“I can only watch so much TV,” jokes Dave Gahan about his need to stay busy. And keeping busy appears to be easy these days as he launches his latest collaborative effort with the Soulsavers. Set for release this Friday (Oct. 23), Angels & Ghosts marks Soulsavers’ fourth album and Gahan’s second with the band.
Accompanied by a 10-piece orchestra, the band got a taste of its fans’ enthusiasm for the album Monday night as they performed in front of a sold out theater in Los Angeles.
For those new to the collective, Soulsavers are the English production duo of Rich Machin and Ian Glover, along with a pool of musicians who are called upon as needed. Their specialty is downtempo electronica with influences of rock, gospel, soul, and country, which syncs perfectly with Gahan’s musical tastes.
“They have an idea of what they want to do and Rich will send me his basic idea,” explains Gahan their collaboration process, which he describes as a labor of love. “There’s no money in it, that’s for sure!” he says with a laugh. After two full albums with the Depeche Mode frontman, it’s hard to imagine the group with anyone other than Gahan singing. But Mark Lanegan, most widely known for his band the Screaming Trees and has collaborated with Queens of the Stone Age, handled vocals on the two prior Soulsavers albums, It’s Not How Far You Fall, It’s the Way You Land and Broken, of which Gahan prefers the first.
“I’m sort of stepping into his shoes for a bit.” Gahan jokes. And, after two albums, the Depeche Mode frontman says the gig now feels “very normal.”
Despite the group never having set out to record a “single,” one has indeed emerged: “All of This and Nothing.” Gahan seems a bit surprised and relieved as the track took a little more elbow grease than other tracks on the album.
“To be honest, out of all of them, it didn’t come as easy as some of the others,” Gahan says. Although you can’t tell by listening to it, he says it was a bit of a struggle. The majority of the song was built by Machin and handed over to Gahan for completion and the Depeche Mode frontman felt like he was having to put the final brush strokes on someone else’s painting. “I had a hard time finding my place on it,” he explains. “But once it came together and I locked into the chorus and found a mood for it, it made more sense.” He says the song truly shines when they perform it onstage. “When we do it live, it’s got even more space. We’ve elongated some of the parts and allowed it to breathe a bit more.”
Breathing room is something you’ll hear a lot from Gahan about his Soulsavers songs. Like the blues, much of the album’s power comes from the space between the notes. “Everything is there for a reason,” he says. “We don’t put anything in there if it’s not needed, in fact, quite often it was the case of taking things out. And when we were in the writing process it’s about pulling them out and not worrying about things like the long intro.”
Fortunately for Gahan, Soulsavers was not under pressure to write radio-friendly singles. “At first people were like, ‘Ah, you gotta cut that down if its gonna be a single,'” referring to the 46 second intro on “All Of This And Nothing.” “We don’t have to think that kind of stuff. It’s just about making the music. We’ll get to all that later. If this becomes something, we’ll get to that later.”
Gahan is also quick to call attention to his favorite track, “Shine,” which when played live on stage features a “sleazy” baseline by Duke Garwood. According to Gahan, the British blues rock guitar player brings the song to “a whole other level.” Just talking about the song draws a smile from Gahan. “It’s very ambient and spacey but at the same time it’s very driven,” he says of the upbeat track.
Having spent the early part of his career in an era when vinyl albums were the ultimate way to showcase your music and art, Gahan is taking his music back to a time when the listener would experience the tracks as one event. He explains, “It’s really about building an album in the old sense how we used listen to records, and listen to music from start to finish and flip it over… an LP. This is two sides. The first side of the album begins with ‘Shine,’ ends with ‘All Of This And Nothing.’ Flip it over [making a gesture with his hand as if flipping a tortilla]: then it starts with ‘One Thing’ and then it ends with ‘My Sun.'”
The group is actually manufacturing copies of Angels & Ghosts in vinyl editions, although the process to get the audio sounding just right was more challenging than it use to be. “To get a good pressing,” Gahan explains, “takes time now.” He explains that because there are far fewer facilities making vinyl nowadays, the process is slower and good audio quality is harder to come by.
But perfection in audio is just the type of thing Gahan enjoys striving for. It’s just one more thing to keep him away from his drug of choice; television, which he refers to in the song “One Thing,” a soft piano and strings-driven ballad about finding that one special thing that helps us escape. “Don’t say nothing,” begins the verse. “Just lay down next to me, we can watch those tasteless shows on our TV.”
Still an alien resident of the U.S., Gahan notes that he’s been living in New York now for 18 years, originally moving to Los Angeles in 1989. “I’ve spent more than half my life in America.”
And not being a resident apparently has its pitfalls. Gahan cannot vote. “That does piss me off actually, yeah. I watch all the debates and stuff. I’m into it. A reporter the other day asked me about one of the new songs “One Thing” where I say the words, ‘Lay down next to me, we can watch those tasteless shows on our TV.’”
What tasteless shows you may ask. He smiles, and continues, “Well you know, Republican debate… Kardashians… Same thing,” he adds with a laugh. Happily, the Soulsavers project will keep him busy for a little while. Besides: as he says, there’s only so much TV he can watch.
Az eredeti cikk itt olvasható: http://radio.com/2015/10/22/dave-gahan-soulsavers-interview/
