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MARTIN
GORE: COUNTERFEIT 2 INTERVIEW
[From the Counterfeit 2 Interview CD,
Mute ICDSTUMM214]
"
I think it’s
always interesting when people from bands, or songwriters, cover songs, because
it shows people some of their influences.
"
Summary:
Martin talks relaxedly about the conception and
recording of Counterfeit 2, with special regard to how he chose certain songs
and their significance to him as a songwriter. A wonderful insight into a very
private man, with some surprising influences coming to the fore. [3196 words]
Try
also: Pavement,
16th April 1997
"Ultra Sounds" [Guitar
World, May 1997]
"The Return Of Martin
Gore" [Boyz, 12th April 2003]
"60 Second
Interview" [Metro, 28th April 2003]
[1]
How does it feel to be back with this new solo album?
Well
it’s a bit of a new experience because this is only the second time I’ve
ever released anything solo and it’s a little more pressure I suppose. I’m
finding it a bit more difficult just doing promotion because obviously I have to
do three times as much (laughs).
[2]
Why did you decide to release a solo album now?
I
started thinking that I might actually finally make the follow-up to the first
Counterfeit EP after we finished Exciter and when I knew that Dave was going in
to the studio to start making his solo record, so I realised I’d have quite a
lot of free time, where I didn’t have to be involved in activities with the
band. So there was time to put into action what I’d been talking about doing
for thirteen or fourteen years. So I suppose I started thinking vaguely about
what sort of songs I wanted to record and who to work with, but I didn’t
really start anything really seriously until, say, January last year, when I
started making lists of songs that I wanted to think about recording and also
thinking about the people I wanted to work with.
[3]
Why do a covers album?
I
like the idea of doing cover versions, I think it’s always interesting when
people from bands, or songwriters, cover songs, because it shows people some of
their influences. When I was younger, I used to really like the Bryan Ferry
covers records, and that gave me some insight into what inspired him. It also
helped me to discover a lot of music that I wasn’t aware of, so I like the
idea of covered albums anyway.
[4]
Didn’t you want to write any of your own songs for this album?
I
think that while I’m part of Depeche Mode it’s not right for me to use my
own songs, because I am the main songwriter for the band and I’m not
particularly prolific, so I think it creates a conflict of interest – what
songs would I use for me, what would I use for the band – and it just
doesn’t seem right. I work in a strange way anyway when it comes to
songwriting; I’m not the sort of person who writes constantly, I usually set
myself writing periods, so I’ve just decided to do this as a project and I
think it’s healthy because it somehow bottles up your creativity. After I’ve
finished this small bit of promotion for this record, and a small tour – a few
dates – I’ll get back to songwriting again and I’m already feeling more
creative: when I sit down at a piano or pick up a guitar now I feel more
creative than I would if I’d just constantly tried to write songs.
[5]
How did you go about choosing the songs to cover for this album?
Well
there are obviously thousands of songs that I like but I was surprised by how
few actually made it on to a shortlist of songs that I wanted to cover for this
record. I don’t know, I think that I tend to like songs that are very
emotional, they strike a chord emotionally with me somehow and I can’t quite
explain that, but I think that somehow gives them a thread, even though they
come from really diverse areas of music. I think there’s some sort of solitude
and loneliness about the songs, which I’m always drawn to.
[6] Are the songs from a specific era?
Well
they stretch back really - two or three of the songs are from at least the
Thirties and then there are some from the Seventies. The Julee Cruise song was
from, I think, about ’97 or so, I think. Not much from the Eighties, I don’t
know why I avoided that, but… (laughs) it wasn’t anything conscious.
[7]
What happened to the songs that didn’t make it on the album?
Some
of them I don’t think we even started – some we did, like, spend a couple of
days working on something and we thought, “It’s not really right, doesn’t
really fit the right atmosphere”, and I did a couple of songs more basically
for B-sides – there are two just acoustic versions, just mixing in live with
an acoustic guitar, of T-Rex songs for extra tracks on the first single,
Stardust. And I started another song that needed a little bit more work, and if
we do a second single I’ll probably finish it for that. [1]
[8] Would you describe this album as a kind of homage to your musical idols?
Well,
some of the artists on the record would be my idols – people that have maybe
shaped the way I work, the way I write songs.
[9]
How important are remixes for you?
I
think that it’s always interesting to get remixes done and it’s something
that, as part of Depeche Mode, I’ve always valued. And I think that just by
being really interested in what’s happening in music currently we’ve always
managed to get some great, interesting remixers to work on our stuff, and we
seem to get them right before they become famous in their own right. I think
that’s just because we have been so interested in what’s happening at any
point.
[10] How did you go about recording the tracks?
I
imagined that it would be quite easy recording a covers album, because once
I’d chosen the songs it seemed like it would just be a question then of
recording them. But I don’t really like doing straight cover versions: it’s
often a case of trying to reinvent the songs, take them in a different
direction, but obviously they still have to work, they still have to have some
spirit of the original; something that you like about the original still has to
be there in the new invented version. And that’s sometimes not the easiest
thing, sometimes there’s a lot of experimentation, and sometimes there’s a
lot of fruitless experimentation – you might spent four weeks trying out - -
Sometimes I think we spent, like, three weeks, three or four weeks on one song,
taking it down one route, and then we’d get to the end of that four weeks and
go “You know what, that’s not really working”. So it’d be back to the
drawing board.
[11]
Which artist / musicians influence you most at the moment?
I
don’t know if I could actually say there’s one artist that influences me,
but over the last three or four years I’ve been listening mainly to a lot of
abstract, minimal electronic music, and I think there’s that that has had at
very least a subconscious impact on me.
[12] Would you say there was a similarity in style between your solo album and a Depeche Mode album?
I
think there is some connection between the last Depeche Mode album Exciter and
this one. They’re both very electronic, and I think I’ve been influenced
quite a lot by the music I’ve listened to over the last four years, which has
mainly been a lot of underground electronic music, quite minimal stuff, so I
think there is a thread between those records.
[13] You’re obviously doing a lot more singing on this album than on a Depeche Mode record, how does that feel?
Ever
since I was a kid; I’ve loved to sing, and it’s not something that’s
really new to me because I always sing a couple of songs on every Depeche Mode
record, or three or four songs when we play live, so it’s a natural thing.
[14]
Do you have a favourite song on the album?
Funnily
enough, I think my favourite is Lost In The Stars, and that is the one song on
the album that is more traditional – it’s just piano, strings and vocal.
Simply because I didn’t know how else to interpret that song. I don’t think
that it would have worked in any kind of electronic way, but that was the first
song I had on my list, and I knew that I had to somehow fit it onto the album.
[15] Would you agree that a lot of the songs on the album are quite dark?
I
think that probably the majority of the songs on the album are quite dark, but
somehow that’s what I’m drawn to, I think I’ve always been like that.
Somehow they resonate with me and they make more sense – I don’t know, they
seem more in the key of the universe somehow. I’ve never been one that really
likes really happy songs.
[16]
Why did you choose to cover the track “Oh My Love”?
Well
in the biography I said that without some of the songwriters that I’ve covered
on this album, I probably wouldn’t have been the sort of songwriter I am and
probably John Lennon is the biggest example of that. I really love the
sensitivity he achieved in his music, and I’ve always tried to achieve some of
that sensitivity myself, and again there were probably a few songs by John
Lennon that I could have chosen, but I really liked the simplicity of that one.
[1] - The song evidently never was finished, because a second single, "Loverman", was released - with the album track "Das Lied Vom Einsamen Mädchen" as a B-side. This track would doubtless have been complete at the time of the interview so can't be the track to which Martin's referring. It'd be interesting to know what the intended B-side was. [continue]