Words matter. These are the best Dave Gahan Quotes, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
When I was growing up in the early ’70s and really getting into music, waiting outside the record store for that 45, waiting for a single from The Dead, The Clash, David Bowie, or T-Rex or something to be there. There was something about that that was so special.
Joy comes from places you least expect it. It’s usually the simple things, like watching my son play basketball or going through Central Park when the blossoms are blooming.
You’re only going to get surface with me. It takes me ages to warm up to people.
I still hold on to the idea that a record can really change the way I feel.
You’ve got to put interesting people around you; you’ve got to work with people who are gonna inspire you to take the songs you’ve written into a completely different direction, because there’s nothing more boring than going to the studio and predictably knowing what is going to happen.
Certain songs like ‘Enjoy the Silence’ – to me, it always fits anywhere. There’s something about that song that’s really timeless, and I never get bored or feel like I have to muster something up.
To me, it’s always been a challenge to look for the light: to look for those spaces in your heart where there is hope and faith and try to embrace that rather than crush it. I’ve spent so many years trying to crush those feelings of hope, and I certainly succeeded for quite a while.
When I’m with the wife, and we’re having a romantic night, I occasionally think about a glass of red wine, but I’ll order a sparkling water. I’d like the wine, but it wouldn’t end with one glass, so I don’t even go there.
There’s that side of me that wants to be the loving, caring father, and there’s the other side of me that’s just a dirty animal. If I don’t let that out, I go nuts.
If you ask me who the members of the Rolling Stones or Led Zep or the Clash were, I’d be able to tell you every member. But I couldn’t name a single member of Arctic Monkeys.
In the early to mid-’90s, everywhere I turned, someone had died. It wasn’t just people in bands. It was the people I was hanging out with. At some point, I thought, ‘I may be heading down that road.’
L.A. is always great. There’s something special about L.A. And New York, for me, because it’s home. There’s nothing quite like walking onstage at Madison Square Garden.
Depeche Mode have never got over their teenage awkwardness with each other. We’re still like that. Mates but not mates. That awkwardness is there, only now we have families and kids.
‘Presence of God’ is really that understanding that sometimes when you step out of your own shoes and just open your ears and listen to what’s going on around you, you get answers to the questions you were asking.
I go to a very visual place when I’m singing. It’s very cinematic and I get this feeling of space. I love when music does that.
It takes a long time to find your own voice. Along the way, you imitate all the things that influence you – in my case Johnny Cash, Bowie, John Lydon.
Like every New Yorker, I have a love/hate relationship with the city. There are times it’s overbearing, but when I’m away even for a little while, I can’t wait to get home. I am a New Yorker.
I do use texting as a great way to communicate quickly, but I don’t Twitter or anything.
I had a few brushes with death, where I nearly chose to go. The final one in 1996 did it for me. I suddenly had that feeling that I wasn’t indestructible. There was no big white light experience, I just felt this complete blackness and a huge voice inside me saying, ‘This is not right.’
The possibilities are endless now, with performing, getting your music online, getting your own website and getting your music out there. I think that’s very cool and amazing.
I definitely have a dark side of me that can be pretty vicious… as we all do.
I think there’s a great strength in having the courage and also having the support to do what you want to do when you’re an artist in any way, shape or form.
I go to see some big shows of other bands, and I feel like I’m so bombarded and over-stimulated that I lose interest in the music. There has to be light and shade, and less stimulating moments. There has to be an arc to the show.
I have to feel the audience. I enjoy that feeling of community. There’s something sort of spiritual about it in a lot of ways. It’s like we’re all doing this together.
I always played around with writing songs, but when you’re spending a lot of time in bars, you have a lot of big ideas, but you don’t do much with them.
