BIOGRAPHY1991
Overview: The only release this year was Death's Door, a song for the soundtrack Until The End Of The World.
Such a "year in between" is awful for a biographer. You can leave
it out and pretend it had never existed because there isn't much material
about it or you wonder if it might be THE year in which the stone
began to roll.
In case of DM I would say it was the latter. For an outsider it is difficult
to understand what exactly was so awful about the following Devotional-time.
Don't get me wrong: of course, David's drug abuse was awful and sure it was
hard to meet him after this break. But was this really the reason for that ALL
relationships went so wrong then?
I can't get rid of the impression that there's something that hasn't been mentioned
in any interview or biography so far. Also some fans think the existing
sources are not enough. 24 percent answered to the question if there's a
"DM-mystery" for them that they would like to know: the exact background
details of this time.
In some statements the band members tried to explain that the changes in
their private lives had been so drastical that they simply couldn't stand
each other afterwards.
This is a strange explanation because - except for David - nothing special
happened. But noticeable is that Martin and Fletch didn't do much in this
year while Alan kept on working. Obviously he was a workaholic who wasn't able
to do nothing. (When he did years later it didn't do him good.) It's possible
that this caused a distance to Martin later that made working together more
difficult than ever before.
(with friendly permission of © Mute/EMI)
David sought divorce from Jo and moved houses to Theresa in L.A. First he tried to present this as diplomatically as possible: "It's great! I'm really enjoying it here. I'm just kind of living here for the moment, and I'm actually still keeping my place in London, and I'm just ... To tell the truth, I just recently got divorced from my wife, and I'm just trying to set up a new life. But as I said, I'm keeping my second home. I'm spending my time between both places. I'm lucky enough to do that. I just needed to get away and get some space, and think about what I wanted to do. ... We've worked really hard for the last 11 years or something. Al's in the studio at the moment with Nitzer Ebb. He's producing their new album. Mart's living in London now, and just kind of enjoying himself. I think he's going to be working on another 'Martin Gore solo thing'. I don't know what Fletch is doing at the moment. I think he's just kind of hanging out. I think he's thinking of opening a bar or something. I don't know what it's going to be called, but he's definitely thinking of that." (He opened a restaurant indeed but meanwhile gave it up, because it was too much work and took too much time.) "Well, the thing is, it's fun to be working and doing stuff, and to be in the studio and creating music, and to be on tour and going out there and playing to people, but there are times when it's incredibly lonely. I mean, I'm not moaning about it. I love it. I wouldn't do anything else. It's the most exciting thing you could possibly be doing. I wouldn't change it for the world, but there are times when you lose contact with your friends, and it can be incredibly lonely and you go, yeah, I want to have some fun."[1]
He actually wasn't well this year at all. He suffered from the divorce
of Jo and having left his son. He admitted this within later years:
"In the space of six months everything just piled on top of me.[2] I just
packed a case and split. Went off and rented a place in Los Angeles.
During the Violator-tour, I split from my wife. My year was really spent
doing a lot of soul-searching and trying to find out what had gone wrong
in my life, and thinking, to be quite honest, about whether I wanted
to come back and do the whole thing – records, tours, fame, Depeche
Mode - again."[3]
His band mates had a different view on this whole thing. So Alan would say
that it was easy to influence David, and Fletch had a similar
opinion: "Dave tends to adopt the personality of the person he's with.
Theresa liked drug-ravaged skinny men with tattoos, so he became
that person."
And maybe there's some truth in it.
David: "For as long as I can remember, I've had this shield between
me and life. As a teenager it was music. Then it was Depeche - that was my
identity. Then that identity stopped working and the drugs and booze
really kicked in as a new identity. I became so lost I was really unsure
whether I could find my way out."[4]
It took a while before Martin started to write new songs. Obviously
he had overdone the partying on Worldviolation a bit so he was burnt out.
For a while he was thinking about a solo album but then something new
stepped into his life that gave him his creativity back: his first child.
"The new album" (SOFAD) "has a very uplifting feel to it and I'm
sure that is due to my daughter. You see a life being born and growing,
it's just wonderful, it moves you."[5]
Viva-Lee was born on June 6. Before his mother had told Martin
the whole truth about his physical father.
Fletch: "Actually, his dad is American, and he's black and lives
in Virginia. Since then, Martin's met his dad."[6]
It seemed that this was a shock to Martin and that the first meeting with
the father wasn't very good. Maybe these things made him more sensible
for the "emotional violence" of the situation in 1992, so it
became unbearable
for him finally. (But this is pure speculation.)
Also Fletch and long-termed girlfriend
Grainne became parents of a daughter, Megan.
For Alan things settled down a bit in this year too. He married
long-termed girlfriend Jeri, although he would say about her later that she
was "someone who thought she was descended from the lost city of Atlantis
and of alien origin."
Nevertheless they bought a house in the Sussex countryside (the house he still
lives today) and a house for an own studio. "I've invested a lot
[of the money I made] back into my music via my studio and all its equipment
and also into my house and estate. I also bought my parents a house."
The studio, The Thin Line, is in a house from the mid. 19th century next
to the bigger living house. It should become "a living, breathing space designed not
necessarily for controlled sound but with the feel of a workshop, with
plenty of light."
During 1991 a team of expert builders, electricians and steel workers spent
6 months gutting, reinforcing and rewiring the site. "It was always my
intention to design this studio so you could simply remove all the gear and
be left with a really interesting open-plan building."
In that time he also was busy with a lot of other projects.
He was co-producer of Nitzer Ebb and he recorded the first bigger Recoil-project,
Bloodline - but not in his new studio because it wasn't ready at that time.
"It was recorded at my house in London. My studio there was just a small back room
with too little space and too much equipment."[7]
There was only a contact between Alan and Martin who recorded
Death's Door together, a single song that was released
on December 10 on the soundtrack of Until The End Of The World.
Also in December David decided to go on with DM because Martin's
demo-tracks to SOFAD seemed to suit his actual lifestyle perfectly.
References:
[1] KROQ radio, Los Angeles, California on May 9, 1991, Interviewer: Richard Blade
[2] In the Mode, Details, April 1993. Words: William Shaw
[3] "I Never Wanted to Destroy Depeche Mode", Melody Maker, 3rd April 1993. Words: Jennifer Nine
[4] Songs of Innocence and Experience, Mojo, November 2005. Words: Danny Eccleston
[5] The Life and Loves of Depeche Mode, I-D, October 1993. Words: Michael Fuchs-Gambock
[6] Blank Celebration, Revolver, May-June 2001. Words: J. D. Considine
[7] recoil.co.uk
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