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PREFACE

The history of this biography starts in 2005 when I "came back" to Depeche Mode after being away from them for a long time. I lost interest in them after Alan had left the band and got curious about them again when they released the song Lilian on their album Playing The Angel. Not that I liked this song so much (the opposite is the case) but I got curious about what had happened to this band I used to like and now released a song with my name.
In former times I just used to listen to the music and never paid any attention to the personalities or the background of the band. When I discovered SacredDM.net I began to read a lot of old interviews and tried to find answers to questions like "why was Devotional so disastrous?", "how could they've become so big without being famous really?" or "why did Alan really leave?"
From what I noted down for myself became a very long, detailed biography soon. I decided to publish it on a website so that other fans could read it too. It started with a small publication on the website of a friend in 2007, moved on to a 1-2-3 homepage, and in 2009, I finally created depechemodebiographie.de.

The biography is based on statements from the (former) band members in a variety of interviews with different magazines and other media from 1981 - 2011. Full interviews are not quoted, but small quotations have been taken from them. The individual quotations are seldom represented in the original context. The quotations have been cut, and then put together in a new, independent context. I have taken care, however, not to distort the statements and to ensure there are no false interpretations or making fun of the band members.
For the quotations that are based from newspaper articles and other media, it's important to note, the original quotations themselves may not be correct! The band members themselves did not write the articles (except quotes taken from Alan's website or from the interview with him or transcriptions of radio/video-interviews) and had to rely solely on the journalists to represent everything accurately.
There may be assertions put forth within articles that were not actually comments of any of the band members, and therefore appear as 'rumour'. Some rumours may be dispelled by Alan Wilder who kindly granted me a short interview in 2008.

I showed the biography to Alan and to Mute because I wanted the (former) band members to know what I'm doing, so they were able to say something against it if they don't like it. I have never received any answer from anyone of the band or their management but Alan was kind enough to answer.
In 2009 an English version of the biography was done. For a long time it was just a (rather bad) translation because I was too lazy to find all the sources again.
In 2010 I asked some fans about their own background and their opinions to some special events in the band's history. Some studies from this survey found their place in the biography.
In the same year I went to Facebook and Twitter.
In 2011 I finally re-did the English version, replaced all the translated quotations by the originals. I had to note that some of the sources were gone. Especially the latest chapters were affected, so parts had to be rewritten which also had effects on the German version. Furthermore all quotations got footnotes so it is easier now to see from which sources the quotations date from and how the statements are put together. In the same year I interviewed some musicians about general topics to be able to give some theories a background and to show up some parallels.

Who is this biography meant to reach? This isn't a commercial work. The contents of this website are free for anyone interested in the band's background and the story of their career.
It also may be of special interest to those who have only just discovered Depeche Mode recently. It's also for people who may not wish to read, listen to, or watch separately, the about 300-500 interviews I read, listened to or watched. (You sometimes have to read five interviews to find one quotation of interest.)
This biography is not representative of competition to the commercial biographies but in some cases the same sources were used. It doesn't offer anything new. To say it with Martin: I'm not trying to tell you anything you didn't know when you woke up today. It offers a new angle by leaving out all the quotations of people around the band who are usually asked when a biography is written. I only collected quotations of the (former) band members, as this represents an attempt to let them tell their own story. And I tried to move away from the "dark" picture full of pain and suffering a lot of articles and biographies used to show. This band has a lot more to offer than just debauchery and suffering. So I also collected anecdotes, nonsense, the professional side - but left out the technical details mostly.

This website doesn't pursue any commercial aims. All contents are free. But if you'd like to support my work you are welcome to "buy me a coffee" (via PayPal). This website will stay free of commercial advertising. Nevertheless it causes some costs (server, domain), and it takes a lot of time.



Foreword

(with friendly permission of © Dave Gould



When the project started in 2007 I used lots of pictures I found somewhere in the internet. I soon got aware of that this might cause problems. As I wasn't able to find the photographers and asked them permission to show their pictures on the website I started to "collect" fan-art. I got in touch with several "devoted" photographers and artists all over the world - Europe, USA, South America, Japan ... It's amazing to see where and how many people got influenced by this band. Sometimes the photographers never had heard anything about DM or just know a few songs like Enjoy The Silence but it was enough to play a song to them, and they would see that the picture I had asked permission for suits the song perfectly.
In the end of 2010 I finally had a large and great collection of wonderful pictures.

So the pictures used are from various photographers and artists who have kindly granted me permission to use their works. Under each picture, you will find a direct link to the website of the artist / photographer if available. Each photo remains the copyrighted property of the original artist / photographer.
You are not allowed to copy and use them without permission!
But all photographers would appreciate some feedback to their pictures. :)

List of photographers:

There are pictures taken and posted on this website that also appear on Alan's website. All that appear on this website were given by Alan with his express permission. For some pictures Mute / EMI gave permission.

NOTE: The photographers and artists do not influence the content of the pages on which their work appears!


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Additional remarks: Andrew Fletcher will be generally referred to as "Fletch" to avoid confusion between him and "Alan" because of the same first letters (unless he's been referred to as "Andy").
TOTP stands for "Top of the Pops"
DM of course as the common acronym for "Depeche Mode"
SOFAD for "Songs Of Faith And Devotion" and
SOTU for "Sounds Of The Universe".

The personal biographies of the (former) band members showcase how the each member came to the band. These remain separate from the writings of the years where it all was brought together which seemed to be interesting.

The linked reviews correspond of course to my personal opinion. To read them and reply to them you are invited to visit the message board. You don't need to become a member to reply to a thread in the review section. But, please, remind the usual net-etiquette.

While I never got any answer according to the question if I might stream excerpts of Depeche-Mode-songs on this website, Alan kindly granted me to do so with Recoil-songs.


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Special thanks to: The webmaster of SacredDM.net, Daniel, Felix and Aesculap as well as all the other "nerds", Carol und Sean, Ingo, Holger, Mary, Silke and all "my girls", Benjamin, Sky, and, of course, all photographers, especially Anja, Jérôme, Paola, Adrianna, Xiker, Laura, Julieanne, Tuxedofeline, Karen, Fury, Jan and Stella, as well as all critics, supporters, followers and readers, people who give credits when they quote me in a forum and everyone who give the link to other people.





Here the biography starts with the biographies of the band-members

Here the biography starts with the foundation of the band

To the Message-board.
About DM in general & News, questions, discussions and feedback.
(You don't need to become a member to reply to topics in public forums.)

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© 2007-11 Lilian R. Franke



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