So why did you decide early on not to sign to a major?
Martin: "It was quite tempting. Looking back, I can't imagine why we didn't go with them, it was just a stroke of luck we didn't. I mean, can you imagine four 18 year old boys with no cash being offered sums of money like £200,000? But it was the best decision we ever made."
David: "There was a gut feeling at the time...although the real reason is probably that we were so indecisive it passed us by. Daniel Miller was advising us too, although he never pushed us to stay with him. He did say that whatever they offered, he would do his best to match, and if we wanted singles in the charts, he'd do his best to get that for us, too."
Martin: "I think the reason we've stayed around so long is because we're on Mute. We've been given the freedom to do what we want by being on Mute. We're not pushed in any particular direction, and Daniel isn't like a record company boss, he comes down to the studio and helps us out. He's more like a friend."
In the long run, of course, it's made the Deps a lot richer...
Andrew: "We went for points, percentage of the profits, there's no way a major would have given us the points deal we've got with Mute. We had to go for the first two years without much money, because we didn't get a huge advance."
So would you advise young bands to take the same course?
Martin: "It's difficult when bands come up and tell us they've been offered a major deal or whatever, because you want to say go for an independent, but we were very lucky in our case, because our first single was a hit. It has to be said that it's much easier to fail on an independent."
Andrew: "Some 99 per cent of new bands will fail, even if they're signed to a major, so at least that way maybe they'll come away with a bit of money. I'd like to advise people to go for an independent, but you've got to be careful. Bear in mind we only know one label, too; that doesn't indicate what the others are like."
Alan: "And if you need to buy equipment, you're going to need to go for the big advance."
What advantages have there been, apart from the money?
Alan: "A major would have pushed for us to have hits, but we've been allowed to go along at our own pace. Also there's a certain amount of rubbing off of each other..."
There's a certain amount of schoolboy tittering at that one.
"What I mean is, the standard of music on Mute is very high and that rubs off on the group."
From the glimpses we had of the new LP, the Depeche which is re-emerging is a harder, more classic construction than before. The vocal is still surging, but underneath there's a...well, filmic quality lurking about. Not melodramatic, but assured. [2]
So it's not surprising, then, that individually all the members of the band have expressed an interest in scoring films.
"We have been offered some dodgy sci-fi B Movie stuff, where they've asked us to drop in words like 'Venus' and 'Jupiter' here and there," laughs Martin. [3]
"I'd prefer something along the lines of Ry Cooder's stuff, like in Southern Comfort," adds Dave.
Andrew: "The thing is, I bet a lot of people wouldn't know it was us. We could get round a lot of preconceptions that way."
Preconceptions which have been built around the teenie following they initially commanded.
Martin: "We went through a stage around '81, '82 when our image was very teen oriented. We didn't know what we were doing, I mean our clothes and everything...even we find it embarrassing to look back on and think it's really sickly, so I can quite understand how it put some people off."
Andrew: "I think the teen audience can be one of the best, especially when they develop with you. They're really enthusiastic. It's only like The Smiths' audience, except theirs is more male dominated, but that's 16, 17 year old boys."
Isn't that kind of audience generally a lot less critical, though?
Andrew: "Perhaps, but then again I think they're more critical because they give everything you do a listen and really think about what you're doing. That gives us a responsibility."
David: "People think that just because an audience is 13, 14, they haven't got a mind, but that's not true. They may be more up on what's going on and than the 25 year olds who are going out and buying Dire Straits records.
"Besides which, a large proportion of our audience has matured and grown up with us."
The Deps are planning to head out on tour with the LP, but whether the uninitiated people will grit their teeth and give the album a try, I couldn't say. All I know is, I bet given a blind taste test, many of them would give it the thumbs up. Meanwhile, the rest of the world as so often happens in these cases, is already converted to the faith.
You said, don't sell out. Don't let the big wigs get it all their own way. You got Fad Gadget, you got New Order, you got The Smiths, and you respected them for it. You got Depeche Mode, bloody good at what they do and getting classier all the time. Don't forget it.
[1] - Not about the making of the album, but the US leg of the subsequent tour and especially its final performance at the Pasadena Rosebowl on 18th June 1988 were the subject of the D.A. Pennebaker film "101", released in 1989.
[2] - In the Videos 86>98 Interview, Anton Corbijn, who has directed most of their videos since 1986, describes this quality as a key inspiration in coming up with ideas for the videos. This was despite his misgivings about the band when he was initially approached to work with them.
[3] - At the time of writing, Depeche Mode had already contributed the track "But Not Tonight" to the soundtrack of the film "Modern Girls" in 1986. They were later to provide the Nile Rodgers Remix of "Route 66" to "Earth Girls Are Easy" in 1988, and "Death's Door" to "Until The End Of The World" in 1991.