Richard Spencer and Andrew Jensen review Depeche Mode’s ninth studio album, Ultra (1997).Sound referencesDepeche Mode, “Barrel of a Gun,” Ultra (1997)DM, “Uselink,” UDM, “Surrender” (1997) DM, “The Love Thieves,” UDM, “Home,” U“Interview with Depeche Mode,” New York Times, 2017DM, “It’s No Good,” UDM, “Useless,” UDM, “Sister of Night,” UDM, “Freestone,” UDM, “The Bottom Line,” UDM, “Insight,” UDM, “Leave in Silence,” A Broken Frame (1982)VCMG, “Spock,” Ssss (2012) Recoil, “Red River Cargo,” Unsound Methods (1997)DM, “Sister of Night (live),” Los Angeles, 1997 This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit radixjournal.substack.com/subscribe
I don't quite know where to begin with this album.
I've listened to it a couple of times over the past few days, and it is an album that you get into.
In other words, I liked it on third listen more than I liked it on the first listen.
And I also got deeper into meanings of the songs, or at least how they resonate.
I think it's actually pretty brilliant in
but I'm not sure what I thought of it when I bought it as a teenager still at the time.
I was in high school when it came out in 1997.
And I think I liked Home and It's No Good, but was a little curious about the rest of it.
And I was learning about Dave Gahan's personal
One thing I would say, I mean, this was the summing up that I came to, is that songs like Never Let Me Down Again are about the experience of drug use, of being high,
of transcending yourself, going to another world, etc.
And I think Ultra...
And I say that I guess a bit as a criticism in the sense that it's not a fun album.
It's not a nice album.
I think it's in a way a vindictive album.
And at least in retrospect, after...
Reading the chapters in Stripped, this chronicle that I've been referencing throughout these podcasts, every song resonated with Dave Gahan's ordeal of heavy drug use,
collapsing marriage, living like a low life, which I don't think we can even underestimate.
He was carrying around a 38. Calibro Pistol, wherever he went.
He would check into the Sunset Marquee Hotel and never leave, as they say.
Interesting hotel named Sunset Boulevard Hotel, California.
Anyway, he has those residences.
And he attempted suicide, actually, at one point.
Whether he really wanted to go through with it or was making a...
Desperate plea for help or attention remains to be seen.
During the making of this album, which lasted 15 months, which is pretty incredible because of the breaks they needed to take, he actually died of a heart attack effectively brought on by drug use.
His drug of choice at this point was heroin and cocaine, speedball.
So you can imagine What that can do to you.
And his heart stopped for two minutes, apparently.
There was actually a poignant moment when he was calling out for help.
Dave Gaughan says, I woke up in the hospital hearing one of the paramedics saying, I think we lost him.
I sat up and said, no, you fucking haven't.
I had the full cardiac arrest.
My heart had stopped for two minutes.
I'd been dead, basically.
Later, a detective read me my rights.
I was arrested for possession of cocaine and needles.
I was handcuffed to a trolley.
Straight from hospital, they threw me into the county jail for a couple of nights in a cell with about seven other guys.
A scary experience.
I guess he was thrown in jail for a little bit.
He never went to prison.
He was on probation.
prison would have done him some good.
He would check into various clinics.
There's one clinic where, according to Stripped, when he checked out, Robert Downey Jr. checked in.
Anyway, pretty interesting time in the 90s.
But he would have relapses.
I think the cardiac arrest There is a bit of a whiff of Kurt Cobain that hangs over this album.
I think definitely Dave, in these interviews that are collected, he's saying that explicitly that he didn't want to become Kurt Cobain.
He wanted to be a survivor.
So I think he had a...
I think Kurt Cobain hangs over the album more generally.
If we want to sum up rock and pop music, you reach this nadir with punk and let's say the Sex Pistols, for example, where they're slamming their guitars.
Playing three chords out of tune, screaming, screaming out of tune.
It's almost like music, or at least the music that resonates, has gotten so cacophonous and edgy that it almost can't go any further.
The only thing after a hardcore punk would be silence or pure noise or something, or just a scream.
Some aspects of Wagner, Das Rheingold, where it eventuates into just actual screaming.
Interesting. And so I think this album sounds like a 90s album.
And with a lot of it, even though you and I can pick up quintessential Martin Gore songwriting, and he wrote every song in this album.
You know, I think...
For someone who's heard Just Can't Get Enough or Enjoy the Silence or Personal Jesus, I think they might not quite recognize Depeche Mode in this album.
It is a different thing altogether.
Whatever I've done, I've been staring at the barrel of a gun.
Whatever I've done, I've been staring at the barrel of a gun.
Whatever I've done, whatever, whatever.
Whatever I've done, I've been staring at the barrel of a gun.
And it has that 90s quality of, first off, vindictiveness.
The, you know, don't say you love me.
It's understood.
It's no good.
Everything's been leading to a barrel of a gun.
It has a kind of hip-hop influenced, I would say, drum beat.
It's not the get-up-and-go or kind of epic drum beat of Never Let Me Down Again or Enjoy the Silence or something.
It's a slower album and a kind of messier album when it comes to instrumentation and so on.
So I think everything about the 90s hung over this.
They were in their mid-30s.
They're getting a little bit too old to be rock stars.
And Dave is sinking into a very dark place.
And this just follows the end of the devotional tour, after which Alan Wilder left the band for a variety of reasons.
I think we can...
We can talk about that in this podcast, or we could save that for the next one.
We'll see how it goes.
But the album, it's very interesting.
It is a kind of survival album.
It's not great in the way that Songs of Faith and Devotion was.
It's not bad in the way that Exciter is, to give it credit.
Is definitely of its time, but it also demonstrates that Debeche Mode can keep going.
And I would just return to that initial thought about, you know, Never Let Me Down Again is about the experience of being high, whereas this is about the experience of being a junkie.
I think with maybe an exception like Insight or maybe...
I think every song is about Dave Gahan.
And every song is about Dave's descent into junkydom.
And it's very interesting that Martin wrote all of these songs.
Dave isn't even writing songs yet.
Alan is gone.
And they seem to be about him channeling Dave's ordeal.
And perhaps experiencing it a bit himself.
But anyway, those are my opening thoughts.
Yeah, I mean, I think I agree with you that the album isn't exactly accessible upon first listen.
I think a lot of the tracks, like you said, are slower, a bit more like, I don't know, something like dazed about it or just almost gives you the feeling of like a hangover.
You know, I would describe this, if Songs of Faith and Devotion was the bacchanal party, this was the hangover from it.
And when you said vindictive, that made me think, like, is this vindictive in the same way that, like, a broken frame might have been vindictive?
Us three, Dave, Martin, and Fletch, we're going to prove to Vince and to the world that we can do this without Vince.
And in a similar way, us three, again, we're going to prove that we can do this without Alan, without all of his craftsmanship in the studio and his musicianship.
Yes, I can see that, but I actually mean it in another way as well, but you can continue.
But I think with Dave being at his low, He's doing these interviews at the time with, like, I don't know, E!
News or whatever.
And he's just going on and on about how much of an addict he is.
And that was, like, their kind of promo.
And I think this album could have been called, like, Dave Gone 1993 to 1998 or something like that.
You know, like, it really, yeah, I agree.
This is almost completely about him.
I guess Martin was suffering with his own alcoholism or whatever during this time and Fletch was recovering from some sort of breakdown.
But yeah, I mean, he is the star of the show.
And it made me think that, I think with the previous album, in this case Songs of Faith and Devotion, that he had sort of like achieved this new persona.
He didn't necessarily need to have, but it just kind of goes to show that like, All of these frontmen, David Lee Roth, Freddie Mercury, John Lennon, with very few exceptions, are these frontmen like ever,
and obviously Kurt Cobain, are any of these frontmen ever like well-adjusted people?
And I think Dave, as creative a person as he might be now, I don't think he was or is perhaps a well-adjusted person.
And that's not like a personal dig or anything.
I just think...
That would have contributed to his addictions, etc., but it also made him a really good frontman as well.
So, yeah, with you saying that you might not recognize Depeche Mode in this album, I would agree also, because there is just something so fundamentally different.
There is, I think, actually a good balance of live music and programmed music with...
They brought in a bunch of different bassists and percussionists, like the guy from Cannes whose name escapes me or anything.
It's like Jackie Weishaupt or something.
Anyway, and they're bringing in all these different musicians, doing all of this stuff that Alan would have been doing.
He was playing bass on Songs of Faith and Devotion.
And he was playing drums and recording these loops and getting these atmospheres together.
And so they needed someone like Tim Semenen, who had done remixes for the band before.
So yeah, they really needed that.
But I mean, as far as my impression of the album, I think Martin's songwriting peak was probably Violator's Songs of Faith and Devotion, for me at least.
And like, this is kind of the...
The bottom of that peak.
And I think it has these...
They did channel interesting jazz and hip-hop and these other genres that they didn't before.
And some country in there for the first time.
Yes, yes.
And blues is still there, too.
But it was about...
Like you said, it was of its time.
It was good that they did that.
And I think Martin's songs, though, really do drive.
As good as the production is, and as interesting as it is, and as expensive as it was for the band, I think that still his songs are driving this album.
Yeah. So this is just a little story.
So Primal Scream, and they were opening...
For Depeche Mode, I think on the summer tour, which is called the Exotic Tour, I believe.
It's a kind of extension of the devotional tour.
Dave seemed to invite them precisely because they were into narcotics.
They're a Scottish band.
Yeah. Primal Scream always took boxes of records and had a couple of decks in the dressing room.
Perry continued.
So there were all these people dancing, and Dave Gahan sitting in the middle of the room in an armchair, apparently shoveling cocaine up his nose at a frightening rate.
Suddenly, he seemed to realize that I was a journalist.
This is a story of, let's just call him Perry.
He's a journalist.
He told this.
Suddenly, he seemed to realize that I was a journalist, and he pointed at me.
One of his big flunkies came over and got me.
I had to kneel down beside the armchair to make it possible for him to talk to me.
He started burbling on about how people didn't understand him.
But then his mood changed suddenly.
He said, I'm going to curse you.
And the next thing I know, he's bitten me on the neck.
By now, he was shouting and everybody was watching him until he stormed out of the room, still yelling about putting a curse on me.
I assumed he was completely out of it.
But then on stage, he was totally together and professional.
Alan reported as well that, I mean, not that anyone there was a Puritan, but someone like Alan just left the whole thing.
He seemed the best adjusted and was able to keep drinking and drug use under control.
But Dave fell into this.
I mean, I heard a story about someone I know,
actually, who went into all of this despair, just...
Malnutrition due to bulimia and then severe alcoholism.
And I have not spoken to this woman in years, like well over a decade.
And apparently, she is basically done.
She has early senility or dementia due to malnutrition combined with heavy alcohol use.
Yeah, I mean, she was a difficult person, but she certainly didn't deserve this.
I mean, she's my age, and she might as well be Joe Biden's age.
I'm surprised in a way that he didn't have permanent brain damage or something like that due to the heavy drug use, alcoholism, and dying.
Or some kind of personality disorder brought on by all this.
But I've seen a number of interviews of him in the 2000s and certainly with the release of the last album.
And, I mean, he seemed bright and well-adjusted and normal and friendly.
I mean, he seems to have actually survived this somehow.
And he's a very energetic performer.
I mean, he's 60 or however, and he's, you know, prancing around on stage for a year-long world tour.
I mean, it's pretty remarkable.
It's kind of an amazing thing that he survived this.
I mean, it's like this conventional tale of the rock star who, by necessity of the fact that he is a rock star, is...
You know, extroverted and outlandish and narcissistic, etc.
And then there's all of this temptation.
I mean, there were stories in here that I might have even mentioned in the Violator review of, you know, the tour managers would pick out like 12 women at every concert and bring them in.
I mean, there was total debauchery.
He gave in to Sen again and again.
I mean, and he, it's like that story from the 1960s through the 90s.
I mean, Kurt Cobain was part of it, Jimi Hendrix, I mean, on and on.
You just do expect him to either complete his suicide attempt or...
To die of an OD and the band to end and people to look back on the albums, but he somehow and they somehow kept going.
There was actually a poignant moment where I think Dave was at a very low point where he was talking to Martin and, you know, who knows, he might have been checked into the Sunset Marquee or something like this.
And he felt that Martin...
We didn't actually care about him.
And Martin and Fletch, they cared about Depeche Mode.
And it's like, we did this amazing amount of work.
We're already a classic band, in fact.
And we're not just kind of one-hit wonders or one-album wonders.
We kept going, and we kept getting better, and we reached a peak of classic status.
If we retire now, we're a classic band.
But why retire?
Keep going.
And he felt that they didn't actually care about him, but they cared about Depeche Mode as a brand or money-making venture and artistic venture as well.
Again, Martin has done solo albums, these counterfeit cover albums.
Alan had Recoil.
Then later Dave would have his solo projects.
But if you don't have the legacy of Depeche Mode, you're not going to fill a stadium.
You're not going to bring it all together.
And so there was a sense that we've reached super band status.
Yeah, it's a bit niche and it's...
Marginal and so on because we're electronic and it's dark and all that kind of stuff.
But we have reached it.
So let's keep going.
And Dave, you know, whether it's out of genuine pain or maybe his own narcissism, it's kind of like, what about me?
Another thing I learned, this was reported.
I mean, unfortunately for Gahan...
When he checked out of the $500 per night facility, it sounded like he was still pretty angry with the world.
I was serious about it when I was there, but once I left, it was like, fuck this shit.
More than likely, that anger was compounded by Teresa Gahan's reaction to her husband's, quote, recovery, end quote.
When I came out, Teresa met me, Gahan recalled.
We went to get some lunch and she said, I'm not going to 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 it up, it would be impossible for the other.
That's totally understandable.
You can't go clean and then your partner is whacked out of her mind.
At that point, I knew our relationship would have to be over if I was going to have any chance.
I thought we loved each other.
Now I think the love was pretty one-sided.
Definitely. There's these other things,
like displaying all the classic symptoms of drug-induced paranoia when the tooled-up Gahan was dealing with gun-toting lowlifes.
He was holed up at home watching the Weather Channel for up to 12 hours at a time.
There was another scene where his mother, I guess this was later on, but his son was coming over and he couldn't get clean.
And he asked his mother to join him to help him take care of him.
And he still lost it at one point.
And his mother went and threw out all of his drugs and paraphernalia and stuff.
And then he said, no, it's not what you think.
I need steroids for my voice because I've overused my voice.
And so I need, you know, this, again, typical kind of lying and excuses from drug users.
They do this all the time because they're desperate.
I mean, just imagine doing that.
I mean, you're walking out in your bathrobe to grab garbage bags and then pouring them on the floor.
I mean, he was at rock bottom.
And then there's a poignant scene of his son saying,
I don't know.
I don't know what to say.
That's extremely tender.
And sad and pathetic and tragic.
Yeah. Here's another anecdote, just real quick.
So, this was with the wedding between himself and Teresa.
Primal Scream was, of course, there.
Teresa decided that she wanted to have a baby.
He told Q, that's Q Magazine, I said to her, Teresa, we're junkies.
Because let's not kid ourselves.
When you're a junkie, you can't shit, piss, hum, nothing.
All those bodily functions go.
You're in this soulless body.
You're in a shell.
She didn't get it.
So, anyway, a little bit of a defense of Teresa in the sense that it's hard to put up with someone who's embraced junkiedom in that way and almost became his own personal Jesus.
I'm not...
Like other men at this point because I've abused my body.
Anyway, I think you get the picture.
Yeah, there does seem to be this kind of like a martyr complex to a lot of addicts.
Like, fuck it.
I'm like, I know I'm going to die and, you know, I'm going to increase misery around me.
But it doesn't matter.
Look at me.
I'm a sad case and I basically inspire pity.
You know, that was interesting to me what you said.
About Dave's relationship with Martin and Fletch and saying, like, you guys don't care about me.
I kind of, in, like, interviews, I kind of felt as though that tension was there.
Like, we're friends, but we're not, like, that close.
And, again, Dave's the front man.
Martin's the songwriter.
Alan's the craftsman.
And, like, that specialization.
It's not very friendly.
It's not very give and take.
I think that maybe perhaps that's why it contributed to him feeling that way.
Like, all right, Dave, you go up there and sing my songs.
I don't know.
I think there might be something to that specialization where it seems almost like...
Know your role and that's it.
And we're going to keep our heads down and keep grinding and keep touring or whatever.
I also do think he's a tragic case in a lot of ways because...
He, his biological father wasn't around.
I think he met him, what, once or twice?
Didn't you have something about that?
Yeah. And, you know, he was like a criminal.
He was like stealing cars and stuff.
And had not Depeche Mode happened, he probably, he could have, you know, been on drugs, but not famous and not had this recovery and stuff and could have been a, you know, career criminal or whatever.
Who knows?
Yeah, it's just, I don't know, it's a terrible thing, and it does remind me, when you start talking about him rummaging through trash to look for bits of heroin, that's still going on to this day,
and in some ways, a more insidious way, if you think about the opioid crisis and how it's just devastated a lot of, especially rural, I've seen that in my life in probably a dozen cases,
not two personally, but in many people that I went to high school with, they start messing around with Xanax, and then Xanax turns into opioid, and opioid is a couple of molecules different from heroin,
and they're on heroin.
It was a shock to me.
To be in high school and have the drug dogs come through and have them find a neighbor's burnt spoon, a neighbor of mine.
They found her burnt spoon and heroin in her locker.
I mean, that was a huge, that was like a tidal wave because I don't come from the ghetto or anything.
I don't come from 1970s Harlem.
This is a lily white suburb we're talking about.
But that's what this reminds me of.
There was a big change in my life.
Like, wow, we're actually closer to this stuff than you would think because of these opioids.
One more quote here, and then we can talk about the songs.
And I think we'll save a lot more Alan Wilder talk for the next podcast on Songs of Faith and Devotion.
This is something that Dave told the Q magazine.
Q seems to be the major source for a lot of these quotes.
Dave said, I didn't respond to his leaving as much as I now realize I wanted to, the singer confessed.
I really miss Alan's input on everything we now do musically, but I miss him as a friend.
He was probably the person I felt supported by the most in the band, and I wish I'd fought harder for him to stay.
What Alan really wanted was for Martin to turn around and say, you've really contributed something great, but Martin's not someone who hands out compliments.
Very true.
We'll get to it next time, but there's that idea of putting so much effort into producing the album, creating the sound, making these choices this way or that.
For instance...
To Have and To Hold is going to be this brooding song on nuclear annihilation in the Soviet Union, as opposed to the Spanish taster.
That's a choice, you know?
And he did that.
I even think that in this album, Ultra, a lot of the instrumental music or kind of...
Connection music, like use Link.
It almost strikes me as doodling.
I mean, not that it's bad or anything, but it might strike me as like failure to make a strong aesthetic choice about something.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Yeah, I'm not a huge fan of either of these.
What is it?
Jazz Thieves and then Use Link.
I'm not a fan of either one of the instrumental tracks.
I kind of just see them as...
You can call them transition songs, but they're kind of fillers.
Actually, they do have b-sides that could have been on the album.
Surrender, for example, should have been on there.
I mean, Slow Blow could have been on there.
I don't know if Only When I Lose Myself was recorded.
I think it was recorded a little bit maybe like a year later or
But yeah, that could have been on there as well.
Laying on your holy bed by
the panel door Feeling like an infidel not worthy of your call Tempted by your innocence
Beckoned to my fate I won't face the consequence I wouldn't hesitate I'm a man of flesh
and bone Ratchet, rushing through my veins Passion flaming in my heart Heavenly surrender once again
Yeah I don't know
It's pretty rocky, but it's also kind of funky with these hip-hop drums.
It's definitely got this distorted wah guitar on it.
And I think that Dave's voice does emerge anew.
It's a little bit softer.
It's more violator than it is Songs of Faith and Devotion.
There's still a little bit of rasp to it.
I think this is another point in his vocal maturation.
I think the song itself has got this haunting synth or guitar descending in the chorus.
What is it you want from me?
Going down like that.
But it's just very obviously about his struggles with heroin and being a junkie in those years.
Yeah, and written by Martin.
I think that's why it's this weird relationship they have.
You mean this horny creep set upon weary feet who looks in need of sleep that doesn't come.
I even hear a little bit of that that doesn't come.
I mean, that sleep that doesn't come or also that doesn't come.
Just in his description of the junkie's body just being nothing.
You don't eat or shit or piss.
You're just this weirdly Jesus-like in a very horrible way.
This twisted, tortured mess.
This bed of sinfulness who's longing for some rest and feeling numb.
And then, again, why I get this kind of vindictive quality, you see this as well in the love themes, but it's this, whatever I've done, I've been staring down the barrel of the gun.
It's almost this embrace of your whole life trajectory going towards either being shot by one of these junkies or turning the gun on yourself.
Right, yeah.
Dave slid his wrist when he attempted suicide, however committed he was to that or not.
But it's a dark image, and it does have this...
Yeah, I mean, it's kind of vague to say 90s quality to it, but it's this hip-hop drum, negative lyrics, embracing despair.
It's a tough song.
I mean, this was the single they chose.
The album.
The first single.
Yeah. The first single.
The first single.
The second single.
The first single.
I'm scared by the power of a gun.
Whatever I've done, whatever, whatever.
Is there something you need from me?
Yeah, I have a quote from Martin actually on this.
I think that after Alan left the band and after an absence of four years, we all individually came to the conclusion that it would be a good idea to release something that was a bit more of a challenge, something that wasn't necessarily so Depeche Mode-like.
We felt that Barrel of a Gun was probably about the furthest from what we've done in the past.
I think it was me But I kind of disagree.
I mean, I think Barrel of a Gun is still like...
That's kind of par for the course for Depeche Mode.
It's still negative and dirty and maybe...
I don't know.
I don't think they've sung something or produced something this vicious.
Yeah, okay.
Blasphemous Rumors is very poetic and theological and thoughtful.
And Barrel of the Gun is like...
You know I'm going to end up...
Shooting myself in the head.
I mean, it's just like...
I mean, and I don't think there's any other meaning to this song.
No. I mean, it's like my entire life has been leading up to this.
I mean, it was maybe...
And I think, again, knowing that Martin wrote it for Dave to sing, I mean, there's something a little bit vindictive in that, in my mind.
Hmm. Yeah.
I would go there.
I mean, it's kind of nasty to make Dave sing this song.
Oh, okay.
I see what you're getting at.
Yeah, wow.
That is...
Yeah, I don't know.
That's what I kind of mean.
I kind of think that Martin almost uses Dave as...
I'm going to speak through you for certain things, but now with this song, I'm going to make you sing about your own...
Fucking tragedy.
Like, that's...
I don't know.
That's sick.
Yeah. Yeah.
It is a little bit, but, you know, such is the way of the artist.
Mm-hmm.
You find your material.
But I don't know.
I mean, I don't think you can really think of it in any other way.
The Love Thieves is the next song, and I liked this one, but again, this...
Vindictive qualities.
Let me read some of the lyrics because they're good.
Oh, the tears that you weep for the poor tortured souls who fall at your feet with their love-begging bulls.
All the clerks and the tailors, all the sharks and the sailors.
All good at their trades, but they'll always be failures.
So it's, you're holding court with your lips and your smile.
Your body is a halo.
So this is a theme he'll return to three or four times, I guess.
Their minds are on trial.
Sure as Adam is Eve, sure as Jonah turned wailer.
They're a crooked love thieves, and you are their jailer.
Love needs its martyrs, needs its sacrifices.
They live for your beauty and pay for their vices.
Love will be the death of my lonely soul brothers, but their spirit shall live on in the hearts of all lovers.
You get a little bit of Goodnight Lovers themes going on there from Exciter, the next album, which was kind of our favorite song from that album.
I just imagine like an idol of beauty or even a Virgin Mary icon being worshipped by all these people.
And, you know, as opposed to a kind of sing-songy, you know, one's a baker, one's a tailor, one's a shoemaker or something like that.
It's like they're all failures.
and they're paying for their own vices while idolizing you.
Alms for the poor For the wretched disciples And the love
that they swore Bye.
With their hearts on the Bible Beseeching the honor To sit at your table And feast on your holiness As long as there is We're
For their vices Love will be the death of My lonely soul brothers But their spirit shall
live on in The hearts of all lovers You're holding court
lips and your smile Your body's a halo Their minds are on trial Sure as Adam is his Sure
as Jonathan Wailer
It's a bit of a twisted and, again, vindictive look at idealization.
And maybe it is about Dave as well.
I mean, I kind of threw that out there.
Each and every song on this album is about Dave Gahan, March and writing about Dave.
And Dave as an idol.
Which he definitely was becoming by the devotional tour album.
That was the height of fame.
Dave had gone into a new place and had become a sort of idol in his way.
Long hair, Jesus-like looks.
And he's singing about that idolization by the failures.
Vice-ridden mediocrities who love rock stars.
Yeah, I got a little bit of a different interpretation from it.
I was kind of just thinking of these people who are clerks and tailors or whatever.
I get that they're failures, but I was just thinking of this love thief who's like the sufferer or something like that in a relationship, maybe.
Or even, like, it's kind of like the love thief as this poor or sick or meek person that inspires pity and drains, you know, happy people of their energy.
Do you know what I mean?
Almost like flipping Christian morality on its head.
Like, I get a little bit of that.
Like, these people are failures.
That's definitely in the first stanza.
I totally agree.
For the poor tortured souls who fall at your feet.
Yeah. Alms for the poor, for the wretched disciples, and the love that they swore with their hearts in the Bible.
Yeah, I think that's there too.
It's a curious thing.
I kind of agree with both readings.
I think both are in there.
But yeah, it's a rather vindictive look at the people who idolize.
Also, this song, he's opening up with some of the bigger chords that he wasn't using on...
Previous albums.
Like, in this song, he's using a B-flat major 7, which, I mean, Depeche Mode generally doesn't use 7th chords of any kind, really.
Like, they might use, like, a D7, you know, these kind of, like, blues chords or whatever, but they're not, like, this even goes into B-flat minor major 7 to a G7 to a B-flat minor 6 and an F minor 6. Like,
these things...
You know, the extensions are sort of coming in now, and I think that it's about time, actually, that Martin, you know, would have started to use, like, more exotic chords, because though there was nothing wrong with the simple,
bold chords that he's known for, I think just to change up the sound was a good choice, artistically.
Yeah. You know, if we go to Home, I think this...
The song might very well be misunderstood, or at least it's misunderstood by the video of it.
I remember seeing the video because they're almost in this postmodern beautiful place and there's rain outside.
It's a Martin song, but Dave is there.
And the song as well, it was arranged for strings by Dave Clayton.
And it has a...
Bit of an epic quality to it.
And I'm surprised this wasn't the single.
I mean, I don't know why, in a way.
I mean, I've heard them play this live.
It's a great song.
It's both kind of a quiet Martin Gore song, but then also an epic song at the same time.
but I think it is misunderstood.
It is a song from the wrong side of town Where
I'm bound to the ground By the loneliest sound That hounds from within And it's pinning me down Here
is a page from the empty stage A cage of the
hair Be as cross ever made A cage of the deadliest trap ever laid And I thank you For bringing
me here For showing me home For singing these tears Finally I found that I'm Relonging
What a beat
By the loneliest sound that pounds from within and is pinning me down.
Here is a page from the emptiest stage, a cage with the heaviest cross ever made, a gauge of the deadliest trap ever laid.
And I thank you for bringing me here, for showing me home, for singing these tears.
Finally, I've found that I belong here.
Maybe just listening to the music and The title, Home, and so on, thinking of it as Dave's recovery or as something like that, I don't think it's about that.
It's a song from the wrong side of town.
I think it's about the Sunset Marquee Hotel.
Dave would go and feel at home when he would relapse.
And I think it's kind of like the reverse of what I thought this song was about.
I thought this song was a kind of homey song or like, here is the house or something like this, or our house, whatever.
Yeah. He said that that song for him was about, for him personally, he basically thought he was going to die.
Now, I don't know if that necessarily meant by his own hands or due to his alcoholism or whatever, but he said it is about You know, going home.
So I kind of get...
I understand definitely about...
And I didn't know about that Sunset Marquee.
Actually, that's an interesting interpretation.
But when I had heard him in an interview say that song, he was just asked by a crowd member on this New York Times interview.
And he said, it's basically about...
Me thinking that I didn't have that much longer to live and that I was going to die pretty soon.
And the audience gives this awkward applause, which is kind of funny.
A very special song to me is Home.
Thank you.
Could you talk a little bit about how that came about, what's behind it, the meaning?
Oh, what was that?
God. I know what he's going to say.
Do you?
Please. Well, I always thought it was about home, going home, et cetera, et cetera.
And then Martin said, it's not about that, it's about death.
Is that true?
Kind of, yeah.
I mean, I was going through a very dark period at that time.
And, you know, I just imagined that...
I was heading for an early grave and kind of accepting that at that point.
Thank you.
Beautiful. You got a clap for that.
Stick around, okay?
Thanks a lot.
Go ahead.
But, yeah, I think that...
When was that recorded?
I think...
Around the time of Spirit, Delta Machine, something like that.
Yeah, I'll have to send it to you.
But yeah, I think that makes sense.
I mean, it's kind of like Soul with me on Memento Mori.
It's got the same kind of power ballad, very, I don't know, like, maybe anthemic's the word.
There's something bold about it.
Definitely, yeah.
Triumphant. With the strings, I think, yeah.
Particularly the arrangement.
That really changes it.
But yeah, it is a great song.
It's like one of my favorites of all time, for sure.
To me, it's flawless.
Yeah. It's
No Good is the next song.
Now, this is the one where it captures the whole mood of the album.
It's No Good.
I think this one might actually not be about drug use and despair.
I think it is a relationship song, and at least how it resonated for me was the relationship that doesn't go anywhere, but then...
You each say I love you and so on, but it's don't say you want me.
Don't say you need me.
Don't say you love me.
It's understood.
Don't say you're happy out there without me.
I know you can't be.
So there's a little bit of narcissism, I guess, in there as well.
You can't be happy out there without me because it's no good.
But I do think that it's a cool song.
I like the bass line.
It's a driving bass line.
I'm not sure if this could go on any other album, actually, because it really sounds like Ultra.
Ultra. Ultra.
You can run, but you cannot hide.
Don't say you want me.
Don't say you need me.
Don't say you love me.
It's understood.
Don't say you're happy.
Out there without me.
I know you can't be.
'Cause it's no good.
you you you
It definitely is more upbeat and danceable and singable and etc.
But it's just, again, kind of fascinating that he's singing about this.
It's not somebody or anything else.
It's a very different mentality.
It's not even pairing.
In a way, like knowing someone loves you, but in a way not caring and just saying, well, this goes nowhere.
It's no good.
Yeah, I basically have like the same understanding.
It's a decent song to karaoke to as well.
But yeah, I mean, I don't know.
It's probably the most lighthearted.
On the album.
Especially if you watch the music video for it.
In the music video, they're dressed up as these kind of disco junkies or something like that.
They're performing to some bar crowd, just a few people in the club.
It's all kind of haphazard.
It's almost a way for them to...
Like, relax a little bit on the album.
Yeah, make fun of themselves a little bit.
Yeah. And then again, useless.
I think this is a heartfelt plea from Martin to Dave.
All my useless advice, all my hanging around, all your cutting down to size, all my bringing you down.
All your stupid ideals, you've got your head in the clouds.
You should see how it feels with your feet on the ground.
You know, here I stand, the accused, with your fist in my face, feeling tired and bruised with the bitterest taste.
Just kind of, once again, this, like, sort of despairing, vindictive look at Dave.
It's beginning to hurt Time you made up
your mind Just what is it all All my
useless advice All my hanging around All your cutting down the sides
All my bringing you down All my cutting
down the sides
The emotion of this song is almost like, well, yeah, you can go fall off a cliff if you want to.
That's where you're headed.
You know, like him writing these songs and making these songs basically for Dave or kind of like taking this very negative and dark inspiration from Dave.
It reminds me of like Paul McCartney wrote...
When he was with the Beatles, he wrote Hey Jude and Penny Lane and those were both songs inspired from John.
I mean, Hey Jude is basically like about Julian Lennon and about his parents getting divorced and about how his life's basically going to suck.
But I think that's like the same kind of relationship that Martin and Dave have is like Dave being like the front man and In some ways, the more daring or the fuck-up or whatever you want to say,
the addict, the mess, but Martin kind of using that as inspiration because he's not that messed up.
He's got his own demons, but he's not actually as bad as Dave, who almost can't articulate these things for himself.
Yeah. Sister of night In your saddest dress As
you walk through the light You're desperate to impress So you slide to the front Sister at night With the loneliest eyes Tell
yourself it's alright You'll make such a part Sister
of Night, I mean, once again, it's a song about drug use, but it's really a song about being a junkie.
And it's when the hunger descends and your body's afire, an inferno that never ends, an eternal flame that burns and desires name.
Oh, sister, come for me, embrace me, assure me.
Hey, sister, I feel it too.
Sweet sister.
Just feel me.
I'm trembling.
You heal me.
Now, again, there are some quotes that I found of Dave saying, like, I don't want to die.
I don't want to be even a junkie.
I don't want to be Kurt Cobain.
I want to keep going.
I want to make another album.
After all, they did make it.
I mean, this extended time in the studio, but they got it done at the end of the day, so there has to be some drive.
So you could kind of think of it that way, but the Eternal Flame, I...
Again, I don't think it's an eternal flame in that sense.
I think it's, you know, it's 10pm and night has fallen and LA and you're desiring heroin.
And you have this hunger and pain and this sweet sister, you know, descends and heals you.
With, you know, a hair of the dog that bit you.
I mean, I think once again, it is a song about the experience of being a junkie.
Yeah, and I think actually this is probably the best vocal performance from Dave on the album.
And what's funny is that he says...
The only vocal on Ultra that I recorded at Electric Lady Studios, the only vocal I performed high, was Sister of Night.
I can hear how scared I was.
I'm glad it's there to remind me.
I could see the pain I was causing everybody.
I mean, yeah, and your body's a fire, an inferno that never ends.
I mean, from what I understand, that's basically how it feels to be on heroin, is like that warm...
Kind of burning feeling in your body, like totally.
So I think, yeah, it's definitely one of their best songs.
It's totally underrated.
And yeah, he embodies it.
I mean, how perfect could it be?
He's literally on heroin, singing about the experience of heroin, being controlled by it.
Yeah. Free State's another interesting one because you see them going into the mode of, I guess I called it like Americana.
There's a little bit of country music in there.
There's a little bit of blues.
I can taste the tears, boy.
The bitterness inside your coin.
Yearning for liberation Emotional emancipation Let yourself go Let yourself go Let your senses overflow It's
Time to start playing your part Freedom awaits, open the gates
Open your mind, freedom's a step Freedom awaits,
open the gates
This was recorded at Abbey Road, but also recorded in New York City at some point.
But this is when Dave is spending time in L.A. He's really seeing all that America has to offer.
You have that kind of move in towards an American mode.
You see that with the Elvis and Music for the Masses or Personal Jesus.
But then this is like a direct going in slide guitar and things like that.
I don't know.
I mean, I don't want to force a reading that every song here is about Dave, but you could imagine the song is also about Dave.
You also get this Martin Gore, this kind of version of Martin Gore that will come up in its cider of free love or just you go on stage and you reach this state of mind of pure freedom and here we are.
I think he's kind of headed in that direction.
With Free State.
But you could think of it as about Dave.
I can hear your soul crying.
Listen to your spirit sighing.
I can feel your desperation, emotional deprivation.
Let yourself go.
Let yourself go.
Let your feelings show.
And then step out of your cage and onto the stage.
It's time to start playing your part.
Freedom awaits.
Open the gates.
Open your mind.
Freedom's a state.
Freedom's a state, and that state is New Hampshire.
But you could kind of see him imagining Dave being in despair.
Because look, he was on heroin throughout the devotional tour.
So this is not something new just when they were recording this album.
Martin could see this happening.
You go on to the stage and you're free.
I mean, that was with that journalist who was bitten by Dave Gohan said is that this guy was a madman, like just should be committed.
And yet an hour later, he would go on stage and would play his part and be a professional performer.
And I think, you know, again, this could be about a number of different things, but I...
It resonates for me as about Dave escaping that pain and being an angel on stage.
Yeah. I didn't really care for this song that much.
It was okay to me, but I just kind of got the understanding that there's like...
Freedom in sobriety or something.
That's about all I could really gather from it.
It's okay.
It's definitely kind of hip-hop-y still.
This is probably their most hip-hop album, I would say, actually.
Just in total.
Most jazz-influenced as well, especially when you get to bottom line with the bass, with the upright bass and those jazz vibes.
The xylophone or whatever.
Yeah, it's a much more interesting track, I think.
Like a cat dragged in from the
rain Who goes straight back out To do it all over again I'll be back for more I'll be back for more
It's something that is out of our hands Something we will never understand It's a hidden law The apple falls Destiny falls I fall It's
got these very minimal drums.
They're kind of separate from each other.
The snare feels distinct from the kick.
It doesn't feel like it's just played on an actual kit, necessarily.
All at once, is what I'm trying to say.
Yeah, I mean, Martin Gore's voice on it sounds excellent.
Yeah, it's a good song.
About the lyrics, though, of the bottom line, I don't know, about being hopelessly addicted to something.
I'm dying, too, with the double entendre.
I'm dying to fall in love or dying to do heroin.
I might be also dying from heroin.
You know what I mean?
Every song is about being a junkie.
It's like a cat dragged in from the rain.
Who goes straight back out to do it all over again.
I'll be back for more.
Yeah, I mean, this is what it's about.
It was really well written.
Like a pawn on the eternal board who's never quite sure what he's moved towards.
So it's like losing autonomy and being moved somewhere beyond your intention.
Yeah, it's great writing.
But again, like a moth on Love's Bright Light, you just keep going back to get burned.
Again, in the context of the whole album, I don't see it as being about anything other than drug use.
I mean, you're always in love with this girl and you keep going back, sure, whatever.
This album is incredible.
It's a document of surviving addiction.
Yeah, definitely.
What do you think about Insight?
Interpretation I have is about, like, kind of getting a glimpse into, like, Gore or Dave's, like, psyche and kind of, like, overcoming whatever his trials and tribulations were in 1997, you know,
when he's in court and stuff and on probation.
I believe he almost got kicked out of the country.
Yeah. As well.
Yeah. You can get kicked out of America for a depraved crime.
And so, you know, they're not going to kick you out for not getting your car registered.
But, you know, heroin overdose, I think, might kind of hit the bill.
I mean, I assume he's...
Is Dave gone a citizen of the United States?
I don't...
I assume he just has a green card or something.
Maybe he's just on a tourist visa.
He knows what he's doing.
He lives in New York City now, and I know Martin lives in California.
I would figure by now they would have citizenship.
Yeah, they'd just become citizens.
20-some years, you know?
Yeah. I mean, this, I think, is a more positive version of a fire.
I'm talking to you now.
The fire still burns.
Whatever you do now, you've got to give love.
The world still turns.
I'm talking to you now.
I think, again, this is about Martin kind of intervening and Dave and saying, let's keep going.
This is an insight Into my life
Bye.
This is a strange flight I'm taking My true will Carries me along This is a song This
This is the first chance to put things right.
Moving on, guided by the light.
And the spirit of love is rising within me.
Talking to you now, telling you clearly, the fire still burns.
The fire still burns.
You can go back to the 80s with A Broken Frame.
I mean, what was that song that was at least interpreted to be about Vince Clark leaving?
Leave in Silence is the first song.
I think Martin said that this wasn't about Venn's, but who knows?
I don't trust any artist who describes what his song is actually about.
Reached our natural conclusion, outlived the illusion.
I hate being in these situations that call for diplomatic relations.
If only I knew the answer, thought we had a chance where I could stop this.
I would stop this thing from spreading like a cancer.
I mean, it is this...
sense of breakdown.
the in these situations that call
for diplomatic relations.
If I only knew the answer, or I thought we had a chance, or I could stop this, I would stop this thing from spreading like a cancer.
What can I say?
You know, then at the end, The Sun and the Rainfall, a kind of declaration that they're moving on.
And I think Insight, you know, it's a fairly good track.
I think it is about that.
The fire still burns, but it's not the fire of heroin addiction.
So what is your opinion?
I mean, where do you think this ranks roughly in...
The body of work.
It's a pretty unique album, I would say that.
That's a good question.
Yeah, it's definitely transitional.
I would say, for me, somewhere in the middle, maybe the upper middle, because I really enjoy the production, I really enjoy the songs.
It's not, like you said, it's not a happy album.
Probably somewhere around like...
Construction time again or something like that for me.
So, let's say 8, 9, 7, something like that?
Yeah, I mean, I think it is somewhere like that for me.
I think it's kind of a B-tier classic in a way.
Which is surprising.
Because I remember being a little bit disappointed when I purchased this and And was listening to it on CD when I was in high school when it came out and kind of feeling that it was a bit...
I don't know.
I wanted Violator back, basically, which I probably played until the CD was burned to a crisp by the laser or whatever.
I just wanted that.
I wanted Black Celebration.
I wanted something like that.
And this wasn't really giving it to me.
And it was a kind of little 290s.
In a way.
But I, and when I first listened, I've listened, again, I mentioned this, I've listened to it about three times and I kind of wasn't very getting into it when I first listened to it.
Then you listen to it again and again, you get into it and this song starts speaking to you a little more.
I mean, it is a...
As I said, it's a document of addiction.
I mean, it's almost like an essential album to understand this band.
It is an album of survival and overcoming.
You know, Dave died and was resurrected and Alan departed and Fletch remains.
The Fletch abides.
I mean, it's just this, you know...
But he was, I mean, you know, not to be too rude, but he was suffering from his own depression.
And he was also, I think, voluntarily committed in some way and came out of it.
But I think it's a document of drug use.
They're kind of like looking at themselves and not really...
It's influenced by 90s music, but they're kind of like examining...
The band itself.
It's about Dave Gahan.
In my reading, every song is about Dave.
And so that's interesting.
Yeah, it's a more mature album.
And it's like, if it didn't have the songs that Martin wrote during this period, which are all, or at least the vast majority of them, very good, it would have turned out like Exciter to me.
I think first and foremost, the songs are...
That important.
I do think the production is very good, but I don't know.
There's just something missing to this.
That's why I can't say it's a great album.
I would say it's a very good album.
Yeah. It's what it is.
But also, with Alan leaving, as big of a stan as I am for Mr. Wilder, I will say him leaving in 1995 is By this point, they're at like mature or going toward mature veteran status.
So that kind of puts them at a disadvantage.
That's why a lot of people will say, oh, well, you know, they've never been the same since Alan left or whatever.
Well, yeah, but I don't know that even if Alan was in the band that they would still be making those classics.
Black celebrations, some great rewards or whatever.
You know, I just think maybe even if he was in the band, he continued with them, that their time is sort of like past and there's nothing you can do to go back and get it.
I'm not sure.
Yeah. Well, I mean, this is interesting.
So when Alan left, there were reports that he was invited to join The Cure.
Yes, yeah.
I was going to mention that.
All these kind of funny things like that.
And he was basically...
I mean, I think he was kind of an old soul at 35, or however old he was.
He was just kind of like, I don't want to do that.
I don't want to join another rock band.
I wish he had.
I wish he had stayed with Depeche Mode or Reconnected or something.
I don't think we would have had the Exciter album.
No, we would not have.
Yeah. I think he could have added something to it.
I mean, it's very interesting.
So this is also from Stripped.
In an even more bizarre twist, Vince Clark apparently approached Martin Gore about reforming the original Depeche Mode lineup following Wilder's departure.
He actually suggested quite a few times that he wanted to replace Allen and get the original lineup back together.
And we laughed about it.
For about the first 15 times for acclaimed.
But every time we met, he kept saying it and made us think, maybe he's serious.
Then Martin said, but I think our respective music had gone in such different ways.
So, you know, Vince Clark was much more successful than Depeche Mode in the first, say, like four years of his leaving.
So he had Yaz or Yazoo.
I forgot which one.
It's Yaz, the United States and Yazoo and Britain.
Yeah, because you can't have...
There's a punk band or something with that name, Yazoo.
Right, so it's like copyright or trademark or whatever.
And then Erasure was...
Again, it's a very 80s band, but they really kind of collapsed.
The Innocence album, I think, is great.
It's classic 80s synth pop, but you keep doing that over and over again, and it does feel dated.
They had an album that's a self-titled album called Erasure, and it is deeper, you know, you could say more like Depeche Mode than the hyper poppy,
almost too poppy kind of gay Erasure sound.
And it wasn't doing well.
And it's kind of interesting how Vince maybe had regret and he underestimated Martin.
But it's also hard to imagine the two of them working together again.
I mean, it could be interesting.
They put out an instrumental dance album a few years ago.
I don't know if you ever caught that.
No, I'm not a huge...
I know their hits and stuff like that, but I'm not...
Yeah, I mean, I like them too.
It's just not...
I don't love them.
And, you know, some of those...
Vince Clark and Martin Gore kind of did a
of side piece album together.
later.
I think it was VCMG, Vince Clark and Martin Gore.
It's instrumental, it's dance, it's kind of poppy, and I don't know, you know, it's kind of interesting, but not something I'd really want to listen to.
I think they were maybe kind of experimenting with sounds, but it wasn't very interesting, and it struck me as a Vince Clark album.
It's a poppy dance album.
That's just what he does.
And so he was declining.
And yeah, maybe felt some regrets.
It's interesting, but I don't know.
I mean, I wish Alan would have remained.
Totally, yeah.
Maybe they can just get back together.
I know.
If you read YouTube comments about...
Documentaries or songs, and I'm just like, oh, I miss Alan.
This is why they'll play, like, an exciter song.
This is why Alan needs to be back in the band.
And, you know, the remix that he did for, what's that?
The Way You Moved.
Like, that was good.
It wasn't incredible, but, yeah.
I mean, he just brought, like, that atmosphere and these, like...
Definitely more on the industrial side of things than Martin and damn sure more than Vince Clark.
Thank you.
Thank you.
But yeah, I'm glad they didn't decide to do something stupid like bring Vince back into the band because that just would have, they would have gone back to speak and spell and that would have been, or worse, like gay Depeche Mode.
I don't even know what that, you know what I mean?
Like, yeah.
But yeah, Alan, his recoil project is, it's interesting, but he needs, if he's not going to be with Depeche Mode, I think he needs to make Film soundtracks and stuff like that for any kind of movie.
Thrillers, action movie.
I think he would actually excel at something like that.
But you can tell in the difference between he has some quote where he's talking about the difference in sound between Ultra and his album that came out the same year, Unsound Methods.
He's like, yeah, these are pretty two good descriptions of Our differences in musical taste and which direction we'll take songs in.
Like, I guess, generally speaking, I would say that Alan is more atmospheric.
They should expect a spin with Jayon.
They may go beyond the 70-day day.
And they should expect possibly somebody to get killed.
Whereas Martin leans towards more like melodic sounds or something like that.
That's roughly put, but I think there's, you know, truth to it.
Yeah. Damn shame.
Yeah, yeah, it really is.
But, you know, they need, like, bands need that, I think.
I think the Beatles' White Album, that's a lot of people's favorite album.
They hate each other.
All four of them can't stand each other.
They're quitting on different songs and stuff.
Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon, that's when they started arguing a lot.
And that's their classic album.
And then The Wall, they hate each other even more.
I mean, all these bands...
They had these notorious relationships where they just hate each other, and then they also at the same time produce this great music.
So I think if both Martin and Alan would have just maybe not reconciled, but just took a breather or something and just came back, they would have had that kind of necessary fragile tension, we'll say.
Which is important, though, to make these good...
Classic records.
Yeah. An
eternal flame That burns in desire's name Sister at night When the longing returns Giving voice to the flame Calling you through Oh,