“I’m often asked to be a guest vocalist...”
- Question (Q): Recently you confessed to feel yourself “more excited”. What are you excited about?
- David Gahan (DG): Life. I feel excited about my life today. All that happens in my life is too much associated with my family, home, friends, place where I’m living now. I’m happy. And I think I’ve grown musically again last few years. I play a lot with many musicians and I’m really enjoying their company. It feels like I’ve got too much opportunities but I don’t know which direction to move and what will happen. It’s very enjoying.
- Q: You’ve worked together with Knox Chandler on “Paper Monsters”. How did you meet him?
- DG: I know Knox for a long time – he’s living in New York – and we’re friends .It was Victor (Indrizzo) – he’s a very good drummer - friend of mine for a long long time who suggested me to get in touch with Knox. He said that Knox would help me develop my ideas for my songs. We were working a couple of weeks at his home. It was really collaboration and I really enjoyed that.
- Q: Why did you begin writing songs just 3 years ago? But you didn’t use to do it for 22 years.
- DG: Yeah, I used to write songs earlier but never recorded them. All that was growing inside of me for years. I had to do something in Depeche Mode – we recorded “Exciter”- we’re touring. And after the tour was finished I realized that it was about time to do something different. When you keep doing the same things for a long time, it ceases to be enjoying – nothing changes. I wanted to go into unknown where I’d contribute something fresh into new spaces.
- Q: For you as a Londoner how does it feel like to create in NY?
- DG: I feel good. I found it most stimulating place. The atmosphere in NY is very inspiring for me. It’s an amazing place to create. I love to hang on in East Village. There are a lot of musicians and stuff all around. There’s a lot great music coming out of NY – “ The Strokes”, “Yeah Yeah Yeahs”, and earlier – “New York Dolls”, my favorite “Talking Heads”, “Blondie”, “The Ramones”.
I feel comfortable in America. I never felt like living in England, (the Essex town of Basildon. The place he calls “the land of little opportunity” – my comment.) In my earlier teens I realized that there’s a precipice between poor and rich. Now in England it became better but…My mum haven’t got an opportunity to give all of us – my sister and my brothers – a good education in a good school. I quit school at 16 and began work.
- Q: Recently you sang on JXL’s album. How often are you asked to be a guest vocalist?
- DG: Once long time ago I worked with John Taylor on “A Song For Europe” for his charitable album of songs of “Roxy Music” covered by various artist. I’m often asked to be a guest vocal – Paul Oakenfold, Paul Van Dyk etc. But now I’m more concentrated on my own solo project. My voice – that’s really something that I brought to Depeche Mode. I consider my voice to be my main instrument for 22 ears. Now I want more – songs, feelings, performances – all at once!P.S.: In one of his interviews (so called “banana interview” on Canadian TV, 2001) David said he writes on his left hand not to forget about important things. Being in St-Petersburg this June David was very interested in finding DVD's in our city. Now we can see it (on the photo) written on his hand.
