I thought I was a true fan of the synth-rock giants, but a convention showed me that I preferred music as a solo experience
The first time I really thought about fandom was the evening of 8 July 1990. The occasion was a convention of Depeche Mode fans at Camden Palace in London. I had only been one of them myself for 10 months, since hearing Personal Jesus on Radio 1’s Singled Out made my jaw drop, but I had been making up for lost time. I wasn’t just busy buying up every album, 7-inch and 12-inch that I could lay my hands on, I was also transcribing Martin Gore’s lyrics into an exercise book, painting sleeve art and learning to play the simpler tracks on a Casio keyboard. I don’t recall writing poems about them but let’s not rule it out. I wanted to be a True Fan and do what I thought True fans did, which was to join a fanclub and attend a gathering of the faithful.
Around that time, I filled out a personality test that concluded I was equal parts introvert and extrovert, so Depeche Mode were my ideal band. They sang about many of my pressing concerns – sex, death, guilt, spiritual confusion, gauche leftwing politics – and I could dance to them. I liked their story, too. After songwriter Vince Clarke quit in 1981, Gore had to reinvent the band on the hoof, trying out communist chic and industrial angst before finding that horny, morbid sweet spot on the Black Celebration album. At the same time, advances in synthesiser and sampler technology enabled their music to grow grander and sleeker. By the time I got into them, they were electronic music’s first arena band but still hadn’t lost their essential Basildon blokeyness. You could never be David Bowie but you could, with a bit of luck, imagine being genial synth-prodder Andy “Fletch” Fletcher.
