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| Version | User | Scope of changes |
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| Dec 22 2007, 7:55 AM EST (current) | ViolatorCelebrator | 13 words added, 15 words deleted |
| Dec 22 2007, 7:50 AM EST | ViolatorCelebrator | 2 words added, 2 words deleted |
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David Gahan Bio | David Gahan Pictures
David Gahan was born on May 9, 1962 in Epping, Essex, England. He was born into a working class family to his parents, Sylvia and Len, along with older sister Sue who is 2 years his senior. That family was short lived as David was only 6 months old when his father left the family. Sylvia divorced him two years later and began a new life.
After meeting and marrying her second husband Jack Gahan, who adopted both David and Sue to raise as his own, Sylvia moved the family to Basildon. There, the newly formed family continued to grow with the birth of David's two younger brothers Peter (born in 1966) and Phil (born in 1968).
David and Sue were raised believing that Jack Gahan was their real father. Although this is true in every sense of the word, they soon discovered otherwise.
Tragedy struck the Gahan family in 1972 when Jack died. David was only nine at the time.
When he was eleven, he was introduced to his birth father and from that day on, Len often visited the house but disappeared again a year later, never to be seen or heard from again.
When asked about his worst day in an interview for Blender.com, David has this to say:
"I can think of two. When I was eleven, I came home from school and was confronted with a man sitting next to my mom, who then explained that this man was my father. Up until then, I'd thought that my stepfather, who died when I was nine, was my biological father. Turns out my father left us when I was very young. God bless my mom, she was doing the best she could, but I was brought up in that very English way that if there's something that might hurt your kid, you don't tell them. After that, I was like, fuck off to everything and I got into a lot of trouble for stealing cars and robbing and thieving, which led to my other worst day. When i was fifteen, I was sent away to a detention center for six weeks. It was a kid's prison -- you march down the hall, get your blanket and new clothes, get screamed at and beat up. Joining Depeche Mode saved my life."
Within six months of leaving Barstable School in July of 1978, David found and lost about twenty or so jobs; from selling soft drinks to working on construction sites. He applied for a job as an apprentice fitter with North Thames Gas and was told by his probation officer to be honest with the interviewer. As a result, he did not get the job when he admitted his criminal history calling himself a "reformed character."
He commented on his job record: "I’ve worked so many jobs at construction sites and in factories, paperboy, washing up in hotels and stuff, but I would never last long. Sometimes I would go to lunch and never come back. One job I really liked, though, was landscaping. We’d all get in the back of the truck and the boss would drop us off at a bare field and we’d rotovate the land, then come back the next week, throw some seeds around and plant small trees. Months later, it would be grass with trees and we’d dance on it and then mow."
Eventually, he earned a place at Southland Art College, which he enjoyed immensely. After three years, he gained the British Display Society Award, which allowed him to get work doing window displays in stores and shopping centers.
Depeche Mode
In 1980, David was overheard singing "Heroes" by David Bowie. "One night I was messing around at rehearsals with this other band and someone started playing that song and I started to sing. Martin and Andy and Vince were next door and they heard me. A couple of weeks later, Vince called me and asked if I wanted to rehearse with them."
David agreed and shortly thereafter the band was renamed from Composition of Sound to Depeche Mode. The name was suggested by Gahan after he had come across a French fashion magazine of the same name. The name has been translated to "Fast Fashion". However, the literal translation is "Fashion Dispatch".
In 1981, Depeche Mode released their debut album Speak and Spell through Mute Records. Critical reviews at the time were mixed. Rolling Stone called the album "PG-rated fluff" while Melody Maker described it as a "Great Album..." It climbed the UK charts and landed at the #10 spot.
David's baritone vocals brought fire to the synthetic grooves. A charismatic singer, he was the band's missing piece. In the beginning, his icy upbeat vocals brought out the hooks from hits like "Just Can't Get Enough" and "Dreaming ofOf meMe". However, after the departure of Vince Clarke, (which was shortly after the release of Speak and Spell) the songs became darker and more popular since Martin Gore took the helm for their next album, A Broken Frame, which was released on September 22, 1982.
By the time they released 1993's Songs ofOf Faith andAnd Devotion, David was living in Los Angeles and, having been inspired by the look and sound of grunge bands, grew his hair long and was sporting a beard. When asked about his grunge phase he is quoted as saying "I don't think I 'rocked' a flannel shirt, but I definitely had my fair share of flannel shirts. There are some pictures of me being arrested in one. I wore them more so that I wouldn't get noticed, so I could blend in."
In addition to adopting a grunge look, David became seduced by the drug of choice amongst many rock musicians in the early 90's -- heroin. He also got the infamous geish piercing about which he later recounts: "that’s a piercing in the part between your scrotum and your ass. It’s supposedly the most erotic place to be pierced, but I would beg to differ with that. I don’t know if any piercing is that erotic, really. For me, it was probably about the pain. I knew it was time to get rid of it when one of my kids noticed it and was like, 'Why do you have an earring in your ass?'”
Songs ofOf Faith andAnd Devotion debuted at #1 in both the UK and the US markets on the heels of the bluesy, grunge-influenced single "I Feel You". The fourteen month Devotional tour followed. It was documented by a concert video of the same name and a second live album, Songs ofOf Faith andAnd Devotion Live. The live album was essentially a critical and commercial failure. David's heroin addiction was starting to affect his behavior, causing him to become more erratic and introverted. Martin Gore experienced a series of seizures, and Andy Fletcher declined to participate in the second leg of the tour due to "mental instability" and was replaced on-stage by Daryl Bamonte.
In June of 1995, Alan Wilder announced that he was leaving Depeche Mode. Following his departure, many were skeptical as to whether or not Depeche Mode would ever record again. Gahan's mental state and drug habit became a major source of concern, with a near-fatal overdose.
On August 17, 1995, David allegedly attempted suicide with a razor blade. He later stated that it was more of a cry for help than a suicide attempt. At one point during this episode of his life, he was known to spend up to 12 hours a day inside his wardrobe watching the Weather Channel and talking to "The Tin Man'" which is a doll he was convinced could talk. He later referred to these conversations in his solo single "Dirty Sticky Floors".
On the subject of the talking to dolls, David had this to say: "Oh yes, the last couple of years in California, I was living in a little apartment in Santa Monica and I had -- well, it's really sad actually -- this huge Bugs Bunny doll which would become quite animated when I was out of my mind. I also had a Tin Man and a lion. The Tin Man used to speak to me. It was basically psychotic behavior, which of course now I can see. But at the time I thought, 'Doesn't everyone have these things?'"
"The bottom line is I didn't want to get clean. I thought I could control it," Gahan explains. "I thought I could do it maybe now and again, have a little party, but those little parties lasted a month. And a month later, I'd be sitting there shivering, wondering what happened."
He was admitted to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Beverly Hills and released shortly afterward. On May 28, 1996, David overdosed on a heroin and cocaine "speedball" in a Los Angeles hotel room. On the way to the hospital, he was pronounced clinically dead for two minutes but was revived by paramedics and again taken to Cedars-Sinai. He was released and arrested two days later. The judge ordered him to complete a nine month rehabilitation. After which, in September 1996, the drug charges were dropped.
When asked about his near death experience, David said "Oh yeah. I saw Jennifer, who is my wife now, and she was calling me back. I had this feeling that she was a light, a good thing in my life. I also heard a voice really loud that was saying ‘This is wrong! You don’t get to decide!’ I could see myself surrounded by the paramedics and I was screaming down: ‘I’m here, I’m here!’ I felt like, oh my God, I made a big mistake! This is not what I wanted! And all of a sudden I felt that surge coming back to life. I found out later that Jennifer, who was in New York, felt at the time, 4 A.M., an overwhelming feeling that something terrible had happened to me."
While in rehab, Gahan received lyrics for the band's 10th album; lyrics that let him know his fellow band members knew something about what he was going through.
Despite David's incresingly severe personal issues, Martin Gore tried repeatedly during 1995-1996 to get the band back into the studio again. However, David would rarely show up to scheduled sessions and when he did, it would take weeks to get any vocals recorded. Now, with David out of rehab in 1996, Depeche Mode held recording sessions with producer Tim Simenon.
In 1997, a rejuvinatedrejuvenated David recorded Ultra with Depeche Mode. The album again debuted at #1 in the UK and reached the top 5 in the US. David is quoted as saying that "Ultra was my least favorite to make. That was a bit of a mess."
"When I heard the songs and heard some of the words it was the first time, I felt like it was something gave me a sense of purpose and worth again," said Dave in an interview with CNNCNN.
.
Gahan recorded the songs while in recovery and filmed their second video single, "It's No Good." The benefits of his transformation are not lost on the band.
"In the last eight months he has been completely clean and I think not only has his life improved, but also what he did on the album has been incredible," said band member Andy Fletcher.
This success was followed by Exciter in 2001.
In 2003 he released his first solo album, Paper Monsters (which he co-wrote with guitarist and friend Knox Chandler), followed by a world tour (including a performance at 2003's Glastonbury Festival), singing both his new solo tracks and Depeche Mode fan favourites. His touring band included Knox Chandler on guitar, Martyn LeNoble (Porno for Pyros, Jane's Addiction, The Cult) on bass, Vincent Jones (Sarah McLachlan) on keyboards, and Victor Indrizzo (Beck, Macy Gray) on drums.
The album was a moderate success. The first single "Dirty Sticky Floors" became a Top 20 hit on the World Singles chart selling over 200,000 copies, as well as hitting the Top 20 in the UK. The album itself became a Top 10 hit on the European album chart and a Top 40 hit in the UK. This success was backed by a world tour and a live DVD titled Live Monsters which was released in 2004.
A year later, he also appeared as model and spokesperson of the European mid-range fashion retailer J Lindeberg and its S/S 2006 menswear line. The ads featured both him and seemingly random quotes like "What would happen if we all told the truth", "You can tell he's lying because his lips are moving", etc. These ads appeared prominently in international fashion press.
Dave wrote three songs on 2005's Playing theThe Angel. The three songs, "Suffer Well" (nominated for a US Grammy award announced on Dec 7, 2006), "I Want It All" and "Nothing's Impossible" have had mixed opinions from fans. Others point that Depeche Mode songs usually don't have outside input in songwriting, but that the music on the three songs are collaboratively by Andrew Philpott and drummer Christian Eigner.
The exact contribution of each writer (Gahan/Eigner/Philpott) isn’t known but, according to Dave in 2003, during the making of Paper Monsters, he worked on lyrics and basic melodies for some songs, with help from Knox Chandler to flesh them out. You can see a video of this at Dave's solo website, under the in-studio videos.
It is agreed by all in the band, including Dave, that "Dave's songs" were thrown in the Depeche Mode blender during the making of Playing theThe Angel, and were no longer just Dave songs, but they became true Depeche Mode songs.
In 2007, Dave announced he was working on a new album titled Hourglass via a video greeting for Depeche Mode's official website recorded at the 2007 MusiCares Charity event on May 11th. The material was recorded at Gahan's 11th Floor Studios in New York City
David Gahan currently resides in New York with his third wife, Jennifer (married 1999) and1999), Jennifer's son, Jimmy, and their daughter Stella Rose. The city has been Gahan's home for the past decade. He also has a son, Jack, from his first marriage (b. 1987) who is named after Dave's stepfather Jack.
Sources: blender.com, wikipedia, Michael Sutton, CNN
David Gahan was born on May 9, 1962 in Epping, Essex, England. He was born into a working class family to his parents, Sylvia and Len, along with older sister Sue who is 2 years his senior. That family was short lived as David was only 6 months old when his father left the family. Sylvia divorced him two years later and began a new life.After meeting and marrying her second husband Jack Gahan, who adopted both David and Sue to raise as his own, Sylvia moved the family to Basildon. There, the newly formed family continued to grow with the birth of David's two younger brothers Peter (born in 1966) and Phil (born in 1968).
David and Sue were raised believing that Jack Gahan was their real father. Although this is true in every sense of the word, they soon discovered otherwise.Tragedy struck the Gahan family in 1972 when Jack died. David was only nine at the time.
When he was eleven, he was introduced to his birth father and from that day on, Len often visited the house but disappeared again a year later, never to be seen or heard from again.
When asked about his worst day in an interview for Blender.com, David has this to say:
"I can think of two. When I was eleven, I came home from school and was confronted with a man sitting next to my mom, who then explained that this man was my father. Up until then, I'd thought that my stepfather, who died when I was nine, was my biological father. Turns out my father left us when I was very young. God bless my mom, she was doing the best she could, but I was brought up in that very English way that if there's something that might hurt your kid, you don't tell them. After that, I was like, fuck off to everything and I got into a lot of trouble for stealing cars and robbing and thieving, which led to my other worst day. When i was fifteen, I was sent away to a detention center for six weeks. It was a kid's prison -- you march down the hall, get your blanket and new clothes, get screamed at and beat up. Joining Depeche Mode saved my life."
Within six months of leaving Barstable School in July of 1978, David found and lost about twenty or so jobs; from selling soft drinks to working on construction sites. He applied for a job as an apprentice fitter with North Thames Gas and was told by his probation officer to be honest with the interviewer. As a result, he did not get the job when he admitted his criminal history calling himself a "reformed character."
He commented on his job record: "I’ve worked so many jobs at construction sites and in factories, paperboy, washing up in hotels and stuff, but I would never last long. Sometimes I would go to lunch and never come back. One job I really liked, though, was landscaping. We’d all get in the back of the truck and the boss would drop us off at a bare field and we’d rotovate the land, then come back the next week, throw some seeds around and plant small trees. Months later, it would be grass with trees and we’d dance on it and then mow."Eventually, he earned a place at Southland Art College, which he enjoyed immensely. After three years, he gained the British Display Society Award, which allowed him to get work doing window displays in stores and shopping centers.
Depeche Mode
In 1980, David was overheard singing "Heroes" by David Bowie. "One night I was messing around at rehearsals with this other band and someone started playing that song and I started to sing. Martin and Andy and Vince were next door and they heard me. A couple of weeks later, Vince called me and asked if I wanted to rehearse with them."
David agreed and shortly thereafter the band was renamed from Composition of Sound to Depeche Mode. The name was suggested by Gahan after he had come across a French fashion magazine of the same name. The name has been translated to "Fast Fashion". However, the literal translation is "Fashion Dispatch".
In 1981, Depeche Mode released their debut album Speak and Spell through Mute Records. Critical reviews at the time were mixed. Rolling Stone called the album "PG-rated fluff" while Melody Maker described it as a "Great Album..." It climbed the UK charts and landed at the #10 spot.
David's baritone vocals brought fire to the synthetic grooves. A charismatic singer, he was the band's missing piece. In the beginning, his icy upbeat vocals brought out the hooks from hits like "Just Can't Get Enough" and "Dreaming ofOf meMe". However, after the departure of Vince Clarke, (which was shortly after the release of Speak and Spell) the songs became darker and more popular since Martin Gore took the helm for their next album, A Broken Frame, which was released on September 22, 1982.
By the time they released 1993's Songs ofOf Faith andAnd Devotion, David was living in Los Angeles and, having been inspired by the look and sound of grunge bands, grew his hair long and was sporting a beard. When asked about his grunge phase he is quoted as saying "I don't think I 'rocked' a flannel shirt, but I definitely had my fair share of flannel shirts. There are some pictures of me being arrested in one. I wore them more so that I wouldn't get noticed, so I could blend in."In addition to adopting a grunge look, David became seduced by the drug of choice amongst many rock musicians in the early 90's -- heroin. He also got the infamous geish piercing about which he later recounts: "that’s a piercing in the part between your scrotum and your ass. It’s supposedly the most erotic place to be pierced, but I would beg to differ with that. I don’t know if any piercing is that erotic, really. For me, it was probably about the pain. I knew it was time to get rid of it when one of my kids noticed it and was like, 'Why do you have an earring in your ass?'”
Songs ofOf Faith andAnd Devotion debuted at #1 in both the UK and the US markets on the heels of the bluesy, grunge-influenced single "I Feel You". The fourteen month Devotional tour followed. It was documented by a concert video of the same name and a second live album, Songs ofOf Faith andAnd Devotion Live. The live album was essentially a critical and commercial failure. David's heroin addiction was starting to affect his behavior, causing him to become more erratic and introverted. Martin Gore experienced a series of seizures, and Andy Fletcher declined to participate in the second leg of the tour due to "mental instability" and was replaced on-stage by Daryl Bamonte.
In June of 1995, Alan Wilder announced that he was leaving Depeche Mode. Following his departure, many were skeptical as to whether or not Depeche Mode would ever record again. Gahan's mental state and drug habit became a major source of concern, with a near-fatal overdose.
On August 17, 1995, David allegedly attempted suicide with a razor blade. He later stated that it was more of a cry for help than a suicide attempt. At one point during this episode of his life, he was known to spend up to 12 hours a day inside his wardrobe watching the Weather Channel and talking to "The Tin Man'" which is a doll he was convinced could talk. He later referred to these conversations in his solo single "Dirty Sticky Floors".
On the subject of the talking to dolls, David had this to say: "Oh yes, the last couple of years in California, I was living in a little apartment in Santa Monica and I had -- well, it's really sad actually -- this huge Bugs Bunny doll which would become quite animated when I was out of my mind. I also had a Tin Man and a lion. The Tin Man used to speak to me. It was basically psychotic behavior, which of course now I can see. But at the time I thought, 'Doesn't everyone have these things?'"
"The bottom line is I didn't want to get clean. I thought I could control it," Gahan explains. "I thought I could do it maybe now and again, have a little party, but those little parties lasted a month. And a month later, I'd be sitting there shivering, wondering what happened."
He was admitted to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Beverly Hills and released shortly afterward. On May 28, 1996, David overdosed on a heroin and cocaine "speedball" in a Los Angeles hotel room. On the way to the hospital, he was pronounced clinically dead for two minutes but was revived by paramedics and again taken to Cedars-Sinai. He was released and arrested two days later. The judge ordered him to complete a nine month rehabilitation. After which, in September 1996, the drug charges were dropped.When asked about his near death experience, David said "Oh yeah. I saw Jennifer, who is my wife now, and she was calling me back. I had this feeling that she was a light, a good thing in my life. I also heard a voice really loud that was saying ‘This is wrong! You don’t get to decide!’ I could see myself surrounded by the paramedics and I was screaming down: ‘I’m here, I’m here!’ I felt like, oh my God, I made a big mistake! This is not what I wanted! And all of a sudden I felt that surge coming back to life. I found out later that Jennifer, who was in New York, felt at the time, 4 A.M., an overwhelming feeling that something terrible had happened to me."
While in rehab, Gahan received lyrics for the band's 10th album; lyrics that let him know his fellow band members knew something about what he was going through.
Despite David's incresingly severe personal issues, Martin Gore tried repeatedly during 1995-1996 to get the band back into the studio again. However, David would rarely show up to scheduled sessions and when he did, it would take weeks to get any vocals recorded. Now, with David out of rehab in 1996, Depeche Mode held recording sessions with producer Tim Simenon.
In 1997, a rejuvinatedrejuvenated David recorded Ultra with Depeche Mode. The album again debuted at #1 in the UK and reached the top 5 in the US. David is quoted as saying that "Ultra was my least favorite to make. That was a bit of a mess."
"When I heard the songs and heard some of the words it was the first time, I felt like it was something gave me a sense of purpose and worth again," said Dave in an interview with CNNCNN.
.
Gahan recorded the songs while in recovery and filmed their second video single, "It's No Good." The benefits of his transformation are not lost on the band.
"In the last eight months he has been completely clean and I think not only has his life improved, but also what he did on the album has been incredible," said band member Andy Fletcher.
This success was followed by Exciter in 2001.
In 2003 he released his first solo album, Paper Monsters (which he co-wrote with guitarist and friend Knox Chandler), followed by a world tour (including a performance at 2003's Glastonbury Festival), singing both his new solo tracks and Depeche Mode fan favourites. His touring band included Knox Chandler on guitar, Martyn LeNoble (Porno for Pyros, Jane's Addiction, The Cult) on bass, Vincent Jones (Sarah McLachlan) on keyboards, and Victor Indrizzo (Beck, Macy Gray) on drums.
The album was a moderate success. The first single "Dirty Sticky Floors" became a Top 20 hit on the World Singles chart selling over 200,000 copies, as well as hitting the Top 20 in the UK. The album itself became a Top 10 hit on the European album chart and a Top 40 hit in the UK. This success was backed by a world tour and a live DVD titled Live Monsters which was released in 2004.
A year later, he also appeared as model and spokesperson of the European mid-range fashion retailer J Lindeberg and its S/S 2006 menswear line. The ads featured both him and seemingly random quotes like "What would happen if we all told the truth", "You can tell he's lying because his lips are moving", etc. These ads appeared prominently in international fashion press.
Dave wrote three songs on 2005's Playing theThe Angel. The three songs, "Suffer Well" (nominated for a US Grammy award announced on Dec 7, 2006), "I Want It All" and "Nothing's Impossible" have had mixed opinions from fans. Others point that Depeche Mode songs usually don't have outside input in songwriting, but that the music on the three songs are collaboratively by Andrew Philpott and drummer Christian Eigner.
The exact contribution of each writer (Gahan/Eigner/Philpott) isn’t known but, according to Dave in 2003, during the making of Paper Monsters, he worked on lyrics and basic melodies for some songs, with help from Knox Chandler to flesh them out. You can see a video of this at Dave's solo website, under the in-studio videos.
It is agreed by all in the band, including Dave, that "Dave's songs" were thrown in the Depeche Mode blender during the making of Playing theThe Angel, and were no longer just Dave songs, but they became true Depeche Mode songs.
In 2007, Dave announced he was working on a new album titled Hourglass via a video greeting for Depeche Mode's official website recorded at the 2007 MusiCares Charity event on May 11th. The material was recorded at Gahan's 11th Floor Studios in New York City
David Gahan currently resides in New York with his third wife, Jennifer (married 1999) and1999), Jennifer's son, Jimmy, and their daughter Stella Rose. The city has been Gahan's home for the past decade. He also has a son, Jack, from his first marriage (b. 1987) who is named after Dave's stepfather Jack.
Sources: blender.com, wikipedia, Michael Sutton, CNN
