Facing My Monsters
[Daily Mirror, 27th June 2003. Words: Gavin Martin. Picture: Uncredited.]
Ten years ago, I met Dave Gahan in his dressing room before Depeche Mode played a stadium in Hungary. The show hadn't started, but the emaciated singer's voice was already shot. He looked and sounded at the end of his tether.
The scars on his arms, his haunted appearance and erratic behaviour all suggested a heroin problem. But no one, certainly not Dave, would admit it. He may have been a rock star, but he desperately needed help. It seemed he was heading for a grisly end and soon. Shortly after we met, he collapsed on stage with a heart attack and, three years later, attempted suicide.
But Gahan, who plays Glastonbury on Sunday, received help and his recovery has been a joy to behold. Today, he is fit, healthy and sitting in a London hotel room with Jack, his 15-year-old son from his first marriage. Gahan, 41, is concerned when I remind him of our earlier meeting.
"Did I get aggressive with you?" he asks. "I remember reading what you wrote and it p***ed me off. But I was glad you did it. There were people like you who said 'Forget the music, this guy is sick and needs help.' But at the time I was beyond receiving help.
"That's the tricky thing about addiction. When you are in that world you have to be willing to change everything about yourself. If you don't change, you're not going to get better. I wasn't one of those addicts who lost their home and money. I still had all those things, but I'd lost my soul and had no spirit. When I went home after that tour I realised what trouble I was in. I was propelled into an abyss."
In 1996, Gahan's heart stopped for two minutes after a cocaine and heroine overdose, but he claims it was more a cry for help than a suicide bid. "I don't think I was trying to harm myself - I was just looking for attention," he says. "It was a dark time but it was also when I realised it was up to me to make the change."
Gahan was living in Los Angeles when he had his overdose. Busted by the police, he was told to clean up or go to jail. But his future wife Jennifer, a New York actress and scriptwriter, provided the real incentive to change his life.
"I met her eight or nine years ago in Arizona," he smiles. "Jennifer went back to New York. I went to LA and we kept in touch. I'd visit her and her kid, who is now my stepson, and we remained friends. I could see something in her I wanted. She didn't give a crap about the band I was in. She just genuinely cared about what I was doing to myself and I saw that right from the start. That was unusual because I was usually suspicious of people, particularly myself. When you can't trust yourself it's impossible to trust others. But there was something about Jennifer that lit a candle in me. I can't say I moved to New York for her but, looking back, I was hoping something more would come of it."
New York may not seem the ideal place for a recovering addict, let alone one who, like Gahan, was a juvenile delinquent in Basildon, Essex. But the city has been the making of him. He says Jennifer gave him the confidence to step out on his own.
His recent debut solo album Paper Monsters is a fine document of his dark past and present optimism. Life in the Big Apple obviously suits him.
"My friends there are starting to call me a New Yorker," he says. "It was the first place that ever felt like home. The city has been good for me. I still hang out with people who have been through similar experiences."
Gahan blames himself for his past problems, but the roots go back to his childhood. "My stepdad died when I was nine," he says. "My real father showed up once when I was 11 and that was the last time I ever saw him. There was always distrust for people you were meant to feel safe with after that - teachers, getting into trouble with the police. I'm still a bit like that. I'll still choose to cut through the prickly bushes rather than go down the smooth road."
His current live band is a more rock 'n' roll outfit than Depeche Mode, comprising friends who have been through the drink and drugs treadmill and lived to tell the tale.
"We've chosen to find other ways in life to relax," says Dave. "One of them is playing music. It's not a chore. It's supposed to be fun and it is - more than ever." His solo career doesn't spell the end of Depeche, but the band will never be the same again. "We've been around too long to just go away," he admits. "But we've reached a point where we have to open up the doors to new influences and not put so many restrictions on who we are or what we sound like. We could play to 30,000 people a night all over the world which is fantastic, but we should be using it in a more challenging way.
"Next year I'll get together with Martin Gore and talk about making a Depeche Record, but it has to be different. I'll put forward my ideas. As I've been growing older and wiser, I realise the old set-up wasn't working for me anymore - much like the drugs didn't work after a while.
"This album has helped me get rid of my insecurity. There is nothing I want to change about my life right now and I want to give some of that back - to my wife, my family through my music."
- Sunday, Glastonbury Festival (the Other Stage), July 9 and 10, Shepherd's Bush Empire.
[Daily Mirror, 27th June 2003. Words: Gavin Martin. Picture: Uncredited.]
Ten years ago, I met Dave Gahan in his dressing room before Depeche Mode played a stadium in Hungary. The show hadn't started, but the emaciated singer's voice was already shot. He looked and sounded at the end of his tether.
The scars on his arms, his haunted appearance and erratic behaviour all suggested a heroin problem. But no one, certainly not Dave, would admit it. He may have been a rock star, but he desperately needed help. It seemed he was heading for a grisly end and soon. Shortly after we met, he collapsed on stage with a heart attack and, three years later, attempted suicide.
But Gahan, who plays Glastonbury on Sunday, received help and his recovery has been a joy to behold. Today, he is fit, healthy and sitting in a London hotel room with Jack, his 15-year-old son from his first marriage. Gahan, 41, is concerned when I remind him of our earlier meeting.
"Did I get aggressive with you?" he asks. "I remember reading what you wrote and it p***ed me off. But I was glad you did it. There were people like you who said 'Forget the music, this guy is sick and needs help.' But at the time I was beyond receiving help.
"That's the tricky thing about addiction. When you are in that world you have to be willing to change everything about yourself. If you don't change, you're not going to get better. I wasn't one of those addicts who lost their home and money. I still had all those things, but I'd lost my soul and had no spirit. When I went home after that tour I realised what trouble I was in. I was propelled into an abyss."
In 1996, Gahan's heart stopped for two minutes after a cocaine and heroine overdose, but he claims it was more a cry for help than a suicide bid. "I don't think I was trying to harm myself - I was just looking for attention," he says. "It was a dark time but it was also when I realised it was up to me to make the change."
Gahan was living in Los Angeles when he had his overdose. Busted by the police, he was told to clean up or go to jail. But his future wife Jennifer, a New York actress and scriptwriter, provided the real incentive to change his life.
"I met her eight or nine years ago in Arizona," he smiles. "Jennifer went back to New York. I went to LA and we kept in touch. I'd visit her and her kid, who is now my stepson, and we remained friends. I could see something in her I wanted. She didn't give a crap about the band I was in. She just genuinely cared about what I was doing to myself and I saw that right from the start. That was unusual because I was usually suspicious of people, particularly myself. When you can't trust yourself it's impossible to trust others. But there was something about Jennifer that lit a candle in me. I can't say I moved to New York for her but, looking back, I was hoping something more would come of it."
New York may not seem the ideal place for a recovering addict, let alone one who, like Gahan, was a juvenile delinquent in Basildon, Essex. But the city has been the making of him. He says Jennifer gave him the confidence to step out on his own.
His recent debut solo album Paper Monsters is a fine document of his dark past and present optimism. Life in the Big Apple obviously suits him.
"My friends there are starting to call me a New Yorker," he says. "It was the first place that ever felt like home. The city has been good for me. I still hang out with people who have been through similar experiences."
Gahan blames himself for his past problems, but the roots go back to his childhood. "My stepdad died when I was nine," he says. "My real father showed up once when I was 11 and that was the last time I ever saw him. There was always distrust for people you were meant to feel safe with after that - teachers, getting into trouble with the police. I'm still a bit like that. I'll still choose to cut through the prickly bushes rather than go down the smooth road."
His current live band is a more rock 'n' roll outfit than Depeche Mode, comprising friends who have been through the drink and drugs treadmill and lived to tell the tale.
"We've chosen to find other ways in life to relax," says Dave. "One of them is playing music. It's not a chore. It's supposed to be fun and it is - more than ever." His solo career doesn't spell the end of Depeche, but the band will never be the same again. "We've been around too long to just go away," he admits. "But we've reached a point where we have to open up the doors to new influences and not put so many restrictions on who we are or what we sound like. We could play to 30,000 people a night all over the world which is fantastic, but we should be using it in a more challenging way.
"Next year I'll get together with Martin Gore and talk about making a Depeche Record, but it has to be different. I'll put forward my ideas. As I've been growing older and wiser, I realise the old set-up wasn't working for me anymore - much like the drugs didn't work after a while.
"This album has helped me get rid of my insecurity. There is nothing I want to change about my life right now and I want to give some of that back - to my wife, my family through my music."
- Sunday, Glastonbury Festival (the Other Stage), July 9 and 10, Shepherd's Bush Empire.