Dave Gahan's Angels and Ghosts

Dave Gahan once said, "The whole 'serious artist' thing is very damaging. The powers that be will steer you towards your own demise. One thing I've learned is that it's not very glamorous and my problems are no different from anybody else's." Indeed the Depeche Mode front man used to take the myth of the tortured artist (to go far, suffering is a necessary evil) seriously, in fact so seriously that he had a space tailored for taking drugs named ‘The Blue Room’ (how glamorous!). In a nod to Gahan and his bandmates’ rock n’ roll lifestyle, Q magazine dubbed the band’s Devotional Tour in 1993 ‘the most debauched rock tour ever’ (double the glamour factor!).

Then Gahan hit rock bottom. In 1996, he overdosed on cocaine and heroin at the Sunset Marquis Hotel and was pronounced clinically dead for a few minutes. “These seconds seemed like hours to me. And suddenly, there was a complete, frightening darkness around me. As if someone had turned off the light,” he recalled. It was a wake-up call for him – he learnt it the hard way that his personal life should be separate from the wild persona he projects on stage. David Gahan from Essex, England, shouldn’t be confused with mic-stand-swinging and hip-swaying Dave Gahan.

Like the lyrics to his song “My Sun” from his latest album Angels & Ghosts “behind the darkest clouds the sun always shines again”, ‘The Cat’ (he got the nickname after surviving several near-death experiences) has been trying to soak up the sun after his brush with mortality in Hollywood. Gone are the days when death almost became his legacy – daily life these days means listening to music with his daughter and watching boats go by on the Hudson River from his New York sanctuary, indulging in television and chocolate.

Turning the tortured artist image on its head, Gahan’s newfound positivity didn't dampen his creativity. Instead it spawned his innovative breakthrough – he got over his insecurities about his songwriting and unleashed his debut solo album Paper Monsters on the world in 2003. The reviews were mixed but at least he was singing his own material after 22 years of belting out other people's songs. In 2005 the release of Playing the Angel marked the beginning of his life as co-writer of Depeche Mode, alongside Martin Gore.

In recent years Gahan collaborated with English electronic duo Soulsavers on the albums The Light the Dead See (2012) and Angels & Ghosts (2015), which saw him come into his own as a songwriter. He found a blues rock mode outside Depeche – that’s way more glamorous than having a blue room.

“Creativity is on the side of health - it isn't the thing that drives us mad; it is the capacity in us that tries to save us from madness.” - Jeanette Winterson

"These days I have fun with that dark part of me, but I don’t live there any more."