[precious]

Интервью для Guardian (оччень забавное )


In 2009, tuneful it may well be, but the arrival of new Depeche Mode album, Sounds Of The Universe, is not necessarily without hindrance. First, there are the changing demands of a Depeche fan's lifestyle. Tweeting and rollerskating don't leave much time for listening to the new Depeche Mode album, even when said album is the band's best in about a decade. Depeche fans are "time poor" but "quite-liking-the-idea-of-a-new-Depeche-Mode-album rich". Secondly, for even the most hardcore Dave Gahan fan the prospect of yet another "he died, then didn't, LOL" feature about The Return Of Depeche Mode is enough to send you screaming into the garden. The solution to both problems? Allow Dave, Martin and Fletch to prove their new album's usefulness in a variety of scenarios likely to be encountered in the everyday existence of Mode members or fans, but fairly unlikely to end up with anybody banging on on about drugs overdoses, hearts stopping etc. So which new album track, for example, would provide the best soundtrack to ...

Being in PC World, hoping to by an external disk drive to back up your important data, considering reliability to be more important than price

Martin "Miles Away would be the best song on the new album for the situation, because Microsoft Vista is miles away from working. You wouldn't find us in PC World, we're all Mac users."

You can buy Macs in PC World now, you know.

Martin "Well I wouldn't know about that. Does Windows Vista work yet? (Chuckles) I wouldn't like to be a beta tester for that!"

Dave "Hard drives always crash. Make sure you back up!"

Getting drunk on exotic but unpleasant booze because it's all that's in the house

Martin "Well, I've given up drinking, but Jezebel is a good name for an exotic booze. I imagine it would taste like a strong-smelling perfume. There must be a perfume called Jezebel."

Fletch "You can't drink perfume!"

Martin "Well you can, but they take it away from you if you go
to rehab."

Wouldn't it be asking for trouble, presenting a loved one with
a perfume called Jezebel?

Fletch "It would be quite good for goth girls, wouldn't it?"

Martin "Women are different now; they like wearing T-shirts with things like "SLUT" and "WHORE" and stuff. I'm sure a bottle of Jezebel would go down well."

Dave "Kids in New York are wearing these T-shirts with, 'What happened to all the junkies?' across them, as part of some sort of East Village chic. My son's not into them; he's more sussed on that stuff than I was at that age. Actually he's a lot more sussed than I am at this age."
Martin "My daughter likes things like My Chemical Romance, so I thought she might like the Stooges, too. I got laughed at."

Do you despair at the crumbling of society?

Martin "Yes."

Watching Depeche Mode performing the final song of the final Depeche Mode farewell gig ever, no returns

Dave (Guffaws at own hilarity) "Come Back."

Martin "We've been together for 29 years and we've had ups and downs, but I think if Depeche Mode ended tomorrow we'd end on a positive note."

Fletch "It's hard to think about your farewell gig and where it would be."

Martin "It would have to be the Pyramids."

Being a member of Depeche Mode and making an inevitable live comeback

Martin "Well this would have to be Fragile Tension because we're going to be starting our tour in Tel Aviv - we were supposed to end our last one there but unfortunately the Israel/Lebanon war got in the way of it."

Fletch "They've got different agendas. They like music, but missiles are just more important."

Martin "Yes. We had to make the decision not to fly in and do the gig because there were missiles flying around and to make up for that we're starting this time in Tel Aviv."

Actually being in Depeche Mode and performing for the first song of a medley of Depeche Mode hits as you pick up your lifetime achievement Brit award

Fletch "I'm going to pick Wrong for this because... it's the single. Also it would be quite humorous."

Why would it be funny to win that award?

Fletch "I'm not saying that. I'm saying it would be quite funny to win an award and then say it was wrong. (Silence in room) Let's have some enthusiasm for these answers! If you don't think my answer is stunningly amazing then I'm sorry."

Dave "It's never going to happen though, is it? We've been sadly overlooked! For many years!"

Have you ever been offered it?

Dave "What, the 'Old Bastard' award? The 'They've Been Around Long Enough And We've Got To Give Them Something' award? 'They Did A Lot Of Stuff, Some Of Which I Quite Liked'? I don't think we've ever been offered it; I haven't heard. Isn't the Brits fixed? We got the 'Old Bastard' award from MTV and only Fletch turned up."

You're buying children's shoes from a high street shoe retailer

Dave "Little Soul. (Groans all round) It was called Footprint to start with but then it changed. Martin does that. He's very particular about his song titles. At the last minute he'll change the title and he worries I think if there's another song with the same name. I imagine him Googling it. For instance Miles Away/The Truth Is on this album was just Miles Away. Then Martin said, 'You know there's a Madonna song called Miles Away?' So it was changed."

Falling in love with someone a) unexpectedly and b) somehow harder than ever before

Dave "The song Peace sounds like that. For me it represents the joy and ecstasy of everything looking better, tasting better, sounding better. It's like the first time you shoot heroin. (Guffaws) That feeling of 'OH! Exactly...' Well, after you've thrown up. (Pause) I don't know why I said that. But there you go, I've said it. So... yeah."

While driving at a reasonable speed you discover there is a small compartment near the gear stick. You open the compartment. There is nothing in it

Dave "Hole To Feed. This is one of the songs I wrote on the
album, a very cynical song about wanting to fill a gaping hole but not knowing what to fill it with. About sometimes the idea having a hole to feed all being a figment of my imagination when I'm actually fine."
Do you sometimes think that when there's nothing going wrong something must be going wrong?

Dave "I was definitely like that. And I'm not so much any more. I don't know if it comes with older age or with kids, or having to be patient about the way things evolve. A painfully obvious example would be my use of narcotics [pronounced "narcodics" - Occasional Americanised Word Ed] or alcohol to brighten the day, then finding myself not feeling so good the next morning."

Doing the housework, particularly in the kitchen

Martin "Perfect! Because you need your house to be perfectly clean."

Fletch "I'm going to go for Spacewalker for this one. It sounds a bit like a new form of Hoover."

Martin "A robotic one."

Fletch "As far as I can remember I have never done housework. I was a professional cleaner from the age of 14 until I was 18, cleaning the escalators in the town centre. The way I look at it I should be paid. I've been cleaned for by my mother in law, my wife, then a cleaner. Actually I've changed my mind - I think In Chains should be the soundtrack for housework."

Attending a sad funeral

Fletch "We'd go for In Sympathy."

Martin "I don't think it would be a good idea to play really sad stuff at your funeral."

Fletch "You like sad stuff!"

Martin "I do. But it's making too much of a point of it, playing it at your funeral."

Experiencing a somewhat naughty evening out on the town in Berlin

Dave "That sounds like Corrupt, which I think would have sat
quite nicely on [Iggy Pop's] Lust For Life."

Martin "We're back to our dark, sleazy selves on this one."
How has Berlin changed since you were there in the 80s?

Dave "Well, they took that big bloody wall down. As we discovered, Berlin will corrupt you. (Thinks) Perhaps we wanted to be corrupted. We were looking for it and Berlin was happy to oblige. I was searching for that disgusting, dirty, underground culture in Hollywood as well. It exists in every town, really; it doesn't take long to find it if you reek of it."

Does it exist in Basildon?

Dave "Er, no. All I remember about Basildon is that it was awful."

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