for beginning In English ... Alan Charles Wilder was born in Hammersmith, West London on 1st June 1959, the youngest of three brothers. Surrounded by a passion for all things musical (something commonplace in the Wilder family), it was inevitable that he be encouraged to follow in their footsteps and take up the piano. By the time he graduated to St. Clement Danes Grammar School at the age of 11, he was already way ahead of his music class (having added the flute as a second instrument) and soon became a leading member of his School orchestra and 4-school Brass Band. He continued to study the piano independently until his interest in Bach and Beethoven was being replaced by Bowie and Bolan, and his desire to play in the orchestra was tempered in favour of a yearning for less innocent past times.
By 1975, at the age of 16 (following moderate ‘O’ level success), a return to St. Clement Dane’s to study for his ‘A’ Levels didn't appeal and after just one more term, he opted out, applied to every recording studio in London and eventually secured the position of Tape Op. (studio assistant) at DJM Studios in the West End. Alan reflects ”I was great at the more musical aspects of studio work, such as tape editing, drop-ins etc, but useless when it came to the patch bay or routing the mic lines through to the tape sends." As DJM housed it’s own record label, Alan found himself engineering on in-house productions as well as working with outside artists, and it wasn’t long before his keyboard skills were being sought after for session work. Inevitably, this demand for his services and his desire for a more creative role, would lead him away from his current position and he remained with DJM Studios for just year before moving to Bristol to join one of their bands, The Dragons. The Dragons released the single ’Misbehavin’ through DJM Records but after a frustrating lack of success and, more importantly, money, the group folded when the record deal eventually ran it’s course. Together with fellow Dragons bassist Jo Burt, Alan returned to London some 6 months later under his pseudonym ‘Alan Normal’ - a necessity in the anarchic days of punk - to join newly-formed group ‘Dafne and the Tenderspots’. Though originally playing the restaurant circuit, the band unscrupulously manipulated it’s style from dinner lounge schlock to ‘new wave’, thus securing a deal with MAM Records.
After releasing ‘Disco Hell’ in 1979 to a tepid response, the Tenderspots fell foul of a disinterested public and a lack of funds, leaving Alan to move on to his next group ‘Real to Real’. Signed to Red Shadow Records, they released several singles and an album entitled: ‘Tightrope Walker’. Despite moderate success, ‘Real to Real’ eventually suffered a similar fate to Alan’s previous bands and he moved on to pastures new, playing keyboards with established but somewhat staid CBS group ‘The Hitmen’ (whose lead singer, Ben Watkins, later went on to form ‘Juno Reactor’, a one-time Mute act). Boasting a minor hit with ‘Bates Motel’, but not enough for a band who were on the rocks, it wasn’t long before Alan was again hunting for work. However, this all too familiar cycle was about to change......
NEW LIFE
In 1981 Alan responded to an advert in Melody Maker requesting: ”Keyboard player needed for established band - no timewasters.” After an initial meeting with Daniel Miller, head of Mute Records, he was invited to an audition at Blackwing studios. It was here that he was introduced to Depeche Mode; 3 school friends from Basildon, Essex who had tasted early success with their first album ‘Speak and Spell’ together with recently departed member Vince Clarke, their chief songwriter. Alan was required to demonstrate his skills playing along to one of their recent hits ‘New Life’ amongst others, and although he impressed the band, Daniel remained unconvinced. After some debate and a second audition, the band eventually got their way and he was invited to join Depeche Mode, initially on a part-time basis. Says Wilder ”The group clearly needed a replacement for Vince with a tour and other commitments on the horizon and his departure had come at an unexpected time after their early success. There was a lot of caution about me. They resented Vince for leaving and felt they needed to prove to him that they could carry on regardless. It was a question of pride I think, and they also didn’t want to be seen as jumping into the ‘transfer market’ to buy in a ready-made replacement.” Thrown in at the deep end, Alan’s first duties included a live tour in the U.S, along with a heavy schedule of T.V., press and promotion in conjunction with the latest releases ‘See You’ and ‘Meaning of Love’.
During the summer of 1982, Martin Gore, David Gahan and Andrew Fletcher locked themselves away in Blackwing studios without Alan, to prove their point to Vince and made their second album ‘A Broken Frame’.
Depeche Mode played a massive part in establishing Mute Records as one of the most successful and respected independent record company's in England, and the relationship between the group and Daniel Miller was crucial to this. Over the next year, Daniel began to form a much closer link with Alan. He had released the very first record on Mute, ‘T.V.O.D.’, under the guise ‘The Normal’ which embodied his interest in early German, largely experimental synthesizer music (Kraftwerk, DAF, Tangerine Dream etc.).
Alan came from a very different, more musical angle and yet the two found a compatibility and, more importantly, a common interest in their approach to the Depeche sound. Together with Gareth Jones, Daniel and Alan’s involvement in the production of the next album ‘Construction Time Again’ in 1983 saw the sound of the group take a giant leap forward. Alan also contributed some of his own songs for the album as well as extra B-sides, although he would later admit that he felt obliged to participate in the songwriting process despite the fact that it didn’t come naturally to him. His strength lay in the placement of sounds and the structuring of the music and his upbringing and exposure to classical orchestration was most certainly a factor in this.
As well as the introduction of samplers, one of the most noticeable changes to the Depeche sound at this time was a move away from it’s pure pop beginnings towards a darker realisation. Having taken over the job of songwriting after Vince Clarkes’s departure, Martin was developing his own lyrical style and gaining in confidence. Coupled with psuedo-religious themes of guilt and redemption, he began to flirt with sexual androgyny whilst Alan capitalised on these ambiguities, seizing his opportunity to initiate what had long been his desire for a more mature, multi-dimentional sound.
This was clearly demonstrated in the next album ‘Some Great Reward’, released in 1984, that spawned a number of hits including the subversive ‘Master and Servant’ and ‘Blasphemous Rumours’. Spurred on by condemnation from religious groups, the band were also gaining a reputation for being a ‘rock ‘n’ roll’ band in the truest sense of the term.
In the climate of the more politically and morally accepting 80’s, the darker side of life that had once been confined to the seedy underground world of porn theatres and gay clubs, was rising to the surface and becoming new territory to exploit. Nowhere was this more obvious than in the US, where a once daring music scene seemed to have come to a complete stand-still and was being strangled by soft rock and ‘disco hell’. Depeche Mode bore all the trademarks of this new musical exploitation, uncannily displaying just what the all-american, white middle classes seemed to be searching for. Here was a band that was clean cut enough to cross over but who weren’t afraid to emit a provocatively sexual aura.
