Meet Depeche Mode’s ‘fifth member’

I’m jet lagged, but I’m ready for tomorrow night,” says Depeche Mode guitarist, main songwriter and on-time vocalist Martin Gore. He is preparing for the concert of the band Ziggo Dome in Amsterdam, which has offered him the opportunity to stop by the studio of his friend Anton Corbijn, the Dutch photographer, video artist and film director. The space is spare save for a bright red jukebox in the corner that’s a two-finger touch in the minimalist setting: its menu mixes everything from The Everly Brothers to Aretha Franklin.

Clad in California black and tan (he’s lived in Santa Barbara for about 23 years), Gore, 61, is in town for the European leg of the band’s Memento Mori tour, a globe-trotting stadium game that takes the name of the band’s fifteenth studio album. which has drawn sold-out crowds. It’s a bittersweet moment in depeche modeThe 43-year rock ‘n’ roll journey: This is the first tour for Gore and frontman Dave Gahan without their keyboardist Andy Fletcher, who died last year. Memento Mori is dedicated to “Fletch”, one of the four from Basildon (which included Vince Clarke, later of Erasure), who formed Depeche Mode in Essex over 40 years ago.

Corbijn, 68, is “the fifth member of Depeche Mode.” The band’s longtime creative director, he will be part of the maelstrom that will grip their lives for the next year. He is also known as the creator of some of the most iconic black and white portraits in the world: in addition to his work with Depeche Mode, he is famous for his images of Joy Division and U2. In an adjoining room are the last packing boxes destined for his last exhibition, Artists and more artistswhich runs concurrently with this month’s Arles Encounters photography festival in Castle La Coste. It is a selection of 40 large-scale images, some never seen before, others rare, of musicians with their instruments. “I always felt it was too obvious to photograph a guitarist with his guitar,” Corbijn says with a Dutch accent. “But there have been some exceptions: Elvis Costello and Johnny Cash…”

Corbijn’s subjects include some of the most famous musicians in the pantheon, but he prefers not to be considered a “rock photographer.” “I have tried not to have a life full of repetitive experiences. I have worked with many musicians but also with many other people. I really like photographing painters, for example, because deep down I would have liked to be one. I’m really interested in the canvas and how it turns nothing into something.”

Over the years, Corbijn’s work has taken many creative directions: first in music videos (Depeche Mode, Nirvana, Coldplay, The Killers) and later in film directing. His films include critically rated Control (2007), a biopic of Joy Division’s Ian Curtis. A shy man, he never imagined that he “could be on set with 50 people. But then the script was the only one I dared to accept because I knew Ian, I was a fan.”

Everyone in my family was ministers.

Control brought more film deals from Hollywood: he has since directed the feature film thriller. the american (2010) starring George Clooney; and a most wanted man (2014). his documentary Squaring the Circle (The Story of Hipgnosis) has just been released in the US (a look at the iconic 1970s album covers from the design studio Hipgnosis) and is starting a new film project later this year, Switzerland, about the The talented Mr. Ripley the writer Patricia Highsmith, with Helen Mirren.

Corbijn and Gore have come a long way in music, but both still remember their first experiences with a camera and guitar. “I love it music from the age of 11 because it suggested freedom and a liberal way of life that I had not experienced living in a religious family on an island,” says Corbijn. He remembers borrowing his father’s camera to take photos of local bands, believing it would give him the confidence to go up on stage. “Everyone in my family was ministers. I didn’t like that, so I thought I’d become a missionary so I could at least travel. But at the age of 12, I read in a newspaper that two missionaries had been eaten by cannibals in New Guinea. That was the end of that dream!” The two men burst out laughing. Corbijn is constantly telling jokes.

Publishing some of his photographs in a Dutch magazine gave him new aspirations. “That’s when I knew what I was going to do,” she says. When he met Gore and Depeche Mode in 1981, Corbijn was the official photographer for the NME.

It was another magazine, Disco 45, that helped encourage the 13-year-old Gore to start writing music. “Someone had taught me some chords on the guitar, and I would buy the magazine because it had all the lyrics. I would sit in my room for hours on end learning to play them. It was a great education in songwriting,” he recalls. Discovering her mother’s album collection was also illuminating: “She had the old rock ‘n’ roll stuff: Elvis and Chuck Berry… some doo-wop stuff, which she played incessantly. I guess it’s the same with Anton and photography, but when I look back, I’ve only had one great passion in my life: music.”

That passion helped shape Depeche Mode, one of the forerunners of electronic pop music. “I guess musically we’re ahead of our time,” says Gore modestly, when asked about the timelessness of the band’s songs, which, as Corbijn points out, are constantly being renewed. “What was going on back then to me was the true meaning of alternative, especially 83 to 90 before it was more commercialized. You could do whatever you wanted,” says Gore, who, like Corbijn, found that music helped him overcome his propensity for shyness. “I struggled with relationships, so it was easier for me to write things than do them,” he says.

Perhaps surprisingly, Corbijn was not fond of Depeche Mode in the early days. “I’ve made up for it ever since,” he jokes. “I told myself I liked serious music and I thought Depeche Mode was too popular for me.”

Gore replies, “They were too popular for me at the time!”

Gore was not always a willing participant in Corbijn’s videos, either. “We hated doing it in the early days, but as we got on we found things got a little more serious.”

Corbijn nods. “It took time to develop. Dave was such a natural actor, which was great because all the stories could be told through him and Martin played a calmer role.”

Gore agrees: “Yes, David is a great leader. He really works his craft on stage: he knows how to get a crowd going. You see it in the shows we’ve been doing, in the end it’s a massive celebration.”

Quick decisions are often the most creative

Corbijn credits much of the band’s longevity to the transmutative mix of Gore’s songwriting and Gahan’s showmanship. But he recognizes his own part in that alchemy. “When we started making more videos after ’86, we realized that my images and music worked well together: we had a similar approach. I think I made a difference with my photos because I took them as a moving band.”

Corbijn’s unique relationship with the band (he’s given carte blanche creatively) fuels his photography and he’s become an unexpected chronicler for a handful of different bands. “It’s interesting what I have with Depeche Mode and U2, because I photograph people for an incredibly long time. That’s really interesting because it’s the same track, but I do different things with it.”

What does Gore think of Corbijn? Photography? “I really like Anton’s work, obviously,” she smiles cheekily. Corbijn laughs. “Thanks. I mean, come on, John Lee Hooker…” Gore nods slowly. “Yes, John Lee Hooker, Tom Waits, Ian Curtis, John Lydon.”

One standout image of Corbijn, however, is a portrait of Nelson Mandela. “I rarely take pictures of people smiling, but he really transforms when he laughs,” he says of the late South African president’s expression, a cheerful anomaly in his grumpy graphic repertoire. “I always wanted to be taken as a very serious photographer and part of how I expressed that was by printing my photos very dark. I always felt it was too temporary when people laugh.” His words remind me of a Gore quote about happy music being too fake and unrealistic.

Johnny Cash was quite the success for the photographer. “I remember he was in a hotel in New York lying on a bed when the phone rang and this voice said, ‘Hi, I’m Johnny Cash.’ [he mimics his American drawl].” Corbijn was invited to the country singer-songwriter’s home to shoot a video. “During our lunch break, I found myself going to his house where his Jamaican chef was making chicken. I was a vegetarian, but I told myself, ‘I’m not going to sit at Johnny Cash’s house and not eat his chicken,’ so I only tried a piece.” Martin, a fellow vegetarian, laughs. “ He was a great, great man,” Corbijn adds. “I mean, he recorded one of Martin’s songs.”

Gore smiles: “Yeah, I didn’t believe it when someone called me and said, ‘I just heard Johnny Cash singing ‘Personal Jesus’ on the radio.’ Of course, being Johnny Cash, you don’t ask for permission. But I thought he was cool.”

There are other people with whom the couple wants to work collaboratively. I was lucky with this record. [“Ghosts Again”] Why Ricardo Butler? [of The Psychedelic Furs] he reached out to me and it worked really well,” says Gore. “I asked her if she had any lyrics. So he sent me some and I put them to music and sent them back to him, they built from there.”

Corbijn would love to work with Bob Dylan again. “Yeah, you could knock on my door…” he says. “I’d like to think he could make better Bob Dylan movies. I’ve photographed it before, but it was just two frames at two or three in the morning in a parking lot in Cleveland.”

But then Corbijn wouldn’t have it any other way. “That’s how it goes. You have a few minutes in a hotel room and you have to make that work. I’ve gotten good at using impossible spaces to my advantage,” he shrugs. “It’s nice when you have to work with back against the wall. Quick decisions are often the most creative…”

Artists & More Artists, Château La Coste, until August 15, chateau-la-coste.com. Depeche Mode’s Memento Mori World Tour will run through December