I am a massive fan of Depeche Mode. I first fell for them at the age of 15 when my cousin Vicki, who was a couple of years older than me and thus Very Cool, played me Speak ‘n’ Spell. I can still easily bring to mind the sheer emotion and drama of the first gig I went to in 1984. I abandoned them when I went to university and over the following 25 years explored a whole spectrum of different music. Then in 2013 I heard a new single on 6Music (Heaven, from Delta Machine) and suddenly I was right back in there. I went back and listened to all the albums, cursing myself roundly for missing out on so many years of fantastic music.
The point is though that the music resonated with me just as intensely as it had all those years ago. It’s not like one of those nostalgia things where you love to occasionally listen to the music of your teenage years because it reminds you of those times (for better or worse) - it’s that there’s some intrinsic quality to the music and the lyrics that connects deeply with me. There’s the darkness, for a start. I am drawn to the dark side, I cannot deny it. It’s the humanity in the lyrics. It’s the passion and pain and the ability to embrace the totality of the human condition, darkness and all. It’s the left-wing politics. It’s the use of minor keys - god, I am a sucker for a minor key! The mix of melancholy and hope, the inventiveness and idiosyncrasy of the music-making. The not-conforming.
All of this, I bring to my art. I don’t do it because I love Depeche Mode and I want to make work that reflects that somehow - I do it because these are my values. These are the qualities that make me tick, that reside at the core of me and connect with me at the deepest and most meaningful level. And I draw parallels between my creativity and theirs. I’ve had people say to me things like, oh your work’s a bit dark, isn’t it! Those figures look like ghosts! The titles are too depressing! And that is perfectly valid, it just means that those people aren’t going to be my customers. Then there are other people who really connect with those things and don’t find them dark or spooky or depressing at all. The people who share my values and find resonance in similar things. These people ARE my customers, my fans.
And it’s just a numbers game, really. Depeche Mode aren’t mainstream, they’ve gone their own way, yet they have thousands of fans who connect, who get it, who’ll buy all the albums and go to all the gigs - they’re the ones. And on a much, much, much smaller scale, that’s what my goal as an artist is. To continue to plough my own furrow, to recognise and be comfortable with the fact my work doesn’t have universal appeal, but that the people who get it REALLY get it and it’s about having enough of those fans to sustain a creative business. It’s definitely quality over quantity. Who needs thousands of followers on Instagram if only 500 of them REALLY align with you, your values and your artwork? Give me the 500 any day!