Depeche Mode Learning The Highway Mode (Melody Maker, 1981)

[demoderus]

Learning The Highway Mode
[Melody Maker, 14th November 1981. Words: Paul Colbert. Pictures: Tom Sheehan.]

Melody Maker follows Depeche Mode on the first UK tour and experience the trials and tribulations that come with an hysterical fan base. Look out for Andy's underpants and the maniac at the end. One of the best things I have for 1981.
" Backstage it’s all grins, Dave displaying his “collection” for the night – a gaudy gold-painted necklace that wouldn’t look out of place dangling from a toilet cistern, and a pair of ruffled, elbow-length ladies’ gloves. “At first I thought they were KNICKERS” he said, genuinely horrified that someone could have thrown such items on to the stage. It doesn’t stop him slipping them over his fingers and catwalking round the dressing room. "

LEARNING THE HIGHWAY MODE

When it happened, he hadn’t know what to do… run, fight, laugh, panic…
In other people’s tales the answer always seems so obvious, but when the two guys stopped him in Manchester… on a busy street… at two in the afternoon… and demanded all the money in his pockets, Daryl was stumped for a suitable course of action. They were big these blokes – well, biggish and – Daryl’s mind whirled for some 007 ploy, a breathtaking gambit that would reduce the daylight assailants to awed and quivering jelly.
In a flash he acted. “I said no… and they went away. Mind you, things like that never happen in Basildon.”
Perhaps not, but Depeche Mode do.
And they come on you with just as much surprise; leave the wallet and steal your heart and feet away; front up with so much bare-faced, chirpy cheek you can’t help but love their simple and uncluttered purpose. And it’s not so easy to say no.
But for the moment, home town Basildon is a British Rail sandwich and a couple of hundred miles away. The immediate problem is tracking down Fagins, the third gig on this, their first lengthy tour – a 14 date buzz around England in the wake of the newly released album “Speak And Spell”.
The present guide is Daryl, a roadie and mate, who’s doing any thing but setting minds at ease by relating the story of his last brush with the city of smoke. At least Sheehan’s yarn is more restful. “See that hotel,” he jabs with a finger unhitched from a Nikon, “Albert Tatlock lives there… has all his meals brought to his suite AND doesn’t have to do any cleaning. That’s success…”
In fact, it’s not Tatlock and the rest of the street that concerns Depeche. It’s that while doing the Manchester gigs they’re missing the episode of “Crossroads” which begins the long road to finally offing Meg Mortimer. Such are the sacrifices.
The day had been gloomy, the evening sadly promised not much more. Divorced from the intimate and acquainted audiences of London and the South, Depeche Mode were wary about breaking ground with the northern attenders, especially as the album hadn’t yet appeared in the local shops.
Tucked partway along Oxford Street, Fagins could best be summed up by the word “low” – the ceiling is a rafter-strewn lid which operates to clamp down the sound, the audience and the band. The performance is vague, the reaction cool, the Mode unhappy. Let’s scrub it. Rip today out of the diary and start a new page, a new life.

There is just a small possibility that a major soul-quaking calamity could make Dave Gahan miserable for more than 30 seconds. Unlikely though. In the face of a dodgy gig, a steadily worsening cold and now a fly in the cornflakes at breakfast, he manages a broad beaming grin. “Ask them why it isn’t in the soup,” suggests Sheehan of the insectoid side order.
Depeche Mode travel heavy. I’ve never seen so many suitcases and suit-draped hangers crammed into a minibus – nearly all stage clothes as it turns out, made by an acquaintance in Kensington. Martin Gore has taken to travelling in camo gear, Vince Clarke favours jeans and a leather jacket, Andy Fletcher jumps on to the bus bearing a white t-shirt and a newly acquired chess set for mobile challenges, while Dave flicks the collar of his never distant overcoat round his neck and peels another orange. “Must have plenty of fruit,” he murmurs. Why? “Cos I’m dying.”
Also squeezing into the bus are two-man support band Blancmange who made their first vinyl appearance alongside Depeche Mode on the “Some Bizzare” album, plus Dave and Martin’s girlfriends Jo and Anne who have been drafted in to handle badges, tee-shirts and other DM merchandise at the gigs.
The road to Birmingham, the next stop, will take just under two hours to run, mostly in silence, though I do tap Dave for his views on their TOTP showing. “It was boring making it… we were sitting around for 12 hours though we did get a chance to talk to the other bands – apart from Spandau. They were the only ones who wouldn’t talk to us. They’re getting a bit snobby.”
Shortly before piling into Brum, Andy convinces tour manager Jon Botting to pull in at the service station. No-one believes for a moment the pretence of grabbing a cup of coffee. The entire band is addicted to Space Invaders machines, and they colonise the front hall before you can say “one or two players”. “Worst part of this job is getting them away from the bloody things,” confided Jon before yelling “LAST GAME EVERYONE” at the backs of the band. All credit to his stentorian authority – even the lowly passers-by with nothing to do with Depeche step back from the fire buttons in abashed obedience.
Bowling off Spaghetti Junction, the first recognisable part of Brum to present itself is tonight’s venue, the Locarno. Far more interesting is the dazed street sweeper outside the place who, Andy swears, looks exactly like their publisher. He’s obviously clueless as to why a minibus of hysterically giggling loonies should be whistling and taking his picture.
Birmingham has gone security crazy. Straight through the hotel doors and into the looming presence of a uniformed guard who searches all the bags. Dave is a neat packer, the rest – well…

 

[demoderus]

With an hour to spare before the sound-check, the band and hack settle down for an interview – or at least three quarters of the band do. Vince feels he got a rough deal at the pen of a Fleet Street journalist and is presently off the press. [1] The rest are more than willing to natter… oh yes.
Dave: “We’ve got used to it but when we started, interviews made us really nervous. We just said yes or no. Now it’s the pictures that worry us the most; we’re not really photogenic.”
You’re joking. I know of a few thousand breathless female admirers who’d argue the odds.
Dave: “Yeah, it is important to look good, to be visual on stage…”
Andy: “But we don’t wear suits just so the audience can say, wow, look at what they’re wearing. We wear them to feel good.”
Dave: “It’s all part of a gig, to get dressed; it gets the adrenaline going. The gig really starts a couple of hours before you go on stage when you’re getting ready. I’m more nervous up here, it’s easier in London or when your friends are in the audience.
“When we play Basildon again it’ll be crazy. Martin’s just going to have a loincloth. Mart likes to show his top off… you like your body, don’t you Mart…”
Andy: “He loves it…”
Dave: “Yeah, that’s how he ended up on “Top Of The Pops”, he took his shirt off in the dressing room and said, ‘shall I go on like this’.”
Andy: “He’s even been known to kiss his own body.”
Martin: “You’re making this up…” (gales of laughter and the sound of a ferocious wind-up. Dave leaps off the bed and runs round the hotel bedroom kissing his arm and singing ‘I’m so beautiful’. Martin retaliates.)
Martin: “At least I don’t wear Y-FRONTS. Andy used to wear Y-fronts until a week ago, but we converted him to a briefs man…”
Andy: “WHAT! …I don’t wear them – YOU DO!”
Martin: “Yeah, he said ‘what shall I do if I get a girl on this tour’ …this bit’s going to be embarrassing.” No it’s not Fletcher makes a desperate lunge across the bed and grabs for the tape recorder while Dave and Martin look as if they’ve got terminal giggles. The room’s in uproar when suddenly the phone rings and with the sobering thought that it might be Svengali-esque producer Daniel Miller checking up on his boys, the laughter is stifled.
It isn’t. It’s just a reminder about the sound-check, but seizing the break in the comedy I punch home a question about Danny.
“He’s a damn good producer,” chips Andy with uncharacteristic vehemence, only to be punctured by Martin’s “… and he doesn’t wear Y-fronts.”

The trusty Teac tape recorder that supplies the rhythm tracks for Depeche’s stage shows came about from necessity rather than desire.
“If a good drummer approached us and fitted in with the band, maybe we’d think about it,” mused Dave, “but we never had much of a choice. There weren’t any drummers in Basildon that would do, and anyway they need transport and a place to rehearse.
“We just used to practice at Vince’s place on headphones – and Vince’s mum didn’t even like the tapping noise the synthesiser keys made.”
Which raised the question, is it really as much fun now, on a UK circuit, as when Depeche Mode clicked silently from day to day?
“No… I don’t think so. We still have a good laugh, but it’s not as much fun. It used to be a thrill just to play, you were so nervous before a gig you were nearly sick. Perhaps because you get used to it maybe it seems easier, or maybe it’s that when we started we were all doing something else during the daytime and worrying about the weekend gig.
“It’s not that it’s becoming a job – I wouldn’t put it that far – but on tour you’re doing the same things every day.”
And when you’re not, how do you spend the spare time?
Dave: “Sometimes I’ll go up to my old college and see my friends; go round the town; go shopping maybe. There’s not much to do in Basildon.”
Martin: “Spend it at home with my family.”
Andy: “I could go round a friend’s house, or to the pictures, or pub, or read. I spend a lot of money on books.”
Martin: “No you don’t… he’s read about two.”
Andy: “Oh rubbish… I’ve just read ‘The Throwback’.”
What else?
“’Alexander The Great’.”
“What else… see, I’ve exhausted him now.”
“Er… ‘Chariots Of The Gods’.”
“And that was at school.”
“Well at least I don’t go down the pub every night.”
Is it any wonder that Andy gets fan mail from worried girl worshippers who reckon the rest of the band pick on him? Relax. They don’t really.
What happens after the tour? Back to the studio for a new single, as yet unwritten, and possibly tracks for the following album. It’s here that I begin wishing Vince was around.
“Vince has written a lot of material in the past, but we’re all starting to write now,” continues Dave, who has the subject of lyrics switchbacked away from him by Martin. “They’re odd really, they don’t mean anything. This is a question Vince should answer… but he won’t.
“He looks for a melody then finds words that rhyme, he doesn’t really search for anything. Some people search for a song that means something from the heart whereas Vince does it the other way round, he says he does, anyway.”
An hour later Vince has enough on his plate to inspire half a dozen new numbers – angry ones. The power in the Locarno has been playing hide and seek plunging the road crew into intermittent darkness, and his new synth has suffered the electrical equivalent of a nervous breakdown: every fourth note is going haywire.
“Hmm… different,” is the sternest curse he can conjure before borrowing one of Blancmange’s instruments and unpacking an unfamiliar reserve keyboard of his own. All that and he still succeeds in getting through the set without dropping a duffer. That takes some doing.
And despite the omens, the panicky sound-check, the split second escape out the side entrance as the fans come crashing in the front, tonight’s gig is far better than Manchester and the audience is ready to dance – even if it does look like a New Romantics’ annual dinner.
Dave reckons this is Duran Duran’s home town and the two factions aren’t going to mix, but it takes four encores to settle the demanding Brummies and even then it’s […] speedily hoisted disco that quells the shouts.
This set is a soft starter, Vince, Andy and Martin warming up via an instrumental before Dave, trousers hitched high above his waist and striped tie neatly held by a gold pin, strolls forward for “Photographic”. The first riotous roars are for “New Life” and its funkier, rearranged intro then it’s a hard ten minutes of backbone bouncing before the […] seductive swing of “Puppets” and a dramatic break with “Ice Machine”.

[1] - That's this article in the Daily Star, perhaps one of the most important - for better or worse - in the band's career.

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[demoderus]

The mind takes a […] to one of Andy’s […] commentaries about the “original fans […] technological sell out. “They say we’ve changed things, but it’s just the way it develops. We’ve recorded “Photographic” so many times now, we felt like doing something different on the album.
“These originals even want us to release two sets of singles – one for the general public and one for them with the old sound. They say there are too many fiddly bits.”
They probably wouldn’t approve of the hard and faster treatment that “Tora, Tora, Tora” gets, but if they could moan at the crisp snap of “Television Set” they need their ears darned.
There’s no way Depeche Mode could have left without racing through “Dreaming Of Me” even if the time it represented might seem a faint and fading memory. Like it or not, Depeche are moving on as they grow, assimilate, understand and improve. Just because they’re maturing doesn’t mean they have to throw youth aside. There are some things you keep.
Backstage it’s all grins, Dave displaying his “collection” for the night – a gaudy gold-painted necklace that wouldn’t look out of place dangling from a toilet cistern, and a pair of ruffled, elbow-length ladies’ gloves. “At first I thought they were KNICKERS” he said, genuinely horrified that someone could have thrown such items on to the stage. It doesn’t stop him slipping them over his fingers and catwalking round the dressing room.
And so begins the ritual. A queue of over 100 (90 per cent female) has formed outside the dressing room door, waiting for autographs, a lock of hair, a moment sharing the same air.
Nothing so dainty. The first boldly marches to Martin and asks if she can have his hat. Soft voiced, he politely declines. How about the braces then? No. A sock? Uh-huh. Desperate, she goes on the offensive, “why DO you always wear that hat?”
“Because I’m bald,” he kids, and the fan is horrified, supposing it’s true, supposing her dreams are about to be shattered by a glistening pate. He doffs his chapeau, a current of blond-topped hair billows out, and another fantasy makes it to the last bus home.
Meanwhile all eyes are on Dave. “He usually takes his trousers off around now,” whispers Martin. “He always waits until the girls are in the room – as an extra.” But no such luck tonight. He pauses until the last signature hunter has sighed out before changing his strides.
And still the queue stretches on, offering up pictures, ticket stubs, hands, arms, all waiting to receive the Depeche pen.
Ever more daring, another admirer plonks a smacker on Martin’s cheek then risks asking for one back. Too much. Flicking a steely gaze at the offender, Anne, Martin’s girlfriend, warns: “Oh no… he can get them, but he’s not giving them back,” and promptly sits sentinel on the edge of his chair, much to everyone else’s amusement and Martin’s barely concealed pride.

Forty minutes later the queue has finally petered out, bags have been packed and it’s into the stilly Birmingham night to catch the last clear air before the haze descends with the morning. Round the corner, next to the van is a final gaggle of fans. One is screaming a monologue of admiration at a volume not far below that of the PA.
“… and if you ever come back to Birmingham you can come round and see me and I’ll make you a sandwich or if you don’t like sandwiches you can have a bun or a jam tart or a donut or ice cream or custard or cake…” The menu is awe-inspiring, hideously calorific and about five minutes long.
Not content with silencing everyone under a dictionary of snacks she saves the dumbfounding parting shot for the van’s rapidly fleeing back – “and when you dance on stage you look as if you’re SHAGGING.”
The last word rents the air like a brick through tissue and the band visibly wince. Andy, draining a pint of milk, is no closer to solving the mysteries of fame. “D’you know they even wanted the bottle top for a souvenir… the bottle top.” Heads shake in disbelief.
The next morning we were parting company: Depeche Mode on to Nottingham – “my ancestors could have come from Sherwood Forest,” announces Andy over breakfast. “Fletcher… fledger y’see… it means someone who makes arrow flights,” – and myself back to London. [1]
Suddenly the hotel reception is empty but for me and Vince Clarke, the mystery man, the one who’s remained virtually silent at almost every meeting. So, why the deliberate quiet? Is it just the bitter memory of an interview gone wrong.
“No… there’s more to it and that,” and in a few brief words it transpires that technically knowledgeable and well up to date though he is, Vince is seemingly less interested in talking about music than doing it.
But how does he come by the songs that make up Depeche Mode? Is it the synthesisers, the drum tracks, the strange noises, the popping lines? Where does it start?
“Well… I pick up a guitar and strum three chords…” The smile he left behind was the deepest and the driest I’d seen for two days.

[1] - Very possibly - Fletch was born in Nottingham!

 

[demoderus]

Date: November 1981
Description: 14 novembre 1981
Pays: Royaume-Uni