BIOGRAPHY
2007 and 2008
Overview: Released these years were Recoil's single
Prey and the album SubHuman.
Dave published the single Kingdom / Tomorrow, the album
Hourglass as well as another single
Saw Something / Deeper And Deeper / Love Will Leave.
Although Alan had announced after Liquid
he would release another album quite soon it had lasted till
June 25 before the single Prey was released, followed by
the album SubHuman on July 9, for which he won the IGN-Award
(best electronic album).
The media was astonished by the long break, so almost every interview would
start with the question why he had been away for such a long time. His answers
varied from that he wanted to spend more time with his family over "I did make
some feeble attempts to write music on a few occasions but didn't posses the
will to battle through - which I took as a sign that I needed a longer break"[1]
to that he had been a bit frustrated about having put so much work in Liquid
but people had difficulties to buy the albums in the shops. "I know that times
are changing as well as the way to sell and buy music. Today I'm aware of it.
Nevertheless I was frustrated by it seven years ago because we got a good
feedback, everything went fine - and then people weren't able to buy the record
in the shops. For a musician this is frustrating really."[2]
There were also interviews in which he - between the lines or directly -
admitted that he really hadn't done much in that time until his wife had
enough of all this hanging around, drinking, watching sports, doing
nothing ..., and "encouraged" him to go back into the studio. He realized then
that he was more pleasant when he was creative. After a technical update of
his studio he started to work on SubHuman.
(with friendly permission of © Jan Kruml - fotokruml.cz)
Alan: "I had no real imagination to what the album was heading to when
I started. I simply started working.[3] It soon became clear that the basic of
the album was blues, an interesting mix of electronic and swampblues.
Therefore I was looking for an intensive, authentic blues singer.[4]"
He simply found Joe Richardson (a white blues singer from New Orleans) via
internet and started to work with him. He sent him some music to which Joe
worked out some lyrics and then they finally met in Texas to record his parts.
Alan: "I think one of the most exciting moments was going over to
Texas to record with Joe. He's such a fantastic musician anyway. He was able
to give me even more than I expected because he's also a great guitarist and
harmonica player and has a wonderful voice. We recorded in a very very
special sort of semi-commercial studio, it's really open to only friends,
really, with a guy who had massive of old vintage equipment. There were moments
then when I thought: 'This is what Recoil is all about.' The mixture of
musicians from completely different areas coming together to make something
modern and new in an interesting way, you know. It was great."[5]
After this Alan was looking for a second voice to bring in a balance to
Joe's very distinguish voice. It took some time before he found Carla
Tresvaskis.
Finally the title was found - SubHuman - what led to some speculations
about that it might be a "political" album.
Alan: "I do not have some great political message to bring to the
world - the SubHuman concept is much more to do with human nature.
The title is designed to be slightly provocative but not directed towards
any specific group - it can also apply to racism and homophobia, class or
politics and so on. It represents a repeating pattern of human behaviour
where subordination occurs in a seemingly endless cycle, often with tragic
consequences, and where people are rendered as worthless. The artwork design
came from Jesse Holborn who came up with various ideas and I was attracted
to the mannequins, shown in everyday situations to represent recyclable
life-forms."[6]
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.
So here is an excerpt of Intruders:
(with friendly permission of © Recoil / Alan Wilder)
In 2007 Alan also collaborated in the re-releases of old DM albums.
"I don't think that any other band member would have had the time or the
interest to get involved with this project. I'm interested in everything that
has to do with records, recordings or production. But the main reason why I
was asked was: I had all the rare sounds." (laughs) "But the aim wasn't to
produce radical new mixes of the old songs. I was involved only sporadic,
just listened to the songs, saying 'yes', 'no', 'yes' ..."[7]
He also gave some of his private film-material for the re-released documentary.
While he didn't like the commentaries really he enjoyed the little films
nevertheless.
(with friendly permission of © Adrianna -
Here Dave signs the picture you can see in the chapter 1990)
On October 8 Dave published his solo-single
Kingdom / Tomorrow, followed by the album Hourglass on
October 22. He had worked together with Andrew Phillpott, who
belongs to the DM-Team, and Christian Eigner, the live-drummer of the band.
The album was some kind of "accident" or "occupational therapy" because after
the end of Touring The Angel Dave didn't really know what to do. "I went
home and tried to get back in the swing of things. It's always quite difficult
after a tour - you're kind of waiting for somebody to put a note under your
door with what it is you've got to do that day." (laughs) "You create new
obsessions, like how to load the dishwasher correctly and stuff like that.[8]
All the big fights with my wife start with the dishwasher. It shows you how
it's supposed to be loaded: knives and forks go pointed-end downwards. You
get more in if you put everything where it's supposed to go. If Jen goes out
of the room and I get the chance before it goes on, I will fiddle with it.[9]
After annoyed my family for about a month, it was suggested to me to do some
work, so I called up Christian and Andrew and we planned to get together and
do some writing.[10]"
The first song they worked on was Saw Something. "The lyrics are about
sitting, waiting for something to come - protection of some kind, or some kind
of answer. What I've come to learn is that you've got to go find it, take some
action. I prefer to sit and wait, but it just doesn't work. It sounds kind
weird, but I do believe in that sort of divine intervention, if you allow
it. If you allow life to happen, not try to push it in the direction you
think it's supposed to go in - which is what I spend a lot of time doing -
then really amazing things happen, things that you didn't expect. But you've
got to take some action."[11]
Otherwise there wasn't any concept at first. "When we started, we had a few
musical ideas, but nothing song-like in any way. We really wrote as we went
along. After two weeks, we looked around and realized we weren't just demoing,
so we thought, Why don't we just make a record?[12] We decided to produce it
ourselves, which was a lot more work than we thought. But it turned out to
be a great learning experience.[13]" Nevertheless they finished the
recording process in a speedy eight weeks.
After Paper Monsters had been a very personal album
one could suspect that Hourglass also contains
autobiographical elements.
Dave: "I'm becoming more accepting of the fact that I'm getting a
little older. It always seems to be a theme in my life that I'm racing
against time. I'm a 25-year-old in a 45-year-old man's body. I wrote
about those themes more, like, this is who I am and these are my frustrations.[14]
My inspiration comes from the life that I have around me - you know, being part
of a family and desperately trying to do better at that" (laughs) "and falling
flat on my face most of the time. And New York is a great place to feel inspired
all the time. I quite often spend time walking around being among people here.[15]
My little studio is on one of the busiest streets in the city so you get the
flavour of New York all day and all night long: On the track called Endless,
you can hear the street in the background. At one point you'll hear the 'woop'
of a cop car. But we just left it.[16]"
On January 14, 2008 another single - Saw Something / Deeper And
Deeper / Love Will Leave - was released. Dave decided not to tour because
on May 5 DM started to record Sounds Of The Universe.
(with friendly permission of © Depeche Gurl (DMMB))
Again they recorded in three different cities - Santa Barbara, New York and
London. Again they worked with Ben Hillier as a producer - Fletch:
"We thought that it worked very well with Playing the Angel, and we
were very comfortable with him" [17] - and again Martin and Dave shared
songwriting. Again they had a "nice and friendly atmosphere"
and a lot of fun in the studio.
Fletch: "Dave was in quite a strange position - it's rare for a frontman
not to write lyrics, but now he's been writing songs for the last two albums and
he feels more a part of it.[18] I think generally Dave writing songs has really
glued him a bit more to the group, and he's so much more confident and fulfilled.
It's one of the main reasons the band is really gelling together. Dave's songwriting
is improving all the time. You know, it's sometimes hard to actually distinguish
between Dave's songs and Martin's songs."[19]
Martin: "This time I did go about the whole song writing process in a
totally different way. The actual writing process I did on a lap top. It's
so much quicker. I think that was the reason why I wrote so many songs this
time. I think I wrote 18 or 20 songs this time. With Dave's songs included
I think we had 22 songs of which we recorded 18."[20]
There were only a few new things. One was that Martin stopped drinking -
a topic you could find in almost every article in that time.
Martin: "It's been about three years now. It makes a big difference."
Dave: "He is a changed man. There's a different side of Martin that has
always been there, but sometimes it gets clouded when the drinking and stuff
becomes more important than anything else. I think it got to that phase on
the last tour, and Martin was the one that stood up and said, 'You know what?
I've got to stop this.'"[21]
Martin: "It was just a decision I made. I didn't go to AA or any of
that stuff. I've found that I've got plenty of things to do with my time.
It was all part and parcel of being in a band. It's almost encouraged for you
to be drunk almost all the time if you're in a band. People are disappointed
if you're not!" (laughs) "There's always someone somewhere who wants to give
you something!" (laughs)[22] "I think I am more spiritually connected now. More
a part of the universe, no pun intended. I feel like I'm more in touch with my
emotions. You have to be careful when you talk about spirituality and stopping
drinking in the same breath. You start sounding a bit holier than thou. That's
the last thing I want to do - come across as some new-age guru." (laughs)[23]
Now Fletch is left over as the last one who sometimes likes to take a
drink: "I've cut down but ..."
Dave: "He's under pressure."
Fletch (obviously doesn't like being under pressure): "These things are
happening to make the atmosphere better. So it's got to be good."[24]
The second main topic was that Martin changed alcohol against buying old
analog synthesizers and other stuff on ebay. Although he bought the stuff
under his real name only few people commented on it - and it didn't even make
the round.
Dave: "Literally every day something new would show up. Drum machines,
synthesizers, sequencers. So there was some of the fun that there was in some
of the early recordings in exploring a new piece of equipment and seeing what
sound we could get out of it." But there was also "a lot of performance.
Martin playing guitar, me singing, every day in the studio."[25]
Fletch: "That was quite an inspiration. Generally, I think it's more
of an electronic album. There is guitar on it, of course, but much more
electronic than Playing The Angel."[26]
They warded off the prejudice that this album was some kind of "retro".
For Martin it was more some kind of "yesterday's future". "I started
buying these old, vintage synthesisers, and the sounds they produced conjured up
images of the universe and space travel. That's how we came up with the album
title."[27]
References:
[1] Shout!, 07th July 2007. Words: Alex Davie
[2] "Youtube ist einfach klasse", laut.de, 2007. Words: Michael Schuh
[3] "Youtube ist einfach klasse", laut.de, 2007. Words: Michael Schuh
[4] Hurricanebar, 23rd May 2007. Words: Christina Mohr
[5] "Recoil in Bucharest - Interview with Alan Wilder", depechemode.ro, 2010. Words: Otiliei Haraga
[6] Shout!, 7th July 2007. Words: Alex Davie
[7] "Youtube ist einfach klasse", laut.de, 2007. Words: Michael Schuh
[8] Prefix, 25th March 2008, Words: Jen Zipf
[9] "This much I know", Guardian, 28th October 2007. Words: Johnny Davis
[10] Prefix, 25th March 2008, Words: Jen Zipf
[11] Shout! 28th January 2008. Words: Alex Davie
[12] "Gahan Digs 'Deeper' On Second Solo Album", Billboard.com, 2007. Words: uncredited
[13] NME.com, 06th September 2006. Words: uncredited
[14] "Gahan Digs 'Deeper' On Second Solo Album", Billboard.com, 2007. Words: uncredited
[15] Prefix, 25th March 2008, Words: Jen Zipf
[16] NME.com, 06th September 2006. Words: uncredited
[17] Catching Up With … Depeche Mode’s Andrew Fletcher, Paste, 7th May, 2009. Words: Grant Shellen
[18] Masters Of Their Universe, The Times, 3rd May, 2009, unknown author
[19] Dmdotcom, 23rd January 2009. Words: Daniel Barassi
[20] "Depeche Mode Interviewed: Universal Truths And Sounds", The Quietus, 20th April 2009. Words: John Doran
[21] CNN, 12th May 2009. Words: Denise Quan
[22] "Depeche Mode Interviewed: Universal Truths And Sounds", The Quietus, 20th April 2009. Words: John Doran
[23] Depeche Mode in Mature Mode, Los Angeles Times, 28th March, 2009. Words: Chris Lee
[24] CNN, 12th May 2009. Words: Denise Quan
[25] "Depeche Mode Interviewed: Universal Truths And Sounds", The Quietus, 20th April 2009. Words: John Doran
[26] Dmdotcom, 23rd January 2009. Words: Daniel Barassi
[27] They just can't get enough: One-time synthesiser sissies Depeche Mode are back on song, Mail Online, 3rd April, 2009. Words: Adrian Thrills
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