Just can’t get enough Depeche Mode

Sun Feb 13th, 2011, Lynsey Hughes

Aussie fans may have felt gypped in 2009 when synth-angst masters Depeche Mode announced their Tour of the Universe sans an Australian visit. But the time for crying is over, people.

Founding member, Andy Fletcher is back and he’s bringing the love — and his decks — with him.

Sounding suprisingly chipper for a man who’s recovering from sleepless nights in the Ukraine where he reacquainted himself with Depeche Mode audiences at some energetic and “very tiring” warm-up gigs, Fletcher spoke to the Star Observer from London just days before his first Australian DJ shows in Sydney and Melbourne.

“So far, the audiences have been great. Fan reaction has been great,” Fletcher said.

“The good thing about Depeche Mode fans is they’re not standard rock fans — they’re open to all kinds of music — so I’m hoping I’ll get that when I play in Australia.”

Thirty years worth of singles and an ever-growing cache of dance remixes — including a soon-to-be-released remix album — surely makes for hell in whittling down the perfect DJ set to pay homage to the world’s most successful electronic band, but that hasn’t kept the synth maestro from the studio where he’s spent the last couple of months working on secret new DM remixes.

“No, I can’t tell you what, you’re just going to have to wait,” he laughed.

What this former restaurant owner and founder of record label Hawaii Toast (named after his favourite dish at a German canteen) can tell us is that his two-hour DJ set “is loosely based on my heritage with Depeche Mode — electro, both old and new, from the Human League to Alex Metric”.

New mixes from respected producers Eric Prydz and Vince Clarke will also feature alongside old-school classics like Personal Jesus by Francois K.

“I don’t pigeonhole myself. I play pretty much what I think is the best dance music of the last year,” he said.

“I’m really looking forward to revisiting Australia. It’s been a long time since I was last there.”

Indeed it has — 1994 was the year and the tour, titled Devotion, is an apt description of how audiences reacted to seeing these kings of electro-pop on stage.

This time around, Fletcher admits that while it seems a natural progression for a musician wielding his 30-year pedigree in progressive electronic music to take up DJing, there are a few key performance differences.

“When you’ve got the band, you’ve got a bit of room because you’ve got your mates around you, you know? With DJing, if you make a mistake everybody knows whose fault it is,” he said.

“I’m better than most celebrity DJs but I don’t put myself up there with the superstar DJs like Paul Van Dyke. Martin Gore [DM songwriter], he DJs as well, but his is a very different style from mine — minimal techno. It’s a great sideline.”

Fletcher agreed that rare, up close and personal gigs like that at Sydney’s City Hotel are highly regarded by hardcore music fans. He chuckled when asked how he feels about performing what is touted as ‘one of the most intimate gigs of his career’.

Sure, he’s played to stadium crowds in their tens of thousands and influenced artists from The Pet Shop Boys and DJ Shadow to Marilyn Manson, but like any musician who cracks it the hard way, he’s no stranger to half-packed pubs.

“To be fair, we’ve been going for about 30 years and certainly for the first third of our career we played clubs and pubs — we came up the traditional way of breaking a band.

“These days an artist can become a superstar overnight. So, we’ve played gigs where there’ve only been 50 people in a room. “

Three decades on, there’s little chance Fletcher will be playing to a mid-strength audience as fans and musicians alike continue to discover the

peerless quality of Depeche Mode’s 12 studio albums. Their last effort, Sounds of the Universe, catapulted to Number 1 in 21 countries.

But Fletcher remains quietly philosophical about his success.

“Initially we always managed ourselves. We were on a very small label so we were able to do what we wanted, not what we were forced to do. We’ve been very lucky.

“When we first started we thought we’d only last a couple of years — to be still going strong after 30 years, it’s a dream come true.”

Five things you didn’t know about Andy Fletcher

1. When I’m away from home I miss… “My family. We’ve all got children”

2. If I wasn’t a musician… “I think I’m stuck in this”

3. Vinyl vs iPod… “Obviously vinyl, if you’re going for quality”

4. Favourite album… “Rumours by Fleetwood Mac. I get a bit sentmental”

5. Best new music… “So much good stuff it’s hard to pin down”

Source: starobserver.com.au

Fletch's DJ Tour: February 5th, 2011 - Crystal Hall, Kiev, Ukraine

Check out an interview with Andy Fletcher on UTV Romania (January 29th, 2011)

An interview for "Circle.Square.Triangle" (a music blog based in Melbourne), January 27th, 2011

Thu Jan 27th, 2011, Tomas Richardson

Andrew Fletcher is about to land in Australia for the Playground Weekender festival as well as a doing a few side-shows. We decided to catch up with the Solo-Artist, Depeche Mode bass player and synthesiser programmer.

Hey Andy, how have you been?

Yeah, pretty good. We finished the tour last year, had a bit of time off. We’re just sort of starting to crank it up a bit now.

Sounds great. With all that you’ve accomplished you guys still manage to tour and release records productively. Are there any secrets on staying together for so long?

I think we realise what we’ve achieved, you know, from nothing really. And I think that’s an important thing to realise. We’ve worked hard and had a bit of luck along the way. We come from the same town, we have the same friends, same sense of humor, so I think that helps.

Before Depeche Mode formed, you and schoolmates Vince Clarke and Martin Gore were playing in bands together. What was that like and what kind of music were you influenced by?

We were very lucky in life. When I was 16, punk happened. [It was] obviously the perfect age to experience it. After that it was Siouxsie & the Banshees, the Cure, Kraftwerk even came into fashion, early Human League, even early OMD. It was a really, really exciting time for music. We really blew out the sky. The idea to make music, you had to be a brilliant musician. And to make good music you just needed good ideas.

Do you think that the music you were playing helped influence or translate easily into Depeche mode?

Yeah I think it did. It was quite a short time in retrospect. Vince wrote most of the early stuff. After Vince left, Martin took over and really came into his own. I mean the first album with Vince writing it sort of does sound a bit odd compared to the rest. At the time we were a pop band and we weren’t ashamed of being a pop band. And we managed to graduate from a pop band to a rock band or a regular band, you know. It was lucky that we had the people around us that enabled us to do that.

Has much has changed since then compared to today?

I think so, but I think one of the problems is with a lot of artists is they become stars over night with the media being so fast. Whereas we had to really go about it the traditional way of making a demo tape, taking it around, taking the demo around to gigs, trying to get any little gig we could get. And it was a gradual rise for us, you know. We sort of broke England first. And then a few years later we started to break Europe and then a few years after that we started to break America. But these days you’re a star straight away aren’t you? But I think its good, because we managed to gain experience as we went along. We weren’t just completely put in the spotlight.

I couldn’t agree more. I mean, look at some of the younger artists today, they’re only sixteen or seventeen years old.

And they’re big in Australia, in the States, Europe and Britain all at the same time!

It’s amazing that after dozens of singles and number 1 albums that you’re still one of the most successful electronic bands in history.

Our career has been phenomenal and when we first started we really thought we’d last a couple of singles and then it would all finish. We’ve gone from strength to strength and really built up our career in the traditional way of playing and touring in small places, to bigger places to even bigger places. These days artists are stars over night, aren’t they? For us it was a gradual thing to spread our music all over the world.

Why is it that your role within in the band seems to have been a topic of confusion between fans and the media?

Well I think it’s very hard with an electronic group. You know, it’s very easy when you look at a traditional guitar band line up. When you see the drummer the bass player and the two guitarists. We’re different to that. The way we make music is completely different. But I see my role as really gelling the whole band together. And from day one we never had a manager so I used to take care of that. And also I realise that I’m surrounded by people like Dave Gahan who’s a fantastic front man and a great songwriter. I don’t write songs and I’m not a great front man. But you have to have people in the background to make the group work.

Tell me about Toast Hawaii, the record label you set up early last decade.

I set it up really for a band I had called Client and that was really good fun. We did okay actually. We got quite a bit of a following, sold really well. But I’ve been working, doing albums and doing tours with Depeche [Mode]. So every time I get some time off I really put the feelers out, I just haven’t found a band that I want to work with. It’s also very hard because I have to say to them, ‘Bye-bye, I’m going away for two years.’ It’s still a label and I’m always on the look out for artists but the timing has to be right unfortunately.

Aside from touring the world and managing bands, you’ve been known to do a bit of DJing as well. How different is that, from playing live shows with Depeche Mode to being behind the DJ booth in a club?

Well you go on a lot later than you do when you’re in a band. It’s quite nice for me, because I’m a sort of a celebrity DJ. I admit that I’m not as good as the pros, you know, the Paul Van Dykes and all these amazing guys. But I play a mixture of music and I try and have a bit of fun. I’ve been playing some brand new Depeche Mode mixes that are gonna be for the the new remix album, so that should add an element of interest for the fans.

Have you got any favourite songs you like to play?

I don’t know. I haven’t DJ’d for a couple of years and I’ve just rejigged my whole set so I’m a bit unsure what my favourite is. I don’t want to give my favourite away in an interview incase I decide not to play it [laughs].

Any chance we’re going to see you in Australia some time soon?

Yeah, it’s been a sad scenario with regards to Depeche mode and Australia. We were thinking we might make it on the last tour but Dave had some terrible trouble so we’ll just have to say lets hope me can make it on the next tour. We’ll try our best. We’ve had a good time when we’ve been there in the past. We haven’t been to Australia enough.

Source: circlesquaretriangle.tv

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