The Depeshe Mode quartet had a great influence on the development of such genres as synth pop and alternative rock. The face of this group and its most famous member is vocalist David Gahan. He managed to make a successful solo career, but he still received the status of a star in the group. For most people, David Gahan and Depeche Mode are inseparable.
Childhood and youth
Like all the other members of the group, David is British. His homeland is the county of Essex, where he spent his childhood. David grew up in the town of Basildon and was famous there as an incorrigible bully, who has one road to prison.
This behavior had its reasons, because in his family not everything was safe. David's father left the family when his son was only six months old, and returned immediately after the death of his stepfather. For a ten-year-old child, this was a real shock.
The early biography of David Gahan is full of dubious feats: smoking, car theft and arson, painting graffiti on the walls. His favorite musicians were the newly appeared The Clash. Already at school, he tried to earn money, but it ended up not hiring David after learning that he was registered with the local police. Offended teenager smashed to smithereens the office of an officer who supervised him. As a result, David was sentenced to a year in a correctional center in Romford.
After graduating from school, David Gahan went to work. He managed to be a lawn mower, a handyman, a cashier, and thus changed two dozen jobs. In 1977, he entered the Southend College of Art, received a diploma as a designer-designer of trading floors.
Work in Depeshe Mode and solo career
Back in the late seventies, David Gahan was seriously interested in music. First, he became a sound engineer in the French Look band, and then at one of the rehearsals he met Vince Clark. That was in 1980. Clark's new band, called Composition of Sound, lacked a vocalist, and he persuaded David to go to him.
Now the group had four members: together with Vince Clark and David Gahan, Martin Gore and Andrew Fletcher played there. It was David who came up with the team a new name. While in college, he sometimes read the French magazine The Herald of Fashion, or Depeshe Mode, and now offered to name the group as well.
For the second single, Depeshe Mode rose high in the UK charts, and their first album brought the musicians real success. The popularity of the group grew rapidly. At this time, Vince Clark left the team. A few years later, he founded the Erasure duet with Andy Bell. The new keyboard player was Alan Wilder.
The music of Depeshe Mode was also changing: it became darker, a little industrial was added to it, which, however, disappeared after the album Some Great Reward. From year to year, music became more atmospheric. The texts, too, have become more serious - now they touch upon sensitive topics, such as racism or extramarital affairs.
At some point, the popularity of Depeshe Mode crossed the borders of Great Britain, and then Europe, and became world-wide. They became "trendsetters" among the nascent Goth subculture. Even in the USSR, they gained a lot of fans, and their Soviet style of dressing and David Gahan's vocals were copied by the Soviet technology group.
In the mid-nineties, Depeshe Mode almost broke up due to the fact that Gahan was addicted to drugs. He was treated for a long time for drug addiction, and in the late nineties he was able to return to the group. Around the same time, David began a solo career, releasing his first album in 2003. In total, he published two solo albums (Paper Monsters 2003 and Hourglass 2007). Not everyone accepted them as warmly as the Depeshe Mode works, although Hourglass held rather high positions in the charts, and in Germany reached the first line. In addition, Gahan collaborated with bands such as Soulsavers and Junkie XL.
Filmed by David Gahan and videos, for example, on his song Dirty Sticky Floors.
Nevertheless, his main occupation was and remains work in Depeshe Mode. He not only sings, but also writes some songs for the group.
Health problems
In the early nineties, Gahan was seriously addicted to heroin. He behaved more and more inadequately and irritably, quarreled with other members of the group, which almost put her on the verge of collapse. Once David had a heart attack, another time he nearly died of an overdose. In 1995, he cut his veins, and for two minutes was in a state of clinical death. This was a kind of turning point - Gahan decided to be treated. After a rehabilitation course, he became addicted to drugs and returned to Depeshe Mode.
Personal life
David Gahan was married three times. The first time he got married in 1985. In 1987, he had a son. The musician left this family when his dependence on drugs worsened.
Drugs also destroyed David’s second marriage - in the mid-nineties, his wife, Theresa Conroy, announced that she was leaving him. In 1999, Gahan married for the third time, and then he had a daughter. In addition to his daughter, he brings up his wife's son from a previous marriage, which he adopted in 2010.