Musica come Antidoto

Published on 04/16/2009 | Reading Time: 7 minutes

By Max Dax

He’s the ” lanky guy in the background,” but absolutely irreplaceable: on the occasion of the new album “Sounds Of The Universe,” WELT ONLINE spoke with keyboardist Andrew Fletcher about Depeche Mode’s comedic qualities, his role in the band, and what constitutes a good hotel bar.

From his hotel room, 47-year-old Andrew Fletcher can admire Berlin’s Gendarmenmarkt. Along with singer Dave Gahan and songwriter Martin L. Gore, he is the third unknown member of Depeche Mode, one of the most successful bands in the world for decades. “Did I see that we want to talk to each other for a whole hour?” says Fletcher as a greeting, “But I have nothing to say!” A striking understatement, as the band’s keyboardist and temporary manager is in the comfortable position of being able to describe the success and genesis of the new album “Sounds Of The Universe” even more accurately from behind the scenes.

WELT ONLINE: Mr. Fletcher, your singer Dave Gahan once said, “I’m just famous, I’m not a musician.” What exactly is your job with Depeche Mode?

Andrew Fletcher: If you ask me like that, I’m the opposite of Dave. I’m a musician, but just no one recognizes me on the street. In the band I contribute to the pop element. Martin L. Gore, who writes many of the songs, loves blues and country music. Dave discovered jazz himself. I, on the other hand, will probably always stick to simple pop tunes and the lightness they represent. My children like pop, too.

WELT ONLINE: As a pop star, do you get to sleep longer than ordinary mortals? Or do you get woken up by your children every morning?

Fletcher: I’ve always been an early riser. When we’re not on tour with Depeche Mode, I regularly go to bed around seven o’clock at home, while my wife rarely goes to bed before one o’clock.

WELT ONLINE: Does anyone who is an early riser take it easy?

Fletcher: I like the smell of the morning. There’s nothing better than coffee before dawn, when everyone in the house is still asleep.

WELT ONLINE: And when are you going on tour in June?

Fletcher: Then the clock will change. After all, I’m pretty much addicted to good hotel bars.

WELT ONLINE: What distinguishes a good hotel bar?

Fletcher: That the elevator to your room is nearby. You have a drink and you know that you just take the elevator to bed. So you have another drink knowing you’re practically home already.

WELT ONLINE: Do you become like a cartoon character when you are a rock star?

Fletcher: How should I interpret your question?

WELT ONLINE: Studies show that every member of a successful band — from U2 to the Beatles — is reduced to a behavioral pattern, an image, in the public’s perception over the years.

Fletcher: I’ve heard of this theory. I’d like to add something first-hand: The mediatized life, from the videos you make of yourself to the interviews you give, assigns every rock star in a band a role that you grow into, so to speak. So at some point you become a caricature of yourself. But that’s completely normal.

WELT ONLINE: Who are you?

Fletcher: The lanky guy in the background, without whom this internationally active company, Depeche Mode, would never be able to function. There’s this big misconception, that bands with guitars are made up of real men playing real instruments, slaving away night after night, whereas a synthesizer band like Depeche Mode doesn’t do any work because everything works on its own.

WELT ONLINE: What is so specifically different about it?

Fletcher: The ambiguity. Apart from the singer, the audience doesn’t know which musician has a role within the group. But bands like Kraftwerk or Depeche Mode actually function as collectives based on a division of labor. The contribution of individuals remains invisible. And because I don’t stand out, many people think I’m the fifth wheel.

WELT ONLINE: Do you think you and your role in Depeche Mode are misjudged?

Fletcher: Not being taken seriously sometimes is frustrating. After all, you might as well say: my work is the most important, without me the band would no longer exist. But it’s the same in big companies: people who do good work in the background don’t get as much attention as people who go to the microphone and announce good quarterly figures.

WELT ONLINE: Is Depeche Mode a band or a company?

Fletcher: A band, of course. But I see what you mean: as far as I’m concerned, you can also call Depeche Mode a company.

WELT ONLINE: Companies communicate with the outside world through a corporate identity. Even Depeche Mode has been staged by photographer and director Anton Corbijn for two decades. What does he have that others don’t?

Fletcher: He made us “cool” in 1989, he first emphasized our “comic qualities.” Before then we were an electronic band. With him we became rock stars. He is one of the few people who understood the very special humor of the band from the very beginning. I would describe him as a full-fledged member of the band.

WELT ONLINE: Don’t you find it irritating that he is also responsible for the design of other great bands of the 1980s, such as U2?

Fletcher: It just shows that he thinks in other categories and has left the unnecessary pettiness behind. He is able to communicate with the masses, across cultural boundaries. He also made U2 what it is today.

WELT ONLINE: You titled your new album “Sounds Of The Universe,” and your tour is called “Tour Of The Universe.” Is that the special humor you’re talking about?

Fletcher: Exactly. We wanted to sound a little arrogant, but in a funny way. We gave one of our albums the title “Music For The Masses” 22 years ago because of the same sense of humor.

WELT ONLINE: When you say about your hometown of Basildon that people “steal cars and go to church on Sundays,” is that also a joke?

Fletcher: Well, we all had a sheltered and happy childhood in Basildon. I was a born-again Christian (born-again Christian, an evangelical denomination, ed), so I went to church every Sunday. Only Dave Gahan’s youth was a bit fragmented, however, he lived on the other side of town. Dave used to steal cars.

WELT ONLINE: Fragmented?

Fletcher: There was something wrong with his father.

WELT ONLINE: Would you say a good band is like a band of outlaws in a Western?

Fletcher: As rock stars, we were kings for a night in every town we went into, especially in the United States. We owned the saloons, the gambling tables, the booze and the girls, and the next night the next town was at our feet.

WELT ONLINE: He’s talking about the past.

Fletcher: Everything has changed. We all have families and children. I’m the only one in the band who still drinks. One vice after another takes its toll. You can’t maintain this lifestyle forever.

WELT ONLINE: “Sounds Of The Universe” has a warm sound. You use analog synthesizers from the 1960s.

Fletcher: That’s right. One night Martin had a dream: an orchestra of synthesizers tuning up, the way musicians in a philharmonic orchestra tune up their instruments-this cacophony of string sounds before the start of a classical concert. So he discovered Ebay, replaced his addiction to alcohol with gambling on Ebay, and has since bought hundreds of these old devices at auction. Every day a new package arrives at the studio and we, like children, open these packages with these old devices, plug them in and try out the sound. Each one of them has a very specific sound.

WELT ONLINE: Do you feel compelled to present a completely new sound with each new album?

Fletcher: It probably wouldn’t be possible. Because of our limitations, we are not able to reinvent ourselves. But what we try to do is the following: We try to further develop the sound from record to record.

WELT ONLINE: Is that the formula for success?

Fletcher: I think so. Over the years we have become the biggest cult band in the world.

WELT ONLINE: What do you mean by “cult”?

Fletcher: We’re not mainstream. We don’t have that big hit piece, beyond which there is a total void. We’re not besieged by paparazzi like Madonna.

Depeche Mode “Sounds Of The Universe” (Universal)