Dave Gahan: “I feel connected to what is human and vulnerable”

Votre précédent album commun, Angels & Ghosts, date de 2015. A quel moment avez-vous eu l’idée de faire des reprises pour votre nouvel album ?

Rich Machin - It was Dave who thought about it first and was mentioned on the phone.

Dave Gahan - We are constantly talking about music, being listened to things that we like and I like to follow Rich's recommendations, whether it is the new Cat Power or a pirate recording by R. L. Burnside.When we considered a new album, I started working on my side, but listening to what I had recorded in my vocal notes I realized that it was zero!Impossible to listen to that to anyone (laughs).I also believe that I felt exhausted: I was just out of a work period with my group, Depeche Mode.I was not sure I want to get back to it, to continue to make music.

This is what always happens to me after a long period of work, I always need to step back.So the idea of working on the songs of other artists attracted me more.I thought it would be the right time to do that.I have already worked with Rich on several albums from Soulsavers and I knew he was largely capable, as a producer, to bring together around me the ideal group to explore this idea of interpreting covers.

R.M. - Today, when I watch Dave sing these songs, I come to forget that these are covers.He has completely immersed himself and they became his, with his own touch.I did not believe that it would be possible on an entire album, if necessary it works on one or two songs.But with Dave, this is the case from start to the end of the album and even now when playing them on stage.

On this new album, you take up in particular Cat Power and PJ Harvey.Do you often recognize yourself in songs written by women?

D.G. - What attracts me are the voices.It doesn't matter if it's a male or feminine voice.I have been PJ Harvey since her debut, including the albums she made with Flood (English producer, also a Depeche Mode collaborator, editor's note).I started listening to Cat Power later.His voice speaks to me just like those of Bob Dylan or Mark Lanegan.I'm sure everyone feels that.When I met my wife, Jennifer, I went to her house in New York and she listened a lot Billie Holiday.

This is always the case, moreover, and I can see that this voice particularly pleases him, that she finds something of herself there.Sometimes it doesn't even go through the words, nor through the melody - it's just the timbre of voice.This is what attracts me to a song at the start.

The title of this new album, Impost (“impostor” in VF), can have a negative connotation, but it can also express this ability to show multiple aspects of your personality on different songs…

D.G. - Yes.Over the years, I ended up understanding that there were lots of different interpretations of myself depending on if I am alone or not, with whom I find myself, if I want to show this or thatFacet with such a person ... Music really allows me to express a large part of myself.I believe that we have all felt the impostor syndrome.Each of us has already put a mask, an attitude of facade that we are created.When you go home, you can finally let go and do what you want, but it is hard to let this face -to -yourself see the outside world.At the same time, it is part of human nature to self-protect itself and to create a public image.What I show from me through my songs represents a large part of whom I am, but not all.I'm not going to show you everything!(smile)

You both co -produced this album.Did you have a very precise idea of the result you wanted to get from the start?

D.G. - My name is next to his, but it was mainly Rich who produced it!

R.M. - At the end of the process, I told myself that Dave had enormously brought to this album, so in my eyes we co -produced it. He made lots of judicious comments concerning sound and we shared the same vision. He played a very important role in guiding musicians towards these sounds. His contribution had to be underlined because he was not satisfied to sing. He participated in the entire design of this disc. From the start, we wanted the musicians to all play together in one room and that it feels attentive. This is how the records were manufactured originally and that’s how we get the best sound today. You have to capture a performance. Dave also wanted to listen to it it feels like you are in the same room as the group that plays, to be part of it. This is partly for this reason that we have chosen to go and record at Shangri-La (the Californian studio of Rick Rubin, editor's note). Rick Rubin has made albums there that really feel like they are in the same room as the group. We also wanted there to be a very intimate side.

D.G. - and vulnerable. When we bring together musicians to form a group, we do not know if it will work but we all want this to be the case. You want to communicate something to another person. Sometimes music is the simplest way I have to communicate. I have realized over the years that I feel connected to what is human and vulnerable. Which can switch to the abyss at any time. Sometimes when I sing, I feel like I deliver an incredible performance and be fully, but when I look at others around I see that it is not what they think! (laughs) And then, sometimes there are times when I meet the eyes of others and I am in my element with them. That’s why I’m still doing this job. I still want to find these moments when I have a feeling of belonging. I have lots of opportunities around me to have this feeling, believe me, but I don't often allow myself to feel that.

It was Rick Rubin who recorded the American Recordings of Johnny Cash, albums that we necessarily think by listening to Impost ...

R.M. - The American Recordings are exactly what I mentioned just before.Listening to these albums, we are in the same room as musicians.The voice is highlighted, it embarks you completely, which makes listening very intimate.We wanted to provoke the same effect on our listeners.Several other albums have influenced us, for example the Live album by Cowboy Junkies (The Trinity Session, Editor's note), which gives the impression that the group is playing just for you.

D.G. - Rick Rubin imagined this place in such a way that it encourages creativity and alchemy between musicians.

R.M. - I lived on site when you were making the album and I felt integrated into it in osmosis.I am not always convinced by the studios which are also places of life, but it is really apart.

D.G. - With Depeche Mode, I was led to work in studios that were staying on the spot, like the Puk studio in Denmark.For Songs of Faith and Devotion, we decided to install a whole studio in a house in Madrid, which turned out to be a completely disastrous idea!(laughs) For many reasons ... I think we stayed there for several months and say that it did not work too much.We could only do a few songs there, but there is one in particular that I always find very interesting.It’s condemnation.

She is completely in the spirit of the Impost album.

D.G. - I don't really know what the rest of the group was recording.I had a room on site and I went from time to time to record with them.One day, Flood, who produced us, came to knock on my door and asked me if I could come to join them to record.I think I was painting.I arrived and they were preparing a song with gospel songs.My microphone was installed in a garage.They made me listen to the song and I started to sing.

This is the first time I felt that I was really in the song, that this song belonged to me.This is where I told myself that I had to write songs myself.I was not trying to appease someone else.It was a perfect moment.I went to see Flood, he looked at me over his glasses and he said to me: "Ok, it's good!"I did not believe it, usually I had to make lots of changes, he made me lists of verses or words to take up.While there, no, it was completed in two catches, I was able to return to my room and disappear again.On Impost, song after song, everything was simple to do.I had a little apprehension at first, I was wondering if it was going to work but in fact so!

Each day was like the day of condemnation.There has been a lot of preparation to get this, and I’m much more disciplined than before.I understood that if I worked a lot on the songs upstream, I could arrive on recording day and make this performance in few sockets.Everyone looks amazed that I get there so easily, but in reality I repeated every song thousands of times to get to this D -Day.

How do you feel on stage when you play the songs of misunderstanding?

R.M. - We have just crossed two years of stress, anxiety and uncertainty.Finding up again in an audience has become a strange scenario.But as soon as we are on stage, with friends, almost with family, all together, we are only one.We feel immense joy.Nothing exists outside at this precise moment and we forget everything.

D.G.-I am always looking for that moment, these emotions.We made several concerts for this album in very different places, in public, and each time I told myself that I really wanted to redo this experience.The scene is the place where I want to be, that's all me, that's precisely what I love to feel.

IMPOTER album (Columbia/Sony Music)

Concert on December 10 in Paris (Salle Pleyel)