BIOGRAPHYShort interview with Alan Wilder
Due to the length of the biography I thought the (former)
band members should know about.
Besides, I would like to install players with excerpts of songs.
So I wrote to DM and Recoil to ask for permission, and
I sent some questions according to the biography as well.
I didn't receive any answer from DM, but Alan Wilder
was friendly enough to write back.
Most of the answers were yes/no answers which referred
to contrary statements in the biography. Of course,
all answers can be found there, but here you can read the
longer and most interesting answers again:
Q: There's a rumour saying that you had been arrested because
of shop-lifting sometime before 1982. Is that true?
A: This is true. I stole a chicken and got caught. I was
a struggling musician at the time, destitute and hungry ...
Q: Its said that you appeared singing at the beginning
of the video to Get The Balance Right because the director
thought you were the lead-singer and you were too shy to correct
him.
A: That is true.
Q: There's a source telling that you lived together with
your girlfriend Jeri and her son Jason in the 80's. According
to this source Jeri must have been much older than you -
about 10 years - and her son was 12 years old in 1984.
In another source you were quoted with "Jeri is the mother
of my child".
A: It is correct that she was a good deal older than me,
and that I lived with her and her son, who wasn't mine.
We had no children together.
Q: Reading between the lines I got the feeling that things
started to go wrong from 1985. Of course, you still had
fun and you were very successful but it seems to me that
from this time problems started to "develop". I would see
them in a lack of communication. Sometimes I had the feeling
that you talked a lot to each other but didn't say anything about
what you thought and felt really.
A: Over the course of any 13-year period with a band, there
are going to be times of high tension. I would say that by
the end of recording of Black Celebration things were a
bit difficult - but it wasn't the beginning of the end as such.
Q: In 1987 you were quoted with "I think Dave has some song
ideas". Were you misquoted or was it just a feeling you had
which wasn't discussed within the band? This statement is
contrariwise to Fletch's statements later saying that David
never had any ambitions to write songs on his own.
A: Dave did have ambitions and he did talk about songs
he wished to propose, but he didn't seem to have the confidence
to actually present them.
Q: There is the pertinacious rumour that there had been a
free fight between you and Fletch during Masses-tour. Is that
true?
A: Yes, there was an altercation post-gig concerning Fletch's
comments about Dave's performance during the show - which I
felt were rather rich in light of his own contribution.
(Q = depechemodebiographie.de, Lilian R. Franke, A = Alan Wilder)
