Synth Britannia - Depeche Mode - A Documentary Film

humanely were crumbling something was brewing in the most unlikely of places battle devil was a new town built for the post-war East End overspill it wasn't one of pop music's more romantic places but a bunch of kids were gonna ditch their guitars and reinvent synth music as pop when we were growing up bathroom was a very violent town we have that the highest crime rate for about five years on the trot but I can remember going back to basil dirt and going down to the pub with some friends and I had like you know black nail varnish going to the bar and ordering a drink you know I totally forgotten about it wasn't even thinking about it and some guy just said to me look that flock of you got on your fingernails Depeche Mode formed in 1980 they had a spot of their local disco crops was a really ordinary disco well there's the crocodile yeah it was quite a sorry-looking animal but it was alive they had this night I once a week where they play things like the human Nathan stop cell and and also bands would appear there [Music] [Applause] [Music] right [Music] when I first started playing synthesizers have been people like humanly and orchestral nervous in the dark their very first album I was a big fan of Daniel Miller's work as the silicon teens and as the normal and also fad gadget it was on mute records Vince was sort of the boss of the band he was unbelievably trivedi used to earn 30 pounds a week in the yogurt factory inside 29 pounds 70 a week to save up to buy a a simp you know he falls the pace this actually it was the original Depeche Mode drum machine that we used for life Dave's job before his song to set the tempo the sudden be fast number two would be slow citizen Autobahn that's what really got us to go out and buy our first synthesizers to hold you know the things that were happening around that time with craft work and even early human lead stuff I was really happy that the first time I heard those when I saw them play live it was a fantastic life they started and I thought well this sounds descent interesting there's like four little mono synths kind of teetering on beer crates [Applause] [Music] they had a fan base with them and their fans weren't watching the band they were just dancing [Music] Miller first saw Depeche Mode's supporting pug gadget in East London to sign them to meet no none of us knew what we were doing by the time I met Depeche we've just released our first album compared to them I was an experienced industry person but actually I knew nothing you know they needed a bit of help in the studio so I think you know first of all I introduced him to some ways of been working using sequences had never used a sequence before everything was like played by hand this is the legendary art training 600 but it's second hand at 1979 it was being sold 1/3 being sold by Elton John's road crew after world tour being used extensively on all Depeche Mode albums I was involved with especially on the first album where it was really the one of only two synths that we used you're going to laugh no way in tune to the cache mode were proved to be the real silicon teams the combination of sex appeal and synthesizers would make them one of the biggest pop acts of 1981 [Music] when Depeche Mode when we were digging we don't carry us into sizes and I like for some reason you know had to buy the heaviest synthesizer out all of them you know and we don't have cars or anything so we build a track and this really is quite him thought I'd have this thing under my arm Fletcher would happen Mooka Martin had a Yamaha I think on the trike when we did our first Top of the Pops you know we're on the triumphal place wrestling deciders you got the train for the park yep from nestled into the Pyncheon Street in the end but like Neiman before it wouldn't all be plain sailing for depeche I think you know you've got to remember the enduring out pop period you know we had lots of fans and a lot of people lighters but a lot of people hated us but certainly the eighties was a real old battle royal between us and journalism in general music journalism it was just really you know pop it was you know I think I can understand why people hated what we did you know looking back on it now and it wasn't just the sound it was every TV that we were asked to do we did they didn't matter how stupid it was you know there's something very unbreachable electronic music to start with they weren't bands to be like they were in the sixties really for guys guitar bass and drums pretty lead singer skinny jeans you know conventional kind of thing that's really what sells newspapers I guess I mean they'd written Depeche Mode off anyway as a tuna pop band a one-hit wonder especially once Vince left they fall that's over [Music] in November 81 o'clock unexpectedly quit I was and still am a bit of a control freak so you know and with the advent of computers and sequences I realized that I could make music myself you know I didn't need necessarily a lot of people to play the parts and I got a real satisfaction out of the programming all the parts myself without their chief songwriter it seemed the game was up the Depeche Mode before they really got going it will provide inspiration for Depeche Mode's new chief songwriter [Music] [Applause] [Music] the early 80s which is terrible timing in Britain and I was young and impressionable and you know that was really when I first quite felt like I was you know sort of writing from the heart really [Music] around the time of construction time again samplers it just really come out so you know we were just it was just a whole revelation to us we you know we were just going out and yes or like smashing pieces of metal with sledgehammers you know raiding the kitchen drawer for all the utensils to make percussion sounds just anything we could get our hands on it we've got we've got this big idea at the moment which was used on the demo we've got this pebble we got from the mud come on yeah look white spots fear the stinging Mills anyway the idea is to roll the pebble on this piece of metal in here window frame that's coveting that's making this sort of construction time again really started to see us form and you know as a basis of of what what we are today anyway and the idea is to take that sequence and to make any an interesting rhythm out of it and to sequence it all through the song some people dance Depeche Mode pioneered their new Santa based sound in London's shortage he knows those shortage was knows not a soul around but now of course we've Hoxton etc et-cetera it's sort of like the trendy place to be but it wasn't when we we were at the garden studios it was not a soul to be seen [Music] I remember there was one sound in particular there was us actually hitting a piece of corrugated iron that was the side of a building site and that the psalm port went like all right and it was like the site Foreman you know it's a lot it seems from the eighties really to be doing one bang crusade for electronic music you know against the music press that was overwhelming the rock base we would often do interviews with journalists and we have a big argument because they just didn't consider electronic music to be real music [Music] lady [Music] [Music] yeah we've got a key to there certain times of being like a very subversive pop band and I do think that we did get away with you know some stuff that was you know probably risk over the radio just because we used it in a pop context [Music] our early career me nothing like the last few serve and stuff [Music] [Applause] some of these are unbelievably vicious I mean you just couldn't you know real hatred for the man real hatred I don't know why wasn't British really a journalist once said that you know it's this the music will appeal to alienated youth everywhere and Germans [Laughter] Depeche Mode would eventually find a sympathetic home for their music in America [Music] for a lot of Americans England just means gays it's like you know they think it's like a conflation of Oscar Wilde and various ideas about British boarding school for people who feel different or misfits in America England does actually seem like this utopia they imagine everyone in England all around wearing eyeliner plays synthesisers you know and so to be a Depeche Mode fan internet'll was actually quite sort dissident thing [Music] Depeche Mode were the only act who were truly successful in exporting the British electronic sound the band would enjoy massive popularity in America throughout the 80s and Beyond consistently filling stadiums across the land back in Britain in 83 the sampler was moving synth-pop in a different direction [Music]

Channel: DM collector

Views: 541,729

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Id: SUQpiq-dHK8

Length: 13min 24sec (804 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 03 2020