Alan Wilder Songs Of Praise And Emotion (Blue Divide, 2000)

[demoderus]

Songs Of Praise And Emotion
[Blue Divide, Volume 2, Issue 1, 2000. Words: Uncredited. Picture: Anton Corbijn.]

A very thorough all-rounder in which Alan discusses his Recoil project, especially the making of Liquid. This article is a goldmine of information on how Alan works and what makes him tick, and the author has been very fair in his coverage of Alan's time in Depeche Mode. A Recoil gem.
" I always tried to drag the music into a more thoughtful place, which meant possibly giving it more depth. I felt the songs deserved it. "

Alan Wilder, best known for his involvement with electronic groundbreakers Depeche Mode, progresses through the genre further with Recoil, a project in which the last word will be his own.

No matter where he goes, who he meets and whatever he creates, Alan Wilder will never be able to escape the tremendous gravity that constantly attaches him to the 80’s and early 90’s success he shared with his synth-pop partners in Depeche Mode. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing (their haircuts and the outfits they wore might be a different story). Yet the musical potency of this quartet was for well over a decade enough to make the most tone-deaf get up and groove in the most awkward and hilarious way they were capable of. During promotional tours, overwhelming fan turnouts caused riots, and their following has spanned nearly two decades without ever fading. A feat which few other bands can stake claim to. But arduous touring and emotional strain soured the musical nectar of the band, and in 1995 Wilder decided he wanted out.

Various physical, mental and social problems within the group were attributed to Wilder’s departure through various media sources. Speaking to me via phone from his home in England Mr. Wilder was gracious enough to shed some light on this dim period and hopefully bury the rumours at sea.

“One aspect was that there WAS an uneven workload towards the end that I didn’t feel was particularly appreciated within the group. But I wouldn’t say that was the main reason I left. I would say REALLY it’s much more fundamental than that. I just got bored with the group mentality. The feeling of being in a gang when you’re middle-aged is not as exciting as when you’re young.”

Although it may seem like he’s somewhat downplaying the tumultuous period leading up to the break-up, Wilder sincerely feels it shouldn’t have to be explained any other way. “I didn’t want to be in a group anymore. I just wanted to do some different things. I felt we had achieved a lot and I had a lot of fun. I’ve done very well out of it, but it was just time to move.” Alan seems to have no regrets for abandoning his cushy position was well.

“I look back on it with a lot of fondness. I have good feelings about it, but I’m really glad I left as well.”

The subsequent break-up gave Alan the breathing room to work full-time on his other musical endeavour, Recoil. Wilder actually began the project during the late 80’s while still programming, producing and touring with Mode. So was he ever bored with the group mentality back then?

“I suppose it was a way to really alleviate any frustrations of always working within the same pop format. If Recoil was ever going to be anything, it had to be different than what I was already doing. So there was no point in making it based around forming a pop song. So I tried to do something that was as opposite to that as I could think of.” Although Mode wasn’t exactly conventional pop either, Wilder felt he needed to explore an even more experimental side. “I thought let’s have no rules and boundaries and let’s just see what comes out.” Alan’s experimental venture was given a nice boost with the advent of the almighty sampler. “To me, that was a fascinating tool, to take pieces of the performance that retain all that humanity (of the performance).”

Through various one-off releases including Hydrology 1+2, Wilder was able to dive headfirst into full-length album material by releasing his 1992 debut, Bloodline. It was a mix of dark and subtle, blues and trip-hop and completely interesting all the same. Tracks like “Electro Blues For Bukka [White]” could easily have influenced Moby to explore his blues-y side on Play. Definitely a change of pace from Depeche’s musical stylings, Bloodline laid the groundwork for what was to become the Mr. Hyde to Mode’s Dr. Jekyll. Alan once again became consumed with the Depeche Mode workload and Recoil was shoved into the backburner. After his exit from DM, the beast once again re-surfaced and Alan released the long overdue follow-up to Bloodline, the bizarre and intriguing Unsound Methods.

Armed with a crate of guest vocalists including spoken word artist Maggie Estep and ex-Nitzer Ebb vocalist Douglas McCarthy, Methods delivered a dub-inflected, eerie narrative of the dark alleyways in Wilder’s mind. The music is a far cry from Alan Wilder’s soft-spoken persona. Maybe that’s why he chooses to have other vocalists interpret his music from a lyrical standpoint. “I try to use people that I think will be sympathetic to the music. That means that I have to really create a framework for the music before I can really think about the vocalists. Once I DO get in touch and somebody shows interest and we decide to do something, I allow them very much to bring their character into the project and to write words without too much interference.”

Wilder’s ideology of having multiple vocalists lead his music around has been pushed even further on his follow-up to Unsound Methods, the recently released Liquid. An even more twisted look into the subterranean recesses of the human mind, body and spirit, Liquid utilizes the help of a new handful of vocalists, includng Diamanda Galas, Samantha Coerbell and the delighful Golden [Gate] Jubilee Quartet. As “Black Box Pt. 1”, a first person narrative of them moments before a plane crash with dramatic strings and thundering drums to boot, opens the record. The song is actually based on a real-life encounter Wilder had when a plane crashed in a field while he and his wife were driving along the countryside. Had it been a few hundred yards closer, I wouldn’t be talking to the man today. “It became kind of a pivotal track. I originally didn’t intend it to be. It just helped me make sense of all the other stories that were written subsequent to writing that track. Originally, it was just one long track. We ended up putting half of it in the beginning and half at the end, and then we tried to incorporate the idea of this man going down in a plane.”

 

[demoderus]

To provide a support system for the hair-raising opening number, Wilder had his guest vocalists bring their talents and spit fiery words laced with sexual, violent and noir-ish themes. He wanted Liquid to exist as a separate entity rather than as a Siamese twin to Unsound Methods. According to Wilder though, he was not completely successful.

“I didn’t want it to be a continuation. My intention was to try and make a very different record than the last one. But I think what’s happened is that it has almost become a sequel.”

But if progression is the cog in Recoil’s machine, Liquid has definitely done the trick, a fact that Wilder agrees with. “This one is a bit more focused generally and perhaps a bit more cohesive as a whole whereas Unsound Methods was a series of different types of tracks which are all interesting in their own right, but not quite so strong as a cohesive album.” Yet Wilder can only lend a brief chuckle as to why the subject matter and music on his albums always veer into tales from the dark side. “I can’t really put my finger on why I gravitate towards that kind of music, but I just suppose that the dark side of human nature is much more interesting.” I can almost sense a mischievous grin beginning to crack on his face as he says this. The drench of minor keys is quite a soothing one to this writer’s ears, but Alan’s no stranger to gloomy melodies, which blanket his musical resume.

Even with Depeche Mode, minor keys and subversive subject matter were a major presence in practically every song. Alan explains further. “Minor chords seem more reality-based. That’s just generally true. What was the interesting thing about Martin’s (Gore, Depeche Mode’s eccentric songwriter) songs is that they have a subversive quality because they wrap up more thoughtful and darker subjects in a pop sensibility, which lulls you into a false sense of security. It’s only when you’ve heard them a few times that you realise they can be about something quite heavy.”

Wary of whether or not Alan would be into discussing his former band, my fears were put to rest when I found out just how talkative he was on the high points of working in the group mentality of Mode. But as he hinted before, Wilder’s frustration within the group was partly due to the lack of proper credit he was receiving and the shadow he was trapped in while his bandmates reaped the glory of the spotlight. Still, he was quite open about his role within the group. “I always tried to drag the music into a more thoughtful place, which meant possibly giving it more depth. I felt the songs deserved it. In the early Vince days and just after that, the group was very lightweight. The music needed to be hardened up and given more depth.” The depth was most noticeably on what many, including Alan himself, consider to be Depeche Mode’s first “serious” effort, 1986’s Black Celebration. “I think by the time we reached Black Celebration, a proper depth to the group’s songs started to appear. It was partly because of the songs and partly because Martin was becoming more worldly as a songwriter along with my influence into making more of a dark sound. We also had Daniel Miller (longtime Depeche Mode ally and head of Mute Records) in there and he was becoming more and more experienced as a producer.”

Even back then, the band was experiencing some tension in the studio. But then again, which successful band doesn’t? “Like David Bowie probably made his best records when he was strung out on smack. You see it time and time again. My favourite album of all time, which was the White Album, was the time when McCartney and Lennon got along least. What’s interesting is that if you look back at Depeche Mode history, the key moment of the great music for me happened when there was the most tension in the group.” The tension could be cut with a Ginsu during the recording of Wilder’s last album with Depeche Mode, 1993’s haunting Songs Of Faith And Devotion. Maybe that’s why this record is Alan’s personal favourite. “When you’re in that situation, you just don’t see that. You can’t imagine that when things are going wrong and everyone hates each other that some good music can be coming out of it. You just think everything sucks and everybody sucks. So it’s only in hindsight that you see it. To me, Songs Of Faith And Devotion is quite a complex album. It was hell to make at times.” That hell only grew deeper after 2 exhausting world tours causing keyboardist Andy Fletcher’s nervous breakdown and singer Dave Gahan’s growing drug habit.

Although Depeche Mode has continued on without Wilder, their 1997 album Ultra, although quite good in its own right, seemed to be missing that magical touch of Alan Wilder, which Wilder somewhat downplays. “One of the things I’ve realised is that my skills are not really in songwriting. My skills are in other areas that have to do with orchestration, structuring and being a catalyst for other people to bring their best performances. I think we all realised that Martin was a better songwriter than a producer, and I was better at production than I was at songwriting.”

While Wilder’s modesty shines through once again, he also seems quite comfortable with his freedom in music and life in general. “It’s a less pressured situation. There’s not so much expectation. I don’t have to worry about commerciality. I’m secure and I’m in a very lucky position to where I can really indulge myself. It gives me more time to spend at home and cultivate my relationships. I’ve got a child these days and those things are very important to me now. In a way, I’m much happier in this situation.”

Along with a new personal outlook, Wilder seeks other musical endeavours besides Recoil. “I’m looking in the film area to see if I can find someone interesting who wants me to score some music for them. I’d like that challenge to work with images rather than coming up with them in my head.” In the meantime, he will have to make due with his main project and pulling Recoil out of the Liquid and into the fresh, new avenues to penetrate. But don’t expect to see Recoil live anytime soon, at least not in the conventional format. “Logistically, it would be so difficult to do. I think the only way you could do it is to take a different angle and think of some kind of performance concept or an art show or whatever you want to call it.”

Mr. Wilder seems quite content with his current lifestyle. “I think it was a good move for me, and I really have no regrets about it.” He definitely does regret the outfits the Top Of The Pops wardrobes that he and his fellow Mode-men adorned back in the early 80’s. He can only laugh and say, “We won’t be bringing back the wardrobe or the haircuts.” At least for the latter, for everyone’s sake, let’s hope not.