BIOGRAPHY1987
Overview: Released this year were the singles Strangelove / Agent Orange and Never Let Me Down Again / Pleasure, Little Treasure, the album Music For The Masses and Behind The Wheel / Route 66 as another single.
In the beginning of 1987 the band re-arranged Martin's demos to
Music For The Masses in Alan's homestudio. (According to rumours
Martin hardly took part in this phase of re-arranging.)
They worked with a new
team - the band on their own with co-producer David Bascombe, who would
modestly call himself later "just a better sound engineer".
So Music For The Masses was more or less a self-produced album.
Alan: "In the earlier years everybody would be in the studio with the
result often being lots of chat and mucking around with little actual work
being achieved. As time went on we all realised that less people in the control
room equalled more work done. On the last few albums, it would only be those
that were essential or specifically needed."[1]
After this phase - a phase they would see as "senseless" later - the band
moved on to the Guillaume-Tell-Studios in Paris.
Alan didn't like it very much: "From the point of view of facilities
it was just about adequate. But the control room was dingy, and it just got
boring after six weeks or so. Every time you go in the studio, the first
couple of weeks are the most enthusiastic - by the end of a longish period,
everyone's edgy, and you get less done. Last week in Paris, everyone was fed
up and wanted to get home."
Fletch: "We chose Paris for both studio and environment. We work to a
rigid schedule: get in at one in the afternoon and work through, with an
hour's break for dinner, till one or later in the morning. And when we come
out at one in the morning, we're hyperactive. In London, you have to go home
to your flat and brood, but in Paris you can at least go for a drink. So you
can relax."[2]
Due to the increasing success DM needed a professional management now
(they would still say they didn't have any, although I don't know
what else Jonathan Kessler is then)
and Fletch took over the role of some kind of spokesman between the band members,
management and record company. According to some sources he still was a
special spokesman for Martin and sometimes was quite tactless in the studio.
(with friendly permission of Alan Wilder)
On April 13 DM released Strangelove / Agent Orange.
Alan: "Strangelove was the exact opposite to a song like
Stripped. Difficult to piece together, consisting as it did of many
little parts, it was hard to find one thing to pin the track down."[3]
The single was released before the final mixing of Music For The Masses.
The album version of Strangelove became different then, basing on the
origin track and the 12" version (Blind Mix) by Daniel Miller. It only reached
number 16 in the UK charts, but hit number 2 in West Germany and was a Top 10
success in several other Western European countries.
The promo was shot by Anton Corbijn in Paris. An alternative video
was made at the American record company's request and directed by Martyn Atkins.
Alan: "It was probably something to do with the American record company
and / or MTV not being happy with Anton's original version."[4]
At the same time they made fools out of themselves
at the attempt to get rid of their image as bores
by throwing a "party" for the magazine Smash Hits.
It turned out as a disaster. Fletch, Martin and David got pissed, Fletch
crawled around under the tables, Martin stripped and
David was talking and talking and ...
David: "The French fans are unbelievable. They sit outside the
recording studio and if any of us come out they all barge up going 'Was that
eet? Was that the seengle ve just heard? Was eet the seengle?' And there was
one bloke, a complete weirdo who used to sit outside our hotel for literally
days and nights and he never said anything, just took photos of us all the
time. And he had on this combat jacket all the time and we thought he was going
to blow us up or something, you know, and we'd be going, 'Well, I'm not going
out the door first!' 'Neither am I!' 'Well I'm not!' and all that - he was
well weird."
When Alan who didn't find this funny at all went to the toilet, David
said: "He is enjoying himself!"
Martin: "He is! He's going crazy!"
David: "I can tell - he's gone to the loo! He got up! No, you can tell,
you see, because it's his eyebrows. When he's really excited his left eyebrow
goes up. Have you noticed that? And when he's depressed his right one goes down.
Is he just quiet? No, no, he's the old man of the band isn't he? I mean he's
27, 28 - he's probably gone for a kip actually! Does he know that we speak
about him like that? Um ... no!" (laughs)
Why do I go into this article at all? Well, it showed one thing quite clearly: The quarrels that had started after Some Great Reward weren't put down. The conflicts within the band seemed rather to be continued as Alan's statement to this article shows: "I think this is a complete farce. I suppose you think that we all get on really well together and it's like this all the time - well, it isn't! We argue constantly and that's the real us, not ... this. Yeah, I know I'm cynical but I'm also realistic."[5]
Because of not being very happy with Strangelove the band went back
into the studio and worked hard on the song and the album.
David> recorded most of his vocals at the Konk-Studios in London to be
close to his wife who was going to have the long desired baby.
"My wife Jo is going to have a baby in October. I'm pretty excited
about it because we've wanted one for a long time. The thing is we had a good
go at it for quite a while and nothing happened. Then the minute we stopped
trying so hard she became pregnant. Typical. I really hope it arrives before
we go on tour. I can't imagine anything worse than being on stage and having
someone whisper in my ear that Jo's just had a baby. I mean what can you do?
You can't say to 10,000 people 'Excuse me my wife's just had a baby. I've got
to go!'' I wanna be there – definitely. Alan's girlfriend, Jeri, is really
psychic, and about a week before we knew Jo was pregnant she came up to me
and said 'Is Jo going to have a baby?'' It turns out she had a dream about it."[6]
In the meantime, Jo hadn't only stopped to come onto tour but she also handed
of the management of the fan-club.
David: "It all just got a bit too big. I'd come home, and there would
be posters and records everywhere - all I wanted was a break! I just couldn't
handle it. I just couldn't get away from Depeche Mode. It got to the stage
where we didn't talk anymore. She'd just ask me questions like 'What colour
socks were you wearing that night in Berlin?'"[7]
This year David also was forced to leave Basildon and to move houses to the south of the Thames: "I used to get a lot of fans outside my house. That's why I had to move with my wife, Joanne, and Jack, my son. They are fans from all over, from Germany, France, America, everywhere. They write to each other, word gets around and when I open up my door in the morning there are all these people on my doorstep. Sometimes I open the curtains, pull the blinds and there's somebody standing there snapping away with a camera! They're not all teenage girls, though. There was this bloke[8] - his name's Sean - actually hired a private detective to follow me from the studio and discover where I lived.[9] I remember seeing this car parked across the road a few weekends later, and it turned out to be full of fans. They were all looking through my window, and they'd always be there.[10] It got to the point where I'd be chasing them down the road with my dog because they'd be singing our songs outside my house at two in the morning.[11] And, one day, they finally plucked up enough courage to come and see me. So they knocked on the door.[12] I lost my rag and really shouted at him. I told him, basically to f*** off. Later I sent the guy a letter saying, 'I apologize, but you must respect my privacy. I want to have some time with my wife and son.' He sent back a letter saying, 'I'm sorry I bothered you, and I won't ever do it again.' Then, right at the end of the letter, he said, 'By the way, would it be possible for me to come 'round next weekend?' I just thought, 'Well, that's it. It's time to move.'[13]"
(Never Let Me Down Again - with friendly permission of © J. Miguel Caldera)
The band moved on to the lonely Puk-Studios in Denmark to mix the album.
DM weren't really satisfied with Music For The Masses because the
demos didn't leave enough room for experiments. That was the reason for
asking Martin to present rougher demos for the next album.
On August 24 the single Never Let Me Down Again / Pleasure, Little
Treasure was released and would become an all-time-classic although it
was a relatively moderate hit in the UK, at number 22. But it was a smash
hit in Western Europe.
The band, of course, was very proud of it, especially of the development
they had taken. From this time on - starting with Black Celebration -
they tried to push themselves in new dimensions without using steady formulas
musically.
David: "Things like Everything Counts and People Are People
will last forever. I even bet that in ten years' time there will be bands doing
covers of those songs. Our songs always convey an atmosphere: sad or optimistic,
it's full of substance. The new single Never Let Me Down Again really
gives me goose pimples. Not all our songs have this effect on me, but this
particular one is wild. People call DM an electronic band but it's wrong.
We use anything, from the acoustic guitar to the percussion via the most
sophisticated robots. The only thing we refuse are limitations and I don't
think there is a single band in the world that operates like us."[14]
Amusing here is that he was right with the cover songs. Today there are so
many cover songs and fan remixes, you almost can't count them.
Martin: "There was one instance regarding Never Let Me Down Again
when two separate people came up to me after a show one night and said, 'I
really like that song'. One of them thought it was a gay anthem and the other
one thought it was a drug anthem."[15]
He himself would tend to the drug anthem, a flight from reality with drugs.
Alan: "It stood out as an obvious single and suggested a
Stripped-like feel. It has a very definite anthemic quality which
is especially demonstrated when the song is performed live and the whole
audience wave their hands in unison at the end - a Depeche high-point I think."
He also mentioned the line Promises me I'm as safe as houses, as long as I
remember who's wearing the trousers as the one that made the deepest impression
on him. And last but not least he said about the video:
"This is one of my favourite Anton films. It has a very definite feel and a
mood that compliments the song perfectly."[16]
By the way - did you know that Never Let Me Down Again is the most played
song live? Although there are some setlits missing it's clear that Never Let Me
Down Again is on the top with about 720 times played live, followed by
Enjoy The Silence, Personal Jesus, A Question Of Time, Stripped and
Everything Counts (all about 620 times).
The band members were going to prepare themselves for the album-release.
Martin: "The album is going to be called Music For The Masses
which is a bit of a joke really, when you consider how much a lot of people
hate us."
David: "You wouldn't think it was possible to hate a band so much as
the way some people hate us!"
Martin: "I think our music never crosses over to the general public,
hence the album title, it's a joke. It's only the fans who buy our stuff."[17]
It was also difficult for DM to be played on the radio.
Martin: "We're in a bit of a dilemma because most of our music doesn't
fit in and doesn't get played as much as others, though fortunately it does
elsewhere in the world. And if we find it difficult, and we think we're quite
commercial, it must be impossible if you're in a really alternative band."[18]
Neither Ultra nor Exciter was actually played by the big British
radio stations later but this was definitely already complicated in the 1980s.
Fletch: "Probably we're still a cult band because we find it difficult
to cross over to anyone except our fans."
Martin: "I think it's nice to be more of a cult band that a hugely
successful group. I think you can get more out of it and it's a nicer feeling
in some way.[19] I think it's down to the intimacy of the music. People feel
that the songs are personal to them. And though there is an element of
contradiction when you play a concert with 17,000 people going made, that
intimacy is still there. People still feel moved by it, they feel that it's
theirs. They feel that Depeche Mode is their cult thing, that the music
shouldn't ever go mainstream no matter what it sounds like and no matter
what we do.[20]"
For the band, explaining why they were "cult" was as difficult as for the
fans in the survey of this website. Besides the personal
identification it must have been this "special magic" that let DM become a
"power". "They can't be compared, they're in their own league", "they were
absolutely cool, unique and different, and with being a fan of them you were unique,
different and strange as well. I felt like a freak. It was something like
a revolution."
The fact that they were "extremely popular without being famous" is one of
the "DM-phenomena" that Fletch summed up with "we find it difficult to
cross over to anyone except our fans" and one fan with
"they are the best kept secret in music ever".
"DM is the strange antagonism of underground - mainstream, differentness -
identification, melancholy - hope", one fan described this "mystery". The
same can be said about the fans. They are a strange antagonism of being
individuals and a big community that connects "devotees" all
over the world.
Martin: "It's true that many Depeche songs deal with communication
problems. There are a lot of recurring themes in my songs. One thing that
always reappears is disillusionment and lack of contentment. A lot of the
songs also deal with a search for innocence. I've got this theory that as you
get older you get more disillusioned and that your happiness peak is when
you're in your teens. As you grow older and learn more, the corners are
rubbed off your life. I think we exploit the rut instead by writing songs
about it. We're making money out of the rut that we and others are stuck
in." (laughs) "In fact, we're craving for something more depressing to come
along to take us out of our boredom." (laughs) "As you can see we're such an
up band at interviews." (giggles) "I think that the only reason we sell more
records abroad than we do in England is because foreigners don't understand
us. They just hear us laughing every now and then and dig it." (laughs)
About the line What am I trying to say? / I'm not trying to tell you
anything you didn't know when you woke up today in the song Nothing
Martin said: "I think that the line is true about all our songs.
If you're writing a good song you're not telling anybody any new information.
All you're doing is putting down hopefully shared feelings that somebody else
can agree with."[21]
About To Have And To Hold Alan explained:
"Martin submitted his demo in the usual way and although I liked the song,
his original idea was too 'lightweight' for my taste (and I felt, the mood
of the album) so I pushed it in a darker, more atmospheric direction. This was
the primary version of the song which was always intended to be on the album.
Martin however was very attached to his more 'poppy' demo and said that he
wanted to record it too - hence the 'Spanish Taster'. It wasn't a question of
fighting with one another over this, it's just that Martin saw the song in a
different way to me. I don't think there is a more perfect example of the
musical differences between myself and Martin."[22]
By the way, the Russian speech in To Have And To Hold can be translated
with, "Evolution of nuclear arsenals and socially-psychological aspects of
arms race is considered in these reports".
Due to the circumstance of never getting any answer according to the question
if I might stream excerpts of Depeche-Mode-songs on this website, I decided to
ask some artists who did cover-versions.
So here is an excerpt of To Have And To Hold by Bay Laurel:
(with friendly permission of © Bay Laurel)
On September 28 the album Music For The Masses was released.
While Alan was still programming the keyboards for the tour David became a
father. On
October 14 son Jack was born, a few days before the tour started.
The Masses-Tour was splitted up in five legs and started on
October 22 with the first European leg that included 19 gigs and
ended on November 18. The first American leg had 11 concerts and went
from December 1 till December 18.
On December 28 the single
Behind The Wheel / Route 66 was released.
Route 66 wasn't planned at all, particularly not as an
A-side as it was published in the US.
Fletch: "That was an accident, that was not meant to be, really.
It was only supposed to be a bit of a laugh, and the Americans liked it
and were putting pressure on, and things like that. It's a bit of a shame
really, because we think Behind The Wheel, which was supposed to be the
'A', is a better song, but ... No, actually, Route 66 is a really good song,
it's just that we don't really like doing cover versions as a rule, especially
when we've got our own songs available, it just seems a bit of a waste.
This'll be the last single. We've never believed in sort of doing a Madonna
or whatever and releasing eight singles off an album. We just think it's a
waste: the album's the album and you take singles off to promote the album
but, I mean, once enough people have bought the album, that's alright."[23]
It has to be said that Route 66 is a cover of Bobby Troup's band
but the music is similar, sometimes identical to Behind the Wheel.
(Behind The Wheel - with friendly permission of © Marina Muolo)
And here are two little interesting bits at the end of this chapter:
In 1989 Martin told: "About two years ago we did sign a very small
agreement with Daniel because it was pointed out to us, what would happen
if Daniel died? He was very overweight at the time, and if he died we
wouldn't be paid a penny. So there's a sheet of paper which says we're to be
paid on a 50-50 basis. In England we pay 50 per cent of all our costs and
get 50 per cent of all our profits. In Europe we get 75 per cent of our
profits through licensing deals."[24]
Until this time there actually wasn't any official contract with Mute, only
with the licensees.
For later years this statement was interesting:
Alan: "The main danger is a drying up of things to write about. There's
a lot of repetition in this business, and Martin's songs ... he does repeat
himself quite a lot. I think Dave has aspirations to write, but feels a bit
unconfident about putting anything forward because if he did it would be in
a very basic form as he can't really play any instruments. I think he has
ideas about words and lyrics. I have written stuff, but I've not been happy
with any of it."[25]
This would mean that Fletch who claimed later David
would never have had ambitions to write songs on his
own either hadn't been informed correctly or didn't
tell the truth or was quoted incorrectly.
When I had opportunity to enquire, Alan confirmed his
statement: "Dave did have ambitions and he did talk
about songs he wished to propose, but he didn't seem to
have the confidence to actually present them."[26]
References:
[1] www.recoil.co.uk
[2] Mode-Al, Making Music, June 1987. Words: Jon Lewin
[3] www.recoil.co.uk
[4] www.recoil.co.uk
[5] Fzss!...Zwiing! Aargh!..Hahahah!! Smash Hits, 6th-19th May 1987. Words: Sylvia Patterson
[6] Intimate Details, No. 1, 12th September 1987. Words: Uncredited
[7] Intimate Details, No. 1, 12th September 1987. Words: Uncredited
[8] Real Gahan Kid, Sky, March 1990. Words: Paul Lester
[9] Violator, Alligator, NME, 7th July 1990. Words: Jeff Giles
[10] Real Gahan Kid, Sky, March 1990. Words: Paul Lester
[11] Violator, Alligator, NME, 7th July 1990. Words: Jeff Giles
[12] Real Gahan Kid, Sky, March 1990. Words: Paul Lester
[13] Violator, Alligator, NME, 7th July 1990. Words: Jeff Giles
[14] 80's, Mode d'Emploi, Best, October 1987. Words: Gerard Bar-David
[15] Rolling Stone, 1993, Words: Marvin Scott Jarrett
[16] www.recoil.co.uk
[17] Mass Appeal, Underground, August 1987. Words: Carole Linfield
[18] Mass Appeal, Underground, August 1987. Words: Carole Linfield
[19] Dep Jam, Record Mirror, 22nd August 1987. Words: Francesco Adinolfi
[20] Faith, Hope and Depravity, Select, December 1990. Words: Andrew Harrison
[21] The Dire Straits of the Synth Generation? Sounds, 5th September 1987. Words: Jack Barron
[22] www.recoil.co.uk
[23] Depeche Mode: The Interview, Talking Music SPEEK013, 1988
[24] The Unlikely Lads, Q, April 1989. Words: Mat Snow
[25] Mode-Al, Making Music, June 1987. Words: Jon Lewin
[26] Depechemodebiographie.de
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