"WE JUST
liked the sound of `Depeche Mode' - it has no meaning at all."
That's how the band describe the way they came to adopt their name (literally
"hurried fashion") (I thought it meant Fashion-conscious fish -
Ed.) from a French magazine, but in some ways it also neatly sums up the band
themselves. Depeche Mode have been in existence for just over a year now,
formed initially by Basildon school pals Martin Gore and
Andrew Fletcher with songwriter and ex-folkie(!) Vince Clarke. Vocalist David
Gahan arrived later after auditions and completed the present line up.
Around this time the band were still using conventional instruments but these
were abandoned, according to Vince because the band were "fed up with
the sounds, or their inability to create interesting sounds." Intrigued
by a synthesizer which Martin had acquired,
they opted instead for all-synthesizer instrumentation.
This in turn attracted the interest of Daniel Miller, head of Mute Records,
this country's most important electronic label and already the home of The
Silicon Teens and Fad Gadget.
The outcome of Daniel's interest was the excellent "Dreaming of me"
which has been hovering outside the Top Forty for the past few weeks.
Apart from the single, the band have also contributed "Photographic"
to the recent "Some Bizzare" futurist compilation but, despite the
fact that David was once a regular Blitz attendee, it's a connection which
the band are keen to play down. Already their own use of make-up and flamboyant
clothes has been toned down. They view futurism as an artificial creation
and it's not an image they want to be saddled with for life.
"It's just a fashion," says Vince. "It's a word that's caught
on, that's all." "Just because we use synthesizers," echoes
David," we get classed as a futurist band. Our music's not futurist.
Vince just writes pop songs."
In fact Depeche Mode are quite happy to describe their tight, uncomplicated
and very melodic sound as "pop", something they see as covering
lots of fields. "Nice" and "Happy" are other words they
use when talking about their music. "It's not serious," Vince agrees.
"That's quite good in itself."
Nor are there any messages coming over in the lyrics. Andrew maintains that
the music is more important than the words while Vince admits that his main
interest in the lyrics is in "the sound of words rather than the meaning."
Which is where we came in, is it not?