If you’re any way into music, you’ll invariably hear Depeche Mode come up in conversation one way or another. Their near ubiquity in the discourse of modern popular music has cemented them in the minds of millions as pioneers and consistent innovators of electronic music.

Andy Fletcher has been the bassist and synthesizer player for the band since the very start and is part of the core of Depeche Mode. More recently, he has been touring the world solo as a DJ. Andy has planned a visit to Australia and New Zealand in March of this year to showcase the “history of the band” through his eclectic track mixes and performances; although the last he was here as part of the band was back in 1994.

Curiously for an almost all electronic group, metalheads, pop producers and even hip-hop MCs will attest to their keen interest – or even devotion – to the British group, a love that seemingly spans the generations. Andy can even see the shift of demographic in his live shows.

“It was quite incredible – on the last tour, the crowd was very young,” he recalls. “They all stood at the front. Also, weirdly enough there were people bringing their kids. Our audience is a real mixture of everyone, really. It’s quite good.”

For over 30 years Depeche Mode has had a “dream career,” Andy says. From their beginnings as a synthpop band amongst a market saturated with artists with Fairlight CMIs and big dreams in their eyes, Depeche Mode’s profile soared throughout the 1980s with a string of hits and endured well into the 90s with their landmark effort Violator remaining their magnum opus despite competing against more popular mainstream rock bands such as Nirvana. Even so, it hasn’t gone to Andy’s head.

“We’ve been very fortunate. The fact that we’ve been going for this long – we still feel that there’s some good music in us. We started as a pop band when we were very young but we’ve learned a lot. To be still going and to have as many fans as we do, all around the world, it’s phenomenal. We couldn’t ask for more.”

Their fans are not only varied in age but span across all the genres – pop, hip-hop, goth, rock and even heavy metal. Even in the niche genres such as trance and metal one can find covers of famous Depeche Mode cuts. Andy feels it’s a testament to the longevity and versatility of songs written by main songwriter Martin Lee Gore despite not fitting the “mould” of what is or was popular and conventional.

“Well, I think it’s because Martin writes really good songs. He’s a great songwriter. In the 90s we really struggled with the media. It was because rock was more prominent. It was the late 80s actually when all the synthpop died off and rock was back in prominence. All the journalists [at the time] seemed to really like rock music.

“We almost had to battle with them. We had to throw [unsold] cassettes away and things like that. But we have really good relationships with rock bands – the [Red Hot] Chili Peppers and with U2, Metallica.

“Strangely, we were in this position where people from every sort of band seemed to like us. It’s weird when people are in awe of us – like Paul Van Dyk for example, he’s a real pro DJ. It’s like my DJing skills don’t even match up to his and he’s bowing at me saying ‘You’re my hero!’ I mean, we can’t ask for more than that really!”

Starting off as the bassist in Depeche Mode, he was almost “forced” to switch to playing the synthesizer in no small part due to the controlling efforts of a former bandmate. He recalls he was “very upset” by the entire experience.

“Vince Clarke decreed that we’d become an all-electronic band. So then I had to progress from playing bass guitar to playing bass synth. As I’d never played a keyboard before it’s quite difficult. I mean I was trying to play the bass lines that I’d usually have played on a guitar on a keyboard. We didn’t have sequencers, you know! It sort of worked.”

In 1990 for the Violator record, Clarke’s iron clad post-partum decree was repealed and the guitars returned, much to Andy’s delight.

“We had a policy up until then that we’d never use those instruments until we worked with [producer] Flood,” he explains. “We always got the guitars to sound like a synth. But when we worked with Flood, Flood said that was a load of bollocks. He said if ‘you want to play guitar, play guitar.’ That’s when we changed our philosophy.”

Fortunately, Depeche Mode emerged from their non-electronic embargo with a healthy attitude toward all forms of music, expanding their horizons beyond the typical Depeche Mode palette – it’s a view that even prevails in their massive live performances and Andy’s DJ sets.

“It’s been a good progression,” Andy muses. “We have virtually have every element of music from disco to rock to ballads, to whatever. I mean, I do that when I DJ as well, I play a mixture of stuff. I throw it all in, you know?”

Despite the massive success that the band has experienced during its thirty years, the expectations between records and tours by the press and fans alike would be enormous. But Andy says there isn’t – it’s managing their own expectation that occupies their minds.

“I think the toughest thing for us is our own expectations. We don’t really care too much about expectations of other people. It’s more our own expectations – that’s the way we’ve always worked.

“I mean if we weren’t making good records – we’d quit.”

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Depeche Mode DJ Set (Andy Fletcher) + Very Special Guests
City Hotel, 349 Kent Street, Sydney
www.cityhotel.com.au
Wednesday 16th February
7pm ± late
Free entry

Andy will also appear at the Playground Weekender Festival.