“Depeche Mode”

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Speaker 2 You know what I started doing during the day? Is watching Deal or No Deal. Remember that show?

Speaker 3 Deal or No Deal. Is that the one where it's like a Plinko machine? Open the camera.

Speaker 1 No, Sean, remind me what happened. So the libraries all ran out of books.
And so you found yourself with a few extra hours.

Speaker 2 No, like I'll have a suitcase one.

Speaker 3 So this is on a game show network or something?

Speaker 1 Yes, it's on Game Show Network. That's exactly right.

Speaker 3 Right. Because you're just crushing great ideas during the day and then doing theater at night.

Speaker 2 No, I can't, you know, text and type because I want to save my hands because I play piano in the show.

Speaker 2 And so

Speaker 2 I watch some games

Speaker 2 while I have my breakfast. So I watched Steel and Other.

Speaker 1 Remember that show? Yeah, of course. What does breakfast look like these days right now when you're in production?

Speaker 1 Let me guess. Jason, go first.

Speaker 3 It's

Speaker 3 Eggs Benedict because that's a breakfast with a sauce. And there needs to be a sauce on every meal.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 Let me have a guess. Yeah.

Speaker 1 It's kind of like a sausage muffin thing, but

Speaker 1 instead of like an English muffin and the sides are doughnuts.

Speaker 1 Cut in half like a bagel, like a bagel. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And then the sides. By the way, that's

Speaker 1 the sausage is just loose, good and plenties, you know, licorice.

Speaker 2 Instead of, yeah, at a restaurant, instead of like that pepper grinder, they go, good in plenties?

Speaker 1 Yeah. And they just squeeze it out.

Speaker 1 Sean, remember that huge, Sean, remember that photo of you and me and Scotty with that huge pepper grinder? We were at Istanbul, and the guy came up.

Speaker 1 You know, they come over and they go, like, would you like some of that?

Speaker 3 I can't hear about

Speaker 3 the European vacations anymore with you guys.

Speaker 1 That was only, that was the second European trip we did. So anyway, so Sean and I are there, and the guy comes up.
You know, they come up with a bunch of people. Who was your date, Will?

Speaker 1 Who was my date? Well, it doesn't matter. Why could it be your date?

Speaker 1 We don't need to get into.

Speaker 1 Every time we mention somebody now in the podcast, that person's like, I got 30 phone calls. I know.
They're like,

Speaker 1 so anyway, you know, the guy comes up and they go, you want some fresh pepper? And they go, yeah, let's get some fresh pepper.

Speaker 3 Give us a Turkish accent, Will.

Speaker 1 And this guy, guy, no, and this guy,

Speaker 1 you think I want to have to write a fucking

Speaker 3 guest is laughing.

Speaker 1 Notes apology that I got to post on. Mike is hot.
It's some male. I got to post on my Instagram a notes apology because you prompted me to do an accent of the guy who was my server in Istanbul.

Speaker 1 No, thank you. So anyway, stop reading.
So the guy goes,

Speaker 1 he goes, would you like some pepper? And I'm not, Sean, tell me, right? I'm not exaggerating. The pepper shaker was four feet long.

Speaker 2 And two guys came out to hold it.

Speaker 1 And two guys to hold it. Yeah, it sounds like

Speaker 3 my big bong years back in my early 20s.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 That used to be on my dating profile. It takes two guys to hold it.

Speaker 1 Listen, I have a

Speaker 1 all right. So listen.
Your guest is still laughing.

Speaker 1 That's a good sign. It's a good sign.

Speaker 2 Wait, but you guys, I texted you one of those comments. Did I text you both? The comment was like a week ago, and somebody wrote about my show.

Speaker 1 No. They said,

Speaker 1 didn't you get that, Jay? Fat suit.

Speaker 2 Yeah, another fucking fat suit thing.

Speaker 1 Wait, what? Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

Speaker 3 Somebody made a comment that Sean's is wearing a fat suit and his theater is.

Speaker 2 No, somebody asked me on my Instagram or somewhere or Twitter. I don't remember.
And it was, Sean, did they,

Speaker 2 is that, is the outfit that they put you in supposed to make you look bigger, which is, you know, code for fatter. Right.
And it's,

Speaker 2 I'm just fucking fat.

Speaker 1 And tell them what your friend said you should say. No, it's supposed to make me look thinner.
Why?

Speaker 1 By the way, Sean, it reminded me. I was watching, i was i was thinking about your dating profile reminded me i was watching alone

Speaker 1 uh that show right

Speaker 1 and it reminded me of something that they say in that all the time which is also in your dating profile which is hey bear hey bear hey bear

Speaker 1 now what's up

Speaker 3 now will you know uh a shameless plug here you know i know you have your new show yeah have you not watched out last year no i want to see that i haven't seen it yet i don't have

Speaker 3 i know i'm gonna watch it sean sounds like you've got time on your hands maybe instead of No, no, no.

Speaker 1 Are you kidding, dude? There's 11 seasons of Deal There No Deal you've got to get through.

Speaker 3 What was for breakfast, by the way?

Speaker 2 I had, yesterday I had an egg, cheese.

Speaker 1 We don't need the full week.

Speaker 2 A cheese, egg, and bacon

Speaker 1 bagel.

Speaker 2 And then today I did good. I did yogurt with grape nuts and blueberries.

Speaker 1 And a banana and a little bit of a candy bar. God, there's a...

Speaker 3 Wait, was the candy bar like a fun dip for the for the yogurt?

Speaker 1 No, it was a payday. We call that the equalizer, right? Just to cancel out everything else.
Time for this.

Speaker 1 Half a payday. Hey, listen.
This is batter with you. You want to talk about a payday? Our guests.
Segue, segue, segue. Our guests.

Speaker 1 Let me just say this. They've sold more than 100 million records worldwide.
Wait a minute. 54 songs in the UK singles chart, 17 top 10 albums in the UK chart.

Speaker 1 If I name a song, you're going to, I don't know,

Speaker 1 you're going to immediately guess. They're incredibly, incredibly talented guys who have been just such a huge part of the music scene for so long.

Speaker 1 And I don't want to say so many years because then they're going to be bummed out and be like, what, that makes us old.

Speaker 1 But I will say this: we are all legitimate fans of theirs, none more than Sean and I, Sean and me. Sean and I have discussed these guys all the time.

Speaker 1 It's Martin Gore and Dave Gond from Depeche Mo.

Speaker 1 Wow.

Speaker 1 This is fucking crazy. A real fucking bro.

Speaker 1 This is a legit fucking

Speaker 1 crazy.

Speaker 1 This is like, I got to be able to do it.

Speaker 1 Dave, hang on.

Speaker 1 Dave and Martin, you should know. Nice to meet you, both of you gentlemen.
This is unbelievable. It's such an honor.
Thank you. Pleasure.

Speaker 1 Sean and I, when I knew that, and we've been sort of trying to work this out to get you guys on here, and Sean and I talk about you guys all the time.

Speaker 1 And we talk about your music, we talk about your songs.

Speaker 1 And about, Sean, do you you remember about a month ago when we were talking about you guys and we were going to, and I knew that it was going to happen. And it took, it was one of the worst.

Speaker 1 It was the hardest I've ever had to work to keep a secret. Oh, you knew.

Speaker 1 I knew, Sean, when we had that conversation.

Speaker 2 You guys, I'm freaking out. I have 17,000 things to say to you.

Speaker 1 We got time, Sean.

Speaker 1 We got time. We got nothing but time, actually.

Speaker 2 You said we have nothing but time. Of course, I immediately go, it's just a question of time.

Speaker 1 Right?

Speaker 1 I know every word word to every song. Every word to every song.

Speaker 2 This is so wild. And I have to do this for you guys because, okay, so I'm going to start out with this.

Speaker 1 Martin, I've never seen

Speaker 1 this idea.

Speaker 2 This is freaking out. So, Martin, you came to a taping of Will and Grace.

Speaker 1 That is true. I did.
Yes. And

Speaker 1 what if he didn't remember?

Speaker 4 I've been trying to keep that quiet for years.

Speaker 1 That's a new massive fan.

Speaker 1 That's amazing. That's a good idea, Dave.
I love it.

Speaker 2 So, wait, so you came to a taping of Will and Grace, and somebody whispered in my ear, Martin Gore's in the audience. I'm like, what are you talking about, Martin Gore's in the audience?

Speaker 2 Depeche Mona is like my life. What are you talking about? And then you were there with your wife and your wife's friends, or something like that.

Speaker 2 And then you asked, let's go out to grab some fish and chips at the Standard Hotel on Sunset Boulevard. And I was like, oh my God, I'm going to go out for...
fish and chips.

Speaker 2 I've never had fish and chips. This is so exciting.

Speaker 1 So we go out for a fish.

Speaker 2 And I'm walking down the street with you, which was so surreal to me. And I did this bit for you, which is waiting for the night off a violator and i'll do it for you now which is

Speaker 2 wig wait for it it will cut out the locked bar

Speaker 2 because this is what i used to do in college

Speaker 3 here it comes

Speaker 2 this is it this is coming up

Speaker 2 And I wrote my fucking senior thesis paper on this song. Come on.

Speaker 1 College. Wow.
I swear to God. Here we go.
Here we go. This is it.

Speaker 3 You're taking off the glasses.

Speaker 1 Because it sounds like a bug. Right away.

Speaker 1 I've never thought of that as sounding like a bug, but now that you have given me that visual and we perform that song every night,

Speaker 1 I'll be thinking of you. Time to reshoot the video.
So, Dave and Martin, how do you guys respond to Sean Hayes has just boiled your music down to sounding like a bug?

Speaker 2 Oh, my God.

Speaker 1 This is unfortunately.

Speaker 1 So, we, again, like, you know, not to belabor it, but we talk about you guys all the time. Such massive fans of your music and have been and all the way through.

Speaker 1 And we've had the good fortune of having bands on the show who have been played important parts of our lives. But there are a few bands like you guys who have been there consistently over time.

Speaker 1 And that is also also the mark of real greatness is showing consistency over time and you're still doing it and so I kind of want to go back to the very beginning if I may and not to bore you

Speaker 1 because we're so interested to hear about

Speaker 1 how Depeche Mode came to be or and each one of you I know that you each have a different journey as how you became part of Depeche Mode and I'd love to sort of hear from you guys what that what that process was shaking right now well um

Speaker 4 vince and andy really started the whole thing. They had a like a little band going and I bought a synthesizer so that kind of like got me in the band.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 By the way, that's a very common,

Speaker 1 by the way, that's a very common theme. We've interviewed a bunch of bands and they're always like, I had a guitar, I had a camera, whatever, right?

Speaker 1 Well, there's a lot to do with that because When what we found out, so Mark will elaborate on this, but you didn't need the amp anymore and you didn't need to.

Speaker 1 You could just DI straight into a PA system, carry the little symph under your arm, pretty much, to a gig, and show up with our little drum machine and three simps, and kind of teetering on some beer crates in a pub or whatever as our stands, and we could play, you know.

Speaker 1 And, Dave, did you know these guys when they first started, or did you meet them a little bit later?

Speaker 1 Well, they were sort of infamous in the town that we grew up in for other things, but

Speaker 1 I did not really run in the same circles but it was a good thing for me because they sort of you know it gave me suddenly a focus

Speaker 1 that I had something to kind of grab hold of and maybe it was a way out of the town that we grew up in and

Speaker 1 they

Speaker 1 yeah I think what how we met properly was I was sort of hanging out with another band, right, Mark? And

Speaker 1 we were just rehearsing rehearsing in the same space

Speaker 1 and

Speaker 1 one evening, and I knew Vince a bit, but

Speaker 1 we were singing, sort of jamming together the song Heroes, a Bowie song. I love it.
And

Speaker 1 Vince heard me singing the song, supposedly, the story goes, and asked me to join his band, which was then

Speaker 1 a different band, which Martin was in with Vince. What was the name of that band?

Speaker 1 Composition of Sound.

Speaker 4 What an amazing name.

Speaker 1 For sure.

Speaker 1 Cause. Cause for sure.

Speaker 1 Cause.

Speaker 1 Like OMD. You know, they were trying to be like OMD.

Speaker 1 But meanwhile, it sounds like a manual that you find in a music story. I was like, that's got to go.
And I got such a, I got a better name, Depeche Mo, which everybody also went like, what?

Speaker 2 But let's talk about that because in French it's it's fast fashion so why yeah why fast fashion?

Speaker 1 I tell you the story. Look,

Speaker 1 I was at a shitty sort of art college

Speaker 1 as we all were at one point. And

Speaker 1 I was doing a fashion course there and there was this this mag there was magazines there.

Speaker 1 I think it was something like we had a gig somewhere. We had to kind of, we were thinking about changing the name.
We had a little pub gig coming up and this was the moment to change the name.

Speaker 1 So what should it be? And I saw this magazine. It was a French sort of magazine, a French fashion magazine lying there.
It had the name and I had no idea what it meant or anything.

Speaker 1 I just read it out over the phone to somebody who said, oh, we're in Defash Mode. And

Speaker 1 that's a weird name. And I was like, yes, it is.

Speaker 1 Did it put more pressure on you guys to come up with fancy outfits?

Speaker 1 No, we were already trying that.

Speaker 1 Most of them homemade at that point, you know. So, you know,

Speaker 1 it would be a pair of football socks with like, you know, like up to the knees, you know, pulled up to the knees with some cut-offs, like, to the knees. And took some house slippers.

Speaker 1 To make them look, you know,

Speaker 1 some house slippers that were

Speaker 1 on us fully around.

Speaker 1 Yes.

Speaker 1 So tell me, so then, so you guys form, so, so, Dave, so you join and then you name it, and you guys call, call yourself the pesh mode. You start doing gigs.

Speaker 1 How many before you, your first record is Speak and Spell, yeah? Yeah. And

Speaker 1 so. Everywhere to every song.
Yeah, I mean, speak and spell. yeah, and I want to get into that in a second and to Vince Clark.

Speaker 1 But what was

Speaker 1 before you released Speak and Spell, how does that come about that you guys get that record deal? Like, what are you doing? Where are you performing? Yeah.

Speaker 1 We were playing most of the songs from that record, right? Like in

Speaker 1 mostly Vince Clark songs. And

Speaker 1 it's really the one album that, because Vince left immediately after that album was released. And did he say he's sang on that record? Before it was released.
Oh, really? Before it was released.

Speaker 1 But he sang on that record too, yeah?

Speaker 1 Well,

Speaker 1 we sang together. It was a sort of three-part harmony thing, sort of Beach Boy meets Ramones type thing we were going for, I guess.
But

Speaker 1 the speed of the Ramones and the harmony of the Beach Boys. That was, I think, had Daniel Miller from Mute Records who signed us.
He didn't really sign us, though. It was just a sort of handshake.

Speaker 1 We never actually signed a contract. Really?

Speaker 2 No. Is that where the song the handshake.

Speaker 1 That was a Martin. Martin wrote that song, and he was probably just angry at everybody at that point.

Speaker 1 Music business and being ripped off again and again and again. So, this guy from YouTube Records, he sees you, what, in a pub, or you're playing clubs? What?

Speaker 1 In a pub?

Speaker 4 We supported one of his other acts called Fad Gadget at a pub called The Bridge House. Fad Gadget.

Speaker 1 You've got to check out Fad Gadget. You guys are going to like Fad Gadget.
Great music. Really? Yes.
I'm actually going to write it down now that you say that. Fad.
F-A-D-G-A-D-E-T.

Speaker 4 D-A-G-A-D-G-E-T.

Speaker 1 Legitimately. That's right.

Speaker 1 Martin went to school. I did not.
Oh. Well, then you're going to, I mean, Jason, anything? Nothing.
Okay. So

Speaker 4 Daniel saw us supporting Fad Gadget with our synth set up on. By that time, we'd gone to all synths.

Speaker 4 We started off with a bass and a guitar in the band, but we'd gone to all synths and we had them set up set up on our beer crates and daniel daniel was impressed yeah he was

Speaker 1 we played really fast and uh

Speaker 1 he

Speaker 1 his story goes he he was mixing a sound for fad gay this is a little pub in east the east end of london called the bridge house in canning town and uh

Speaker 1 you know we had a residency there on like thursday nights the guy even though nobody would be there'd be like two people and a dog you know most of the time so as depressed mode yeah uh as depressed mode and um you know the guy that ran the pub um

Speaker 1 he took a shine to us and sort of would let us play there thirsty nights but anyway so we got this support which was a big thing because we loved fad gadget and um

Speaker 1 you know and um

Speaker 1 jason loved that yeah if you've got to check out fad gadget but so so you guys so you go and you support these guys and then this dude from from mute records like yeah you guys are the guys who are supporting fad gadget are pretty good We actually had met him before.

Speaker 1 Vince and I had trailed around all the record companies, and we had gone to Rough Trade Records in London thinking that we had made this masterful demo that they were going to sign us immediately because we actually had melody, and most of their other bands at that time did not.

Speaker 1 They were just noise.

Speaker 1 And we thought they're going to sign us immediately. And the guy that ran the record company, Scott, he was not really interested, but he listened to our tape.

Speaker 1 And while he was listening to the tape, Daniel Miller happened to walk into the office because Fad Gadget was being

Speaker 1 distributed by Rough Trade at the time.

Speaker 1 And he was shouting about something that he'd gone in a record store and there was no records in there or something. And so Scott shouted out, you know, Daniel, you know, you should listen to this.

Speaker 1 Maybe you'll be, this is something you might be interested in. He kind of growled a bit, looked over at me and Vince sitting there and just,

Speaker 1 you know, and walked out. And we were like, well, fuck him.
That's Daniel Miller from Mute Record. You know, so we walked out of there.
And this was, I guess, the

Speaker 1 chance, the next chance meeting when we were opening for Fad Gadget,

Speaker 1 Daniel was mixing the sound and he came back afterwards and started talking to me actually because he thought I'd written the songs because I was singing them.

Speaker 1 And I said, and he asked me some questions and then he said, you write the songs. I was like, no, that bloke over there does.
And that was Vince.

Speaker 1 And so he left me, of course, and went off and talked to Vince. And

Speaker 1 after that night, he said, can I come back? And I I think we said we were playing next Thursday. He did.
And he came back and he asked if we wanted to make a 45. Wow.
A single, which is, yeah.

Speaker 1 That's like 1981. Mark, is that correct, Mark? Is that kind of correct? That is correct, yeah.
Does that check out?

Speaker 4 It was a 45.

Speaker 1 It was a 45 then. We called them a single.
It was a 47-inch single, a 45. And he said, I've got enough money to do that.

Speaker 1 We don't have to sign any contracts or anything.

Speaker 1 But so that's a that's like 1980, 81.

Speaker 4 That was 1980, and Daniel is still involved with us today.

Speaker 1 Yeah. No.
Oh, wow.

Speaker 1 First of all, that's a that's incredible and that's a that you have that kind of long-lasting relationship. Yeah.
So it's 1980 and what were you you guys write this record.

Speaker 1 What were you listening to at the time that you wrote that in 1980?

Speaker 2 Yeah, I was going to say the same thing. What were you listening to?

Speaker 2 And also were you um did you think think back then you were following a trend like where this, the music business is going into synth pop and maybe we should do that?

Speaker 1 Or was that truly a genuine love?

Speaker 3 It hadn't really started yet, had it?

Speaker 4 We were fans of mute records.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 4 So, you know, the fact that Daniel was offering us a one-off single deal, that was amazing to us.

Speaker 1 But who are the bands that were at that time that were on you, you were playing on your tape cassettes?

Speaker 4 Well, like Frad Gadget, like, I mean, Daniel also, for a while, had Daff, Deutsche Amerikanische Freundschaft.

Speaker 1 Check them out as well. Yeah.

Speaker 1 D-A-F. D-A-F.
They sing in German.

Speaker 1 The normal.

Speaker 4 Yeah, the normal was Daniel himself. Warm leatherette.
You must know that.

Speaker 1 You must know that song. Grace Jones made it famous, I guess.
I don't know if I know she covered it. I was just listening to this afternoon, this morning, I was just listening to Trio.

Speaker 1 Do you remember the Dad Daddy? The Da Dada, yeah. Yeah, that they made on the Little Casio.
I was just listening to that, and I was listening to some Blanange, and I was listening to

Speaker 1 Blamange played with us a lot. In fact, there was an album at the time called Some Bizarre Album.
It was by this guy who put it together. His name was Steve-O, and he put together.

Speaker 1 Actually, our first recording that came out was on that record. It was a song called Photographic, which was on Speak and Spell 2.
But we did, we were part of that album.

Speaker 1 And on that album, there was anyone from

Speaker 1 an early track from Soft Cell, oh, yeah, from Blange,

Speaker 1 from us.

Speaker 1 Who was it, Mark? Like, the.

Speaker 1 The the oh man.

Speaker 1 So it was a compliment called Some Bizarre Album. And so a lot of those acts after that got signed.
Well, that was you guys, you guys kind of were right at the forefront of that to me musically.

Speaker 1 The the you know, listening to discussion, that first great band, that first, you know, this is the day is still just such an anthem. It reminds me of getting my first cool haircut when I was 12.

Speaker 1 And then, and then, but listening to that,

Speaker 1 you know, listening to you guys, listening to, and then Vince, of course, went on to form in the UK, known as Yazoo in America known as Yaz

Speaker 1 with Alison Moyer and then he went off with Andy Bell and formed Razor as well and but but though you guys were right there at the forefront of all of that and I always wondered like well these are bands that not a lot of people know but you guys weren't listening to

Speaker 1 it was post punk you gotta remember like in England it was coming out of the ashes of well it was over punk was over in England were you listening to clash though like was that your thing well there was the pistols the clash the Damned, Susie and the Band.

Speaker 1 All these bands were kind of either evolving towards the end of like 77, 78 into whatever that was coming, or they were kind of, it was over, you know, and we kind of, that do-it-yourself attitude, yeah, I think is what we bought into.

Speaker 1 Well, you guys were, you guys had your own unique sound coming out of that in the same way, sort of in the punk world that like Paul Weller and the jam never really fit quite into the punk. Right.

Speaker 1 right and and Paul and then he ended up of course and you guys probably know him and he's amazing and went off and did style council but in that same way that you guys kind of took from or or were

Speaker 1 born out of a different era and then created your own genre in a in a way i mean not to put you on the spot but uh

Speaker 1 because there wasn't weren't a lot of people who were making what you guys were doing people just started doing and i don't like bronsky beat you know they were doing stuff but they came after you guys like two years after speaking to you.

Speaker 2 Yeah, it's almost like we had Bono on, and we were talking about how, you know, when all these pop stars, like Madonna, Michael Jackson, all these other kind of like big pop stars, and here comes Joshua Tree, this album that was so like, wait, what?

Speaker 2 It's so alternative. And then you guys came along, I think, in the same kind of way where it was just like it was left of center from what everybody else is listening to.

Speaker 1 Back then, and like,

Speaker 1 we didn't really fit in any of that stuff.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that's what I was saying. It was like we, we always,

Speaker 1 we always kind of were the odd one band out in that there was a wave of stuff that came,

Speaker 1 but we never quite fit. And I think that was a really good thing.
And I think a lot of that was to do with Daniel Miller and his guidance in

Speaker 1 kind of allowing us to slowly. like develop into what it was we wanted to be.

Speaker 1 And by the time we got to Black Celebration, I think we had kind of found a bit before that, but we had found our own way, right? Mark, we'd sort of found... Yeah,

Speaker 1 it took us a while. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 And we will be right back.

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Speaker 2 And now back to the show.

Speaker 1 Martin, so Vince, like I, as I allude to, Vince leaves and goes and with Allison Way and goes and does, first does

Speaker 1 Yazoo. And Martin, did you, so then you started writing more? Because Vince had written,

Speaker 1 or were you guys equally writing? Or how did that happen that you sort of stepped into that position?

Speaker 1 Well,

Speaker 1 I don't even mean to put it, I don't know how to.

Speaker 4 Yeah, I wrote a couple of songs on the first album. And, you know, because I was the only one who actually wrote songs when Vince left, I kind of had to do it.

Speaker 1 Right. It was just like, we were like, uh,

Speaker 1 so, and Daniel literally was like, does anybody else write songs? Because

Speaker 1 your writer has left. And we were like, does that mean it's over?

Speaker 1 And he's sort of, mine was like, I got a couple of songs.

Speaker 4 Well, I was lucky, but, you you know, well, the album was a very weird collection of songs because some of them I wrote when I was 16, you know, and then, you know, some of them I was making up in the studio when

Speaker 4 we were trying to like finish the album.

Speaker 2 Which album, Black Celebration, you mean?

Speaker 1 A broken frame. No, broken frame.

Speaker 1 Broken frame. Okay.
So what was the, what was the,

Speaker 1 after he left and you were, and you stepped into that role, as Dave says, because everybody else is looking around going, who the fuck's going to do this?

Speaker 1 What was the first, when you started writing, what was the first sort of like big hit that you wrote? And everybody's like, ah, fuck, yeah, Martin, well done, man. Like, fuck.

Speaker 1 It was straight away, actually.

Speaker 4 The first thing we recorded was See You, and then we released that as a single, and that was a massive hit.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 we actually went the highest, we'd gone in the charts, and lingering we went to number six, was a big thing. And Martin had this new synthesizer called the PPG.
And

Speaker 1 so we didn't use much equipment in the studio. It was like a few pieces.
Daniel had a couple of pieces of electronic stuff. And so you kind of were very, and there was no sampling then.

Speaker 1 There was no, you know, it wasn't like, well, how, how, now you just kind of feel like it's, it's almost too much. Like, but we picked, we had these few pieces.

Speaker 1 So this one synthesizer dominated the sort of sound, I would say, right, Mark, of that song in particular.

Speaker 1 And it was this good song. It was a great pop song.
It was like a sort of Everly Brothers song or something. And

Speaker 1 we, you know,

Speaker 1 went on TV and it was a big hit.

Speaker 4 I think it was more Hermann's Hermits.

Speaker 1 Mrs. Brown, you've got a lovely boss.
I was going to say the Beatles, but I thought that was too much. Give us a break.
We were young.

Speaker 1 My grandparents used to have a Hermann's Hermanns record for some reason, and we used to play it when we were kids. Do you remember that Mrs.
Brown? You've got a lovely boss. Yeah.

Speaker 1 You've got to remember, I was only 10 when this was happening.

Speaker 2 Are you guys so shocked that your song Just Can't Get Enough is used everywhere, always?

Speaker 1 It could be anything. It's a tampon ad.
It's like in

Speaker 1 the Cocaine Bear. It's like, you know,

Speaker 1 it fits everywhere.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it does.

Speaker 2 I mean, of all your songs, I really do know probably every word to every song. And I'm like, that's the song everybody plays everywhere?

Speaker 1 I'm like, wait, what?

Speaker 1 You know, it's funny. When Vince wrote that song, I think we were the first publisher that he had, we were at the offices, and I think Rod Buckle, remember, Mark?

Speaker 1 I seem to remember him saying to, like, he said something like this to the rest of us. We were sitting on the couch, all kind of squashed together.

Speaker 1 And he looked at Vince and he said, you know, he said, he is going to be driving a Rolls-Royce while you three are on the tandem.

Speaker 1 And we were like, you know, on a bicycle, you know, like, we were like,

Speaker 1 why? Like, it was,

Speaker 1 and we all signed this deal. I think he gave us a hundred quid each for like to sign our publishing or widely after to to he did.
Yeah, really? So we were like, he's giving us 100 quid for nothing.

Speaker 1 Signed using deal. We can buy a tandem for that.
Yeah, we were like, yeah, we will buy that tandem.

Speaker 1 But Vince, you know, he told Vince, you know, you'll be driving in a Rolls-Royce. And he said, this song is going to continue, like forever.
It's going to be there for.

Speaker 1 And we were just kind of like, don't think so.

Speaker 1 But yeah, we.

Speaker 4 But we were very impressed because he took us out for lunch and

Speaker 4 Harold Brown from Hot Chocolate was in the same restaurant.

Speaker 1 Yes, that's right. I remember that.
Do you remember the band Hot Chocolate?

Speaker 1 You guys, you guys are too.

Speaker 1 I believe in knuckles. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 Hot chocolate, they were called.

Speaker 1 We were like, holy shit, there's Errol Brown from Hot Chocolate.

Speaker 1 So, so you have some hits in the UK, obviously. What was your first recognition in the US that you knew that people were listening to the band in the US?

Speaker 4 Well, I think that just can't get enough did get some underground play, like obviously club play and stuff like that. But I think the first radio thing was probably people are people.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it was huge. And it was still like

Speaker 1 really underground. It was

Speaker 1 we were never really

Speaker 1 played on mainstream radio.

Speaker 2 Right. And then and then talk about like first of all just a sidebar.
I used to get I look like exactly like Dave Gaughan all the time in college. People are like, you look just like Dave Gohan.

Speaker 1 I could see that. You can see the picture of me.
Oh, yeah. Wow.
Wow, you could.

Speaker 1 You're better looking, though. You got better cheese.
No, no, no, no.

Speaker 2 The Rose Bowl, wasn't that just life career changing when you sold out the Rose Bowl to everybody? That was later.

Speaker 1 It was a very happy accident, to be honest.

Speaker 1 It was. It was.

Speaker 2 But it blew everybody's mind.

Speaker 1 I remember the press was like, wait, 60,000. It blew our minds.
I mean, we were not prepared, really.

Speaker 1 It was one of those things that I think it was suggested to us that we could do this at the end of that particular tour, Music for the Masses tour,

Speaker 1 a big show somewhere where all the fans would travel, like in a grateful dead way. Like we kind of had that kind of following.
And they did.

Speaker 1 There was people, but we ended up doing it. And D.A.
Pennybaker filmed the whole thing for us, which was also kind of iconic to be now looking back. I see pictures from from then.

Speaker 1 I see Penny's not with us anymore, but

Speaker 1 we used to think he was extremely old. Like when we were on that tour and he was, you know, documenting the whole thing with us.
He was like this old guy.

Speaker 1 We used to sort of like help him around the stage, you know, like, but be careful with that 35 millimeter. You're going to fall over, dude.
Like,

Speaker 1 he was like maybe 50, I don't know.

Speaker 1 And we were like, he's so old, like this guy, who's this guy? And he was just amazed with what he was amazed with, not really the music or anything, it was the

Speaker 1 scale.

Speaker 1 It was the fans. It was kind of like the fandom.

Speaker 1 It was the fandom. It was like the cult of

Speaker 1 this following that we had. Why are they obsessed with this band?

Speaker 1 And still to this day, there is that same, we carry that same,

Speaker 1 it's like,

Speaker 1 you know, the church of Depeche Mode or something.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Does that feel does that feel heavy sometimes or is it something that changes your relationship to it does it kind of shift

Speaker 4 no i mean one one thing i've realized recently though is is like you know i'm a big soccer fan and you know soccer fans all always think you know they know better than the manager of the team they support oh yeah

Speaker 4 we know that so yeah so our fans like you go on any of the forums you know all of our fans you know they're always complaining they're never happy with what we do

Speaker 1 They're basically Arsenal supporters, like Mark.

Speaker 1 Wait, wait, Martin, are you an are you an Arsenal supporter? I am.

Speaker 1 So you're from North. Did you grew up in North London then?

Speaker 1 No,

Speaker 4 East London. I should have been a West.

Speaker 1 I thought you were going to be West Ham.

Speaker 4 Yeah, I should have been a West Ham supporter, but no.

Speaker 4 You know, you just... You make a decision when you're like nine or ten, don't you? And if you and you stick with it, you can't change.

Speaker 1 Where we came from, it was like Arsenal, West Ham, or Chelsea, basically. You know, that was kind of like the.
Dave, are you a football supporter? Do you have a team? I was a Chelsea fan.

Speaker 1 And I stopped going into Chelsea after getting a total beating, actually, at Arsenal, away at Arsenal.

Speaker 1 I got chased down the street by a bunch of Arsenal fans, ended up rolling underneath a car to escape death.

Speaker 1 I just got such a beating. And I think I was about 15 or so.
It was the last time I went to.

Speaker 4 I led them away, by the way.

Speaker 1 You finally let them away. Martin's done that a few times for me.
You showed them where he was at first, and then you're like, this is too much.

Speaker 1 I just read this book by this writer, Bill Buford, called Among the Thugs, which is about sort of, I don't know if you ever read that about this. That was it.

Speaker 1 The Chelsea crew were called the Crazy Gang. And it was basically people went to soccer to fight.
That was kind of what it was. It was, there was this huge, and it got scary.

Speaker 1 It got really, it got really to the point where it was very dangerous. There's a movie that Gary Oldham's in, actually.
The firm. The firm.
I've seen it. That's very much what it was.

Speaker 1 About the West Ham supporters, about those. It was Chelsea supporters and West Ham supporters, I think.
Millwall, too, like Millwall. Oh, Millwall.
That's the tough. That's the tough.

Speaker 1 South. Yeah, man.
Hey, guys,

Speaker 3 where did the.

Speaker 3 I just remember always being so taken by the mood you guys set with your music and also just your stage craft. The whole aesthetic of the band,

Speaker 3 it is so sort of, I don't know what the right term would be, dramatic, cinematic.

Speaker 1 Yeah, but I mean,

Speaker 3 I don't remember that, anybody blazing a trail before you guys in that world. There's many, many sort of

Speaker 3 people that try to replicate that since then, for sure. But

Speaker 3 where did that come from? Was that deliberate?

Speaker 3 Or was it just kind of where you guys were at? Were you inspired by something?

Speaker 1 I think

Speaker 4 we were lucky

Speaker 4 when we wrote Black Celebration that we got involved with Anton Corbyn.

Speaker 1 Ah.

Speaker 4 who

Speaker 4 became the kind of like the visual head for the band.

Speaker 2 Who's that? I'm an idiot.

Speaker 3 Who is that? He's an an incredible video.

Speaker 1 He directed a lot of videos, yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 4 But he's a filmmaker.

Speaker 1 He's a very tall Dutch man. He's a very tall Dutch man.

Speaker 4 He started out as a photographer.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 4 But, you know, he makes films.

Speaker 1 For the NME, for the NME, we did New Musical Express in London.

Speaker 1 He got to be the front cover guy

Speaker 1 that would do the covers of that paper. And it'd always be like this amazing photograph of Joy Division or Echo and the Bunny Men or Suzy Sue from the band she's and there always were Anton's shots.

Speaker 1 Wow. So the chances of us kind of at that time

Speaker 1 working with Anton were pretty slim. But we got the first time we worked with him, I think was 81, actually.
And then we didn't work with him again till, what, 85, Mark?

Speaker 4 86, and with Black Celebration, yeah.

Speaker 1 81, we got the cover of the NME, and Anton was shooting it.

Speaker 4 He had to shoot us.

Speaker 1 He had to shoot us. I don't think he really wanted to because he was very cool and we weren't.
And,

Speaker 1 you know, I mean, we were trying to be cool.

Speaker 3 And did he style that shoot in such a way that you guys sort of borrowed from and adopted going forward?

Speaker 1 I think it sort of began there, even though we weren't probably aware of it.

Speaker 1 But by the time we, like Martin said, by the time we got to Black Celebration, we had been working in Berlin at Hansa Studios, the very famous iconic Hansa Bowie had recorded, and

Speaker 1 Iggy and know, various other people that we looked up to and were influenced by.

Speaker 1 And,

Speaker 1 you know, I think that's where it really started for us. Martin had moved to Berlin as well for a short period of time there as well.
And we started working there a lot.

Speaker 1 This was West Berlin as well, when the wall was very much

Speaker 1 still up. And we used to work right, there was a studio called Hanser, it was right on the wall.

Speaker 1 So when you were on the balcony of the studio, you literally were looking over the wall and you'd see these soldiers, you know,

Speaker 1 hence the Bowie's line in Heroes, but about, you know, the wall, I think.

Speaker 1 Heroes always reminds me of Christiane F. Remember that film in West Brothers?

Speaker 1 It was on the soundtrack, yeah, yeah. That's a great film.

Speaker 2 Do you guys also, there's also, and I'm sorry for the dumb, dumb question, and you've guys, I've probably answered this a billion times, but I don't know. Is there, why the religious undertones?

Speaker 2 So many of them?

Speaker 1 I don't know. They just, spirituality right martin

Speaker 1 sweating

Speaker 1 i've never i've never been religious

Speaker 1 but i'm always searching you know aren't we all aren't we all always searching yeah

Speaker 1 and and then it's this i i feel often especially when i'm singing martin's words and uh there's this kind of also sometimes it's like a

Speaker 1 uh it is it can be like an experience that when you're singing and sometimes when you're kind of in a big place like we just did the the garden and or whatever like and you're certain gigs that you do um

Speaker 1 it's this sort of experience it is like a sort of i don't know spiritual experience it's something that's there and it's also i have a kind of disdain for it too it feels like

Speaker 1 you know uh

Speaker 1 like a lot of bollocks as well

Speaker 1 at the same time

Speaker 1 i mean you even sort of take it i mean i've always loved blasphemous rumors because i just love that lyric i don't want to start any blasphemous rumors.

Speaker 1 Blasphemous rumors, but I think the God's got a sixth sense of humor.

Speaker 1 And when I die, I expect to find him laughing. Laughing.
Yeah. I've just, I've always been obsessed.
It's such a brilliant thing. People miss the comedy, see? They miss the comedy in what we do.

Speaker 1 They just sort of miss the humor from Martin and they miss the delivery from Dave. But

Speaker 1 it's all there. You just got to look at a little.

Speaker 2 The only reason I think I brought it up because I love the comment and the cleverness of the language that you choose.

Speaker 1 It's really cool. But then it also did fit into, Jason, kind of what you were asking about, into the aesthetic

Speaker 1 sort of, yeah. Yeah, it became.

Speaker 1 And you get that. You get that.
I think we like that. I think we're comfortable in that imagery.
A bit of theater.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 Well, what was it about the writing, though, Dave, that always sort of kind of presented a block for you?

Speaker 3 Because obviously you're a very intelligent man, know how to speak, know how to write, I'm sure, and tell stories and whatnot. But when it comes to lyrics,

Speaker 3 is it,

Speaker 3 and Martin, I'm sure you can speak better to this too.

Speaker 3 Is there an attempt to tell a story when you write a lyric or just to set some poetry that then obviously the music comes later to fit that or vice versa?

Speaker 3 What was the thing that kept you away from it early on, Dave?

Speaker 1 Well, in the early days and also, you know, a lot, even now, when we're singing a lot of these great songs that Martin's written,

Speaker 1 they always change too. They change over the years, depending what's going on in your life.

Speaker 1 They represent something different and they take,

Speaker 1 they're memories, songs and memories, you know, and they're there and they're there to also

Speaker 1 develop new memories

Speaker 1 that have yet to come, you know.

Speaker 1 But I feel like that

Speaker 1 if you really tap into a good song when you're writing and there's something and doesn't, you know, you kind of have to work at it sometimes, but sometimes if you really let go of control of the lyric or whatever, and allow something to just,

Speaker 1 you know, it's a combination of things that might happen at the same time, you can just follow the idea. You know, it's just allow it to just, you know.
And other things

Speaker 1 you have to kind of like, you know, move when we're working in the studio together, for instance, Martin's, you know, is always writing the majority of the songs.

Speaker 1 I try and create,

Speaker 1 I work with a song for a long time before I actually go to finally sing it. So I want to live with that song for a long time.
And when I step up to the mic, I already know where I want to go with it.

Speaker 1 And it's always somewhere visual. It's a visual base.

Speaker 3 But the melody that perhaps you've written to go with it or chosen to go with it, I would imagine

Speaker 1 would inform what words work or what words don't work with. It can.

Speaker 1 They serve each other. And a lot of the time it's about removing stuff.
We did did that a lot on this record.

Speaker 1 There's a lot of clutter that you automatically put in place because you think it's supposed to be there. But quite often it's removing things to allow a simple idea to really come through.

Speaker 2 All right. And I love, like, you know,

Speaker 2 almost all your melodies that you guys write are, you think it's going to go to the obvious one that the ear is familiar with and boonk, you take a letter.

Speaker 1 That's mine. That's mine.

Speaker 1 He'll take one of my songs, for instance, that we were were working say a song like wagging tongue which is on this record and i sent my little demo to martin of me like ham-fistedly playing on a guitar trying to get the song out and find the chords and and that and i send it to martin then martin sends it back with this beautiful like craftwork-esque like you know chords and and arpeggiating synths and stuff and i'm like oh okay yeah uh

Speaker 1 but it then that takes me then to another place you see right that changes the perception yet again i'm sure it's the same with you guys when you're working in film and behind or in front of the camera.

Speaker 1 Yes, and you know, you

Speaker 1 feed off an audience in theater, I'm sure.

Speaker 1 And then, but when it's you're just in a room together and you've got a bunch of crew standing around you, and you've got to create it for yourself, otherwise, there's this, there's just this bunch of crew around you.

Speaker 1 Well, I know, I know. Well, it is true that I can speak because the three of us have worked with both these guys, and

Speaker 1 none of us really sort of come in prepared in the sense that we don't fully have it memorized a certain way. You can't.

Speaker 1 You have to kind of have a loose relationship with whatever you're doing because so much of it is informed by what the other person is bringing.

Speaker 3 You sort of leave room for the effect of the other.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah. Like that's a.

Speaker 1 But by the way, Will, can I just really quick, and then we'll get off this.

Speaker 2 Jay, I'm going to send you this song because it's one of their most famous songs. It's such an old song.
It's called Somebody.

Speaker 2 But you'll love it because, and I love this because the dum-dums didn't quite get it back then about the comment.

Speaker 2 You know, it's, I want somebody to share, share the rest of my life, share my innermost thoughts, know my intimate details.

Speaker 2 Like, it goes on and on, this gorgeous lyrics about sharing your life with somebody. And the last lyrics at the end is:

Speaker 2 Though things like this make me sick in a case like this, I'll get away with it, which completely obliterates the whole song. And like as a kid, I was like, wait a minute, I was about to cry this.

Speaker 1 Because love is bollocks. That's why.
Love is bollocks.

Speaker 4 It still gets played at lots and lots of weddings.

Speaker 1 So Martin's just having a laugh at everybody else's expense.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 3 for a dummy music listener like me, I always struggle to hear what the words.

Speaker 1 What did they say? And I'll back it up.

Speaker 1 Screw it.

Speaker 3 I'll just listen to you.

Speaker 3 Martin, do you ever get, have you ever had a point where you've gone to Dave and you said, this is a beautiful line and I can't understand what you're saying enunciate more or don't just mumble that

Speaker 1 because it sounds better

Speaker 1 right where you're sort of missing this this word structure that you're doing it depends how drunk you are you see

Speaker 1 there's a there's that tipping point you know we all know the tipping point it's uh-huh it's it's great and then it's not great anymore you know it's no back in the day

Speaker 4 we were lucky that we we sorted something out before you actually had to do a a guide vocal in the studio because there was there's a track that didn't go on the album that's coming later in the year and it's called life 2.0 and what did you think it was called though

Speaker 1 no live what was it mark i i forgot life life to

Speaker 1 um live to

Speaker 1 uh

Speaker 1 to

Speaker 1 perform or something i don't know life to i think i even wrote it down i wrote down because when mark sent me the song he often doesn't send the words he'll send a demo or whatever. And

Speaker 1 so I kind of listened. Life too prolonged.

Speaker 1 Life too prolonged. That was it.
Life too prolonged. I was like, okay, all right.

Speaker 1 Life too prolonged. I don't think anyone's ever used the word prolonged in a song.
That's pretty cool.

Speaker 1 Dave,

Speaker 1 when you're performing it later in the year, you've got to, or if you're performing it now on stage, you've got to get the audience going saying, Life too prolonged.

Speaker 1 That can happen. I said the other night, let's go, next you know because at the end of everything counts I just shout out in the garden let's go next

Speaker 1 you know

Speaker 1 a lot of people say

Speaker 3 oh that must have gone big

Speaker 1 we'll be right back

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Speaker 3 All right, back to the show.

Speaker 1 Did I hear you say that it got kind of Kraftwerk-esque? Did you say

Speaker 1 it's so funny because you're like the third band that's referenced craft work? And I was just listening to Tour de France this morning as well, which is such a, I love that tune. And

Speaker 1 I think it was Jay when you had the boys from Radiohead were talking about Kraftwerk as well. Like it was just what an influential band these guys were.
It's unbelievable.

Speaker 1 Well, they were probably instrumental in Martin getting a synth, I should imagine, in the first place. Really?

Speaker 4 Yeah, and

Speaker 4 yeah, we were talking about the early bands that influenced us. You know, we mentioned that wave that was coming up with us, but they were obviously way before that.
You know, Autobahn was like 74.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Wow, man. That's wild.
I think Daniel as well, Daniel Miller, like, he sort of...

Speaker 1 Once he cut his influence, he was listening to, you know, he's a little bit older than us.

Speaker 1 So there was like Noy and there was all these like German kind of, those that that kind of that stuff mark that like yeah that we wouldn't have probably heard really if it wasn't for him and it's that that sort of kraut rock that was called like that stuff as well

Speaker 1 a lot of like the like waiting for the night to fall for instance it's got that continuous kind of like uh rolling progression all the time

Speaker 1 these influences definitely

Speaker 1 We were lucky to work with a lot of people, engineers, producer, people that were all on that cusp of well, as well, of wanting to do something new with pop music.

Speaker 1 But you guys had that, you guys also embody that too, Martin.

Speaker 1 That sort of, like you said, Dave, that progression. You guys understood the importance of it

Speaker 1 that sort of drove so many of your songs. Atmosphere.
Atmosphere, and almost hypnotic, right? Atmosphere over a lot of other things at some times.

Speaker 1 We would go around with like tape machines into like scrapyards or building sites and record like weird shit, noises that you heard.

Speaker 1 Everything counts has all that stuff at the start, right? Yeah, I don't even know what that was now. What was that? That was like

Speaker 1 a saw or something.

Speaker 1 That's an industrial.

Speaker 4 That was like a Chinese violin that was badly sounded.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that we couldn't play. It was an instrument that we couldn't play that you just made a song.
Jason, did you want to hear me say that again?

Speaker 3 Yeah, no, I think we got it.

Speaker 1 You guys are

Speaker 3 uniquely qualified to comment about where we find the music industry today.

Speaker 3 And are you guys a big fan or is it a love-hate with what technology and digital and all that stuff has done as far as the way in which music is sold nowadays and what that's done to the touring business and whatnot?

Speaker 3 Because you guys obviously have the best of both worlds. I mean, you're still playing Madison Square Garden and you're still selling albums.
But so, how does all that sit with you today's current

Speaker 3 makeup of the business?

Speaker 1 Sorry, and be honest. Yeah.

Speaker 1 I mean, we came up. Good and bad, right? We came up, teams.
I mean, it was like albums, vinyl, you know,

Speaker 1 getting that record, getting, you know, going to having enough money to go buy a 45, a 70, like, you know, which was, I think, at the time when I'm in first, probably 45p or whatever that was, like something like that.

Speaker 1 You know,

Speaker 1 to go, you stole it from somewhere, and you got you went to the market and you looked through the singles and looked at the covers and go, this one looks weird and interesting. And

Speaker 1 what is this?

Speaker 1 Of course, we had one show in England, like this TV show called Top of the Pops, where you on Thursday nights or whatever, you'd see music like Bowie and you know, Gary Glitter and Slade and T-Rex and all these sort of 70s things, Roxy music.

Speaker 1 That was our thing. That was like where you get lost in it.
But I think the album, you know, the album,

Speaker 1 I know Martin does as well. We both still play albums and buy albums and stuff, but, you know, and listen to music digitally too.

Speaker 1 There's something has been lost, of course, in that

Speaker 1 the specialness of an album. You know, and how you listen to that, how you'd play one side and then turn it over.

Speaker 1 And you've got to actually make the effort, you know, to do something right right yeah yeah like sitting i love that yeah see i remember that so sitting in a room and and putting a rec taking it out of the sleeve and putting it on remember that smell of it you know

Speaker 1 and you'd have it you'd have a cleaner you'd have it you'd have the the duster thing

Speaker 1 the brush and you'd let it go around and clean off the needle and drop the needle on it and sit there and maybe it would have lyrics sometimes if a record came out you were waiting for and it had lyrics you were like yes that was

Speaker 1 lyrics

Speaker 1 so. I mean, the Bowie stuff was like, I remember I stole from my friend Phil Gurry.

Speaker 1 I was around his house, and he had Martin knows Phil Gurry, and I was around his flat, and he had the double live David Live at the Philadelphia Tower album.

Speaker 1 And I opened it up, and I saw that this lyric sheet, like the sleeve, fell out. And I was just kind of like sitting there.
And he went off to the toilet or something for a minute.

Speaker 1 And when he was gone, I took it, I folded it up, and I shoved it in my jacket. And I was like, stole, stole.
I would steal everything if it wasn't tied down, by the way.

Speaker 1 But I stole this and I got it home and I had the lyrics myself and everything.

Speaker 1 And about a week later, Phil was like, I know you stole my lyrics, you know, for like, you know, I denied it, but I, you know, I, that's how special it was to have something like that.

Speaker 1 Because you couldn't look it up.

Speaker 2 You know, I had a roommate in college who was obsessed with albums, and I took his Beethoven.

Speaker 1 What was that group? Beethoven

Speaker 2 Camper Beethoven? Beethoven.

Speaker 1 Camper Van Beethoven. Let let the skinheads

Speaker 1 take the skinheads bowling yeah and i took

Speaker 2 i was really i was sitting in his room we were listening to albums and i took the jacket and i was so hot and i took the album jacket and i started fanning myself and completely bent the whole thing and he never heard from him again wouldn't talk to me again

Speaker 1 i remember i remember how this is i have so many like different record memories and the one that i remember when um that first simple minds record came out and they did a clear record do you remember that and then out.

Speaker 1 We have a red vinyl right now. Mementa Mori is in the colour.

Speaker 1 Yeah, so Mementa More.

Speaker 1 Do you really? It came out in red vinyl. Yeah, it's in red.
There's a clear one as well. There's a clear one.

Speaker 1 There's a red one, 180 gram. Like, yeah, it's cool.
It's really cool. Well, now I'm going to buy it because now I'm going to come full circle.
So you have this record that came out.

Speaker 1 By the way, I was just thinking about the video that I just saw

Speaker 1 also has sort of like,

Speaker 1 I guess religious I mean you guys are in a graveyard

Speaker 1 well it's a bit camp too come on let's face it I'm crawling around on my hands and knees in the graveyard Martin sitting playing oh so thoughtfully his guitar and I'm crawling around him like yeah

Speaker 1 sniff the glove yeah so we have to when Anton when Anton Corbyn says to me so Dave so Dave I want you to you know get unhand on these uh crawl around graveyard on the floor you know this graveyard's just like set up in a studio, by the way, as well, of course.

Speaker 1 And it looks already very, very kind of like, as soon as we get there, we're like, this is, this looks like really like somebody set this up.

Speaker 1 And he's like, I say, no, I want it to look kind of fake, Dev. And I was like, okay.

Speaker 1 So he's the only person that would get me to do something like that. And I think

Speaker 1 he's like, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, of me crawling around. I'm surprised he didn't do that, actually.

Speaker 1 Snap the leash. Yes,

Speaker 1 the only way we got away with it is is because I'm the one crawling around, of course. If we had some, you know, beautiful girl or guy to do that or something, we would be in big trouble nowadays.

Speaker 1 I have a question.

Speaker 2 How do you guys determine who sings what track?

Speaker 1 It's kind of obvious sometimes.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I think it's just usually obvious. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Just because of

Speaker 2 where the range is?

Speaker 1 Yeah, I mean, well, the soul with me on this album, I knew me. I thought to myself, you know, Martin Martin will just be able to sing that song much better than me.

Speaker 1 You know, it's a different, we have a different tone, a different way we sing.

Speaker 2 But together, it's just unbelievable.

Speaker 1 I used to get bent out of shape a bit.

Speaker 1 I used to, years ago, I wanted to sing everything, and I used to feel like it was, you know, my voice wasn't good enough, and that's why Martin would sing a couple of songs.

Speaker 1 I mean, always, yeah, but it was back in the years ago, but

Speaker 1 now I don't.

Speaker 4 What it means you get a break on stage as well.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I get a break too. I can't.

Speaker 1 It's a two-hour set. Plus, I mean, I need that 10 minutes or so in the middle to sort of get some oxygen.
But isn't that funny? And I'll say this to all of us, is

Speaker 1 all gentlemen over 50, isn't that funny you get to this age and you're like, all the things that used to sort of you take personally or bother you or whatever.

Speaker 1 It's so stupid.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I'd rather take the break.

Speaker 1 I'll take the break.

Speaker 1 I will take the break for sure.

Speaker 3 And now, what are you doing on your breaks nowadays, like at the garden during your 10 minutes versus what you were doing 30, 40 years ago during your 10-minute break? Has that changed backstage?

Speaker 1 That's changed a lot. Because

Speaker 1 for Jason and me, it's changed a lot. We don't purchase it.
Yeah, it's changed a lot. Right, we probably squeeze in a nap, whereas back in the old days, yeah, we would have been

Speaker 1 looking for something to just get a little bit more electricity into that set, you know.

Speaker 3 Was that fun playing the garden? That must have been a really funny thing.

Speaker 1 Oh, my God. It always is.

Speaker 1 It's the church of New York, innit? Let's face it.

Speaker 1 Oh, they must have gone there. No, we've been lucky enough to play there a lot of times over the years.

Speaker 1 It's always one of those gigs that you're, you know, it's the anticipation and everything about it. I was lucky enough this time as well when my daughter's band, Stella Rose and the Dead Language.

Speaker 1 We

Speaker 1 had them open for us. So it was amazing.

Speaker 1 The nepotism was off the charts.

Speaker 1 Who gives a shit about this Nepo Baby?

Speaker 1 I don't give a fucking shit about the Nepo Baby shit. Yeah, shut up.

Speaker 1 You'd do it if you could, too. By the way, here's the other thing, man.
That is a great name for a band. I know.
Nepo Baby?

Speaker 1 No,

Speaker 1 Stella Rose is a dead language.

Speaker 1 Dead language is fucking great.

Speaker 1 They're pretty cool, too.

Speaker 1 They're like way cooler than us.

Speaker 1 Wow. But we were the headline in Acts, so you know,

Speaker 2 because it's me, I have to ask, have you ever been approached or would you ever do

Speaker 2 from the ground up with new songs, a Broadway musical?

Speaker 4 We did get asked once, somebody had this idea and they showed us a script, but it was all about like a bunch of heroin addicts.

Speaker 1 Five, six, seven, eight.

Speaker 1 So,

Speaker 4 you know, we politely turned it down.

Speaker 1 Jason and I would like to, and Sean's going to, you know, obviously going to run it, going to direct in seven. It's about a bunch of middle-aged white guy golfers.
You've got something there for sure.

Speaker 1 You've definitely got something there. I just want to say before we let you guys go, because this has been absolutely mind-blowingly

Speaker 1 incredible.

Speaker 1 Sean, and this is really Sean to you. Can you believe, what would you say, Sean? Can you believe that?

Speaker 2 You guys, I can't even describe it. I have to tell you guys right now, to your faces, this is the honest to God truth.
I'm doing a show here in New York, Broadway Show.

Speaker 2 And every day that I walk to the theater, sometimes I get a ride, sometimes I walk.

Speaker 1 Every time I walk, I listen to you guys.

Speaker 2 I literally, as I'm walking, I'll go, hey, Sari, play depeche mode.

Speaker 1 I'm on my

Speaker 3 and tell them the Broadway show is about a heroin addict.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that's a true story, though. You guys are.

Speaker 2 And I want to say this before you leave. Such a massive, massive influence on me and my life in such a huge way.

Speaker 1 Just Just incredible. All of us are saying that's a good thing.

Speaker 2 The posters up in college and the concerts I've been to to see you guys. It's just everywhere.

Speaker 1 It's just, I can't, I can't, I can't go there.

Speaker 1 I mean, that's a cool thing about what we get to do, that we get to do, is that over the years that we get to hear from somebody like you or other artists, other musicians and stuff, where what we've done somehow has influenced them to do what they do.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 this is how it goes around. And that's, I think, an amazing thing about music and film and stuff like that, how it can, you know, can be the soundtrack to our lives for sure.

Speaker 2 I mean, it's inside of my DNA now. And when you guys just popped on screen here, I was shaking.

Speaker 1 And Sean, I mean, can you,

Speaker 1 what I was going to say was,

Speaker 1 what would college Sean Hayes say to this moment? moment? Like, what would you say? I know.

Speaker 2 Well, I would be an idiot and be so over the top and try to be funny. And And then you guys would be like, that guy's too much.

Speaker 1 And then you would move on. We would probably let you hang out, actually.
We'd probably let you hang out. If he was entertaining for a bit, you would have been hanging out a bit as being kind.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Well, you've been the soundtrack to so many millions of people's lives.
And you're both such great guys on top of it all. What an absolute just pleasure and honor to meet both of you.
And great.

Speaker 1 And, you know, congratulations on the new record of the tour. I really want to come and see you guys.

Speaker 1 Yeah,

Speaker 2 are Are you in L.A. in September, right?

Speaker 1 We're coming.

Speaker 1 We just finished a little run in the States, but we're coming back. Yeah, I think September,

Speaker 1 October, November, December.

Speaker 1 We're doing a much bigger North American tour. We're off to Europe.

Speaker 2 I will definitely be here.

Speaker 1 We're going to come and see you guys. Oh, please, yeah.
You know, thanks for having us on your show. It's really...

Speaker 1 Yeah, thank you.

Speaker 1 This has been a dream come true. Yeah, for sure.
And yeah, honestly.

Speaker 1 All three of you in some way, shape, or form, also have been

Speaker 1 in my life. So I can say that honestly.
We apologize. And we don't always have to

Speaker 1 say that honestly as well. But,

Speaker 1 you know, but I mean that sincerely. Thank you.

Speaker 3 It's very nice of you guys to do this podcast for us.

Speaker 1 Cheers, guys. All the best.
And we'll see you guys. We'll see you on the road.
Cheers, cheers, guys.

Speaker 2 Nice to see you guys.

Speaker 4 Thanks, guys.

Speaker 1 Thanks. Bye.

Speaker 1 Wow.

Speaker 1 My God.

Speaker 3 Well, are you guys all right?

Speaker 2 I mean, I was really, honestly, truly shaking. Like, I haven't done that.

Speaker 3 Sean, are you sitting on plastic? Did you lay down some plastic?

Speaker 1 Scotty, just under, under frame, lay down some plastic for you? That's why Scotty came in in the middle. Yeah.
I mean,

Speaker 2 not since the Michael Jackson concert in 1983 was I shaking.

Speaker 1 Oh, my God.

Speaker 2 I mean, they really, I really, honestly swear to God, listen to them every day.

Speaker 1 No, I know. That's crazy.

Speaker 1 That's just unbelievable.

Speaker 3 Why is that? Is that something that kind of gets you going for the show?

Speaker 2 I think a lot of, I don't want to to bring this up, but I think a lot of like, they have a big gay following. And I think because it was,

Speaker 2 they were cool and underground and like left of center, and they weren't like machismo, hard, big hair-rocking, you know, dude.

Speaker 3 Yeah, there was something kind of interestingly glam about them, kind of like Bowie was beforehand.

Speaker 1 Yeah, right.

Speaker 1 Sean, I get that. I think I know what you mean.

Speaker 2 I mean, it's not a gay straight thing or anything. It's just, I had a lot of gay friends in college that we found this band and were like, oh, they're so cool.

Speaker 1 I think I know what you mean. And

Speaker 1 there were some bands that sort of came, certainly Erasure were a band that were big in gay culture back in the 80s.

Speaker 2 Right, because I guess a lot of the Depeche Mode songs were turned into dance songs and they would play them in the clubs.

Speaker 1 Oh, that's interesting.

Speaker 2 And so I think that personal Jesus, everyone knows personal Jesus. And, you know, all those earlier songs,

Speaker 1 they have a beat that you can dance to.

Speaker 2 And so they turned those into club mixes. And I think that's probably one of the reasons we're like, oh, what's this band? It was so cool.
Plus, they were like, dark.

Speaker 1 Would it be funny if I got a personal assistant named Jesus?

Speaker 1 No.

Speaker 1 Why would that be funny? Because then I'd have a personal Jesus.

Speaker 1 Oh.

Speaker 1 Wow, I'm slow today.

Speaker 3 It's a long walk around the block, but boy, the address is nice.

Speaker 2 But just blown away.

Speaker 2 They're a huge part of my life.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Same. I have so many, it's kind of like when we've had other, but for these guys, I have those markers in my, in my mind of

Speaker 1 where I was when that came out. Just can't get enough.

Speaker 1 Personal Jesus, blasphemous rumors, all those things. People are people.
People are people. Just like, you know.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Jay, you would know.

Speaker 3 No, all those you just mentioned, I know. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 3 No, I'm very, very aware of Depeche Mode. I just, I wasn't,

Speaker 3 I didn't have the glow stick in my teeth like you did, Sean and Will.

Speaker 1 You know, I just fucking

Speaker 3 enough, you know?

Speaker 1 You know,

Speaker 1 you can't believe before Jason really got into classical music, you'd get in his car with him. I'm not kidding.
And the fucking music that Jason would listen to.

Speaker 2 I know something.

Speaker 1 It would be so random. Not necessarily bad, but it would be like random and some would be brutal.
By the way, I got into it with a woman on Instagram about two months ago.

Speaker 1 Sean, maybe I told you, because she was saying, it's actually, you're thinking of Yazoo, it's not Yaz. And I said, no, in North America, Yazoo was called Yaz for legal reasons.

Speaker 1 And I had to school her because I was like, don't fucking correct me. Anyway, what was Soft Cells' big hit?

Speaker 1 Tainted Love. Tainted Love.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I listened to that too, and I loved classic rock, but I also loved so much of that.
I loved Bronsky Beat.

Speaker 1 I fucking just loved it so much. I loved all those bands.
I loved, and of course, the Pesh Mode.

Speaker 1 I don't know.

Speaker 2 But you know, like when they first came on, I was looking. Here we go.

Speaker 1 Boy, man.

Speaker 1 I'll tell you something, Sean. You know what it is? It's a look in your eye, and it's though you kind of take a breath when you're like,

Speaker 1 here comes the body.

Speaker 1 So thank God.

Speaker 2 Thank God I had my glasses on when they came on because I couldn't believe my eyes. So I thank God I saw them with my reading part of my lower glasses, which is sometimes called

Speaker 1 glasses called?

Speaker 1 Don't go up high.

Speaker 1 Bye.

Speaker 1 Bye.

Speaker 3 That's a Tepech mode version of goodbye, right? It's Martin taking it left instead of right. That's right.

Speaker 1 Focals.

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