I always wonder where the Violator came around at the perfect time for the band and the worst time for you because it was the album that outright needed you I think it was like those songs all of a sudden they were they were kind of there for a real front man to take and reach the 60 thousandths
person at the back right well it doesn't it was like rockstar101 we had done our apprenticeship you know we had done we've paid our dues yeah we're like 10 years in almost yeah yeah 10 years in yeah and you know it really uh yeah I mean it it changed everything because we had you know we'd never sold that many
records and played to that many people and everything took off so yeah everything to say say that everything didn't change or it would be a lie everything did change the perception of the band the pressure on Martin you know the pressure on me as a front guy everything changed um
around that time and I think that's why probably when we went in to record songs of faith and devotion with flood producing he and he was very you know he was like we have to make a completely different record try to try to take everything away from what we know as being Depeche Mode what you like
and you know you're going to come back round you start at 12 o'clock you're going to go all the way around you move away but you're going to come back round to 12 o'clock anyway because that's who you are but let's take a journey and try and do something really different I think we did we managed to do that which
was unexpected um and also of an incredibly difficult time for the band probably you know we were we'd reached a point where uh you know things the wheels were starting to come off you know I think that we're at a point now and and in this particular conversation the one we're having and
the one that's been had for 50 years where we try to understand the Arts and the artists a little bit better and get inside the psychology and what motivates the expression you know um my first run for 20 years was just kind of talking about drum sounds because no one wanted to talk any deeper
and I didn't have the tools to do it but I think we're here now and I think we can start to identify some really interesting subject matter which for me with you is what is it from your experience and only your experience that finds a group of individuals who clearly care about each other and understand the
value of what you have together in a situation where success hard earned is finally here and yet there is the self-destructive inclination human nature is that you know the personalities are pretty yeah I mean people are in that way I mean we we've done a lot of work and I'm just going to go back to the the Rose
Bowl um thing just for a second just because I was talking to Daniel Miller about this recently you know we we were literally playing at the bridge house Canning Town in 1981. and then we were seven years later we're playing at the Rose Bowl and in those years like you know we put
an album out every year you know who has to let the Beatles and they broke up straight away yeah I know you understand why because it it was just it become you know it's like this monster that you didn't realize you were building and suddenly the monster is controlling you and you know you have
to you don't know that at the time you're just you just it's a big Whirlwind and uh is that how you felt as well yeah I mean it I think that the uh you know the successive violator obviously you know did put extra pressure on us I felt like incredible pressure to come up with a bunch of songs that could match that
with songs of faith and devotion and I think that you know probably started me like drinking a bit more um and then Dave went down his own path at that time and and also you know maybe there's there's something about you know I think there is a this fallacy that we all have
the drugs and drink make us more creative you know it was it's very easy to fall into that trap it's a pattern that you first is to escape versus to sort of have fun or to have your own time it's like it's my time this is my this is my stuff this is what I do for myself now you can't come in my Cosmos
is mine my Cosmos is mine right and but of course it's self-destructive that was there was always there was always there for me with with certain drugs I wanted to feel again just same thing a part of something um so it enabled me to feel like I belong to something uh and until it didn't
and then you're just alone you know and I think it's it's the same thing booze drugs whatever you know you reach a point where it's just you you certainly can't get any more of it in your system without without something terrible happening and for those around you as well but you know there is a belief in
the beginning you know I I at the same thing there was there was a sort of belief that it was part of the character I was creating or it is it's that identity thing it is right we start to build identities out of trauma and it becomes a form of survival and the next thing you know we with the best of
intentions are telling you we love you on mass and that identity needs to be fed and that I call it distraction by self-destruction because you just kind of get away from what you've built in a way of mind but that concept is terrifying too I think but I I would also say there's an element of the like
you were talking about loving the Rolling Stones the bad boy thing yeah you know so I think we all fall into that trap as well thinking that it's cool to to be bad boys yeah yeah yeah yeah it was it was because it comes Basildon you know now yeah they come but most people aren't cut out for
that either and I gotta tell you that it's like it's not easy playing that game yeah and it to to and then to show up and uh with it all and you can't do it after a while in the end you just don't show up anymore and that's yeah it's interesting watching I watched two performances have never let me down
again as part of a wider amount of music I was watching on the weekend just getting so excited we're going to talk I watched the one from from Anton's movie 93 Maybe songs of Faith devotion so you're devotional yeah so according to the timeline and you know better than I do you're in it you're in it and and
then I watched in 2009 in Barcelona [Music] they're totally different the crowd's doing the same thing but you the way you respond to it if I may say is so different you in 1993 it was like you were holding on to the crowd for dear life in 2009 you're letting go yes that's a good uh
I don't know when that happened but I certainly couldn't hold on it it wasn't going to be enough for me to uh sustain what was happening around that time night at the end of 93 94. yeah I couldn't hold that position anymore um so the wheels fell off um but uh you know in and in 2009 in
those different to me now it's much more of uh a joyful celebration of us all coming together yeah um instead of this like pained you know expression the songs must feel different to you that song it must yeah it must when you play that now it must be such a different in my life I love performing
that song I love I know it doesn't get old to me um it changes all the time um and you're right songs change all the time depending what's going on in your life and the more you experience in life um a good song will um will carry you through in different things different times emotions feelings it just
memories you know songs and memories and they become ours and then I was saying to someone the other day the impact that art has can't actually be Quantified and we've done a really good job of trying and boy has it become a numbers game it's hard it's really painful for me to think that my least
favorite subject that I was worst at in school now drives the thing I love the most which is math I hate math and yet I am in the math right um but it you can't quantify it because I've lost count the amount of times that I've shared my Depeche Mode experiences with others who may or may not decide to
share theirs and so on and so on it saves lives it saved your life really probably right yeah I mean uh it's the music it's in the music sometimes along the way for me personally it almost became too descriptive it became too much as an too much of a narrative yeah to the life I
was trying to play out yeah and um it really played out and then um but then at the same time now some of even now when we're rehearsing we're rehearsing together and for this upcoming tour and um you know some of the older songs of course when you do they they change their mean as well when
we're doing in your room now amazing um that song for me is always represented something in the beginning very dark time yeah doesn't anymore it's it's full of light for me it's a beautiful uh when I when I sing the song and when I get it right and everything's in the pocket and Martin's playing and I I just
it's like I'm I'm Walking on Air different to what it was when when the song was out and when at the particular time I remember making the video and everything and back then you were just thinking like in your room I wanted to get back in my room I wanted to get back
at the Crown Plaza in Leeds no it was a little blue closet in my house that I wanted to get back into and shut the door and light a candle and stay there all day stay there all day yeah yeah this album to me is can can unlock so much going forward from a live show perspective because like I said there's
so much so many different tempos and moods I think about a song like don't say you love me there's a classic Depeche Mode moment of moving into a Tempo and a rhythm and a feel that only you can do and stay Depeche Mode without think people thinking oh they've gone four Waltz here do you know what I mean it's kind of
crazy it's very Scott Walker I mean it's all a bit and uh to me it's this beautiful torture I love those I love that I mean you know it's like it's you know in a movie or something um well and wrote the song with actually with Richard yeah yeah with her with Richard Butler I went from suede no no
no no first oh my God Miller moves Mr mirror moves are you serious I wrote four of the songs on the album with Richard which is something I've never done before you know worked with somebody outside the band cover me you're in the bag yeah yeah do you hear that you're finally in the bed
I'm accepted finally I can drop myself 40 odd years and I'm finally feel accepted longest audition in pop music history um so why did you decide to do that and why did you decide to work with Richard Butler he reached out to me um I think it was around April 2020 you know the pandemic had hit and he just
texted and said we should write some songs together wow I love that and he's actually he actually said that to me once before I don't know when it was like 10 years ago or something and nothing ever came of it but yeah we were in the pandemic I thought if I'm going to try and do something different now's
a good time to experiment yeah so we did we just started writing songs together and um we ended up writing six that I really liked and I thought it would be a waste to use them as a side project yeah yeah because me and Richard could have like just you know made an album together
yeah a character you know written another few and you know put it out as an album but I think they would have just been lost yeah and I so I called him and I said this might sound a bit crazy I said well what do you think about me using the songs for Depeche and he said yeah I I
love Depeche yeah and also otherwise it would have been psychedelic mode that's good you still got it you still got it yeah but you know I don't want to speak for for someone like that who's given us great joy throughout our lives as well but um maybe I think that might have been the answer I didn't know this
you see and I didn't know this immediately I knew Martin had been writing with Richard during the pandemic I knew they'd been Ryan together but uh when Martin first sent me a few songs I think uh probably maybe Caroline's monkey was one of those I don't know if ghost again was one of the first ones
I think I might I must have sent that was one of the first ones surely that was but when I heard that song in particular ghost again I I first of all I was like okay I'm in you know this is this is this is it made me feel instant Joy the demo I I felt like I remember dancing around my my living room and my
daughter sort of coming in and said it's just like looking at me weird like what's going on I was like don't you love this this is she kind of was like bopping along with me and she was like no I get it it's really good song when you send that song to Dave do you do you know at this point that
something's got to connect with Dave this isn't a given it's always uh you know one of those kind of like uh tough moments when you have to present your song for the first time yeah today now I mean I would have been presenting them to Andy as well obviously but yeah but um obviously and you know Andy passed
away just like literally days before I was about to send him the songs yeah you're getting it unfortunately never got to hear anything but um yeah that's one of the very sad parts about it because he used to love getting the songs it's funny you know life is just um I and I've learned this
myself in recent years you know life has other ideas and you know we we live in this very short period of time in our youth or we think we can control it and it's very Invincible invincible and it's important part of the journey you know and then eventually things come along and you've got to stick and move and adapt
to move forward um I was really sorry to hear about Fletch thank you really beloved member of the band and someone who I hold in the same regard as the two of you and Alan um you know in terms of the history of the band full respect to Albert fledge was yeah you know he was we were there from the
beginning together you know fighting over bus fare yeah you know you know from the from the rehearsals in the church you know it's like that that pretty much remained the same but um yeah it's it's there's it's hard to describe what that means when there's a group of people
like on paper shouldn't really shouldn't really be able to get on together or something you know but somehow coming together you know that's what makes something what it is no matter what who does what I mean certainly in Depeche Mode because it's always unidentified really who does what
yeah you know in some ways yeah um but everybody had a part and has a part in what that is whatever group you form around what is the nucleus of the uh so-called band so can we helped to help fans like myself to understand with a little more definition the role that Fletch played through those years
because we've talked about the letting go of the writing and the challenges of having to let others in which now has you co-writing with people who aren't even into patch mode we talk about the challenges of finding your voice alongside somebody who has such a defined and strong songwriting voice and
the two of you have wrestled through that and find yourselves in life now working well together and you're achieving those goals but I think of Fletch as somebody who is as equal a member of that band and yet I never heard a Fletch song that I was aware of and I never heard Fletch out front
singing songs like you so what kept Him engaged and what do you think from his perspective was his Ultimate Place in the band well I think I think Dave said this recently that he he he was the band's biggest fan and believe it or not uh this I honestly believe that he enjoyed being in Depeche
Mode more than me or Dave absolutely I mean you know because he was the champion of the band I remember when I moved to Santa Barbara you know I'd been living there for like I don't know three months or so and I'd met this an English friend who ran a bar and it took me like I don't know ages
eventually he said to me oh what do you do by the way and I told him how can you be here at 1pm every weekday and not have a job it was it was like called the king's head or something like that on Kings Road yeah he found in Paradise a little bar called The Old Kings Road with an English broke
setting in beer but so you know so it took me to maybe like three months or so to like you know let him know what I did and then then we uh were recording excited there yeah and so the rest of the band came to town and it the um Andy went into the bar for a drink and he said he said it my friend said it
was so weird he said it like it took me so long to find out what you did he said Andy told me after like about a minute dude you know what yeah because because he was so proud of what he did that was first and foremost Beyond and anything else like he would be that guy in the bar telling you what we're doing
how we're doing it yeah what's going on you know talk yeah but he was very sociable and that that was a very important thing for us in the band you know I mean we're not we're we're not really you're not like him at least no no no I mean he was like easy you're more like after hours and he's more like opening
hours yeah yeah and then he's done when but the bars closed but we're not you're not that's when you guys come alive right let's get 70 of these people out of here and then I'm gonna really have a good time yeah and so the adjustment process I can imagine was enormous from a personal level it couldn't be anything
else but but the idea of coming together I mean it's still it's gonna be a continuous uh I think this we get to actually Miss Fletch uh and grieve him through the process of certainly making the record um because his presence was was was there I know that sounds weird but it
was and um it continues when we're rehearsing now when we're doing things we've been out on a promo trip for a while and doing things everything that we do without Fletch is a first oh yeah that's facts everything you do from now on is it is first the first show is going to be kind
of yeah you know we're hopefully not you know too much it could be like weird for us you know being there with the audience for the first time but don't you feel equipped now through all of the writing and through all of the life more equipped to be able to just go with that if that's the case you never you're
never really equipped you know there's no nothing prepares you for what that that is when you finally walk on a stage anyway whether it was with me and Martin and Fletch and and Pete and Christian you know and now it's gonna just the the four of us um because um it is otherworldly what you do anyway
when you when you go on a stage and you sing and perform music and everybody feels a part of that it's a moment in time so that in itself is strange but we're gonna have to you know it's not it's not going to be easy it's going to be something that we think about all the time [Music] thank you