Interview

SEVIGNY: [laughs] Who do you hire to make your suits?

GAHAN: On the last tour, Johan Lindeberg worked with me on the designs. For this tour, I worked with this girl in New York, April Johnson. She’s a stylist, and we sat down and drew up stuff. Martin’s also got some terrific outfits. But he’s dropped the wings. He thought it was time to put the wings away.

SEVIGNY: You guys both always had amazing looks, and the rest with their mock turtlenecks and long shorts and old leather jackets . . .

GAHAN: Yeah. I love the stuff in the beginning that we’d just get from thrift stores and put together. We really never had the money. If we ever did get some, the first thing we’d do is buy something expensive like a Jean-Paul Gaultier leather jacket or something. [laughs]

SEVIGNY: Do you wear the same thing every night, or do you mix it up?

GAHAN: I mix it up, I wear different things, but once I get into something that I really like, then I’ll have like four outfits done exactly the same, because I like to get into character for the whole thing. And once I get into it, it’s hard for me to jump out. I stay there. The thing about Depeche songs is that they’re so descriptive. For me, they tell some kind of story about a character who’s trying to redeem himself or to find something to believe in—some kind of faith or hope. We go about it in very destructive ways but hopefully come out the other side.

SEVIGNY: How many kids do you have?

GAHAN: I have a son who’s 21—he’s not so young anymore. He’s a man now. Then I have a 16-year-old stepson, Jimmy, and I have a 9-year-old daughter, Stella Rose.

SEVIGNY: I was wondering: One of Nick Cave’s sons is kind of modeling now, and he’s around, and, of course, there are all these young kids in New York who are sons or daughters of famous people—musicians or actors—and are kind of  getting into the biz or being scenesters DJing and whatnot . . . Do you try to steer your own children away from that type of thing?

GAHAN: Yeah, my oldest son who lives in London is into music and he does his own thing and I know he wants to play music. He works for a promotion company. But my son in New York, Jimmy, he’s into basketball. It’s all about the Knicks.

SEVIGNY: I’ve never seen you at a Knicks game. I go all the time.

GAHAN: Oh, I’m at Knicks games sometimes. But Jim is always there. Playing basketball is a bit like being in a rock ’n’ roll band: It takes discipline to go out there and do something every night.

SEVIGNY: Being in a band is like being an athlete.

GAHAN: Yeah. I put on quite a show, and I pride myself on that. Because I go and see a lot of bands and sometimes I can feel let down. There are a few performers that I think are really great, like Nick Cave or Iggy Pop, who just throw themselves into the performance. But then you go and see people and they are so half-assed.

SEVIGNY: I get super starstruck. I met Siouxsie Sioux in London, and I couldn’t even—I mean, she’s so much of a hero and an icon to me.

GAHAN: I get a little intimidated by certain people like that as well. She’s pretty intimidating, Siouxsie. She’ll sort of slap you down pretty quick.

SEVIGNY: Talk about putting on a good show, too.

GAHAN: She’s great. I used to get really terrified by meeting people who I respected and liked. I met David Bowie once and I was terrified because I thought, what if I don’t like him? But he was really nice. We got on fine. I’m a big Bowie fan. I fall back on his stuff all the time. If I’m feeling a certain mood, I know I can put on Ziggy Stardust (1972) or Aladdin Sane (1973) and my mood will completely change. It just takes me to a place where I wanted to go when I was a teenager. It’s like where Bowie was, I wanted to go.

SEVIGNY: That’s why I think still performing the songs live even if you’ve done them a gazillion times is important to the fans. It brings them back to where they were as teenagers.

GAHAN: It’s true. That’s what I try to focus on as well. Like if I’m feeling a bit like I can’t do it tonight, or if I’m thinking about if they’ve got room service at the hotel or something [Sevigny laughs] and I drift off for a second and then I suddenly pull it back in, because it’s difficult to ignore Depeche Mode fans. They demand so much from you. That’s what a Depeche Mode show is. It’s a combined effort. And I always say it’s much bigger than us. It always has been. It’s like an entity, and it’ll be there long after we’re gone.