Dave Gahan of Depeche Mode names his three favourite bands in 1981
From babyfaced beginnings to stadium-filling fame, Dave Gahan of Depeche Mode has led a career unparalleled in music history. With a soulful voice and heaps of charisma, Gahan continues to bring entrancing intensity to his performances today alongside his longtime musical partner, Martin Gore.
Following their breakthrough single, ‘I Just Can’t Get Enough’, Depeche Mode restlessly evolved their sound throughout the 1980s. The group’s 1981 debut album, Speak and Spell, had them understandably grouped with fellow synth-pop stalwarts like The Human League, Talk Talk, Ultravox and Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, but over the course of the decade, they deviated impressively into a comfortable niche.
As Mark Hollis led Talk Talk toward a more ambient, jazz-influenced sound, Depeche Mode embraced a darker, gothic form thanks to an infatuation with The Cure and Siouxsie and the Banshees. This darker side of Depeche Mode was conceived in 1986’s aptly titled Black Celebration and was joined by Gahan’s taste for salacious lyrics.
In 1986, Gahan participated in a Smash Hits feature wherein he reviewed the previous fortnight’s singles. Picking Siouxsie and the Banshees’ ‘Candyman’ out as his favourite, he reflected on his long-lived fascination with the group and its frontwoman’s dark and sexual “formula”.
“Siouxsie’s not a ‘singer’ like Aretha Franklin, but she makes great use of what she’s got, and she always sounds exciting,” he said. “She sings with a lot of sex – that’s what I like. This is a great Banshees record. Obviously, they’ve got a bit of a ‘formula’, but I like their sound. I used to go and see them quite a lot when I was younger, when I was a punk rocker.”
Siouxsie and the Banshees’ influence on Depeche Mode may have only become apparent in their more goth-tinged music of the late 1980s and beyond, but Gahan’s infatuation peaked during the band’s late 1970s and ’80s heyday.
In a December 1981 issue of Look In magazine, a 19-year-old Gahan was introduced to readers with a reel of quick-fire questions. Amidst revealing that he’s fond of “fishing when I’ve got time, going to night clubs, listening to records,” and that his favourite TV shows were Mr. Benn, Tiswas and Thunderbirds, Gahan was asked to name his favourite band.
As an avid record collector and rising talent in his own right, Gahan naturally found this a difficult challenge. Ultimately, he settled on three bands: “Sparks, Siouxsie & The Banshees, Roxy Music”.
As a particularly zany progenitor of the synth-pop wave, Sparks’ appearance on the list will raise very few eyebrows. Similarly, Roxy Music’s eclectic approach throughout the 1970s made them party to the glam-rock and prog-rock waves while directly influencing the punk and synth-pop waves to come. No doubt Gahan was besotted with the band’s early work with synth pioneer Brian Eno and their later, more polished work prescient of 1980s pop music.
Listen to Dave Gahan’s cover of Roxy Music’s ‘A Song for Europe’ below.