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[Uncut, May 2001. Words: Stephen Dalton. Pictures: Anton Corbijn /
Redferns - page 7 of 8]
"It was the surreal quality of the event that I remember most," Wilder says. "The thing that struck me was that such an instantaneous tragedy is immediately followed by the banality of continuing life. As two dead airmen were splattered across the road, the sun shone, the birds sang and no music played. Things were strangely silent afterwards, which was in stark contrast to the noise made by the plane seconds earlier as it shot over our heads. These moments are still very vivid, even now."
Wilder, whose anxiety about flying had been tested to destruction on the Devotional tour, would later immortalise the incident on 'Black Box', a track on last year's lavish Recoil album Liquid. Although active since 1986, Recoil would become Wilder's main musical outlet after he quit Depeche Mode. This momentous decision was finally announced in June 1995. His press statement blamed "increasing dissatisfaction with internal relations and working practices within the group."
Gore cites Wilder's tension with Fletch as key to his decision. But Wilder claims this was "largely immaterial since it made no impact on the important issues like how the records were made or how they were performed. The relationship that never really flourished was between myself and Martin. I felt that it was mainly he who didn't really value the effort I put in, and that disappointed me, because generally we got on OK and I respected his talent as a songwriter. I guess the introverted side of Martin's nature made it difficult for him to show appreciation or hand out praise. That said, it's not something I dwell on. Life is too short to bear grudges and so I have no problems with any members of the group."
As Depeche Mode disintegrated, Dave Gahan surrendered to full-scale heroin addiction in L.A. He had tried detoxing several times since late 1994, but always relapsed. He set aside a closet in his Hollywood home, christened the Blue Room, where he could shoot up in numbed isolation. His relationship with Teresa Conway reached breaking point, and they separated. In a state of wasted paranoia, Dave took to carrying guns. He would even shoot up water purely for the instant buzz, and once awoke in the front garden of a dealer who had literally robbed the shirt off his back. Next week, he went back there to score again.
"It happened a lot more times than I actually thought," says Gahan of overdosing. "Sometimes I would come to and it was two days later, that kind of thing. People start dying, you know - but I never really thought that would happen to me. It was classic drug addict stuff."
One night, during a visit from his mother and son Jack, Gahan passed out from another overdose. On waking and discovering his works had been thrown away, the singer frantically scrambled through his bins. He then locked himself away and shot up. His mother and son burst into the bath-room and found Gahan on the floor. At first he lied, claiming he was injecting steroids for his voice. Eventually, he looked his mother in the eye and admitted, "Mum, I'm a junkie." She replied, "I know, love."
August 1995 was a low point for Gahan. He returned from an Arizona detox centre to find his house had been methodically burgled. The alarm code was reset, prompting suspicion that his drug buddies were teaching him a lesson. Dave put the house up for sale, rented a new place in Santa Monica, then checked himself into the Sunset Marquis hotel. Strung out on smack and Valium, he phoned his mother in Britain. In the middle of the call he went to the bathroom, carved two-inch razor cuts into his wrists, and wrapped a towel around the gushing wounds.
"I don't think I was trying to kill myself," says Gahan today, "I think again I was just crying out for some kind of attention and really going about it in an odd way, it was a mistake. It was feelings of wanting to disappear - still be here, but just floating around."
By the time a friend dropped by, noticed Gahan's seeping wounds and dialled 911, the singer was virtually comatose. With no time for anaesthetic, the paramedics stitched up his wrists in the ambulance. He came to next morning in a straitjacket in a psychiatric ward. "I thought I might be in heaven," Dave later admitted. "This psychiatrist informed me I'd committed a crime under local law by trying to take my own life. Only in fucking L.A., huh?"
Gahan returned to using drugs almost immediately after being discharged. Meanwhile, in London, Gore and Fletch were hesitantly making steps towards the Mode's first post-Alan Wilder album. Bomb The Bass beatmaster Tim Simenon was drafted in as producer, alongside several session musicians, to fill Wilder's studio shoes. Simenon introduced a fluid, trip-hop dynamism to the Depeche sound as epitomised by the malevolent, sabre-toothed groove of "Barrel Of A Gun".
After initial doubts about the band's future, Gore and Fletch were heartened by the sessions. They called Gahan in New York, where he was now involved with a new girlfriend, a reformed drug user who he met in a detox programme. All three agreed to record Dave's vocals at Manhattan's Electric Lady studio in April and May 1996.
But the sessions proved catastrophic. Gahan claimed he was drug-free, but could barely muster a single usable vocal. In mid-May, recording was scrapped and Dave flew back to L.A. . Humiliated and desperate, the singer's self-esteem was in shreds. His job was on the line, his bandmates were insisting he get a vocal coach, and Teresa was suing him for divorce. On top of which, his drug habit was killing him.
"Martin actually rang me up when I went back home to L.A., after all the trouble," says Gahan. "He said, 'Shall we just knock it on the head?' I said, 'Mart, this just so not important to me right now.' It just wasn't relevant to where I was."
Gahan was in a bad way. He began seeing vocal coach Evelyn Halus, then tried recording again in L.A. with Simenon. But his drug use was out of control. In the early hours of May 28, back at the Sunset Marquis, he overdosed on a cocaine and heroin 'speedball' made with a particularly lethal strain of heroin nicknamed Red Rum. [1]
Gazing blankly into his dealer's eyes, Dave suddenly "had a strong feeling that what I was going was very wrong. I remember having a feeling of it was maybe too late - give me another chance. I remember looking right into the eyes of the guy who was with me at the time and I thought: 'Oh fuck, I've really done it this time.' And basically wanting to live. I really had a strong feeling I wanted to live."
A girl who Gahan had just met in the hotel bar was also present. But the dealer, fearing arrest, prevented her from calling an ambulance while he cleared up and fled. By the time the medics arrived Dave had turned blue and gone into cardiac arrest. He was given "the full Pulp Fiction treatment" as his heart stopped on the way to hospital.
Discharged the next morning, Gahan was immediately arrested by the West Hollywood Sheriff's Department for possession of controlled substances found in his home. He was jailed with seven other offenders until manager Jonathan Kessler posted $10,000 bail. Outside, the singer gave a rambling public confession: "My cat's lives are out...it's not a cool thing to be a drug addict." He also apologised to his mum.
Then, incredibly, Gahan went back to the Sunset Marquis and instantly started using again. Friends who dropped by, including former The Word presenter Amanda de Cadenet, felt sure the singer had a death wish. "I wouldn't have been surprised if I got a phone call saying he was dead," nods Fletch. "Various people had tried to speak to him, but it became past that. I think when he got to his lowest level, the only thing he had left was the band."
Martin Gore agrees, "I don't know what else we could have done. I remember something somebody said about going to L.A. and babysitting him, but it wouldn't have worked because Dave was just being really sneaky at that stage. If I'd have moved in with him that would have probably sent him over the edge anyway."
In the end, a few days after his overdose, Gahan was finally persuaded to check into the Exodus Recovery Centre in Marina Del Rey - a rehab clinic whose former clients include Kurt Cobain and James Caan. The gruelling Exodus regime included five days of cold turkey, during which Dave was strapped down as seizures wracked his body. But it worked.
"I made a decision to give it a shot," Gahan nods. "I took some advice from people for the first time, not just with the band but with my personal life. I actually started listening to people who were telling me I couldn't do this any more. And thank God. There is a different way. I knew it was going to be a struggle. I knew it was going to be the hardest thing I ever did in my life."
Daniel Miller says Gahan also had serious practical motives to kick drugs. "The American legal system said he wouldn't get a green card or be allowed back into the country unless he went into rehab and had tests over a period of two years." Miller says. "In the end, his desire first of all to not be chucked out of America and his understanding of what he was doing to himself kind of forced the issue."
Under constant surveillance from Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous counsellors, Dave regained his voice and finally competed the Ultra album sessions. After a legally enforced spell at a 'sober living louse' in L.A. full of fellow ex-addicts, he moved to a giant Central Park apartment in New York.
Ultra was released to high expectations in April 1997, rocketing to Number One in Britain and scoring three million sales globally. Its windswept amalgam of pneumatic hip-hop and gothic soul expanded the Mode sound, although Daniel Miller now calls it a transitional record. "The sound of a band picking up the pieces, trying to figure out where it's going."
During promotional interviews, Gahan was in full-on confessional therapy mode, revisiting his druggy traumas in lurid detail. It made great copy, but Gahan says, "I regret talking about it a lot, actually. I went around telling everyone, whether they wanted to listen to me or not. It's that feeling that you're the only person that's ever been through this, that's how it came across. Sometimes I came away from those interviews feeling, like, worse."
[1] - Dave quoted in Steve Malins' biography: "Of course, I just thought it referred to the racehorse, until someone pointed out that it spells 'murder' backwards." [continue]
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