+++ Depeche Mode’s keyboardist Andrew Fletcher is dead. His band announced this on May 26, 2022. On this occasion we hereby remember Fletcher’s last album with his band. +++
Northwest of Los Angeles, where the giant metropolis melts like a veil of gasoline in a puddle, dark clouds hang in the sky. The glowing taillights meander out of town on Highway 101. Near Ventura, along the Pacific coast, a downpour suddenly sets in, which the wind from the sea whips sideways against the car windows. California in February? It certainly doesn’t look much different on the English North Sea coast. If only the meter-high palm trees weren’t swaying back and forth in the wind.
In the car radio on 101.1 FM is playing “boogie wonderland from Earth, Wind & Fire, the Doobie Brothers, then “Hold The Line” by Toto, Taylor Swift, and a bit of ’90s R’n’B. Lauryn Hill hadn’t quite finished souling when the presenter from the local station turned down the controls and got Sally on the line: “Congratulations, Sally, your name is in the raffle: two tickets for Depeche Mode – in July, in Paris . Everyone stay tuned, we’ll have the next caller on the line in half an hour…!” A few seconds off “Enjoy The Silence” are laid as a sound bed under Sally’s cheering: “All I ever wanted, all I ever needed, is here in my arms, words are very unnecessary.” And it’s actually a bit like that: Depeche Mode are back, after four years, the new record SPIRIT, now in stores. Very, very, very many people add a “finally” somewhere in this list – and that’s good. What else is there to say? #just enjoy, right?
“There comes a point when you have to challenge yourself and try something new” – Martin Gore
But there are still a few questions, even with album number 14 in the 37th year of the band. Hence the drive out of Los Angeles, along Highway 101 towards Santa Barbara, where Martin L. Gore lives and where a large part of the record was made with new producer James Ford (Simian Mobile Disco). “There comes a point when you have to challenge yourself and try something new,” Gore will say later in the interview, gargling away the beautifully banal everyday sentence with a nice, bulbous cigarette laugh.
Those who like peace and quiet are in the right place at the “Four Seasons” in Santa Barbara. After the level crossing on Olive Mill Road, the road makes a slight bend to the right and suddenly a huge area with a two-story building complex opens up, pointing directly to the Pacific. This is where the interview with Martin L. Gore will take place later. There is only a narrow street between the “Four Seasons” and the sandy beach. With an air temperature of 13 degrees and light rain, a lonely surfer is paddling in the water. The sky: a single grey.
The hotel itself is embedded in a green hell of shrubs, bushes and palm trees. If you want to stay there for one night, you should bring at least 500 dollars as luggage. On this Tuesday at the end of February, just before 10 a.m., capacity utilization seems to be limited. A couple of cheerful Latinos are trimming the bushes at the side entrance and telling stories about a baseball game from the night before. The heated outdoor pool in the courtyard sways silently under the rising steam. Otherwise a lot of silence and the splashing of raindrops against the sunshades. Only in the lobby shows a bit of everyday life. A couple is digging out the travel documents, two children are chasing each other in the middle of the room around a round wooden table with a bowl of free apples. “Room 209. Mr. Gore is waiting for you,” says the lady at the reception.