Depeche Mode return to studio with U2 producer Ben Hillier while Gahan wants to stop old suicide rumoursAccording to http://www.depeche-mode.com/ , Depeche Mode will again work with Ben Hillier as producer on their forthcoming album. Hillier, who has worked with the likes of U2, Smashing Pumpkins and many more was also responsible for the production on the most recent studio output of Depeche Mode, "Playing The Angel". The website also names other involvements such as Sie Medway Smith, who worked as a programmer on Martin Gore’s demos, Christian Eigner, Andrew Phillpott and Kurt Uenala who worked with Dave Gahan on his solo compositions. The new Depeche Mode album should be ready by the end of this year with a scheduled Spring 2009 release. The band had a meeting in Santa Barbara (USA) just before Easter during which they made a rough time line and listened to demos. The first recording sessions are expected to kick off in early May.
In related news, and perhaps not as 'innocent' as it looks at first sight, Billboard announced that Depeche Mode's manager Baron Kessler has joined up with Coldplay manager Dave Holmes to form Good Boy Productions. The first project of Good Boy Productions will be a Canadian festival called Pemberton Festival. Is this the prelude to a more management based approach of releasing the material of both bands?
In the meantime Dave Gahan is again trying to stop the old rumour that his heroin and cocaine drug overdose in 1996 was a suicide attempt. Gahan was pronounced clinically dead after combining the drugs - known as a speedball - in a Los Angeles hotel room. He was revived by paramedics and survived. Gahan, 45, tells Hustler magazine that is was no suicide attempt: "I'm painfully aware that was not what I was trying to do. All I was trying to do was disappear for a while, and that became a lost weekend. (...) What I thought I wanted to do in my life was escape constantly from whatever it was that was going on. That is not the case anymore. I'm here and I really enjoy the challenge of life." It makes us wonder why journalists keep on asking Gahan about his overdose though.
Source: Side Line Magazine
