Depeche
Mode's Personnel Saviour
While his band are set to release a new comprehensive DVD
charting 12 years of single releases, Depeche Mode frontman Dave Gahan has
announced that he's nearly completed his debut solo album.Speaking
to Xfm Online, when asked about the future of the leather trousered, stadium
sized, electro goth trio, Gahan talked about two
new records from the DM camp.
"Well, there's the DVD of all our singles stuff, videos, remixes and things," he explained, "But other than that me and Martin [Gore fellow DM member] are both working on our new solo records, and they'll come out next spring.""They [the solo albums] are different to Depeche Mode stuff, cos basically its my own songs. Mart's up to a couple of interesting things, but both things have got Depeche Mode qualities as it's us! It's my voice for a start. Actually, some of the stuff I'm doing is leaning more towards the `weird' for want of a better word, but in a good way."
Gahan has never written any music for Depeche Mode, as Gore is the sole songwriter, but the singer explained he thought that it was time to try his hand.
"Its something that I've been doing in my head for
a long time," he said, "But I've just not been ready to do it. But
Depeche finished
touring last Christmas, and we've decided to take some time off, then things
just fell into place for me. I always wanted to work with Ken
Thomas, who's probably most famous for the Sigur Ros album that he produced,
and now he's producing my album, andeverything's going really well. I'm about
halfway there. Its pretty song based, and, er, well, it's definitely me."
Meanwhile third member Andy Fletcher has started his own record label within
Mute Records. Named `Toast Hawaii' its first signing is experimental electronic
art outfit Client.
The DVD `Depeche Mode The Videos 86 > 98 +' is set to be released November 25