A longer-than-usual news item introducing Depeche Mode to the general public in one of their first appearances outside of higher-brow papers such as Sounds and NME. Admirable in that the writer has stuck to the factual and away from the fluff.
" Our music’s not futurist. Vince just writes pop songs. "
SMASH HITS, 30th APRIL 1981
“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 Dave 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 Dave was once a regular Blitz attender, 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 Dave, “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 light, 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 their 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 the words rather than the meaning.”
Which is where we came in, is not not?
