FROM REUNITING WITH OLD BANDMATES TO HELPING OUT THEIR NEIGHBOURS, THE WORLD OF DEPECHE MODE’S PROJECTS AWAY FROM THE BAND IS AN ESOTERIC TRIP. CLASSIC POP SPEAKS TO SOME OF THE KEY COLLABORATORS WHO HAVE HELPED NURTURE DEPECHE’S SECRET PASSIONS…

JOHN EARLS

After the tour for Exciter, Depeche needed time out. While Martin Gore worked on his covers album and Andy Fletcher started a record label, it was time to see if Dave Gahan could be a songwriter. Released in 2003, Paper Monsters proved him to be more than capable. Wanting to tell his story of his addictions and becoming sober, Gahan wrote its 10 songs with Knox Chandler, a session guitarist he’d befriended when Knox played on Exciter. “I needed to express the feelings inside of me more,” Dave told Beyond Words. “Singing Martin’s songs has been great, but I wanted to challenge myself, not live vicariously through someone else’s feelings.”

Paper Monsters led to Gahan finally starting to write for Depeche, but also it opened the doors for his own style. The more electronic Hourglass followed in 2007, this time written with Andrew Phillpott and Christian Eigner, Depeche’s drummer since 1997. Explaining how Hourglass was more comfortable to make, Dave told Spin: “Singing Martin’s stuff has rubbed off on me. I’ve really started to find my own voice.”

Gahan has made two further albums away from Depeche, both 2012’s The Light The Dead See and Angels And Ghosts in 2015 being collaborations with Soulsavers. The downtempo duo supported Depeche on the Sounds Of The Universe tour, and Dave told them to get in touch if they wanted to collaborate. “Bands saying ‘We should work together!’ happens all the time on tour,” admits Soulsavers’ Rich Machin. “It’s standard musicians’ bullshit, but I never got the impression Dave was anything other than sincere. It’s a reason I like him, he’s very much a no-bullshit person.”

What was intended to be just a couple of tracks quickly evolved into a whole album. “Depeche is dark in its own way,” explains Rich. “But Dave’s own taste is towards more organic dark music in the traditional band format. Because we share similar record collections, it made musical reference points very easy. Everything fell into place naturally.” Rich and bandmate Ian Glover sent Gahan instrumental ideas, and he’d add lyric and vocal melodies. “Everything Dave sent back was really well-developed,” Rich enthuses. Written after Gahan’s battle with cancer, the lyrics were informed by his health scare; “It’s only normal to be reflective about such a major wake-up call,” muses Rich. “His lyrics would often send the songs off in another direction, where we’d think ‘Maybe the song should do this now.’ Dave is incredibly easy to write with. If I didn’t know him better, I’d assume he’d been a songwriter for years.”