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TEARS
OF MY TRACKS
[Q,
March 1997. Words: Phil Sutcliffe. Pictures: Andy Earl.]
" "I'm lying on the floor with wounds open and everything. I say, "It's not what it looks like, Mum, I'm sick, I have to take steroids for my voice..." All this fucking trash comes out of my mouth. Then I look up at my mum and she looks at me and I say, "Mum, I'm a junkie, I'm a heroin addict." And she says, "I know, love." "
Summary:
Mercilessly-detailed in-depth conversation with Dave on all things related to
his drug troubles. A lot of the narrative in this piece was used almost
unchanged by Steve Malins for his biography and is a harrowing account of events
surrounding Dave's suicide attempt, marriage breakup no. 2 and overdose. Second
section of a three-part feature: the other parts being a more general article
and a discography. [3201 words]
View pages: page 1 page 2 page 3 page 4
Try
also: "Dave
Gahan Slashes Wrists In L.A." [NME, 2nd September 1995]
"I'm Hanging On By My Teeth"
[Melody Maker, 27th July 1996]
"Dead
Man Talking" [NME, 18th January 1997]
It's a late Monday evening at Abbey Road. Dave Gahan pronounces himself worn out. However, the long day has meant a lot to him. He got up at 6am. His 9-year-old son, Jack, had spent the weekend with him in London, but Jack's mother, Gahan's first wife Joanne, had stipulated he must be back home in Sussex by early that morning.
Because of Gahan's heroin addiction it was the first time she had allowed him to see Jack alone for a couple of years. Since he cleaned up, there had been regular Sunday afternoon phone calls and an exploratory tripartite meeting in Sussex. Then this breakthrough.
"I couldn't sleep last night, I was so worried about not waking up in time," he declares. "Joanne was very strict about getting him back on time."
You can see her point?
"Fuck, yeah. Now I can. It used to be (whimpers) Oh no, she won't let me see Jack. But that was rubbish. I wasn't available."
He is "available" now, he asserts: facing life to the last syllable of the pain he has suffered and inflicted on those who love him. Haltingly, yet with the naked candour of a recovering addict to whom concealment has come to represent personal disgrace, he begins his story.
Why did you start taking heroin?
Million dollar question, that. Well, it's no secret that I've been drinking and using drugs for a long tome. Probably since I was about (pauses, calculates)... 12 years old. Popping a couple of my mum's phenobarbitones every now and then. Hash. Amphetamines. Coke came along, Alcohol was always there, hand in hand with drugs. Then all of a sudden I discovered heroin, and I'd be lying if I said it didn't make me feel, well... like I've never felt before, I felt like I really belonged.
To what?
I've no idea. I just felt nothing was gonna hurt me, I was invincible. That was the euphoria. But the euphoria was very short lived.
You've implied you planned the transition from plain Dave of Basildon into...
A monster. Well, I did. During the Violator tour. Not overnight. There were a couple of ingredients missing: a companion in doing everything it took to be a rock'n'roll star - which turned out to be Teresa, my second wife - and...the drug. I wanted to lead that very selfish lifestyle without being judged.
Your second wife was the person who wouldn't judge you?
Yeah, because she was joining in. In fact, she introduced me... (he pauses to rephrase this, carefully not ducking the responsibility)...she didn't make me take heroin, she gave me the opportunity to try it again. I'd actually played around with it back in Basildon.
Did you inject it when you were a boy?
No. But from the moment I first injected I wanted to feel like that all the time and...you can't. After a few months I was forever chasing that high and I never found it again. I was just maintaining a very sad existence. On schedule, I'd start shaking. In the morning, then in the afternoon, then in the evening. I needed my fix.
Andrew Fletcher and Martin Gore had their crises on the Songs Of Faith And Devotion Tour. What pushed you over the edge?
After the tour ended, I spent a few months in London and that's when my habit got completely out of hand. In fact, Teresa decided that she wanted to have a baby and I said to her, Teresa, we're junkies. Let's not kid ourselves, when you're a junkie, you can't shit, piss, come...nothing. All these bodily functions go. You're in this soulless body, you're in a shell. But she didn't get it.
Weren't you living in Los Angeles most of the time?
Yeah, I was in deep shit there and I didn't know whether I was going to be able to get myself out. I was so fucking paranoid, I carried a .38 at all times. Going downtown to cop, those guys you hang out with are heavy people, they have guns sitting on the table in front of them. I was scared of everything and everyone. I'd wait until four in the morning to check the mailbox and then walk down to the gate with the gun tucked in the back of my pants. I thought they were coming to get me. Whoever "they" were.
That was when I started toying with the idea of going out on a big one. Just shoot the big speedball to heaven. Disappear. Stop. I wanted to stop being myself, I wanted to stop living in this body. My skin, was crawling, I hated myself that much, what I'd done to myself and everyone around me.
When did your first wife stop you seeing your son?
Usually, when he came out to visit me I'd been able to stop fixing for a while and keep it together. But it came to a point where I was so sick I rang my mother in England and said, "Mum, Jack's due here in a couple of days and I've got terrible flu. I can't cope on my own, can you come over?" I lied. There was a lot of lying going on.
She came and I tried to do the whole thing - get up in the morning, make him his little egg, tried to be the dad. But I was kidding myself. I was cheating my son and I was cheating my mother. I knew it.
One night after I'd put Jack to bed and my mum was asleep I got my outfit together and banged up in the living room. Then I blacked out, overdosed. When I woke up I was sprawled across the bed. It was daylight and I heard voices from the kitchen. I thought, "Shit, I left all my shit out."
I got up in a panic, ran down to the living room and it was all gone. So I ran into the kitchen and mum and Jack were sitting there and I said, "What did you do with my stuff, mum?" She said, "I threw it in the rubbish outside." I ran out the door and brought in six black bags. If you can picture this insanity, I'm with my son and my mother - who, as far as I know, don't know anything about what's going on with me - and I brought in six bags, five of which were my neighbours' and emptied them out on the kitchen floor. I was on my hands and knees going through other people's garbage until I found what I needed.
Then I shut myself in the bathroom. Shortly after that, there's a knocking on the door. It bursts open and my son and my mother are there and I'm lying on the floor with wounds open and everything. I say, "It's not what it looks like, Mum, I'm sick, I have to take steroids for my voice..." All this fucking trash comes out of my mouth. Then I look up at my mum and she looks at me and I say, "Mum, I'm a junkie, I'm a heroin addict." And she says, "I know, love."
Jack took my hand and led me into his bedroom and knelt me down on the floor and said to me, "Daddy, I don't want you to be sick any more." (Gahan swallows hard, forges on) I said, "I don't wanna be sick any more either." He said, "You need to see a doctor." I said, "Yeah."
Anyway, I guess my mum must have rung Joanne. She came and picked Jack up and that was the last I saw of them for a long while. My mum stayed on for a bit to settle me down. She'd say, "We don't want you to die." And that didn't stop me. That didn't do it.
You didn't try to clean up at that point?
I did, a few weeks after that, I spent Christmas with Teresa and I tried to kick it on my own. I lay on the couch for a week like a zombie. Then, one night, I turned to Teresa and said, "I need help." So I went into rehab for the first time.
When I came out, Teresa met me. We went to get some lunch and she said, "I'm not gonna stop drinking or using drugs just because you have to. I'll do whatever I want to do." She didn't use like me, regularly. But in rehab they said that if one of us wasn't going to give up, it would be impossible for the other. At that point, I knew our relationship would have to be over if I was gonna have any chance. I'd thought we loved each other. Now I think the love was pretty one-sided.
Actually, she soon left me to get her life together, as she put it. She always used to say to me, "It's all about you, Dave - if only you could love yourself." Well, that's come full circle now, because she's suing me for a ridiculous amount of money, claiming I'm responsible for her life.
After she left I stayed clean for a little while, but I slipped back into old habits and found myself going to another rehab in August 1995.
What happened?
When you're abusing yourself to that degree there's a lot of chaos around you, people who are supposedly your friends but maybe aren't. My little world, Daveworld, was completely falling apart.