“Depeche Mode”
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You know what I started doing during the day is watching Deal or No Deal. Remember that show? Deal or No Deal. Is that the one where it's like a Plinko machine? Open the cases. No, Sean, remind me what happened. So the libraries all ran out of books. Ha ha.

And so you found yourself with a few extra hours to start watching daytime. This is the suitcase one. So this is on a game show network or something? Yes, it's on a game show network. That's exactly right. Right. So you're just crushing great ideas during the day and then doing theater at night? No, I can't, you know, text and type because I want to save my hands because I play piano on the show. And so I...

I watched some games while I had my breakfast. So I watched Deal and Other. Remember that show? Yeah, of course. What does breakfast look like these days right now when you're in production? Let me guess. Jason, go first. It's eggs benedict because that's a breakfast with a sauce. There used to be a sauce on every meal. Okay, let me have a guess.

It's kind of like a sausage muffin thing, but instead of like an English muffin, the sides are donuts. Cut in half like a bagel? Yeah. By the way, that sounds amazing. The sausage is just loose, good in plenties, you know, the licorice.

Instead of, yeah, at a restaurant, instead of like that pepper grinder, they go, good and plenty? Yeah. And they just squeeze it out. Sean, remember that huge, Sean, remember that photo of you and me and Scotty with that huge pepper grinder? We were in Istanbul and the guy came over, you know, they come over and they go like, would you like some pepper? I can't hear about, I can't hear about the European vacations anymore with you guys. That was only, that was the second European trip we did. So anyway, so Sean and I are there and the guy comes up, you know, they come up and they go, would you like some pepper? Who was your date, Will? Um,

Who was my date? Well, it doesn't matter. I could have been your date. We don't need to get into...

Every time we mention somebody now on the podcast, that person's like, I got 30 phone calls. I know. So anyway, you know the guy comes up and they go, you want some fresh pepper? And they go, yeah, let's get some fresh pepper. Give us a Turkish accent, Will. And this guy, no, and this guy, you think I'm going to have to write a fucking... Your mystery guest is laughing. A notes apology that I got to post. His mic is hot. It's a male. I got to post on my Instagram a notes apology because you prompted me to do an accent of the guy who was my server in Istanbul. No, thank you.

So anyway, he goes, would you like some pepper? And I'm not exaggerating. The pepper shaker was four feet long. And two guys came out to hold it. And two guys to hold it. That sounds like my big bong years back in my early 20s. Yeah, that used to be on my dating profile. It takes two guys to hold it. Listen, I have a...

All right, so listen. Your guest is still laughing. I know. That's a good sign. It's a good sign. Wait, but you guys, I texted you one of those comments. Did I text you both? The comment was like a week ago and somebody wrote about my show. No. They said... Didn't you get that, Jay? The fat suit. They...

Yeah, another fucking fat suit thing. Wait, whoa, whoa, whoa. Somebody made a comment that Sean Hayes is wearing a fat suit in his play? No, somebody asked me on my Instagram or somewhere, Twitter, I don't remember. And it was, Sean, did they...

Is the outfit that they put you in supposed to make you look bigger, which is code for fatter? Right. And I'm just fucking fat. And tell them what your friend said you should say. No, it's supposed to make me look thinner. Why? By the way, Sean, it reminded me. I was watching. I was thinking about your dating profile reminded me I was watching Alone, that show, right? And it reminded me of something that they say in that all the time, which is also in your dating profile, which is, hey, bear.

Hey, Bear. Hey, Bear. What's up, Bear? Now, Will, you know, shameless plug here. I know you have your new show. Yeah, have you not watched Outlast yet? Oh, no, I want to see that. I haven't seen it yet. Well, come on. I know, I'm going to watch it. Sean, it sounds like you've got time on your hands. Maybe instead of Deal or No Deal. No, no, no, man. Are you kidding? Dude, there's 11 seasons of Deal or No Deal he's going to get through.

What was for breakfast, by the way? I had, yesterday I had egg cheese. We don't need the full week. A cheese, egg, and bacon bagel. And then today I did good. I did yogurt with grape nuts and blueberries. And a banana.

And a little bit of a candy bar. God, there's so much. Wait, was the candy bar like a fun dip for the yogurt? No, it was a payday. You call that the equalizer, right? Just to cancel out everything else. Time for the equalizer. It was half a payday. Hey, listen. I'm not going to batter with you. You want to talk about a payday? Our guests. Segway, segway, segway. Our guests. Let me just say this. They've sold more than 100 million records worldwide.

Wait a minute. 54 songs in the UK singles chart, 17 top 10 albums in the UK chart. If I name a song, you're going to, I don't know...

you're going to immediately guess. They're incredibly, incredibly talented guys who have been just such a huge part of the music scene for so long. I don't want to say so many years because then they're going to be bummed out and be like, what? That makes us old. But I will say this. We are all legitimate fans of theirs. None more than Sean and me. Sean and I have discussed these guys all the time. It's Martin Gore and Dave Gunn from Depeche Mode. Are you fucking kidding me? Wow.

This is fucking crazy. A real booking. This is a legit booking. Crazy. This is like, I got, ready? Can I go? Dave, hang on. Dave and Martin, you should know. Nice to meet you, both of you gentlemen, by the way. This is unbelievable. Such an honor. Thank you. Pleasure. Thank you.

Sean and I, when I knew that... And we've been sort of trying to work this out to get you guys on here. And Sean and I talk about you guys all the time. And we talk about your music and we talk about your songs. And about... Sean, do you remember about a month ago when we were talking about you guys and we were going to... And I knew that it was going to happen. And it took... It was one of the worst...

It was the hardest I've ever had to work to keep a secret in my life. Oh, you knew. I knew, Sean, when we had that conversation. You guys, I'm freaking out. I have 17,000 things to say to you. We got time, Sean. We got nothing but time, actually. You said we have nothing but time. Of course, Amy, you go, it's just a question of time.

I know every word to every song. Every word to every song. This is so wild. And I have to do this for you guys because... Okay, so I'm going to start out with this. Martin... I've never seen John's... John is not excited. I'm freaking out. So Martin, you came to a taping of Will & Grace.

That is true, I did. Yes. What? What if he didn't remember that? I've been trying to keep that quiet for years. He's a massive fan. That's news to Dave, I love it. So wait, so you came to a taping of Will & Grace.

And somebody whispered in my ear, you're Martin Gores in the audience. I'm like, what are you talking about Martin Gores in the audience? Depeche Mode is like my life. What are you talking about? And then you were there with your wife and your wife's friends or something like that. And then you asked, let's go out to grab some fish and chips at the Standard Hotel on Sunset Boulevard. And I was like, oh my God, I'm going to go out for fish and chips.

Fish and chips? I've never had fish and chips. This is so exciting. So we go out for fish and chips. And I'm walking down the street with you, which was so surreal to me. And I did this bit for you, which is waiting for the night off a violator. And I'll do it for you now, which is... Wait. Wait for it. It will cut out the long part. Because this is what I used to do in college. Here it comes. This is it. This is coming up.

And I wrote my fucking senior thesis paper on this song. Come on. In college. Wow. Swear to God. Here we go. Here we go. This is it. You're taking off the glasses. This is... Uh-oh. Am I like that? Because it sounded like a bug. Right on my forehead. I'm like...

I've never thought of that as sounding like a bug, but now that you have given me that visual, when we perform that song every night, I will be thinking of you. Time to reshoot the video. So Dave and Martin, how do you guys respond to, Sean Hayes has just boiled your music down to sounding like a bug.

Oh my God, this is unbelievable. Guys, so we, again, like, you know, not to belabor it, but we talk about you guys all the time, such massive fans of your music and have been all the way through. And we've had the good fortune of having bands on the show who have played important parts of our lives, but there are a few bands like you guys who have been there consistently over time.

And that is also the mark of real greatness, is showing consistency over time. And you're still doing it. And so I kind of want to go back to the very beginning, if I may, and not to bore you, because we're so interested to hear about...

how Depeche Mode came to be, and each one of you, I know that you each have a different journey as how you became part of Depeche Mode, and I'd love to sort of hear from you guys what that process was. Shaking right now. Well, Vince and Andy really started the whole thing. They had like a little band going, and I bought a synthesizer, so that kind of like got me in the band.

By the way, that's a very common theme. We've interviewed a bunch of bands and they're always like, I had a guitar, I had a camera, whatever. Well, there's a lot to do with that because what we found out, and I'll elaborate on this, but you didn't need the amp anymore and you could just DI straight into a PA system, carry the little synth under your arm pretty much to a gig. Wow.

and show up with our little drum machine and three simps and kind of

on some beer crates in a pub or whatever as our stands and we could play, you know. And Dave, did you know these guys when they first started or did you meet them a little bit later? Well, they were sort of infamous in the town that we grew up in for other things. But I did not really run in the same circles. But it was a good thing for me because they sort of, you know, it gave me suddenly a focus that...

I had something to kind of grab hold of and maybe it was a way out of the town that we grew up in. And they, yeah, I think how we met properly was I was sort of hanging out with another band, right, Mark? Yeah, yeah. And we were just rehearsing in the same space and one evening, and I knew Vince a bit better,

We were singing, sort of jamming together the song Heroes, a Bowie song. I love it. Vince heard me singing the song, supposedly, the story goes, and asked me to join his band, which was then a different band, which Martin was in. What was the name of that band? Composition of Sound.

What an amazing name. For sure. Coz. Coz, for sure. Coz. Like OMD, you know, they were trying to be like OMD. Right, right. But meanwhile, it sounds like a manual that you find in a music story. I was like, that's got to go. And I got such a, I got a better name, Depeche Mode, which everybody also went like, what?

And they still do that. But let's talk about that because in French it's fast fashion. So why fast fashion? I'll tell you this story. Look, I was at a shitty sort of art college as we all were at one point. And...

I was doing a fashion course there and there was magazines there. I think it was something like we had a gig somewhere, we were thinking about changing the name, we had a little pub gig coming up and this was the moment to change the name. So what should it be? And I saw this magazine, it was a French sort of magazine, French publication.

fashion magazine lying there had the name and I had no idea what it meant or anything. I just read it out over the phone to somebody who said, oh, we're in depression mode. That's a weird name. And I was like, yes, it is. Did it put more pressure on you guys to come up with fancy outfits?

No, we were already trying that. Most of them homemade at that point, you know, so, you know, it would be a pair of football socks with, like, you know, like up to the knees, you know, pulled up to the knees with some cut-offs, like, to the knees and tuck them in. And some house slippers. To make them look, you know, some house slippers that were cut off. Sean is fully around. Yeah. So...

So tell me, so then, so you guys formed, so Dave, so you joined and then you name it and you guys call yourself Depeche Mode. You start doing gigs. Yeah. How many, before you, your first record is Speak and Spell, yeah? Yeah. Yes, yes. Everywhere to every song. Yeah, I mean, Speak and Spell, yeah, and I want to get into that in a second and into Vince, Clark, and, but what was...

Before you released Speak and Spell, how does that come about that you guys get that record deal? Like, what are you doing? Where are you performing? Yeah. We were playing most of the songs from that record, with mostly Vince Clark songs. It's really the one album that, because Vince left immediately after that album was released. And Dave, he sang on that album. Before it was released, yeah.

Oh, really? Before it was released. But he sang on that record too, yeah? Well, we sang together. It was like sort of three-part harmony thing, sort of Beach Boy meets Ramones type thing we were going for, I guess. But the speed of the Ramones and the harmony of the Beach Boys, that was, I think, had Daniel Miller from Mute Records who signed us. He didn't really sign us, though. It was just a sort of handshake. We never actually signed the contract. Really? Yeah.

Is that where the song, The Handshake, is a contract? Martin wrote that song and he was probably just angry at everybody at that point. Music business and being ripped off again and again and again. So this guy from Ute Records, he sees you, what, in a pub or you're playing clubs? Yes, in a pub.

We supported one of his other acts called Fad Gadget at a pub called The Bridge House. Fad Gadget. You've got to check out Fad Gadget. You guys are going to like Fad Gadget. Great music. Really? Yes. I'm actually going to write it down now that you say that. Fad, F-A-D...

G-A-D-E-T. G-A-D-G-E-T. Legitimately. Martin went to school, I did not. Oh, well then you're going to, I mean, Jason, anything? Nothing. Okay. So Daniel saw us supporting Fad Gadget with our synths set up on, by that time we'd gone to all synths. We started off with a bass and a guitar in the band, but we'd gone to all synths and we had them set up on our beer crates.

And Daniel was impressed. Yeah, he was. We played really fast and his story goes he was mixing a sound for Faggot. It's a little pub in the east end of London called The Bridge House in Canning Town. And...

We had a residency there on Thursday nights. Even though nobody would be there, there'd be two people and a dog most of the time. As Depeche Mode. Yeah, as Depeche Mode. And the guy that ran the pub, he took a shine to us and let us play there Thursday nights. But anyway, so we got this support, which was a big thing because we loved Fad Gadget. That's so rude.

Jason loves that. You've got to check out Fad Gadget. So you go and you support these guys, and then this dude from Mute Records is like, yeah, the guys who are supporting Fad Gadget are pretty good. We actually had met him before. Vince and I had trailed around all the record companies, and we had gone to Rough Trade Records in London thinking that we had made this masterful demo that they were going to sign us immediately because we actually had Melody, and most of their other bands at that time did not. They were just noise.

And we thought, they're going to sign us immediately. And the guy that ran the record company, Scott, he was not really interested, but he listened to our tape and

And while he was listening to the tape, Daniel Miller happened to walk into the office because Fad Gadget was being distributed by Rough Trade at the time. And he was shouting about something. He'd gone in a record store and there was no records in there or something. So Scott shouted out, you know, Daniel, you should listen to this. Maybe this is something you might be interested in. He kind of growled a bit, looked over at me and Vince sitting there and just bleh.

you know and walked out and we were like well fuck him that's Daniel Miller from Mute Records he knows we walked out of there and this was I guess so the chance the next chance meeting when we were opening for Fab Gadget um

was mixing the sound and he came back afterwards and started talking to me actually because he thought I'd written the songs because I was singing them and I said and he asked me some questions and then he you write the songs I was like no that bloke over there does and that was Vince and so he left me of course and went off and talked to Vince and I

After that night, he said, can I come back? And I think we said we were playing next Thursday. He did, and he came back, and he asked if we wanted to make a 45. Wow. A single, which is, yeah. That's like 1981. Mark, is that correct, Mark? Is that kind of correct? Yeah, that is correct, yeah. Does that check out? It was a 45.

It was a 45 then. We called them a single. It was a 47-inch single, a 45. And he said, I've got enough money to do that. We don't have to sign any contracts or anything. So that's like 1980, 81 probably. That was 1980 and Daniel is still involved with us today.

No kidding. First of all, that's incredible that you have that kind of long-lasting relationship. So it's 1980, and what were you... You guys write this record. What were you listening to at the time that you wrote that in 1980? Yeah, I was going to say the same thing. What were you listening to, and also were you...

Did you think back then you were following a trend like where the music business is going into synth pop and maybe we should do that? Or was that truly a genuine love? It hadn't really started yet, had it? We were fans of Mute Records. Yeah. Yeah.

So, you know, the fact that Daniel was offering us a one-off single deal, that was amazing to us. But who were the bands that were, at that time, that you were playing on your tape cassettes? Well, like Fad Gadget. I mean, Daniel also, for a while, had...

Daft, Deutsche Amerikanische Freundschaft. Check them out as well. Yeah. DAF. DAF. They sing in German, but... The Normal. Yeah, The Normal was Daniel himself. Warm Leatherette, you must know that track. You must know that song. Grace Jones made it famous, I guess. I don't know if she covered it. I was just listening to, this afternoon, this morning, I was just listening to Trio, um,

Do you remember the da-da-da? The da-da-da, yeah. Yeah, that they made on the little Casio. I was just listening to that and I was listening to some Blanche and I was listening to... Yeah. Blanche played with us a lot. In fact, there was an album at the time called Some Bizarre Album. It was by this guy who put it together. His name was Steve-O. And he put together... Actually, our first recording that came out was on that record. It was a song called Photographic, which was on Speak and Spell too. But we were part of that album. And on that album, there was anyone from...

an early track from Soft Cell. Oh, yeah. From Blumange. Yeah. From Us. Who was it, Mark? The, The. The, The. Oh, man. So it was a compilation called Some Bizarre Album. And so a lot of those acts after that got subbed.

Well, that was-- You guys kind of were right at the forefront of that to me musically. The-- You know, listening to the special-- -Great band. -Great band. That first-- You know, "This Is The Day" is still just such an anthem. It reminds me of getting my first cool haircut when I was 12. And then-- But listening to that, you know, listening to you guys, listening to-- And then Vince, of course, went on to form in the UK known as Yazoo and America known as Yaz.

with Alison Moyet and then he went off with Andy Bell and formed Razor as well but

But you guys were right there at the forefront of all of that. And I always wondered, like, well, these are bands that not a lot of people know, but you guys weren't listening to... It was post-punk. You've got to remember, in England, it was coming out of the ashes of... It was over. Punk was over in England. Were you listening to Clash, though? Like, was that your thing? Well, there was the Pistols, the Clash, the Damned, Suzy and the Band. All these bands were kind of...

either evolving towards the end of like '77, '78 into whatever that was coming or they were kind of, it was over.

And we kind of, that do-it-yourself attitude, I think is what we bought into. Well, you guys had your own unique sound coming out of that in the same way sort of in the punk world that like Paul Weller and The Jam never really fit quite into the punk. Right. And then he ended up, of course, and you guys probably know him and he's amazing and went off and did Style Council. But in that same way that you guys kind of,

took from or were born out of a different era and then created your own genre in a way. I mean, not to put you on the spot, but because there weren't a lot of people who were making what you guys were doing. People just started doing, and I don't, like, Bronski beat, you know, they were doing stuff, but they came after you guys, like two years after Speak and Spell. Yeah, it's almost like we had Bono on and we were talking about how

you know, when all these pop stars like Madonna, Michael Jackson, all these other kind of like big pop stars and here comes Joshua Tree, this album that was so like, wait, what? It's so alternative. And then you guys came along, I think, in the same kind of way where it was just like, it was left of center from what everybody else was,

Back then. We didn't really fit in any of that stuff. Yeah, that's what I mean. It was like we always kind of were the odd one band out in that there was a wave of stuff that came, but we never quite fit. And I think that was a really good thing. And I think a lot of that was to do with Daniel Miller and his guidance in...

kind of allowing us to slowly, like, develop into what it was we wanted to be. And by the time we got to Black Celebration, I think we had kind of found, a bit before that, but we had found our own way, right, Mark? We'd sort of found... Yeah, it took us a while, yeah. Yeah. And we will be right back. And now, back to the show.

Martin, so Vince, as I alluded to, Vince leaves and goes with Alison Moye and goes and first does Yazoo. And Martin, did you, so then you started writing more because Vince had written, or were you guys equally writing? Or how did that happen that you sort of stepped into that position? Yeah.

I don't even mean to put it... I don't know how to... No. Yeah, I wrote a couple of songs on the first album. And, you know, because I was the only one who actually wrote songs when Vince left, I kind of had to do it. Right. It was just like we were like...

And Daniel literally was like, does anybody else write songs? Because your writer has left. And we were like, does that mean it's over? And his mind was like, I've got a couple of songs. Well, I was lucky. The album was a very weird collection of songs because some of them I wrote when I was 16.

you know and then you know some of them i was making up in the studio when we were you know when we were trying to like finish the album which album black salvation you mean a broken frame a broken frame sorry a broken frame okay so what was the what was the after he left and you were and you stepped into that role uh as dave says because everybody else was looking around going who the is gonna do this what was the first

when you started writing, what was the first sort of like big hit that you wrote and everybody's like, ah, fuck yeah, Martin, well done, man. It was straight away, actually. First thing we recorded was See You and then we released that as a single and that was a massive hit, so. Wow. We actually went the highest, we'd gone in the charts and then we went to number six was a big thing and Martin had this new synthesizer called the

So we didn't use much equipment in the studio. It was like a few pieces. Daniel had a couple of pieces of electronic stuff. And so you kind of were very... And there was no sampling then. There was no, you know... It wasn't like... Now you just kind of like... It's almost too much. But we picked... We had these few pieces. So this one synthesizer...

dominated the sort of sound, I would say, right, Mark? Of that song in particular. And it was a good song. It was a great pop song. It was like sort of Everly Brothers song or something. We, you know...

went on TV and it was a big hit. I think it was more Herman's Hermits. - ♪ Mrs. Brown, you've got a lovely daughter ♪ - I was gonna say The Beatles, but I thought that was too fast. Give us a break, we were young. My grandparents used to have a Herman's Hermits record for some reason and we used to play it when we were kids. Do you remember that Mrs. Brown, You've Got a Lovely Daughter? - Yes. - Yeah.

You gotta remember, I was only 10 when this was happening. Are you guys so shocked that your song Just Can't Get Enough is used everywhere, always, all the time? It could be anything. It's a tampon ad. It's in the cocaine bear. It's like, you know, come on. It is. It's amazing. It fits everywhere. Yeah, it does. It's...

I mean, of all your songs, I really do know probably every word to every song. And I'm like, that's the song everybody plays everywhere? I know. Wait, what? You know, it's funny. When Vince wrote that song, I think we were... The first publisher that he had, we were at the offices, and I think Rod Buckle, remember, Mark? I seem to remember him saying... He said something like this to the rest of us. We were sitting on the couch, all kind of squashed together, and he looked at Vince, and he said, you know...

He said, he is going to be driving a Rolls Royce while you three are on the tandem. And we were like, you know, on the bicycle. You know, like, we were like, why? And we all signed this deal. I think he gave us 100 quid each for, like, to sign our publishing. He did. Really? So we were like, he's given us 100 quid for nothing. You know what I'm saying?

signed some deal. We can buy a tandem for that. Yeah, we will buy that tandem. But Vince, you know, he told Vince, you know, you'll be driving in a Rolls Royce. And he said, this song is going to continue, like forever. It's going to be there. And we were just kind of like,

I don't think so. But yeah. But we were very impressed because he took us out for lunch and Errol Brown from Hot Chocolate was in the same restaurant. Yes, that's right. I remember that. Do you remember the band Hot Chocolate? No. You guys are two years. I believe in you.

Oh, yeah. Hot chocolate, they were called. We were like, holy shit, there's Errol Brown from Hot Chocolate. So you have some hits in the UK, obviously. What was your first recognition in the U.S. that you knew that people were listening to the band in the U.S.?

Well, I think that Just Can't Get Enough did get some underground play, like obviously club play and stuff like that. But I think the first radio thing was probably People Are People. Yeah, it was huge. And it was still like really underground. It was... We were never really...

played on mainstream radio. Right. And then talk about, first of all, just a sidebar, I used to get, I look exactly like Dave Gahan all the time in college. People are like, you look just like Dave Gahan. I could see that. Oh, yeah. Wow. Wow, you could. You're better looking though. You got better cheeks. No, no, no. The Rose Bowl, wasn't that just life, career changing when you sold out the Rose Bowl to everybody? That was later. It was a very happy accident, to be honest. It was.

It was. It was. But it blew everybody's mind. I remember the press was like, wait, what? 60,000. It blew our minds. I mean, we were not prepared, really. It was one of those things that I think it was suggested to us that we could do this at the end of that particular tour, Music for the Masses tour, a big show somewhere where all the fans would travel, like in a Grateful Dead way. Like we kind of had that kind of following. And they did.

There was people in it, but we ended up doing it, and D.A. Pennybaker filmed the whole thing for us, which was also kind of iconic to be now looking back. I see pictures from then. I see Penny's not with us anymore, but...

We used to think he was extremely old. Like when we were on that tour and he was, you know, documenting the whole thing with us. He was like this old guy. We used to sort of like help him around the stage, you know. Be careful with that 35mm. You're going to fall over, dude. But he was like maybe 50. I don't know. And we were like, he's so old.

old like this guy who's this guy and he was just amazed with what he was amazed with not really the music or anything it was the the scale it was just it was the fans it was kind of like the fandom yeah it was the fandom it was like the cult of of of the following that we had why are they obsessed with this band and

And still to this day, there is that same, we carry that same, it's like the church of Depeche Mode or something. Yeah. Does that feel heavy sometimes? Or is it something that changes your relationship to it? Does it kind of shift? No, I mean, one thing I've realized recently, though, is I'm a big soccer fan.

And, you know, soccer fans always think, you know, they know better than the manager of the team they support. Oh, yeah. We get that. So our fans, like, you go on any of the forums, you know, all of our fans, you know, they're always complaining. They're never happy with what we do. They're basically Arsenal supporters, like Martin. Yeah.

Wait, Martin, are you an Arsenal supporter? I am. So you're from, did you grow up in North London then? No, East London. I should have been a West Ham. I thought you were going to be West Ham. Yeah, I should have been a West Ham supporter, but no. You know, you just, you make a decision when you're like nine or ten, don't you? And you stick with it. You can't change.

Where we came from, it was like Arsenal, West Ham or Chelsea, basically. Yeah, that was kind of like... Dave, are you a football supporter? I was a Chelsea fan. Oh, really? And I stopped going to Chelsea after getting a total beating, actually, at Arsenal, away at Arsenal. I got chased down the street by a bunch of Arsenal fans. Ended up rolling underneath a car to escape death.

I just got such a beating. I think I was about 15 or so. It was the last time I went to a football game. I led them away, by the way. You finally led them away. Martin's done that a few times for me, by the way. You showed them where he was at first and then you're like, this is too much. I just read this book by this writer, Bill Buford, called Among the Thugs, which is about, I don't know if you've read that. Yeah, that was it. The Chelsea crew were called the Crazy Gang. And it was basically people went to soccer to fight. That was kind of what it was. It was,

there was this huge and it got scary it got really it got really to the point where it was very dangerous there's a movie that Gary Oldham's in actually The Firm The Firm I've seen it that's very much what it was

About the West Ham supporters, about those... It was Chelsea supporters and West Ham supporters, I think. Millwall, too, like Millwall. Oh, Millwall, that's tough, that's tough. Hey, guys, where did the... I just remember always being so taken by the mood you guys set with your music and also just your stagecraft. The whole aesthetic of the band, it is so...

sort of, I don't know what the right term would be, dramatic, cinematic. Yeah, but I mean, I don't remember that anybody blazing a trail before you guys in that world. There's many, many sort of people that try to replicate that since then, for sure. But where did that come from? Was that deliberate or was it just kind of where you guys were at? Were you inspired by something?

I think we were lucky when we wrote Black Celebration that we got involved with Anton Corbin. Ah.

who became the visual head for the band. Who's that? I'm an idiot. He's an incredible director. He directs a lot of videos, yeah. But he's a film director. He's a very tall Dutch man. He started out as a photographer. Okay. But he makes films now. For the NME, New Musical Express in London, he got to be the front cover guy.

that would do the covers of that paper. And it'd always be like this amazing photograph of Joy Division or Echo and the Bunnymen or Susie Sue from the Banshees. And that always were Anton's shots. So the chances of us kind of at that time

working with Anton, we're pretty slim, but we got... The first time we worked with him, I think it was 81, actually, and then we didn't work with him again until, what, 85, Mark? 86, Black Celebration, yeah. 81, we got the cover of the NME, and Anton was shooting it. He had to shoot us. He had to shoot us. I don't think he really wanted to, because he was very cool, and we weren't, and, you know...

I mean, we were trying to be cool, but... And did he style that shoot in such a way that you guys sort of borrowed from and adopted going forward? I think it sort of began there, even though we weren't probably aware of it. But by the time we, like Martin said, by the time we got to Black Celebration, we had been working in Berlin...

Hansa Studios, the very famous iconic answer where Bowie had recorded and Iggy and various other people that we looked up to and were influenced by.

And, you know, I think that's where it really started for us. Martin had moved to Berlin as well for a short period of time there as well. And we started working there a lot. West Berlin. This was West Berlin as well when the wall was very much still up. And we used to work right, there was a studio called Hanser, it was right on the wall. So when you were on the balcony of the studio, you literally were looking over the wall and you'd see these soldiers, you know, sort of.

Hence Bowie's line in Heroes, but about the wall, I think. Heroes always reminds me of Christian F. Remember that film in West Berlin? It was on the soundtrack. That's a great film. Do you guys also, there's also, and I'm sorry for the dumb, dumb question, and you guys have probably answered this a billion times, but I don't know. Is there, why the religious undertones? So many of them.

I don't know, they just, it's spirituality, Brian. They both just started sweating. I've never been religious. I'm always searching. Aren't we all always searching? Yeah, sure. And then it's this, I feel often, especially when I'm singing Martin's words, there's this kind of also, sometimes it's like a,

It can be like an experience that when you're singing and sometimes you're kind of in a big place like we just did the garden or whatever, and certain gigs that you do, it's this sort of experience. It is like a sort of, I don't know, spiritual experience. It's something that's there. And it's also that I have a kind of disdain for it too. It feels like, you know...

a lot of bollocks as well at the same time I mean you even sort of take it I mean I've always loved Blasphemous Rumors because I just love that lyric I don't want to start any Blasphemous Rumors but I think that God's got a sixth sense of humor

And when I die, I expect to find him laughing. I've always been obsessed. People miss the comedy, see. They miss the comedy in what we do. They just sort of miss the humor from Martin and they miss the delivery from Dave. But, you know, it's all there. You've just got to look a little deeper.

The only reason I brought it up is because I love the comment and the cleverness of the language that you choose. It's really cool. But then it also did fit into, Jason, kind of what you were asking about into the aesthetic. The formative sort of, yeah. Yeah, it became...

And you get that. I think we like that. I think we're comfortable in that imagery. A bit of theater. Yeah, yeah. Well, what was it about the writing, though, Dave, that always sort of kind of presented a block for you? Because obviously you're a very intelligent man, know how to speak, know how to write, I'm sure, and tell stories and whatnot. But...

But when it comes to lyrics, is it, and Martin, I'm sure you can speak better to this too. Is there an attempt to tell a story when you write a lyric or just to set some poetry that then obviously the music comes later to fit that or vice versa? What was the thing that kept you away from it early on, Dave? Well, in the early days and also, you know, a lot, even now when we're singing a lot of these great songs that Martin's written,

they always change too. They change over the years depending what's going on in your life. They represent something different and they have memories, songs and memories, you know, and they're there and they're there also to develop new memories.

and have yet to come, you know. But I feel like if you really tap into a good song when you're writing and there's something, and it doesn't, you know, you kind of have to work at it sometimes, but sometimes if you really let go of control of the lyric or whatever and allow something to just...

you know it's a combination of things that might happen at the same time uh you could just follow the idea you know it's just allow it to just you know and other things you have to you have to kind of like you know move when we're working in the studio together for instance martin's you know is always right in the majority of the songs um

I try and create... I work with a song for a long time before I actually go to finally sing it. So I want to live with that song for a long time. And when I step up to the mic, I already know where I want to go with it. And it's always somewhere visual.

It's a visual voice. But the melody that perhaps you've written to go with it or chosen to go with it, I would imagine would inform what words work or what words don't work anymore. They serve each other. And a lot of the time it's about removing stuff. We did that a lot on this record. We sort of...

There's a lot of clutter that you automatically put in place because you think it's supposed to be there. But quite often it's removing things to allow a simple idea to really come through. All right, and I love like, you know...

almost all your melodies that you guys write are, you think it's going to go to the obvious one that the ear is familiar with and boonk, you take a left turn. That's mine. He'll take one of my songs, for instance, that we were working on, say a song like Wagging Tongue, which is on this record. And I sent my little demo to Martin of me like ham-fistedly playing on a guitar trying to get the song out and find the chords and

and that, and I send it to Martin, and then Martin sends it back with this beautiful, like, craftwork-esque, like, you know, chords and, and arpeggiating synths and stuff, and I'm like, oh, okay, yeah. I love that. But then that takes me then to another place, you see. Right, yeah. Because that changes the perception yet again. I'm sure it's the same with you guys when you're working in film and, and behind or in front of the camera. Yes, and. You know, you, you,

You feed off an audience in theater, I'm sure, and then when you're just in a room together and you've got a bunch of crew standing around you, and you've got to create it for yourself. Otherwise, there's just this bunch of crew around you. Well, it is true that I can speak, because the three of us, I've worked with both these guys, and none of us really sort of come in prepared in the sense that we don't fully...

have it memorized a certain way. You can't. You have to kind of have a loose relationship with whatever you're doing because so much of it is informed by what the other person is bringing. You sort of leave room for the effect of the other. Yeah, yeah. Like that's a... But by the way, well, can I just really quick...

And then we'll get off this. Jay, I'm going to send you this song because it's one of the most famous songs. It's such an old song. It's called Somebody. But you'll love it because, and I love this because the dum-dums didn't quite get it back then about the comment, you know, it's, I want somebody to share, share the rest of my life, share my innermost thoughts, know my intimate details. Like it goes on and on. It's gorgeous lyrics about

sharing your life with somebody and the last lyrics at the end is though things like this make me sick in a case like this I'll get away with it which completely obliterates the whole song and like as a kid I was like wait a minute I was about to cry this because love is bollocks that's why love is bollocks yes it still gets played at lots and lots of weddings and

So Martin's just having a laugh at everybody else's expense. So for a dummy music listener like me, I always struggle to hear what the words, what did they say? And I'll back it up. Screw it. I'll just listen. Martin, do you ever get, have you ever had a point where you've gone to Dave and you said, this is a beautiful line and I can't understand what you're saying. Enunciate more.

Or don't just mumble that because it sounds bad. Right? You're sort of missing this word structure that you're doing. It depends how drunk you are, you see. There's that tipping point. We all know the tipping point. It's great and then it's not great anymore. Back in the day.

We were lucky that we sorted something out before you actually had to do a guide vocal in the studio because there's a track that didn't go on the album that's coming later in the year and it's called Life 2.0. What did you think it was called, Dave? Oh, yeah. Do you do? No, Live... What was it, Mark? I forgot. Live 2... Live 2...

To perform or something? I don't know. I think I even wrote it down. I wrote it down because when Mark sent me the song, he often doesn't send the words. He'll send a demo or whatever. And so I kind of listened. Life to prolong. Life to prolong. That was it. Life to prolong. I was like, okay, all right. Life to prolong. I don't think anyone's ever used the word prolong in a song. That's pretty cool. Did.

Dave, when you're performing it later in the year, you've got to, or if you're performing it now on stage, you've got to get the audience going saying live super long. That can happen. I said the other night, let's go Knicks, you know, because at the end of everything counts, I just shouted out in the garden, let's go Knicks. A lot of people sighed. Oh, that must have gone big. We'll be right back. All right, back to the show.

Did I hear you say that it got kind of Kraftwerk-esque? Did you say? Yes. It's so funny because you're like the third band that's referenced Kraftwerk, and I was just listening to Tour de France this morning as well, which is such a... I love that tune. And...

And I think it was Jay, when you had the boys from Radiohead were talking about Kraftwerk as well. Like, it was just what an influential band these guys were. It's unbelievable. Well, they were probably instrumental in Martin getting a synth, I was sure imagined in the first place. Yeah, and we were talking about the early bands that influenced us. You know, we mentioned that wave that was coming up with us, but they were obviously way before that. You know, Autobahn was like 74. Yeah. Oh, man.

Oh, man. That's wild. I think Daniel as well. Daniel Miller, like, he sort of, once he, his influence, he was listening to, you know, he's a little bit older than us, so there was, like, Neue, and there was all these, like, German kind of, those, that kind of stuff, Mark, that, like, we wouldn't have probably heard, really, if it wasn't for him, and it's that sort of kraut rock that was called, like...

that stuff as well. A lot of like Waiting for the Night to Fall, for instance, has got that continuous kind of like rolling progression all the time. These influences definitely...

We were lucky to work with a lot of people, engineers, producers, people that were all on that cusp as well of wanting to do something new with pop music. But you guys also embodied that too, Martin. Like you said, Dave, that progression, you guys understood the importance of it that sort of drove so many of your songs.

Atmosphere. Atmosphere and almost hypnotic, right? Atmosphere over a lot of other things sometimes. We would go around with like tape machines into like scrap yards or building sites and record like weird shit.

noises that you heard. Everything Counts has all that stuff at the start, right? Yeah, I don't even know what that was now. What was that? I think that was like a saw or something. Right? That's industrial. That was like a Chinese violin that was badly sounding. Oh, yes. That we couldn't play. It was an instrument that we couldn't play, that you just made a bit of a table. Jason, did you want to hear me say that again? Yeah, no, I think we got it. LAUGHTER

You guys are uniquely qualified to comment about where we find the music industry today. And are you guys a big fan or is it a love-hate with what technology and digital and all that stuff has done as far as the way in which music is sold nowadays and what that's done to the touring business and whatnot? Because you guys obviously have the best of both worlds. I mean, you're still playing Madison Square Garden and you're still selling albums.

So how does all that sit with you, today's current makeup of the business? Sorry, and be honest. Yeah. I mean, we came up... It's kind of good and bad, right? We came up, teams, I mean, it was like albums, vinyl, you know, getting that record, you know, having enough money to go buy a 45, a 70, you know, which was, I think, at the time when I'm in first probably 45 people.

or whatever that was, like something like that. You know, to go, you stole it from somewhere and you went to the market and you looked for the singles and looked at the covers and go, this one looks weird and interesting. What is this? Of course, we had one show in England, like this TV show called Top of the Pops where you, on Thursday nights or whatever, you'd see music like Bowie and, you know,

Gary Glitter and Slade and T-Rex and all these sort of 70s things, Roxy Music. That was a thing that was like where you get lost in it. But I think the album, you know, the album, I know Martin does as well. We both still play albums and buy albums and stuff. But, you know, and listen to music digitally too. Yeah.

Something has been lost, of course, in that the specialness of an album, you know, and how you listen to that, how you play one side and then turn it over. And you've got to actually make the effort, you know, to do something. Right, right. I love that. Yeah, I remember that too. Sitting in a room...

and taking it out of the sleeve and putting it on. Remember that? The smell of it, you know. The smell of it. And you'd have a cleaner. You'd have the duster thing. The brush. The brush. And you'd let it go around and clean off the needle and drop the needle on it and sit there. And maybe you would have lyrics. Sometimes if a record came out you were waiting for and it had lyrics, you were like, man, this one's got lyrics.

That was so... I mean, the Bowie stuff was like... I remember I stole from my friend Phil Gurry. I was around his house and he had... Martin knows Phil Gurry. And I was around his flat and he had the double live, David Live at the Philadelphia Tower album. Oh, yeah.

And I opened it up and I saw that this lyric sheet, like the sleeve, fell out. And I was just kind of like sitting there and he went off to the toilet or something for a minute. And when he was gone, I took it, I folded it up and I shoved it in my jacket. And I was like, stole, stole. I would steal everything if it wasn't tied down, by the way. But I stole this and I got it home and I had the lyrics myself and everything. And about a week later, Phil was like, I know you stole my lyrics, you know, from like...

I denied it, but that's how special it was to have something like that because you couldn't look it up. I had a roommate in college who was obsessed with albums and I took his, what was that group, Beethoven...

Camper Beethoven. Camper Van Beethoven. Take the skinheads bowling. Yeah, and I took that. I was really sitting in his room. We were listening to albums. And I took the jacket, and I was so hot. And I took the album jacket, and I started fanning myself and completely bent the whole thing. And he never heard from him again. Oh, no. He wouldn't talk to me again. Yeah.

I remember how this is, I have so many different record memories. The one that I remember when that first Simple Minds record came out and they did a clear record. Do you remember that? Yeah. We have a red vinyl right now. Memento Mori. Yeah, so Memento Mori. Oh, that's cool. Do you really? It came out in red vinyl? Yeah, it's in red. There's a clear one as well. There's a clear one and there's a red one, 180 gram. Yeah, it's cool. It's really cool.

well, now I'm going to buy it because I'm going to come full circle. So you have this record that came out. By the way, I was just thinking about the video that I just saw also has like sort of like

I guess religious. I mean, you guys are in a graveyard. Yes. Well, it's a bit camp too. Come on, let's face it. I'm crawling around on my hands and knees in the graveyard. Martin's sitting playing, oh, so thoughtfully, his guitar. I'm crawling around him like, you know. Sniff the glove. Yeah, so we have to, when Anton Corbin says to me, so Dave, so Dave, I want you to get on your hands and knees.

Crawl around the graveyard on the floor. This graveyard's just set up in a studio, by the way, as well, of course. And it looks already very, very kind of like, as soon as we get there, we're like, this looks like really, like somebody set this up. And he's like, no, I want it to look kind of fake, Dave. And I was like, okay.

So he's the only person that would get me to do something like that. At least he didn't put the dog collar on. And I think we did about 20 takes of me crawling around. I'm surprised he didn't do that, actually. Snap the leash. Yes. The only way we got away with it is because I'm the one crawling around, of course. If we'd got some beautiful girl or guy to do that or something, we would be in big trouble now. Sure, sure. That's what I say. I have a question. How do you guys determine who sings...

What track? It's kind of obvious sometimes. Yeah, I think it's usually obvious. Yeah? Just because of where the range is? Yeah, I mean, well, so with me on this album, I thought to myself, Martin would just be able to sing that song much better than me. We have a different tone, a different way we sing.

But together, it's just unbelievable. I used to get bent out of shape a bit. I used to, years ago, I wanted to sing everything and I used to feel like it was, you know, my voice wasn't good enough and that's why I might have to sing a couple of songs. I mean, always, yeah, but it was back in the years ago. Yeah. But,

Now I don't. It was, you know... But it means you get a break on stage as well. Yeah, I get a break too. I can't... It's a two-hour set. Plus, I mean, I need that ten minutes or what so in the middle to sort of get some oxygen. But isn't that funny? And I'll say this to all of us as all...

all gentlemen over 50 isn't that funny you get to this age and you're like all the things that used to sort of you take personally or bother you or whatever now you're like oh fuck who gives a shit it's so stupid yeah i'd rather take the break yeah i'll take the break yeah i will take the break for sure now what are you doing on your breaks nowadays like at the garden during your 10 minutes versus what you were doing 30 40 years ago during your 10 minute break

Has that changed backstage? That's changed a lot. Because for Jason and me, it's changed a lot. We don't partake anymore. Right, we probably squeezed in a nap, whereas back in the old days... Yeah, we would have been, you know... Looking for something to just get a little bit more electricity into that set, you know? Yeah.

Was that fun playing in the garden? That must have been fantastic. It always is. It's the church of New York, isn't it? Let's face it. We've been lucky enough to play there a lot of times over the years. It's always one of those gigs that you're, you know, it's the anticipation and everything about it. I was lucky enough this time as well, my daughter's

and Stella Rose and the Dead Language, we had them open for us. Nice. Oh, that's cool. The nepotism was off the charts. Yeah, good, good. Who gives a shit on this Nepo Baby? I don't give a fucking shit about the Nepo Baby shit. Shut up. You do it if you could, too. By the way, here's the other thing, man. That is a great name for a band. I know. Nepo Baby? Yeah.

No, Stella Rose and the Dead Language. The Dead Language is fucking great. They're pretty cool, too. They're like way cooler than us. Wow. But we were the headline in Acts, so... Because it's me, I have to ask, have you ever been approached or would you ever do...

from the ground up with new songs a Broadway musical? We did get asked once. Somebody had this idea and they showed us a script. But it was all about like a bunch of heroin addicts. Five, six, seven, eight.

So, you know, we politely turned it down. Jason and I would like to, and Sean's going to, you know, obviously going to run it, going to direct and stuff, and it's about a bunch of middle-aged white guy golfers. You've got something there for sure. You've definitely got something there. I just want to say before we let you guys go, because this has been absolutely mind-blowingly incredible. Sean, and this is really, Sean, to you,

Can you believe, what would you say, Sean? Can you believe that college is you? You guys, I can't even describe it. I have to tell you guys right now to your faces, this is the honest to God truth. I'm doing a show here in New York, Broadway show. And every day that I walk to the theater, sometimes I get a ride, sometimes I walk. Every time I walk, I listen to you guys. Right.

I literally, as I'm walking, I'll go, hey, Siri, play Depeche Mode. I'm on my... And tell them the Broadway show is about a heroin addict. Yeah, that's a true story, though, you guys are... And I want to say this before you leave. Such a massive, massive influence on me and my life in such a huge way. Just...

That's all of us. Thank you so much. The posters up in college and the concerts I've been to to see you. It's just everywhere. Thank you. I can't get enough. I mean, there's a cool thing about what we get to do that we get to do is that over the years that we get to hear from somebody like you or

you know, other artists, other musicians and stuff where what we've done somehow has influenced like them to do what they do. And, you know, this is how it goes around. And that's, I think, an amazing thing about music and film and stuff like that, how it can, you know, can be the soundtrack to our lives. For sure. I mean, it's inside of my DNA now. And when you guys just popped on screen here, I was

shaking. And Sean, I mean, can you, what I was going to say was, what would college Sean Hayes say to this moment? Like, what would you... Well, I would be an idiot and be so over the top and try to be funny and then you guys would be like, that guy's too much and then you would move on. We would probably let you hang out, actually. We'd probably let you hang out.

If he was entertaining for a bit, you would have been hanging out with us. A bit is being kind. Yeah. Well, you've been the soundtrack to so many millions of people's lives and you're both such great guys on top of it all. What an absolute just pleasure and honor to meet both of you. And great. And, you know, congratulations on the new record of the tour. I really want to come and see you guys again.

Are you in L.A. in September, right? We're coming. We just finished a little run in the States, but we're coming back, yeah, I think September, October, November, December. We're doing a much bigger North American tour. We're off to Europe now. I will definitely be there. We're going to come and see you guys. Oh, please, yeah. You know, thanks for having us.

on your show it's really yeah thank you this has been a dream come true yeah for sure and yeah honestly all three of you in some way shape or form also have been in my life so I can say that honestly we apologize and we don't always have to say that honestly as well but you know but I mean that sincerely thank you it's very nice of you guys to do this podcast for us cheers guys all the best and we'll see you on the road

Cheers, guys. See you guys. Bye. Well, are you guys all right? I was really, honestly, truly shaking. Like, I haven't done that since... Sean, are you sitting on plastic? Did you lay down some plastic?

Scotty just under frame, lay down some plastic for you. That's why Scotty came in in the middle. Not since the Michael Jackson concert in 1983 was I shaking. Oh, my God. I mean, they really, I really honestly swear to God, listen to them every day. No, I know. That's crazy. I know. It's unbelievable. Why is that? Is that something that kind of gets you going for the show? I think a lot of, I don't want to bring this up, but I think a lot of like,

They have a big gay following. And I think because it was... They were cool and underground and, like, left of center. And they weren't, like, machismo, hard, big hair rocking, you know, dudes. Yeah, there was something kind of interestingly glam about them. Kind of like Bowie was beforehand. Yeah. Sean, I get that. I think I know what you're saying. It's not a gay straight thing or anything. It's just...

I had a lot of gay friends in college that we found this band and were like, "Oh, they're so cool." I think I know what you mean. And there were some bands that sort of came-- Certainly Erasure were a band that were big in gay culture back in the '80s. Right, because I guess a lot of the Depeche Mode songs were turned into dance songs and they would play them in the clubs. Oh, that's interesting. And so I think like Personal Jesus, everyone knows Personal Jesus.

You know, all those earlier songs, they have a beat that you can dance to. And so they turn those into club mixes. And I think that's probably one of the reasons we're like, oh, what's this band? It's so cool. Plus they were like dark. Would it be funny if I got a personal assistant named Jesus? No. Why would that be funny? Because then I'd have a personal Jesus. Oh, yeah.

Wow, I'm slow today. It's a long walk around the block, but boy, the address is nice. But just blown away. They're a huge part of my life, yeah. Yeah. Same, I have so many... It's kind of like when we've had other... But for these guys, I have...

those markers in my in my mind of where where i was when that came out just can't get enough uh personal jesus uh blasphemous rumors all those things people people are people just like you know yeah jay you would know like no all those you just mentioned i know yeah yeah no i i i'm very very aware of depeche mode i i just i wasn't uh i

I didn't have the glow stick in my teeth like you did, Sean and Will. How was I supposed to find my way home? You know, you can't believe before Jason really got into classical music, you'd get in his car with him. I'm not kidding.

and the fucking music that Jason would listen to. I know some of it. It would be so random. Not necessarily bad, but it would be like random and some would be brutal. By the way, I got into it with a woman on Instagram about two months ago. Sean, maybe I told you because she was saying, it's actually, you're thinking of Yazoo. It's not Yaz. And I said, no, in North America, Yazoo was called Yaz for legal reasons. And I had to school her because I was like, don't fucking correct me. Anyway. What was Soft Cell's big hit? Tainted Love. Tainted Love. Yeah, yeah.

I listened to that too and I love classic rock but I also loved so much of I loved Bronski beat I loved Bronski beat I fucking just loved it so much I loved all those bands I loved and of course Depeche Mode I don't know but you know like when they first came on I was looking here we go boy man I tell you something you know what it is it's a look in your eye and you kind of take a breath when you're looking here comes my moment

So thank God, thank God I had my glasses on when they came on because I couldn't believe my eyes. So I thank God I saw them with my reading part of my lower glasses, which is sometimes called, called, what's the other glasses called? Uh,

Don't go up high. Bye. Vocal. Bye. That's a Depeche Mode version of goodbye, right? It's Martin taking it left instead of right. That's right. Bye. Vocals. Bye. Smart. Less. Smart. Less.

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