• BIOGRAPHY - Preface

• Vince Clarke
• Andrew Fletcher
• Martin Lee Gore
• David Gahan
• Alan Wilder
• Foundation

• 1981
• 1982
• 1983
• 1984
• 1985
• 1986
• 1987
• 1988
• 1989

• 1990
• 1991
• 1992
• 1993
• 1994
• 1995
• 1996
• 1997
• 1998/99

• 2000/01/02
• 2003/04
• 2005/06
• 2007/08
• 2009/10

1997

Overview: Released this year were the singles Barrel Of A Gun / Painkiller and It's No Good / Slowblow, the album Ultra as well as the further single releases Home and Useless.
Dave contributed the song A Song For Europe to the sampler Dream Home Heartaches, and Alan published the single Drifting as well as the album Unsound Methods.

---

In the beginning of 1997, after the recording of the album had been finished in the end of 1996, everyone was tired and longing for some rest. Producer Simeon obviously found it so extreme that he only recorded one more single with DM later and then never worked with them again. It is said that he was completely burned out after this long recording-sessions what is contradictory to Martin's quotation: "There was this easy atmosphere. And this friendly, nice atmosphere hasn't always been there in the past. Tim knows exactly what has happened before and where we should be going, as we do. He just helps push us in the right direction."[1]
(Except Martin no-one would ever say that producing Ultra was easy. So it's difficult to understand why he stressed so often that it had been so "easy and nice". To prove Alan that this band was able to make a good record without any tensions, without him?)

Fletch: "After the album Tim suffered from what is known as P.A.D.: Post Album Depression." But it has to be said that "he is the coolest man in the world as well. He knows how to get access to all the clubs."
Martin: "Until he met us." (laughs) "We just did Top of the Pops ..." (where not only Tim Simeon was seen on keyboard but also Anton Corbijn on drums) "Just before we got on stage I said to Tim: you realise that you now become among the ranks of the uncool, being seen on stage with us." (laughs) "I think he got really nervous." (laughs)
Fletch: "Anton is taking it really seriously. He told me he's been the happiest he has been in the last ten years." On the other hand it has to be said that "he even buys me clothes and tells me to wear them! And he's got the worst taste in the world."
Martin: "We are getting becoming slighty worried about our new videoclip. We haven't seen the full script yet and we are worried that it will focus on the drummer for about 99 procent." (laughs)[2]

On February 3 the single Barrel Of A Gun / Painkiller was released, followed by It's No Good / Slowblow on March 31. (None of the videos was focused on the drummer by the way. :D)
On April 10 there was a release party in London before on April 14 finally the album Ultra was released. There were three other TV-appearances and a release-party in L.A. But whatever the band released and whatever they did the media was interested in everything but music.
It was the year of the confessions and public "therapy meetings." David even hugged journalists after he had "cried on their shoulder". And still they were interviewed separately or David alone because it seemed to be difficult for him to talk frankly in the presence of the other two. Symptomatic for that was an unsuccessful interview in which David always began to speak and then fell silent after a view from Martin.
Martin and Fletch opened up a bit too but here and there you couldn't ward off the impression that David's "soul striptease" got on their nerves.

David: "Well, it's no secret that I've been drinking and using drugs for a long time. Hash. Amphetamines. Coke came along, Alcohol was always there, hand in hand with drugs. Then all of a sudden I discovered heroin, and I'd be lying if I said it didn't make me feel, well ... like I've never felt before, I felt like I really belonged. I just felt nothing was gonna hurt me, I was invincible."[3]
Many people asked why no one of the band or their environment had done anything to help him.
"There were a lot of people telling me I needed help. But I didn't want to listen. To be honest, Martin, Fletch and Alan were pretty naive. They thought that I had decided to become more reclusive and become this strange rock star. And I was pretty strange. One of my biggest problems is being a people-pleaser. I want the whole world to love me. If people seemed like they weren't having fun, I would try to become the center of attention. I tried so hard that I forgot about loving myself."
Although he would have enjoyed being on tour with Ultra, he didn't dare to.
David: "Most of the time I'm in fear of that because I don't think I'm strong enough to do that yet. When I got off the last tour and tried to go back to my normal life, I found that I had lost David completely. I was just Dave. David is a very scared person who lost the ability to trust, to love or to be loved, or to feel anything at all. The only feeling that was comfortable was to be in pain. I do pain really good. It's one of my big problems." (laughs)[4]

While Martin demoted David to an instrument, David liked to claim Martin would write about him: "Martin says he's not. I think he's subconsciously looking at himself. I'm not passing judgment on him, but I think he has a bit of an alcohol problem, and I think he knows it. So I think Martin is writing these songs and he can't help but think about what's been going on with me and then maybe look at himself in the mirror."[5]
At that time he often accused Martin being an alcoholic, (although he admitted being an alcoholic himself), something Martin wasn't happy about at all.
It was very difficult for David at that time to be together with people who drank alcohol or took drugs: "Mart and Fletch, they drink, Mart drinks a lot, and they drink around me, and sometimes that's a bit difficult - not because I want to get drunk, but just 'cos I don't feel part of it. That gets me into trouble. I do a lot of praying. I don't pray for, but what I do is I get on my knees and I thank God for keeping me sober another day. I pray to the ceiling in the hope that somebody's listening. But you know what? I feel a lot better in doing it. It makes me feel better to believe in something. I don't wanna go back there, I've got too much to lose now. And I don't mean the band, I mean myself. There's little bits of David that come back every day, and he ain't such a bad guy. I sit and I watch Harry Enfield and I laugh my a*** off. Or I cry at some soppy movie - I didn't do that sh*** for a long while! I didn't have those normal feelings! I would sit and watch the f*** weather channel for 12 hours of the day. I wanna see my son grow up. Just this weekend I got the opportunity to spend time with him. It was great. One thing I notice about him now, which I didn't notice when I was using, is the way he looks at me. He looks at me with a lot of love and affection, and I never noticed that so much before as I did this weekend. I could look him right in the eyes, it wasn't like he'd be looking at me and I'd be feeling ashamed. It was almost like he was the adult and I was the child for a long time.[6] How can you expect to be there for anybody else? And I'd want to be there for somebody else, but at the moment I have to look after David."[7]

Martin and Fletch were little lucky with interviews at this time.
Martin: "I've only actually thought Dave was dead twice which is not bad going. If you get a phonecall and it's your manager or somebody saying, 'I need to speak to you about Dave, something really bad's happened', the first thought you have is 'Oh my God, this time it's the big one'. And that's only happened twice. And it's really bad."
Fletch: "He should have been dead, honestly. I don't know how his body actually kept up with it."
Martin: "What's that phrase? Institutions, jail, death? And Dave says, 'I've been there and done them all'. And he's still walking. He's still singing. So it's a miracle, praise the Lord." (laughs)
Fletch: "People of our label must have had a few heart attacks in the last couple of years."
(Martin laughs)
David: "Six months ago, I was really p*** off about it, because all that really seemed important to Mart and Fletch was if I was dead there'd be no Depeche Mode any more. I didn't get any support at all, verbally, from Fletch or Mart at any point. In fact, I've maybe heard from Mart once or twice in nearly three years. To be fair, I don't think they knew how bad it really was. They only saw me sporadically, and I tried to get it together enough to fool them. But I still am a bit resentful, especially of Mart. He rang me just before I went into the detox unit and he was angry with me. I came off the phone in tears, because I realised, 'F***, they don't really give a shit about me, it's the fact that there might not be any Depeche Mode any more'. Really selfish. I was the most selfish one of all, by far, and I claim that, but it would have been nice if there had been some support from my so-called friends. Fletch used to tell me a lot of his friends were like, 'Why don't you just boot him out?' Which is a pretty funny concept, coming from Fletch!" (laughs)[8]
Fletch: "When Dave was ill some people were asking why we couldn't get rid of him, get another singer. But Dave would never come to me and say, Gore's being a pain, let's get another songwriter. His voice and Mart's songs are Depeche Mode."[9]

Martin (trying to put some things right): "No, we didn't have a drug dealer on the staff during the Devotional tour. I think that on every tour there's probably a dealer who turns up because he knows he can make some money. But he was never one of our fully paid-up staff. - Yes, I did spend time in jail. The night before I got arrested, I had a party in my room and there were about 50 people and it was really loud. The night of the arrest, it was me and a friend and the music was really quiet. They rang me and asked me to turn it down, so I did. They rang me again and asked me to turn it down, so I turned it off. Next thing I know there's complete silence and the police knocked on the door. I stupidly opened it. They burst in, threw me on the bed and handcuffed me. There was no music whatsoever playing. I think they were out to get me for the night before. I can't remember much about it. I was really drunk at the time and it seemed like fun. - Of course, we did support Dave. I think even Dave will admit it didn't matter what kind of support we tried to give him, he was isolating himself. He admits he was a clever junkie; he hid as much as he could from us. We knew there was a drug problem but we didn't know its magnitude until way too late anyway. But we've given Dave chance after chance after chance and fortunately he's actually taken us up on one of those chances this time. - No, I'm not an alcoholic. I don't particularly like to vocalise about my personal problems. I drink quite a lot. But virtually everybody I know does. Even if I do drink too much, it's a personal thing. - Dave has come to realise that he may not have made the right decision to go into interviews and open his heart about his private life, especially the drug aspect. It's getting very boring. Every interview he goes into now, all they want to talk about is drugs. The fact that he happens to make music seems to be irrelevant for most people. - No, my lyrics aren't about Dave and his problems. I always write from a first-person perspective. I don't know what's going on in someone else's head. He does seem to get some therapeutic value from singing the songs. He does definitely feel passion for the songs and obviously feels some connection."[10]
David: "I don't actually believe that, to be honest. I think he has a deeper sense, and knows that some of the things he writes about are what's going on all around us. That's how I feel connected with him. We don't talk much."[11]

And of course they were asked about the Devotional tour and its consequences over and over again, a topic that you find up until today.
Martin: "At the end of it, obviously Alan had had too much. He left the band. Andy had to leave the tour. He was going through terrible depression. It was just the two seizures for me. Dave had various heart murmurs along the way; he was rushed to hospital. It was just too much. But once you've decided to do a tour of that length and all the dates are booked, it becomes a commitment."[12]
While he had thought right after Alan's leaving that this had to be the end of the band, he now declared over and over again, that there had never been a point at which DM would have almost split.
"There were times when we thought it was very probable that we would. We always stuck through the bad times because we felt we did something very special together. The closest it came to coming apart was after the New York recording session, where we got one vocal out of Dave in six weeks. We heard two weeks later on the radio that he'd OD'd. I did a lot of searching to decide what to do with the band because at one point I thought it was better for David if the band didn't exist anymore because it wasn't doing him any good."[13]
After all, he showed consideration for David with respect to a possible tour: "We've decided not to. I don't think it would be a very healthy environment for Dave to be in, with his problem. He gets really bored on tour for the 22 hours he's not onstage. And when he gets bored, that's when it gets worrying."[14]

Almost desperately Martin and Fletch tried to stress out that there was a new album out.
Martin: "I have to admit that after hearing on the radio that Dave had OD'd and been arrested, I was thinking, 'This is pointless, it's time to call it a day. I just can't see this project ever coming to a close'. But I'm really pleased now that we gave him that one last chance. And I think it really was that one last chance, because he'd let us down so many times in the past. He pulled himself through and the last six months have actually been enjoyable and easy-going."
Fletch: "We got more press over Dave's suicide and overdose than at any time in our whole career. We got a double page in the Sunday Times magazine! Now, if we tried to get into the Sunday Times magazine for our music there'd be no way on this earth ..."
(Martin laughs)
Fletch: "But Dave OD's and he gets the whole thing!"
Martin: "One thing we should always remember is that Dave and drugs is a small facet of this band. It's a big part of Dave's life but, of course, it makes headline news and it's always over-focused upon. But there are so many other interesting facets to this band ..."
Fletch: "Not much!"
Martin: (laughs) "Obviously we know that people are going to be interested in the Dave-drugs angle, but hopefully they'll also be interested in the fact that we've finished an album."[15]

On June 16 the single Home was released and on October 20 Useless. If someone really was interested - except the fans - I doubt it. There's almost no article after 1995 that wouldn't mention Devotional and / or that Alan had left the band.
David recorded a coversong - A Song For Europe - for the sampler Dream Home Heartaches that was published on September 4.
The band, of course, tried to talk about the music nevertheless.
Martin: "The title – Ultra - really fits in with our new line-up. We lost a member along the way and now it's the new, improved, slimmed-down version." (laughs) "I think it's a great, positive title.[16] I think this is the album with the least religious connotations. It's hardly Songs of Faith and Devotion. I think religion is one of those things that's so important - it's a crux of life - that you can't help cutting on it every now and again. But I think we have overdone it in the past. So I am consciously trying not to get involved with it every time I pick up a pen. It's just too easy for me to fall into writing about religion, because it is one of my fascinations.[17] Barrel Of A Gun's about understanding what you're about and realising that you don't necessarily fit into somebody else's scheme of things.[18]"
David: "The song sums up the way I was treating myself and everybody around me. That's what life had in store for me every day. It's a really powerful statement. When you're in that kind of row, the last thing on your mind is dying."[19]

At the end of the year the situation fortunately relaxed a bit.
David: "Barrel Of A Gun - we shot that in Morocco. The interesting thing about that video was that I had eyes painted over the top of my eyes. There's this wall round the old city of Morocco, this huge wall, which to the Moroccans is basically a bathroom. It's like where they go and take a s*** and stuff like that, right? I had to walk all the way along this wall down one side where they was filming me so there's the wall on one side and I'd be like, 'Left ...right ...' because every time they came along to some guy that was, like, doing his business there - I had no idea, I'm blind you know! I'm walking through all this stuff, this s***! Which was very amusing for Anton [Corbijn] and Richard [the producer] at the time... It's No Good I think was probably one of the most fun videos that I've ever made. Anton took it to the extreme. I got to really kind of like play a role, and play a part that Anton wanted me in - the real has-been rock'n'roll star that ends up playing these places but he still thinks he's larger and bigger than life itself."[20]

During an radio-interview wild things were brought to daylight ...
Presenter: "You have a ring ... in your scrotum!? I hope you were strung out on dope when you got that done - you didn't do that consciously, did you?"
David: "You know what? I wasn't and it really hurt!"
Presenter: "Well no, duh, Dave! Ah, what a surprise!" (laughs)
David: "It's not actually in my scrotum, it's called a guiche, and it's the - you know that little bit ... in between?[21] It was that bit of skin that men have between the b*** and a*** - that really thin line.[22]"
Presenter: "Yeah ... that doesn't make it sound any the less painful though!"[23]
David: "Supposedly you get more sexual energy from it, but it was the most painful thing I've ever done. As it was being done I was in stirrups for half an hour with this girl staring at my a***, lining the needle up.[24] And it was kind of like, um ... I got a '10-9-8-7-6-' ... BAAANNGG! It was like somebody kicked me - really, really hard. I earnt that!" (laughs)
Presenter: "And do you still have it there?"
David: "Yes I do. And it's a lot of fun. Hey, if you can do that you do anything.[25] I don't think I touched my d*** for ages afterwards, I couldn't even sit on a hard chair for six months, although I showed everybody.[26]" [I don't want to picture the scene when he was going to show everybody ...]
In 1994, when the guiche was done, David explained that it was done a day after his wedding with Theresa because he wanted a ring but he didn't want to wear a ring.
By the way, he doesn't have it anymore. In a later interview he said he took it out, after one of his children asked him why he had an earring in his a***. "But I've still got the holes - you can have a look if you really want." (laughs)[27] [Er, no thanks.]

On October 13 the Recoil-single Drifting was released, followed by the album Unsound Methods on October 27 that Alan had recorded in his own studio The Thin Line.
He presented himself now as a father of a little family together with wife Hepzibah and daughter Paris, who both joined in the video to Drifting. He admitted, though, to have had a very bad time before that. "I had been burned out completely. There were a couple of things in my life that I had to change, very important things. I got divorced, I became a father, I left the band - a lot of decisive things happened, and I was much happier than before when I finally left this tunnel behind. This was a good moment to work creatively again. My enthusiasm was back."[28]
He started to work "last September and finished in June so it took about 9 months with a couple of breaks. Essentially I'm happy with the result. I think is the most focused thing I've done and the most completed. There always a side of me that thinks I could have done something better, but I think that's a natural reaction. You always feel that you can do more and do better."
It was important to him to work with new people, very different musicians to explore new areas. "Most of the time in Depeche Mode we didn't work as a group and we didn't used to bring people in. The last album we done we did have some extra musicians but that was the only one." Now "I can bring in people and I always try to find someone new to work with and think it's a real challenge. It makes you do things differently if you work with a stranger, somebody new, so I like to give myself that challenge to find interesting new people each time."[29]

For Unsound Methods he worked together with different vocalists, following his own musical instincts. "My starting point is often a combination of tried and tested guide sounds that evoke a particular feeling or mood in order to get the ball rolling. Then, by trial and error, I keep throwing ideas at the track until a theme or concept emerges which I like to keep in mind to focus the direction. From that point I usually park the idea and move on to another track until I have built up more of an overall picture. Whilst keeping this in mind, I then bring the music to a point where it accurately demonstrates the atmospheres I want to create and is acceptable to play to vocalists. I am looking for vocalists who present something either out of the ordinary and unique in some way or who are incredibly powerful singers. For Unsound Methods, Siobhan Lynch came to me via a demo cassette and I was immediately drawn to her slightly desperate voice. I recruited Doug McCarthy, who performed on the previous Recoil LP and the single, Faith healer, partly because I knew he would suit the 2 tracks I had in mind for him and also because he is probably the easiest person in the world to work with. He was formerly one half of Nitzer Ebb and we became good friends after they supported DM on the MFTM and Violator tours. Maggie Estep, a New-York spoken word artist came to the project after I had been searching, unsuccessfully, for an intelligent rapper with an interesting angle. Even though she is clearly not a rapper, in the end she proved far more in tune with the overall feel of the project and is in sharp contrast to the other vocalists. Finally, Hildia Cambell, who was one of the gospel singers on the DM Devotional tour. I gave each track to more than one vocalist to see how they perceived it. As a result, I actually got different interpretations of the same song. I 'ghosted' parts of some versions onto others."[30]

Nevertheless the interviews were more about DM than about Recoil. And of course he was asked what he would think about Ultra.
Alan: "I can't hear it in the same way as a record I was involved with, but I certainly don't feel a yearning to be involved again, and I've no regrets about leaving at all. The album is difficult for me to comment on, though I do have something of a stock answer, which is: you can probably work out what I think about it by listening to Unsound Methods and then Ultra, because the two records tell you everything you need to know about what the musical relationship was between myself and Martin. It's almost as if we've gone to the two extremes of what we were when we were together. What the band had before was a combination of those extremes."
Already at this early time he had to notice that it wouldn't be so easy to be successful with Recoil.
Alan: "It's obvious I'm not trying to make a commercial, radio-friendly record, but of course it can be frustrating when you're trying to get the music across to people and the reaction you get is, 'oh, it's difficult music for weird people.'"[31]

---

References:
[1] Pavement, 16th April 1997. Words: uncredited
[2] Depeche Mode: Respect To The Originators, unknown media and date. Words: René Passet
[3] Tears of my Tracks, Q, March 1997. Words: Phil Sutcliffe
[4] Dave's Addiction, Spin, May 1997. Words: Barry Walters
[5] Synth and Sensibilities, NME, 25th January 1997. Words: Keith Cameron
[6] Dead Man Talking, NME, 18th January 1997. Words: Keith Cameron
[7] K-ROQ FM, L.A., February 1997, DJs: Kevin and Bean
[8] Synth and Sensibilities, NME, 25th January 1997. Words: Keith Cameron
[9] They Just Couldn't get Enough, Q, March 1997. Words: Phil Sutcliffe
[10] Pavement, 16th April 1997. Words: uncredited
[11] Many Smack-Free Returns! Q, June 2001. Words: Dorian Lynskey
[12] Pavement, 16th April 1997. Words: uncredited
[13] It's a Mode Mode Mode Mode World, Hits, 28th April 1997. Words: Janet Trakin
[14] Ultra Sounds, Guitar World, May 1997. Words: Alan di Perna
[15] Synth and Sensibilities, NME, 25th January 1997. Words: Keith Cameron
[16] Synth and Sensibilities, NME, 25th January 1997. Words: Keith Cameron
[17] Ultra Sounds, Guitar World, May 1997. Words: Alan di Perna
[18] Synth and Sensibilities, NME, 25th January 1997. Words: Keith Cameron
[19] It's a Mode Mode Mode Mode World, Hits, 28th April 1997. Words: Janet Trakin
[20] Interview with Depeche Mode, The Videos 86>98, Mute MF033 and Videos 86>98+, Mute MF042. Director: Sven Harding
[22] K-ROQ FM, L.A., February 1997, DJs: Kevin and Bean
[22] Cash for Questions: Dave Gahan, Q, June 2003. Words: Paul Stokes
[23] K-ROQ FM, L.A., February 1997, DJs: Kevin and Bean
[24] Cash for Questions: Dave Gahan, Q, June 2003. Words: Paul Stokes
[25] K-ROQ FM, L.A., February 1997, DJs: Kevin and Bean
[26] Cash for Questions: Dave Gahan, Q, June 2003. Words: Paul Stokes
[27] Cash for Questions: Dave Gahan, Q, June 2003. Words: Paul Stokes
[28] Orkus Magazine, Nov 1997, Collette Stritzke
[29] Chatting with Alan Wilder, September 1997. Words: Hendrik Wittgren
[30] recoil.co.uk
[31] Unsound Recordings, Sound On Sound, January 1998. Words: Bill Bruce

Biography: 1998 & 1999

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