AN INTERVIEW WITH SPEAK & SPELL

Speak & Spell are one of the foremost Depeche Mode tribute acts. They regularly play live all over Europe, satisfying the desires of an ever growing audience to hear Depeche Mode classics played live in an era where the band themselves shy away from most things pre-1990. On March 12 at the O2 Academy in Islington, the band are playing a special Black Celebration gig, paying tribute to the album and also throwing in a few greatest hits. If you're able to get there, get there as it promises to be a superb night. To get your tickets, head to:

http://www.ticketweb.co.uk/event/YDH1203?brand=o2academyislington&camefrom=AMG_ISLINGTON_spkspll30

Ahead of the gig, I caught up with Keith Trigwell from the band to have a chat about Speak & Spell and, of course, Black Celebration.

APA: Tell us a bit about Speak & Spell? Who does what in the band, when did you form and so on

KT: The band formed in 07-08 in Brighton. I joined about 18 months later.  We've moved on a long way since then but we've always focussed on being for real fans and sounding as close as possible to the original works, which we manage in a variety of surprising ways.

We've never fancied doing the whole 'who pretends to be who' thing except our frontman Paul (Woody) Wood having to 'Dave up!' 

Who does what wise, Joe and Paul took the brunt of the live delivery having to do vocals and Joe on guitar.  I've been doing the production and programming since 2009 and most of the technical live delivery plus live keyboard parts.

Sadly Joe's moved on now, and, after a suitable period of mourning, we got in 2 new guys to join us on stage for the first time in Manchester on the 27th Feb.  

Tony Clare is our new Martin (if you like) and Paul Boddy is joining us on keys. Both are very experienced, talented and their dedication has renewed us.

APA: Your Black Celebration show on March 12 at the O2 Academy in Islington, London is coming up. Tell us a bit about that.

KT: We have some nice appearances coming up this year that we are waiting to announce. The Black Celebration gig is our 3rd "Boutique album show", having done both the Speak and Spell and Violator albums in 2014/15

Black Celebration for me is the most 'Depeche' Depeche album. Dark, dynamic, textured and a real mix. Sampling and programming at its best.  I've always wanted to do this having seen the tour aged 18 in Brighton.  

We are going all out to take people on a real journey that night.  Its designed with people who were there first time around in mind and to try to give a flavour of that era DM to those who missed it. Again, like the Violator show, it will include a 2nd set of hits.

APA: Depeche themselves have never played Sometimes live and only played full versions of Here is The House twice. Are you looking forward to playing those songs?

KT: Yes very much.  We've played Sometimes about 4 times (as per the album). This time we're thickening it up a bit.

Here is the House was a tricky one to get right.  Our other new guy has helped enormously on some of the tracks and this is one he helped pull together.  

We hope to pull them off well.

APA: What's your favourite Black Celebration track?

KT: Ahhgg!!  Different bits off different tracks. I can't choose, but, if I have to it's New Dress.  A statement on British celebrity culture and media distraction/manipulation that is truer today than it was when Martin Gore wrote it.

The thing is, there isn't a lesser track from anywhere in those sessions, including B-Sides. My only gripe with Black Celebration was there being no live VHS.

APA: How important an album do you think Black Celebration is for Depeche Mode?

KT: For Depeche Mode, massively.  In my view it marked the point when they went from an electronic act with a metal banging, found sounds thing to a point of maturity where that became a very accomplished process.  It was the bridge between large European act to stadium band.

Also the texture of it - the first 2 minutes are incredible. Then with tracks like It Doesn't Matter Two and their positioning in the running order, it gets me every time. Always has.

APA;  Black Celebration aside, what are your plans for the rest of the year?

KT: We are keen to push a little wider out as the team expands, push forward with a more ambitious elements that we can comfortably deliver.

Woody and I have now been joined by 4 new people in total. Two new guys joining us on stage, Tony and another Paul, Claire Whatley our new manager and a  new media / social media guy Paul Swindell.  This has relieved the workload enormously.

We've also had to get in a new 4 way in-ear radio monitoring systems and guitar transmission and mic. New set up, flight cases etc.  We'll soon be running on all new macs as well and nearly all new keyboards plus an extra Gretsch (Double Anniversary) to go with our Gretsch Baby Falcon. 

But the big thing has been getting the Black Celebration album ready while simultaneously bringing in the two new guys.  They had to learn their parts for our full set, (assigning new ones) and for the BC album.  I have to say now, Paul and Tony have worked extremely hard and professionally.

Thanks very much to Keith for sparing the time to have a chat about the case. Make sure you check out Speak & Spell's site below and get along to the O2 for the Black Celebration gig if you can. Keep an eye on their site too for all future gigs.

Speak & Spell http://www.depechemodetribute.co.uk/

Black Celebration gig page http://www.depechemodetribute.co.uk/are-you-ready-for-a-black-celebration/

Speak & Spell Facebook https://www.facebook.com/Depechemode.uk/?fref=ts

RETRO #2: BLACK CELEBRATION REVIEWS

When Black Celebration was released, Depeche were still viewed with suspicion in their home country. Their move from an angelic synthpop boy band to metal bashing purveyors of gothic synth majesty was not taken that seriously in the U.K. and so, a lot of the music press tended to treat them pretty harshly. The album's reviews were mixed to say the least which, when you look back on them now, is pretty funny given what Black Celebration did for Depeche in terms of increasing their profile. Anyway, I thought it would be interesting to see what the music press had to say. Again, thanks very much to the brilliant DM TV Archives for allowing me to plunder their site.

Let's start on a relatively positive note...

15 MARCH 1986 - RECORD MIRROR

Here are some things to admire about Depeche Mode: (1) their self-sufficiency, (2) their refusal to follow anything but their own fashion, (3) their refusal to be anything but themselves, (4) their unswerving ability to come up with great, fresh melodies. 

Black Celebration is a comfy progression for the Deps, but it contains no huge surprises. It keeps to the rules they set for themselves in terms of quality, value for money, tunefulness and experimentation. It kicks off with three killer tracks – Black Celebration, Fly On The Windscreen and A Question Of Lust, the latter being a prize crystal-clear, soaring Mart-on-vocals special. But it really is like putting all your cards on the table before the game’s finished.

Of the raunchier numbers, A Question Of Time stands out, as does the single Stripped and the moody Dressed In Black. New Dress, although it pumps and throbs, has rather excruciating lyrics, ditto Sometimes, one of the rather too many sweet little ballads. Although the melodies are gorgeous, Martin seems preoccupied with sounding like the gawky school choirboy. Mr. Gore is again lyrically concerned with tenderness, sweetness, closeness with another, and putting his heart on his sleeve. That’s fine, balanced against Depeche Mode’s more exciting, sinister side. Beware the girly swot notebook with the arrow through the heart, boys, and you’ll rool OK. Strength through wimpery!

Betty Page

Not a bad start. The next one just gets it all wrong though, but that's what Sounds tended to do

15 MARCH 1986 - SOUNDS 

DEPECHE MODE: no nudes is good nudes 

DEPECHE MODE 'Black Celebration' (Mute STUMM 26) **1/2

THE TV'S burnt the toast, the hoover's eaten the carpet and, in the background, pop's parasites are chewing at life and spitting out synthesised saccharine that dissolves in the air and not in the heart. They stride purposefully down paths of misguided desire...and get lost. Depeche Mode play Depeche Mode with conviction, the mould is cast and the cast are convinced. As menacing rhythms beat beneath treacle-covered whims, they sing of sex with disposable belief. When naivety swamped their soul, youth was held up as the reason — now, though, no such excuses are valid and the real world still waves from afar. 

Black Celebration is a vision of love as seen through the eyes of pop's 'subversives' (sic), mean, moody and marmalade. Life can be a bitch when you're cast as court jester and you've dreamed of being king. Fly On The Windscreen is too perceptive for lunch. "Death is everywhere/There are flies on the windscreen/For a start/ Reminding us we could be torn apart"Thanks lads, but I've eaten — besides, I've swallowed too much shit already. 

Depeche Mode are bored with last week's toys and, anyway, SPK wanted their angle grinders back. SO now they're busy playing with John Carpenter's ideas, pulling the legs off gripping soundtracks and turning them into harmless scenes of banality, with no twists and many happy endings. I hate happy endings. When they start singing songs about Princess Di's clothing, New Dress, you know that you're in safe hands and that there's nothing lurking around darkened corners to surprise you. But Depeche still reign supreme in the world of programmed pap, their music still has a nagging simplicity that is ensnaring. 

When hinting of depth, they beg an inquisitive leap, but such a foolhardy act only gets your ankles wet as their nursery rhymes squidge between your toes. I treat the garden to my presence and reflect on their poetic observations: "Sometimes/Only sometimes/1 question everything/And I'm the first to admit/If you catch me in a mood like that/I can be tiring/Even embarrassing." Upon digesting this gloriously incisive self appraisal, I let out a euphoric cry before tearing up the sleeve and feeding it to the birds.

KEVIN MURPHY

Thanks Kevin Murphy. That was incredibly incisive. I imagine he actually got paid for writing that which says more about his employers than it does about him. Let's see how the NME dealt with it. Ah yes, in that classic NME way...

15 MARCH 1986 - NME

Nipple Erectors

Somewhere, between Basildon and Berlin, is a place that Depeche Mode call home. It's an uncomfortable abode though it gleams and sparkles with pristine decor and designer-built functionalism, a matt-black (naturally) dream home whose geometrical symmetry hides a thousand sins. Although Depeche Mode - and their mainman/songwriter Martin Gore especially - long for that certain Euro-ambience, these four suburban boys are forever blighted by a peculiarly English sense of propriety, a pop protocol that drips with politeness.

This well-behaved music threatened to slip from its axis on '83's quite invigorating Construction Time Again when the awakening promise of Everything Counts and More Than A Party approached the realm of cheeky subversion. Alongside Gore's political awareness grew an unhealthy fascination with the sturm und drang of German industrial culture, the viral music of Neubauten and our own Test Dept. Yet what tension Depeche Mode possessed of late - and there was little to be detected on last year's atrophied Some Great Reward - came from the frisson of Gore's dark Teutonic pretensions with the continued tyranny of studied, harmonious order that his three accomplices seemed quite happy to perpetuate. As a virus, Depeche Mode's music is closer to sleeping sickness than to any nerve-wrenching disorder. Worse still, the psychology-by-numbers cant of a song like Masters And Servants [sic] teetered ominously close to the chanting histrionics of a Tears For Fears' "Shout! Shout! Let it all out!" exegesis.

On Black Celebration, the contradictions continue and continue to remain unresolved. Martin Gore's presence is stamped all over this album, not least in the sex-death-lust angst which informs virtually every lyric whilst the accompanying music, although often hinting at impending disorder, is a paradigm of well mannered electro-pop. Opening with the title song, Black Celebration, which has nothing to do with the recently established Martin Luther King Day and a lot to do with being stoical in the face of life's sheer mundaniety, the album establishes a mood that is dark yet faintly ridiculous. Over those perfectly constructed jigsaw melodies, David Gahan's cloyingly winsome voice ennuciates Gore's adolescent fragments of despair. Fly On The Windscreen includes the immortal line "death is everywhere" over a propulsive, multi-layered background complete with dismembered voices and cut-up sound patterns that are actually quite winning. Again, on A Question Of Lust, the overblown introspection of the lyrics defeats serious analysis whilst Sometimes approaches the analyst's couch as Gore, via Gahan, informs us, without a hint of irony, " ... I'm the first to admit/If you catch me in a mood like this/I can be tiring/Even embarrassing". Never.

It is left to the music to provide what relative highlights there are and, within their own parameters, Depeche Mode create a resonant, if undemonstrative techno-pop tapestry where the various percussive and melodic components often lend a rich textured sheen that is not without a certain depth. A Question Of Time, with its rising and falling structure, manages to perfectly complement an exceptionally curt and aggressive Gore lyric whilst New Dress ruptures the prevailing introspective and fingers the media trivialisation of "real" news. Indeed, when the songs address topics other than the composer's state of mind - as on the evocative exploration of loneliness that is World Full Of Nothing - Depeche Mode sound like a lot more than just a high tech, low-life melodrama. For the most part, however, they continue to provide a soundtrack for the up-to-date, matt black bedsit: dark, yet faintly ridiculous.

Sean O'Hagan

Firstly, Some Great Reward was from 1984. Secondly, it's Master And Servant. Thirdly, Martin sings Sometimes. Fourthly, that's just a load of bollocks. What did the NME's arch rival and, incredibly enough, generally worse Melody Maker have to say?

15 MARCH 1986 - MELODY MAKER

BLACK IN THE NIGHT

The same old song. That Depeche Mode are willing to worm their way out of their lucrative niche as mega-cuddlies is encouraging even if they've been at it so long they've fashioned a career from sweet abrasion. Damn sure they know they’ll never swap their teddy bear image for chart terrorism but the effort has become the sole fuel to Martin Gore’s fixations.

It’s depressing, though, that in their own small struggle for personal and artistic dignity, Depeche have only managed to trade in one set of cliches for another – white for black, bright for bitter, tunes for twisted chants.

Black Celebration finds Depeche even more over-anxious than they were on the depressing Some Great Reward to shock for the sake of it, pussycats desperate to appear perverted as an escape from the superficiality of teen stardom. Dressed In Black is just Master And Servant revisited, an adolescent masturbatory fantasy. Similarly, Fly On The Windscreen attempts to evoke the claustrophobic swamp intertia of Mute labelmate Nick Cave’s Wings Off Flies. These songs tell us, time and again, that they’re desensitised to love, that the only release open from spiritual malaise is a momentary tactile passion, a lunging, groping lust.

More saddening still is New Dress, an unbridled attack on press hypocrisy which, in its humourless juxtaposition of headlines, (“Famine horror, millions die”) against its refrain (“Princess Di is wearing a new dress”) recalls nothing more than a secondary school poem.

As always, it’s difficult to discern whether Martin Gore’s clumsy lyrical truisms are intent on promoting his over-apparent desire to assume a sinister dimension on whether he’s honestly concerned for his subject matter. Are the Depeche of A Question Of Time revelling in the scenario of under-age sexploitation as an exercise in biting the hand the feeds, or are they genuinely dismayed at the inevitable moral decay of this rotting nation?

Then again, it’s precisely Gore’s naively logical lyrical equation, wedded to the established Depeche linear musical mode, that occasionally adds up to something successfully whole, something that incorporates optimism. The title track’s a throbbing metallic purging of the daily grind, Stripped is pleasingly minimal, if mannered, and there’s a wonderful hope in the appalling New Dress: “You can’t change the world / But you can change the facts / And when you change the facts / You change points of view / If you change points of view / You may change a vote / And when you change a vote / You may change the world”.

But it’s when Depeche are being unconsciously throwaway, when they relax their straining against their reputation, that they attain the sublime. A Question Of Lust is gorgeous, an Almondesque torch vocal mounting a simple electronic code worthy of The Human league. Mostly, though, Black Celebration is Depeche fucking with their formula and the real shock is the insight it provides into the troubled psyche of Martin Gore, a lad struggling to grow in public and, for all his opportunities, finding only sleaze and filth to feed off. They’d have it sickening – Gore a willing victim desiring the symptoms he purports to despise.

Silly boys.

Pah. Ok, it's better than the NME piece, but still...Dressed In Black "an adolescent masturbatory fantasy?" Sod off. 

No 1. magazine was succint but thankfully seemed to like the album

22 MARCH 1986 - NO. 1 MAGZAINE

Depeche Mode are one of those bands whose music shouldn't be given the “gut reaction” treatment. Following last year’s Some Great Reward, this LP sees Martin Gore following much the same lines. He will persist in asking the kind of questions that there really are no answers to. Musically there is a riot of atmosphere which should ensure many a Depeche fan will be dipping into this one over and over again. Best tracks, aside from the single Stripped, are Here Is The House and World Full Of Nothing.

4 stars

See NME? That's how you do it. Plus No.1 got it right about Depeche fans dipping into the album over and over again. 

The L.A Times review perhaps gives us a clue about what was going to happen to Depeche Mode in the U.S as they clearly love it. Note though the mention of "the last track." But Not Tonight featured on the U.S. version of the album for reasons I've gone into and inevitably moaned about previously

27 APRIL 1986 - L.A TIMES

Love A La Mode

RECORD RACK

LORI E. PIKE

"BLACK CELEBRATION." Depeche Mode. Sire. 

David Gahan's alternately husky and breathy vocals are emotive, and the blend of warm tones with ominous chugs and clangs makes these sleek, modernistic and enigmatic songs a perfect sound track for tentative love in the industrial age. Songwriter Martin Gore has pulled off a double-whammy, backing evocative, thoughtful lyrics with a seamless suite of danceable, hummable melodies. The tension builds and releases as Gore periodically wrests aside his bleak cynicism to let vulnerability and hope gleam through. Thus, the utter despair of Fly on the Windscreen eventually gives way to a tender homily to home and security in Here Is the House. But the best is saved for the last track, But Not Tonight, a bouncy, refreshing exultation about new beginnings and being alone but not lonely. Rarely has introspection been so tuneful.

I don't think anyone would agree that But Not Tonight is the best track even on the But Not Tonight 7" single, but this review shows that Sire must have known the American record market I guess. Or at the very least, they knew what Lori Pike liked.

The Washington Post then had its say

12 JUNE 1986 - THE WASHINGTON POST

MICROCHIP music for moody moderns: Black Celebration is another batch of dire and doomy electrodirges from Depeche Mode, pop pap apparently aimed at a burgeoning market of budding adolescent existentialists.

Songs like Black Celebration and Fly on the Windshield (sample lyrics: "Death is everywhere / There are flies on the windscreen for a start / Reminding us we could be torn apart / Tonight...) would seem likely to reinforce suicidal tendencies, but taken as a whole, this album is so unremittingly morose it becomes almost comical. 

Over the space of five albums, Depeche Mode has refined its distinctive sound, marked by a hammering dance beat and trademark musique concrete blend of "industrial" metallic noises and odd sampled sounds - breathing, slamming doors, flushing toilets. 

Many of the production gimmicks on Black Celebration are arresting, but the group has simply put more polish on the basic formula. Singer/songwriter Martin Gore's listless, limited vocals sound as if he's delivering them through a vacuum cleaner, snapping on different attachments for each number. The songwriting is similarly formulaic, with each song based on a compilation of elementary electronic riffs, though Depeche Mode is getting more ambitious - the synthetic choral chant from It Doesn't Matter is baldly borrowed from the Philip Glass canon.

Ok, just to be clear it's WINDSCREEN not Windshield. Just because that's the American word for the perfectly good, standard English language version doesn't mean you can change it when IT'S NOT WHAT THE BLOODY SONG IS CALLED! I mean, you don't refer to the band Pavement as Sidewalk do you? Plus the review is a load of old arse. "Quick I'd better mention Philip Glass so that I sound pretentious." Good grief.

Rolling Stone paid a bit more attention...

17 JULY 1986 - ROLLING STONE (http://www.rollingstone.com/music/albumreviews/black-celebration-19860717 )

By Mark Coleman

Routinely dismissed as a band of synth-pop robots, Depeche Mode actually uses its machines to make some of the most human sounds around. Black Celebration is certainly this British quartet's most melodic effort to date: the clanging disco-concrete fusion of early LPs like Construction Time Again has mellowed into a brand of brooding, romantic music only hinted at on last year's Some Great Reward. "I haven't felt so alive in years," gushes singer Dave Gahan on But Not Tonight, this LP's ghostly closer, although for composer-lyricist Martin Gore, even celebration is pretty bleak.

Gore dissects his gloomy obsessions with wit and intelligence. He's abetted by his bandmates, inventive technicians who understand that machines weren't meant to sound like souped-up electric organs. Despite its campy horror-show title, Fly on the Windscreen — Final is the sort of matter-of-fact meditation on mortality most people flash on behind the wheel of a car. A bank of synths buzz ominously through the verses of Fly, amplifying the unease, then whoosh gratefully when the first chorus reaches for life's only solace: "Come here kiss me NOW."

Most of these ditties are unabashed love songs, albeit brutally honest — quirky ones that pick apart popular notions of emotional independence (A Question of Lust) and adolescent sex (A Question of Time, World Full of Nothing) to an itchy, mechanized beat. Songs like these and some serious image-mongering have won Depeche Mode a loyal teen following, appropriately enough. But underneath their bleached-blond, black-leather pose lurks musical maturity and a wry sensibility deserving of a wider (read adult) audience.

But Not Tonight a "ghostly" track? That's a first.

Let's leave the last word to U.K. pop mag Smash Hits. They always loved Depeche and they loved Black Celebration

DEPECHE MODE: Black Celebration (Mute)

Despite their seemingly endless stream of brilliant singles Depeche Mode always seem to go a bit wonky when faced with a whole album to fill. Not this time though. Black Celebration doesn't only see them go a bit weirder with lots of dark, mysterious percussive episodes (sung by Dave Gahan) snuggling up against sweet, fragile and rather sinister ballads (sung by Martin Gore) but is also the first time they haven't had to throw in any second-rate stodge. Their best album yet (apart from the very brilliant Singles LP, that is) (8 out of 10)

So there you go. How the U.K music press and a couple of American reviewers treated Black Celebration when it came out. Ultimately, it's fun to read these things, but even now, the likes of Melody Maker and NME still have the ability to rile me - and I really am far too old to react like that.

RETRO #1: DEPECHE MODE INTERVIEW FROM NO. 1 MAGAZINE, 26 FEBRUARY 1986

One site that I would recommend you all visit is Depeche Mode Television Archives (http://www.dmtvarchives.com/) They have compiled an incredible number of interviews, television appearances, pictures and more spanning the whole of the band's career. Even what you think is a quick look at the forum there can turn into hours lost in the history of Depeche. The forums and archives can be viewed if you aren't a member of the site, but you 'll have much more fun if you sign up. Who knows - you may have something in your own archive that you can contribute to the site.

The good people at DM TV Archives have allowed me to use their material this month and I'll be sharing various things from their treasure trove over the next four weeks. Today though, I thought it would be of interest to share an interview Depeche Mode gave to the now defunct UK magazine No. 1 from February in 1986. I thought (1) it would help give some historical background and (2) help my writer's block which, as I type this on Sunday 21 February, is causing me some concern. Here's the interview - enjoy it and go and register at DM TV Archives. You will love it there.

BACK TO THE WALL

[No. 1, 22nd February 1986]

DEPECHE MODE EXPLAIN THEMSELVES

For Depeche Mode Berlin has become a second home. It’s a city which suits their temperament and throws a reflection across their music. Berlin is a strange, eerie place, an island surrounded by a wall and bordered by a no-man’s land littered with crosses marking the graves of those who tried to escape from the East and failed. In February Berlin is chilling in every sense, it has an edge and Depeche Mode like that.

In the past three years, Modey have spent a third of their lives here, mostly in the famous Hansa Studios where they recorded “Construction Time Again” and “Some Great Reward”, and are now finishing the new LP, “Black Celebration”.

Walking out of Hansa’s control room, the members of Depeche Mode are a black celebration themselves. Dressed from head to toe in black leather, their skinny frames and pale faces make them appear mean. In fact they’re all exceedingly placid and pleasant but the image suits them like a second skin.

“I feel ill,” Dave Gahan announces, indicating some stains on his brand new leather pants. “Sick.” Alan Wilder and Martin Gore follow him into the rehearsal rooms and hit the fridge. It’s not just armies that march on their stomachs. When Depeche are on tour or in a studio they keep a well stocked larder of vegetarian goodies for snacking on.

Martin examines a cheese roll with that customary far away look in his eyes. He always looks like he’s just about to say something earth-shattering. But he never does.

Fletch is bumbling about in his usual fashion. He reads a story in the Sun about “Simon Jilting Yasmin for model” and tuts. “There’s no truth in it but these people ask for it.” Fletch is a moralist.

  

WHERE THERE’S A WALL

 Eventually Dave Gahan feels well enough to chat. I ask him what the fascination is with Berlin?

“It’s the atmosphere. It’s a little place and it feels very cut off. There are no distractions like in London. I can’t work in England anymore. It’s funny. The studio is right next to the Berlin Wall but none of us has ever been to the East. Martin tried once but they refused him entry. Didn’t like the way he was dressed. Thought he was a hooligan. People imagine we work here because it’s wow, you know, really heavy, but I don’t feel that. The place is quite suburban. Berlin’s like Brixton.”

Fletch puts down his paper and we talk about the new single “Stripped”. All the band are excited about the song which sounds quite risky after the cheerfully old-fashioned pop of “It’s Called A Heart”.

Fletch: “The idea of “Stripped” is to get away from technology and civilisation for a day and get back to basics in the country. It’s about two people stripping down to their bare emotions. In the video we’re seen demolishing a car and taking a TV apart… it’s a bit, er, symbolic.”

Gahan says: “It’s not about sex. It’s to do with having nothing except yourself. The people in the song could strip off if they wanted to though. The song is also a bit chancy. It doesn’t capture you immediately. Some people hear it and say “Is that it?” Others go “Brilliant!”.”

  

THE POWER AND THE GLORY

All the band agree that the single will stand out on the chart but Dave seems to like it more than the others. “I stuck out for it ’cos it excites me. It feels powerful to sing. The chorus is rousing and mob-like which I can get off on. Our last single was just alright.”

From what I heard of the new album, “Black Celebration” is going to surprise everyone who still thinks Depeche are a weedy pop group. Martin Gore’s writing gets closer to the bone every day.

The title sounds a bit morbid I venture. “Yeah it does,” Dave agrees, “but it’s a common thing. At the end of a working day you go out and drown your sorrows no matter how shitty you feel or how bleak your future looks.”

Martin and Alan join in, but first Martin makes a rare announcement. “I feel at the moment I’m coming across totally wrong in interviews. And it’s all my fault. I can’t do anything about it. I say the wrong things.”

Having made this rather strange little speech Martin falls silent for a second. “The problem is, I can’t open up and explain the songs. When I write it all seems logical. I create the right atmosphere – which is an attempt to get away from the softness of contemporary pop – but I know we’ll never be totally extreme. Depeche Mode is a democracy and that stops me writing everything in one direction. Apart from that I still believe in an old-fashioned song style and I like lots of melody. Some people can’t handle that. We can be really poppy one minute or we can sound harder and moodier.”

Alan Wilder reckons that the band are “alienating some of the teen market but gaining more respect. We don’t put ourselves across very well but we look better these days.”

Depeche Mode always put a line on their album covers which tries to sum up the mood of their work. This time the line is “Life In The So-Called Space Age”, a typical example of Martin Gore’s mixture of cynicism and common sense. "It means that despite all this,” he gestures vaguely around, “all this can go on and nothing is changed. People are still emotionally numbed by material possessions.”

Wilder qualifies the statement. “So many interferences surround you in the Western World, they take the place of your emotions. People say Martin’s songs are simplistic but that’s a positive factor. He gets his point across.”

Not everything on “Black Celebration” is so sombre although one song, “It Doesn’t Matter (2)” is, Martin says, “very desperate. Very very morbid. There is one quite funny song called “Sometimes” which is about someone who questions their surroundings and ends up becoming tiring and over apologetic.” Gore laughs nervously because he is a very autobiographical pop writer and the song is about him.

A beer arrives so Martin perks up. “We’ve got this new minimal concept. I try to do the least amount of work possible so I’ll get paid the same and be able to go out clubbing more.”

The rest of the band have a Martin Gore theory according to Alan. “The theory is Martin is a lazy sod who writes an entire album in an afternoon but pretends he hasn’t so he can take ages to think about other things and do nothing.” Martin makes another of his off the cuff statements. This one is a real cracker. “Four people is the right number for a pop group. History bears me out. Five people looks wrong and three is plain stupid. Four looks powerful.”

You’ll be able to see just how powerful Modey look and sound when their five month world tour kicks off in late March. Dave is enthusiastic:

“We haven’t played England for a while but I’m dying to get into the big halls again. I imagine some fans are a bit cross that we’re doing Wembley but we have to break out of this credibility thing. I thought The Cure doing Wembley was brilliant and I know I need large crowds these days to excite me.”

  

BAND AGED

In this mood Depeche Mode are showing every sign they’ve grown up, moved on, as they put it. Gahan isn’t one for any false modesty. “No, we’ve influenced a lot of bands into a harder sound, Arcadia perhaps, Tears For Fears definitely. It paid off for them. Frankie did that too. I can’t stand bland, textured music. No one goes out on a limb. Glammy pop bores me silly. Obviously I won’t name them because I hate everything in the charts. I ignore it. I suppose A-Ha will take away everyone’s girl audience for a while because they’re hunky good looking chaps,” Gahan chortles. “The problem is that they probably speak funny.”

 Fletch looks worried. “They probably speak better English than you do.”

Dave: “Rubbish. I bet they don’t.” Gahan has got the bit between his teeth. “We haven’t got any competition. We’re out on our own. You can’t categorise us. Maybe sometimes we’re a bit fussy with not putting pictures on covers but it’s better not to go downhill and be stuck with a stupid image. Look at this stuff about Simon Le Bon: poor bloke’s just got married but because the Sun have got a grudge against him they’ve stitched him up. For us it’s a fluke that we’ve avoided all the crap but I could see us getting huger. The German press invents stuff about us all the time.”

 One of last year’s best kept pop secrets was Gahan’s wedding to long time girlfriend Jo. “That was good. Just me, Jo, Fletch and Grania [sic] (Fletch’s girlfriend), mums and dads. Alan and Martin missed the registrar’s but came to the party. It hasn’t changed the way we are. We’ve been together ages.”

Dave is the last Basildon boy left in Depeche. Even Fletch has moved out. “Best thing I’ve ever done. It’s the first time I haven’t either been with parents or in a hotel room.” I ask them what they think about tax exiles and Fletch, who is normally the most self-effacing member, explodes: “It’s DISGUSTING.” He shouts. “It’s a joke. All these so called socialists. Look at Spandau! You take a year off and your career suffers. There’s no place like home. I believe in the welfare state and if that means paying 50% tax I’ll do it.”

Gahan agrees. “It’s like the 70s all these bands living in mansions. If we did that the band would split up. And the money they save on tax they spend on first class air fares. They all come home every weekend!”

Fletch is really hopping mad now. “Mansions! Air fares! They’ve got no confidence in their own futures. It’s like they’re making it while they can. We intend to stay around.”

Dave Gahan gets up and wanders towards the control room. Before he goes in he turns round and says, “The thing is, by Christmas we’ll all be millionaires anyway. We know that.”

I’m not sure if he was joking or not. 

  

Depeche Mode must rate as one of the most consistent if not one of the best pop bands of the 80s. They have a distinctive sound, but not so much so that each release sounds like the last one.Their lyrics actually mean something without being pretentious and over the top. Yet they never seem to get the adulation that their competitors get. Strange that. 

Let’s hope that the haunting stillness of ‘Stripped’ puts them up where they belong, before Frankie and Spandau reappear.

AN INTERVIEW WITH GARETH JONES

Gareth Jones and Daniel Miller worked with Depeche Mode on their three "Berlin" albums - Construction Time Again, Some Great Reward and, of course, Black Celebration. Happily for me, Gareth agreed to an interview for this project, and I was extremely fortunate to spend an hour or so on Skype with Gareth chatting about Black Celebration. I'd have happily talked much longer but I was conscious that he's a busy man and that I didn't want to bore him. The chat we had threw up some wonderful Black Celebration gems and so here it. Hope you enjoy it.

APA: I've been doing some revising before speaking to you Gareth. I watched the Black Celebration reissue dvd to help me prepare.

GJ: I haven't seen that for a while. Let's hope I can remember something :-) !

APA: One of the things that you mention on that dvd is the approach you all took to recording the album. You say that you adopted a Werner Herzog like approach of actually living the project as it went on. How did that impact on the album?

GJ: That was Daniel's suggestion. It made it very intense in a creative and challenging way. At the end of the album's recording, cabin fever set in. We had a real desire to get it finished so that we could get on with our lives! From the moment we started recording the album, we were together every day until the mixing was finished. In many ways, it was the most time intensive project I've ever worked on. I've spent longer on other projects but I always took some time off during them. Working in the way we did on Black Celebration gave it an energy, a claustrophobia and an introspection that all work together. We were very involved in each other and in the work, and it brought lots of creative tension. Overall, it's difficult to say how those conditions impacted on the album as there is no other version of Black Celebration - there is only that one. That's just how we chose to make it. It definitely affected the record and that was a major thing.

APA: One thing that strikes me about Black Celebration is the different feel the record has compared to the preceding four albums. Whilst Construction Time Again and Some Great Reward added a harder edge to the band's sound, they still had a lot of pop elements to them. Was there a conscious decision to make a darker or more intense album with Black Celebration?

GJ: Part of the idea of coming together to work so intensely on it, this idea of “living the album” that became so iconic, was based on the songs and title of the album - the idea of a black celebration. Martin was aiming at something darker and, you could say, deeper with his song-writing and the work on the album took the lead from that. It's a step into the territory that the band continued to go towards with Music For The Masses, Violator and Songs Of Faith And Devotion. Perhaps every album is a tipping point of sorts, but Black Celebration is certainly a tipping point for Depeche, as it's the last of the Berlin trilogy, moving forwards from edgy electropop to a darker and more accomplished form. As with every project though, it was led by the song-writing. If the song-writing is deeper, weirder and darker, it will necessarily inform the whole production.

APA: The album sessions started in London before moving to Berlin. When did you first hear Martin's demos? Was it in the first London session?

GJ: Daniel and the band would have listened to the demos before the first studio session and I would have heard them too. When I started working with Depeche on Construction Time Again, I'd heard no demos before as I met them for the first time in the studio. The demo is so important. In those days, they were inevitably different to the final track and you couldn't really use them as the quality was so bad. Now, you can use a demo as a finished product, but back then, there was a huge gulf between the demo and finished track. The demo, like I said was very important though as it was the first vision of the song so we always had the demos available to us. We wouldn't play them every day but they were a handy reference point if we needed to listen back and work out what the original atmosphere of the song was or if we had somehow lost our way or missed something. On Black Celebration, Alan Wilder was working on demos in the Rough Trade studio. The band had a pre-production phase there - it was a small multi track studio. The work done there would not have been transferred to the 2 inch tapes but it was useful for developing sounds and song structures and building sounds and sample sets.  I visited the band in Rough Trade studios before we went into Westside Studios in London to start the album sessions properly. I didn't have anything to do with the pre-production though - that was Alan and the rest of the band.

Gareth Jones, Hansa studios 1986

APA: In terms of the songs, the re-issue dvd is entitled "The songs aren't good enough, there aren't any singles and it'll never get played on the radio." Despite that, the first single Stripped is something of a Depeche Mode landmark single. Do you recall a worry about the apparent lack of singles at the time?

GJ: Not really. I remember that Stripped was the first time that we invited Neil Ferris (the band's radio and TV plugger) into the studio to hear the song. Daniel insisted that only mastered tracks were played to anyone outside the core studio team. You only have one chance to make a first impression, and Daniel was keen to ensure that impression was excellent. A lot of the time, the work we were doing was under wraps and it would only be played to the record company and P.R. team once it was mixed and mastered. The video director might hear it earlier than that though. Anyway, I remember Neil being invited down to the studio to hear Stripped. We tried to make it as exciting as possible. We sat him down in the middle of the speakers, turned the lights down and the volume up and said "Right Neil - listen to this." We wanted to make it a special moment. It was a wonderful and powerful step in the start of the marketing of the album campaign because, in that situation, Neil just totally got it. I don't recall Daniel saying there were no singles. As label boss, he understood the importance of singles much more than I did but throughout the sessions, we were focused on making an album as a whole, not singles. The singles were obviously important, and when a song was picked as a single, it would get a special focus and we'd spend a bit longer on production and mixing it. I felt very strongly that Black Celebration was an album though and it works best as that. It flows from beginning to end, moving through a set of moods. It all belongs together.

APA: One thing the first two Berlin albums are well known for is sampling and use of found sounds. It seems to me that there's less obvious sampling in Black Celebration - there's certainly less metal bashing. Was there less sampling overall?

GJ: Not really no. We built on our experience as a sampling team and used the more modern technology to use sampling in a way that devoted it to the mood of the album and songs, we used polyphonic high quality samplers, so we were much more sophisticated. Sampling was still very much used though - we were definitely trying to make things as weird as possible! When we sampled, we made sure we didn't use anyone else's music, and that was adhered to even in this track where we had the idea of sampling Sir Winston Churchill. We wanted to use his "A brief period of rejoicing" quote on the title track as we loved that idea of a brief moment of rejoicing. We didn't use his voice though - instead Daniel said the words, we processed his performance  and we used that instead. That's how determined we were not to use anyone else's work! We all loved hip hop but we didn't want to sample in that way - we didn't want to collage other people's work and drop it into Martin's songs. We used samplers to grab real sounds from the real world to make sure our samples were original.

Depeche Mode, Hansa studios 

APA: Fly On The Windscreen is one track where a number of sampled sounds are used

GJ: Yeah it is. (At this point, Gareth started playing FOTW in his studio and picking out individual tracks and sounds. I was listening to the track with the man who produced it. Incredible!) In this track, you can hear a rather young sounding Daniel again saying "over and done with." The breath sample noise at the start is interesting too. I can't remember who it was - really it could have been anyone. Depeche had an interesting philosophy and working practice at the time. Because they were an electronic group, the work on the tracks was collaborative. It didn't matter who made or found a noise as it was just an element of the piece. Someone would find a sound, someone would record it, someone else would sample it, someone would trigger it, someone would add an effect and someone would use it in an arrangement. It didn't matter who did what or who made what noise as we were all sculpting the same sonic world. There were no egos as such.

APA: I think most Depeche fans have a real affection for Black Celebration as a whole, and Fly On The Windscreen is one track that I think stands out. Was it an obvious choice for the album even though it had already been used as a b-side on It's Called A Heart?

GJ: Definitely. Lyrically it's an obvious fit because of its message of doom or mortality. Perhaps Martin was coming to terms with mortality as a songwriter on this album. He was in his mid 20's when he wrote these songs. Despite being a young man at that point, he was definitely embracing mortality. That's where Fly On The Windscreen fits - it's a bit bleak really! It's a realistic track though and does have positive elements. Martin was developing as a spiritual being and he was expressing uplifting sentiments mixed with his own sense of mortality.

APA; You mentioned egos earlier. One thing that strikes me about this album is the fact that four of its eleven songs are sung by Martin which is the highest proportion of Martin songs on any Depeche record. Was that hard for Dave and was there a reason for so many tracks having a Martin lead vocal?

GJ: To me, it didn't matter who sung the songs as all that was important was whether or not the song fitted the album. As I recall, it was clear which songs were to be sung by Dave and which were to be sung by Martin. It wasn't like Dave tried to sing the tracks then people thought they'd sound better with Martin or vice versa. I know that there was an image issue though, a connection issue. There was an importance attached to having one voice lead the project, connecting the band to the public. That was discussed both before Black Celebration and subsequently. There's a sense in which the band having only one voice connects better. The public hear Dave's voice and know it's Depeche Mode. I recall it being an issue, but Black Celebration was so experimental, almost the pinnacle of the experimental pop we were working on at the time, that it didn't involve any great discussion. All we wanted was a song that fitted the album.

APA: Aside from the album, there are some superb b-sides from that period too. Breathing In Fumes is a particular favourite of mine. Was that an exciting track to work on?

GJ: Let's have a listen. (Gareth started playing the track. Again, this was superb). Yeah that sounds like me. We worked on that in Hansa as I recall. It's our remix of Stripped. You'd have the single version of that track, Flood's Highland Mix of the track and this was our own 12" mix of some kind. Because Flood had prepared what we'd have called the Extended Mix, we did our own experimental thing. We used to love making the extended versions - they were the days of the great extended remix. I've actually just done some extended remixes for New Order's new album - like me, and like Depeche, they love that format. On Breathing In Fumes we were definitely being more experimental than on, say, our extended remixes of People Are People and Master & Servant.

APA: Those two remixes are special too aren't they? They're timeless

GJ: Yeah we loved making them - it was superb fun. We didn't ever start those mixes until we'd finished the mix for the single version. We worked on making the 7" version sound good for the radio, finished it and then found ourselves freed from the constraints of making a three and a half minute track designed for radio play. Psychologically, there was a huge sense of achievement and relief you know - like "Great - AT LAST!" The next day, we'd come into the studio and everything would still be set up and start the 12" version. There would be a great creative relief and outpouring. Everyone would take risks and you'd just fuck about thinking "Turn up the drums! Put more effects on the vocals!" and so on. There was sense of freedom and fun and that playfulness clearly comes across in those extended versions and massive tape editing of course.

APA; A key element of the album, and indeed of the whole Berlin trilogy, is Hansa itself. Why was that studio important?

GJ: The band, me and Daniel always loved Berlin. I was living there at the time and I loved the place. The band really enjoyed Hansa and its atmosphere too. There's no doubt that the place you make a record actually affects how the record sounds. At the time, Berlin was very bleak and the area around Hansa was a bombsite. Perhaps that dark and bleak atmosphere helped shape the record. Obviously the fact that were able to rent the mixing room and the big hall at a reasonable costs was a factor too. West Germany was an important country for Depeche at the time as well as they'd had a huge number one there with People Are People in 1984. Their popularity in that country helped feed the creative energy. Don't forget that we also felt like we were following in the footsteps of our heroes from German electronic music and Krautrock. All those things added up to make Hansa special for us. We were in the right place at the right time really.

APA: Did Hansa's own space and equipment bring anything particular to the record?

GJ: Yeah definitely. We wired the whole place for sound basically. I got twenty four tie lines in between the studio upstairs and the big hall so that we could use the hall to record in. There are lots of natural reverbs on the album and the hall was used a lot for that. Black Celebration is drenched in reverb, drowned perhaps! We had this idea that reverb equaled atmosphere. We were moving away from the pure Kraftwerk or early Human League electronic sounds where all the synths were DI'd. We had the idea that what got the girls was atmosphere, and because we decided that atmosphere WAS reverb - the more there was, the better it was going to be! I was always fascinated by a sense of place in music - the difference between a synth plugged directly into a speaker and plugged into amps and using big acoustic spaces. Depeche Mode loved the idea of experimenting this way so I was fortunate enough to be able to develop that idea with them. By the time we got to Black Celebration, we'd gone nuts on reverb! We were trying to get to that 3rd dimension. You have left and right speakers and we tried to get that third place where the sound just goes back. We were constructing our own synthetic world and we wanted the songs to have depth that echoed behind the speakers, with the sense of things happening far away in the soundfield. Hansa was really important in that it allowed us to do that and the studio was key in making this profound album.

APA: Finally, looking back at Black Celebration, what do you consider is its legacy? Do you think it was an album Depeche Mode had to make to take the next step towards becoming one of the biggest bands in the world?

GJ: The only way we can understand life is by looking back and decoding it. At the time we're doing stuff, we're driven by our subconscious and it's only years later we can perhaps understand and say "Oh yeah, that's why we did that." Black Celebration was clearly a milestone in all of our collaborative, creative work together. It's the end of a road, as well as the end of the Berlin period. I've worked with the band since then obviously, but not quite in the same way. It was the start of a new phase and the end of an era. It was clearly a very important album and the band felt it was a deeply spiritual piece. It was almost like "Is this too spooky? Is it too dark? Can we do this?" They pushed their own envelope as far as they could sonically and song-writing wise which is fantastic. The broke new boundaries with that album and they continued to do that in much of their subsequent work. Back then of course, bands were given time and encouragement to develop unlike today. Depeche were so talented and creative when we worked together in Berlin. Black Celebration was the pinnacle of that and it is still a wonderful album, one I am delighted and proud to have been a small part of.

Thanks so much to Gareth for taking the time to speak to me. It was a real honour and a genuinely wonderful experience. Keep an eye on Gareth's Twitter for all the information on what he's up to - he's still involved in producing loads of great music so you're bound to find something you're going to love.

To find out what else is on during the Month Long Period Of Rejoicing click here http://almostpredictablealmost1.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/let-have-black-celebration.html

(c) David McElroy and Almost Predictable Almost. This interview is not to be reproduced without permission.

A GUEST BLACK CELEBRATION #1: AIDAN BERRY

Over the course of this month, there will be a few guest posts to give you a rest from me. I've asked a few fans to share their Black Celebration experience to try and give a few different perspectives on the album. The first of these is from Aidan Berry, a lifelong Depeche Mode fan who lives in North Shields in the North East of England. As well as being a Depeche collector, he's also seen them live several times, including their gig at the wonderfully named Whitley Bay Ice Rink on the Music For The Masses tour. By the time Black Celebration was released, Aidan was a fully fledged Devotee and he recalls the excitement of the day Depeche released their masterpiece back in 1986. I think we can all relate to this post - the feeling of anticipation caused by a new Depeche album still thrills me to this day and I'm no doubt far too old to be reacting like that. This is a great read and one I know you're going to enjoy.

Monday 17th March 1986.

What does a 17 year old lad who had bought every Depeche Mode single, 12 inch and album do when he gets only two weeks' notification of their upcoming album? What does that lad do? He does nothing! Absolutely nothing! His beautiful girlfriend, his family, his schoolwork, his friends his social life - not one part of them are meaningful during this next three week period. Three weeks you say, but the album is out in 2; well that lad needs a whole week uninterrupted with this album!

Who knows how I made it through the two weeks in a constant blur of anticipation and wondering? My mind raced endlessly. What will the cover art be like? Will the band still be my band and the music so wonderfully brilliant, weird and quirky. Will they still be the band sailing under the radar? All questions doing the ear worm through my head but not as important as the need to hold the album, hear it and devour its layers and rhythms. 

So the day arrived and what do I do? Unfortunately I have to go to school.  I sweat and wait and wait and sweat until 4 p.m. when I sprint to the bus for the 7 mile journey into Newcastle and W. H. Smiths, the place I bought all my Depeche Mode records from. My whole day has been building up to this moment, much the same as the previous two week had been, from the second I'd read about a new Depeche Mode album and its release date.

I make it to the bus but will the bus deliver me across the 7 miles through traffic in time to get to W. H. Smith before closing time at 5:30? Get out of the way cars and buses, take your lives elsewhere for this journey, don't you know I have a Depeche Mode album to buy?

What a long journey it turns out to be but we make it thanks to the skill of the driver. W. H. Smith is a short sprint from the bus stop but my trip is fraught with danger. Have I remembered to bring my cash? I make a couple of checks to ensure I have my it with me. All is well.  Martin and the boys are within reaching distance.

I go into the shop.

IT'S NOT THERE, It's not under D for Depeche Mode and it's not under B for Black Celebration. No!

Wait. IT IS THERE. There's a special stand at the end of the vinyl section. I grab the record. It looks excellent. Depeche Mode. My Depeche Mode. Now it is mine.

Relax, breathe and get home. Oh shit - I still have to go to work.  Ah well, at least it means I will be able to afford the tickets for the forthcoming gigs. I rush through my work in record time -  shelves filled, pallets emptied, boxes crushed - and at last I get the bus home.

It is my dinner time but who needs food? Depeche Mode are more important. I go into the house and greet the parents nonchalantly. Who knows what they said to me? I wasn't listening. My girlfriend called - I tell her I will see her tomorrow. She may be beautiful and amazing but this is Depeche Mode. 

Upstairs, bedroom and turntable. I play it once and record it to tape. That will do for now, but my stereo is a poor quality set up. The vinyl will only get played once more - that will be at my sister's house at the weekend. I want to record it to a good quality tape on her expensive setup so that I can savour every second of it.

And how is this long anticipated record?  You know the answer to that....

Follow Aidan on Twitter - https://twitter.com/aapierre