Depeche Mode after Fletch: “Everything will come to an end. I don’t know when that is.”
Band members Dave Gahan and Martin Gore have mused on songwriting, working together as a pair, and losing their keyboardist
Image: Anton Corbijn
Depeche Mode’s lead vocalist Dave Gahan has discussed the band’s reaction to losing their bandmate Andrew Fletcher while main songwriter Dave Gahan has praised the frontman’s songwriting skills.
In a recent interview with NME, the songwriter, guitarist and keyboardist told writer Andrew Trendall about how, since the death of the band’s keyboardist Andrew Fletcher AKA Fletch in May 2022, writing music has become a more collaborative effort. While in the early days of Depeche Mode songwriting initially fell to Vince Clarke, since his departure from the band in 1981 to form Erasure and Yazoo, Martin Gore became the band’s lead songwriter.
“Dave’s writing gets better with each record we do,” Gore says in the interview, however, referencing the writing efforts on the band’s new album, Memento Mori, which saw Gahan making his debut in writing.
The interview reveals that it was the prospect of collaborative songwriting that was the main driver for Gahan to agree to work on new music after the death of Fletch.
Also in the interview, Gore and Gahan talk openly about their reaction to the death of their fellow band member. It’s revealed that the first text sent from former bandmate Alan Wilder to Gahan simply read, “And then there were two.”
The two band members also talk about how the experience of representing Depeche Mode as a duo was difficult, considering they weren’t close before Fletch’s death. “Me and Dave never had any big issues or problems with each other,” Gore says, “but we tended to be kind of distant. With there only being two of us left, that has led us to be closer and to talk more.”
Remarking upon heading back into the studio without Fletch, the frontman says: “Losing Fletch made that feeling more real. Everything will come to an end. I don’t know when that is.
“After Fletch passed and we had to continue I said, ‘Try to enjoy what you’ve got to do here and do the best you can’. You really don’t know if you’re going to be doing it again.”
Read the full interview with Depeche Mode on NME.com
