Question (Q): Are you satisfied with your own record? Would you like to continue your solo career?
David Gahan (DG): Yes, I’m very satisfied. I enjoyed making it very much, I enjoyed people I worked with, Knox Chandler I wrote all this songs with. There was a lot of fun making it. It’s great now performing these songs because they become something different again.
Q: Mr. Gahan, you played this concert together with “Massive Attack”. Are you planning to collaborate musically with “Massive Attack” in the future?
DG: No. It’s just really, like, we didn’t know until before the tour that we’ll be playing together. We’ve played already together in Finland. They did the great show, and it was very different… I like to play, I like to perform anywhere. I like performing.
Q: You’re always asked different questions by journalists. But do you have anything to say you never asked?
DG: (consider for a moment and then, smiling) I miss my family.
Q: And what about DM?
DG: (Laughing) What about? ….
Q: Are you missing them?
DG: No
Q: Will you, please, tell, your family - wife, children, - how do they influence upon your creativity?
DG: It’s a lot. It’s difficult to explain but if anybody have a family, have children,… It’s a big responsibility and I enjoy that, you know, it’s hard to balance, it’s hard sometimes, but my family is very supportive.
Q: Are you maintaining friendly relations with your first wife?
DG: No, if can help it
Q: Your previous tours with Depeche Mode were more pompous, more visual to compare with this tour. Why? Is it a deliberate decision?
DG: It’s just different. This is very much about a band playing on stage, and enjoying playing, enjoying to be together. It’s completely different things, really. I know it’s difficult to not compare. And I do it all the time as well. But I’m having as much fun performing Depeche Mode songs as I always have. You know they are great songs written by Martin; great songs and I’ve been singing all these songs between years. So it feels very natural to sing them… I don’t know what Martin or Fletch think about all things. I haven’t heard from them for a long time. I don’t know what they think.
… That’s about money (laughing)
(Seriously).This album “Paper Monsters” is very much about feelings, it’s about emotions, and I’m trying to put them through music, to deliver a message. That’s what important and I always do it anyway on stage. There’re no much special effects,…To incorporate with fans and everything, and they wanna hear songs, they wanna hear me singing and playing, I think that’s what important.
You know, in life I think everything become so fast: an Internet, TV, and everything goes on so fast and I think it’s important close out and feel things again.
Q: However do you see your future with Depeche Mode?
DG: You have a nice tie. I like your tie (laughing).
You know it’s not really for me to say. Depeche Mode really in the last two records has musically just been Martin and myself. When Alan left the band a lot changed musically. I think if we’d to continue, if we make another record together we really have to try a lot harder to create something new and not to relay on past successes. Past successes great but it’s in the past. It’s about change in future, challenge yourself . If you not challenge yourself you’re not growing as an artist. Depeche Mode songs are the part of my life too. And they always will be. And if I’m performing , if I’m allowed to perform to as many people like that or to a hundred people I will always sing DM songs. It’s a part of what I do. They’re in my blood.
Q: Why the album was entitled “Paper Monsters”?
DG: “Paper Monsters” came about during making of the album. I realized that a lot of what that I was doing and what I have been doing in the last few years was confronting a lot of my own fears; fears about life, fears about moving forward and coming out of behind something. Not just Depeche Mode. But in my personal life as well I’m changing a lot of things about myself. Making this record was another step in a right direction.
Q: Why “Dirty Sticky Floors” were chosen as a first single?
DG: There were a lot of different choices .Daniel Miller’s from Mute Records really favorite is “Hold On”. All the different Record Companies around the world liked the idea “Dirty Sticky Floors” to be a first song. And I always felt like that kind of really that it address to the past and I try put that song first on the album as well because it start something from a long time ago for me.
Q: What does symbolize a boat in the video “Dirty Sticky Floors”?
DG: The video was made by Arny and Kinsky, two guys that used to be “Gus Gus”. They really felt this song as a metaphor of change. We talked about it. The boat represented the idea that we have all worthy goods, we carry it with all the time and it becomes too heavy, we can’t move it, we can’t drive it around and we got to rid off to move forward.
Q: Who was the first to listen to your songs when all the things were arranged?
DG: My wife Jennifer.
Thank you very much.
David Gahan (DG): Yes, I’m very satisfied. I enjoyed making it very much, I enjoyed people I worked with, Knox Chandler I wrote all this songs with. There was a lot of fun making it. It’s great now performing these songs because they become something different again.
Q: Mr. Gahan, you played this concert together with “Massive Attack”. Are you planning to collaborate musically with “Massive Attack” in the future?
DG: No. It’s just really, like, we didn’t know until before the tour that we’ll be playing together. We’ve played already together in Finland. They did the great show, and it was very different… I like to play, I like to perform anywhere. I like performing.
Q: You’re always asked different questions by journalists. But do you have anything to say you never asked?
DG: (consider for a moment and then, smiling) I miss my family.
Q: And what about DM?
DG: (Laughing) What about? ….
Q: Are you missing them?
DG: No
Q: Will you, please, tell, your family - wife, children, - how do they influence upon your creativity?
DG: It’s a lot. It’s difficult to explain but if anybody have a family, have children,… It’s a big responsibility and I enjoy that, you know, it’s hard to balance, it’s hard sometimes, but my family is very supportive.
Q: Are you maintaining friendly relations with your first wife?
DG: No, if can help it
Q: Your previous tours with Depeche Mode were more pompous, more visual to compare with this tour. Why? Is it a deliberate decision?
DG: It’s just different. This is very much about a band playing on stage, and enjoying playing, enjoying to be together. It’s completely different things, really. I know it’s difficult to not compare. And I do it all the time as well. But I’m having as much fun performing Depeche Mode songs as I always have. You know they are great songs written by Martin; great songs and I’ve been singing all these songs between years. So it feels very natural to sing them… I don’t know what Martin or Fletch think about all things. I haven’t heard from them for a long time. I don’t know what they think.
… That’s about money (laughing)
(Seriously).This album “Paper Monsters” is very much about feelings, it’s about emotions, and I’m trying to put them through music, to deliver a message. That’s what important and I always do it anyway on stage. There’re no much special effects,…To incorporate with fans and everything, and they wanna hear songs, they wanna hear me singing and playing, I think that’s what important.
You know, in life I think everything become so fast: an Internet, TV, and everything goes on so fast and I think it’s important close out and feel things again.
Q: However do you see your future with Depeche Mode?
DG: You have a nice tie. I like your tie (laughing).
You know it’s not really for me to say. Depeche Mode really in the last two records has musically just been Martin and myself. When Alan left the band a lot changed musically. I think if we’d to continue, if we make another record together we really have to try a lot harder to create something new and not to relay on past successes. Past successes great but it’s in the past. It’s about change in future, challenge yourself . If you not challenge yourself you’re not growing as an artist. Depeche Mode songs are the part of my life too. And they always will be. And if I’m performing , if I’m allowed to perform to as many people like that or to a hundred people I will always sing DM songs. It’s a part of what I do. They’re in my blood.
Q: Why the album was entitled “Paper Monsters”?
DG: “Paper Monsters” came about during making of the album. I realized that a lot of what that I was doing and what I have been doing in the last few years was confronting a lot of my own fears; fears about life, fears about moving forward and coming out of behind something. Not just Depeche Mode. But in my personal life as well I’m changing a lot of things about myself. Making this record was another step in a right direction.
Q: Why “Dirty Sticky Floors” were chosen as a first single?
DG: There were a lot of different choices .Daniel Miller’s from Mute Records really favorite is “Hold On”. All the different Record Companies around the world liked the idea “Dirty Sticky Floors” to be a first song. And I always felt like that kind of really that it address to the past and I try put that song first on the album as well because it start something from a long time ago for me.
Q: What does symbolize a boat in the video “Dirty Sticky Floors”?
DG: The video was made by Arny and Kinsky, two guys that used to be “Gus Gus”. They really felt this song as a metaphor of change. We talked about it. The boat represented the idea that we have all worthy goods, we carry it with all the time and it becomes too heavy, we can’t move it, we can’t drive it around and we got to rid off to move forward.
Q: Who was the first to listen to your songs when all the things were arranged?
DG: My wife Jennifer.
Thank you very much.
