow, Blur) on co-production duties, it features three Gahan compositions for the first time. Unless you knew that ‘I Want It All’, ‘Suffer Well’ and ‘Nothing’s Impossible’ were the singer’s creations, however, you’d be hard-pressed to figure out which songs were Gahan’s and which were Gore’s.
“Once everything goes into the Depeche Mode blender, once we get into the studio and we’re all working on it as a team with the producer and programmers, there is some kind of uniformity to it,” Gore agrees.
“I think Dave had been a bit uncomfortable over the last seven or eight years with the fact that he’s been singing somebody else’s lyrics,” opines Fletch. “Now he feels a bit more liberated and involved because he’s done his solo album and has some songs on this record.”
Thematically, Playing The Angel isn’t exactly breaking new ground for the band. Love, guilt, sin and redemption are subjects that they’ve been exploring since the early '80s. What would happen if Gore (as chief songwriter) wakes up one day blissfully happy: will he run out of material?
“Obviously that’s a worry,” he deadpans. “I don’t think it’s going to happen though. I’m not a spring chicken any more, but the same things keep cropping up. Dave once made a joke that I’ve made a career out of writing one song.”
Gore later admits that much of Playing The Angel was inspired by the fact that he’s currently going through a divorce, pointing to new song ‘Precious’ in particular. Dealing with emotions so painful and personal in such a public forum is a brave, some would say foolhardy step. Is he never worried that the subject of a particular song will recognise themselves in his lyrics?
“For me, ‘Precious’ is more about the children,” he notes. “I actually sat down and played it for my eldest daughter – she’s 14 and seemed to understand and enjoy it so I don’t think that’s a problem.”
Having been together longer than a lot of marriages, do Depeche Mode still feel the same buzz when working on new material?
For the first time in the interview, Gore becomes animated.
“Creating the music is the most exciting thing,” he enthuses. “You start with a clean slate and it can be a little bit daunting, like the way going on tour is. You have no idea how it’s going to end up when the record’s finished. But it’s always a pleasant surprise to get to the end of it and see what you’ve created.”
What they have created is a wealth of quality music over the course of their career. When they started in the late 1970/early 80s, as kids of 18 or 19, the Basildon boys had no idea they’d be in one of London’s poshest hotels in 2005, answering questions from the world’s media.
“When we came along, punk was just starting and a most bands only lasted a few years,” Fletch reflects. “Plus, we grew up with the glam thing where bands really only lasted three years at most. I worried through the whole 80s about what we were going to do when we weren’t popular any more. Now I don’t worry about that. But it is incredible that we’re sitting here, about to release a really good record and go on tour again. I think it’s lucky that we started out very young, so we’re not particularly old fogeys yet.”
Considering they are indisputably some of rock’s elder statesmen by this stage, you’d think Depeche Mode might be fazed by the prospect of another mammoth world tour, but it’s not so.
“Most of the things that are bad about touring are self-inflicted,” Fletch admits.
“As you get older, the concerts are still great, but the travelling is harder, the drinking is harder and the recovery rate takes longer. But we still want to play everywhere our records are popular.”
They’re looking forward to another stint on the road, proving once again to the general public that electronic music can cut it live. Indeed, Gore sees this as DM’s greatest contribution to the music world.
“I think we helped to shape people’s opinions of electronic music, and to make it far more acceptable,” he sums up. “It was a real uphill battle when we first started out.”
But they got there, and then some.
Depeche Mode’s Playing The Angel is out now on Mute