Chords for Martin Gore talks about his love affair with music

[F] _ _ _ _ [G] _ _ _ [B] _
_ [Gb] _ _ _ _ _ [Bb] _ _
_ _ [A] _ What's going on?
It's Darren Rose here at South by Southwest in a quiet room.
Something
rare about South by is finding some quiet space with Martin from Depeche Mode.
Thanks
for taking the time.
Yeah, thanks. _
Let's talk first about South by Southwest.
_ What's your
history with the festival?
_ _ I have to be honest, I have zero history.
[F] But that's great.
I mean,
is it something that you guys have either talked about or what's kind of been the stigma
I guess about what you know of South by Southwest? _
_ _ There's no stigma to it.
I think we've just
decided to do things differently this time. _ _
Regarding the promo of this record, we've
rehearsed early _ _ so that we're ready to play at this stage of a record.
Yeah, we can actually
go out before the album is released and play things like this and do live TVs.
_ Usually
we're not rehearsed, we leave it to the last minute before we go on tour.
And then we don't
we can't fit in things like this.
It's the wrong time of year for this, but we can't even do live TVs.
_ Let's talk about the new album coming out April, I believe.
I think it's out later this month.
Later this month.
Okay, we already are in March. _
_ Delta Machine?
That's right.
How did you guys
come up with Delta Machine?
_ _ _ _ Well, of course we like the fact that the _ _ DM and the DM, we like
that.
And it looks good graphically. _
_ _ And [C] _ we have been _ kind of playing around with _ electronics
_ and like kind of blues influences for a while now.
So that's why the two things, the Delta
and the Machine bit.
And it was how music's very _ _ electronic based, but it also obviously
uses other stuff as well.
So it's like organic and inorganic stuff.
Okay.
So it's lots of
different meanings.
_ Let's get to know you a little bit.
I want to kind of throw out
some random kind of quick questions [Eb] here for you.
What was the first concert you ever attended?
_ I think the first show that I ever saw was Talking Heads.
Oh, cool.
Yeah.
What about
the first piece of music you ever bought?
First album you ever bought with your own
money growing up?
_ I think the first single I ever bought was, _ _ I think it was Donna by
10cc.
If you remember that.
I don't know.
That's beyond me.
I don't know.
Yeah.
And [A] the first
album, I can't remember what the [E] first album I bought was, but I remember the [Ab] first album [Eb] that
I had was Ziggy Stardust by David Bowie.
[G] Another good one.
Yeah.
[E] Because _ [Ab] fortunately for me,
my [Gb] cousin gave it to me.
I don't know why she gave it to me, but I suppose it was a life-changing
moment.
Yeah.
Yeah, absolutely.
_ _ What about around the house growing up?
Your first exposure to
[E] music.
Maybe it was something that your older siblings or parents had on the stereo in the
house.
What were some of those artists? _
I fell in love [F] with music at about the age of 10 _ when I
looked in a cupboard and found literally a [E] plastic bag full of old 45s and they were my [F] mom's records.
They were all old rock and roll [Gb] classics.
It was like Elvis, [G] Chuck Berry, Del Shannon,
_ _ The Platters, all that kind of stuff.
And what about your first exposure as an artist,
playing, actually playing music?
What was your first instrument or how were you turned on to
performing?
[E] Well, because I fell in love with music at the age of 10, by listening to all that
stuff, there was something mysterious about [Gb] it that I liked and I didn't quite understand.
[E] I
just somehow wanted to be involved in it. _
So it took me a few years, but I think I was about [Eb]
13
when I started playing guitar and someone [Gm] taught me how to play [Gb] a couple of chords and then I got
like a chord [Eb] book and then just taught myself from there.
When you're on the road and you go
back home, what's the first thing that you do when you're, you've been on tour for a while?
_ _ _ _ Well, it depends.
I mean, I don't get to see [G] my kids for like a long time, so that'll be the
first [Abm] thing, you know.
I mean, hopefully they'll be [G] coming out in the summer when we play Europe
because they won't be at school, so they'll be coming out for a [E] bit of that.
Okay.
But then once
we get into America later in the [Ab] year, they'll be at school.
So, you know, it's just long periods
where you go without seeing them.
In Depeche Mode, before you guys hit the stage, just moments before
you're about to go on, do you guys have any [Eb] pre-show rituals? _ _ _
Anything that you guys kind
of do before you hit the stage?
Yes, we do.
_ _ We [E] do this kind of like, _ [A] I'd have to call it a [F] macho
group hug thing.
Okay.
And we all kind [E] of go, _ and then we slap each other's hands as hard as we
possibly can and see who can hurt _ the others the most, which is bad when you're the keyboard player or [C]
guitarist.
Anything, yeah.
If you're a drummer or whatever, you've got to hold something. _
Is that [G] something you guys have always done as a band?
We've done that for a long time [A] now, yeah.
Yeah.
Well, before we let you go, I want to talk about
Heaven, the first single off the [Ab]
new album, Delta Machine, [G] coming out end of the month.
[A] How did that
song come about?
Can you kind of give us the conception of [E] that and what it means to you guys?
_ _ I think it's _ quite a different sounding [Eb] single for us.
[Gb] It's quite slow and _ _ _ traditionally, our
slower songs have never really, [G] you know, done as well as the [E] more up-tempo songs.
We just felt
that [G] it _ has a [A] special quality to it and it sets the [E] album up nicely. _ _
Well, I really appreciate the
time today, Martin.
[Em] Thank you.
Looking forward to the [Bb] new album.
Thanks for enjoying the rest of your
South by Southwest.
All right.
Thank you.
Thanks, man.
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