The groups could not function without a member designated as a silent flag bearer, and in Depeche Mode it was Andy Fletcher, who died suddenly at the age of 60. Constitutionally modest, he was lucky, as the band had two members – singer Dave Gahan and guitarist Martin Gore – who felt comfortable being a public face of Depeche Mode. This allowed Fletcher, known as Fletch, to continue to be their backbone.
He was crucial to their makeup, pushing the band to achieve, making them enter the studio or on the road. Without his perseverance for 42 years, Depeche Mode would have disintegrated long before it was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2020.
Fletcher was a pianist and a passionate supporter of electronics, famous for his role as a synthesizer in the repeal of the convention for music, which is created with guitars and drums. “It’s obviously sad to see the breakup of a traditional rock band,” he said dryly in 1993. “But there will always be a place for her in the cabaret.” But his musical interests competed with that of a business leader. He loved to keep track of receipts and merchandising, and for Depeche Mode, which became one of the biggest tournaments in the world in the ’90s, it was a win-win: Fletcher was on stage behind his keyboard every night, but off-stage he performed dusty managerial obligations. He estimated that he spent 17 years as a player-manager; even after the group acquired heavyweight management, he kept his hand.
Andy Fletcher performs during Depeche Mode’s global tour of Washington, DC in 2017. Photo: Owen Sweeney / Invision / AP
His knowledge of the industry was well known. When his death was announced, the Pet Shop Boys, old brothers from the 1980s, wrote on Twitter: “Fletch was a warm, friendly and fun person who loved electronic music and could also give sensible advice on music. business. During his induction into the Hall of Fame, Gahan described early Depeche Mode as “Essex weirdos wearing an outsider wearing an eyeliner,” but Fletcher was never as unconventional as Gahan and Gore. Rather, he sees himself as “the tall man in the background, without whom this international corporation called Depeche Mode will never work.”
He was the eldest of two sons and two daughters born in Nottingham to Joy and John Fletcher. In the early 1960s, his father, an engineer, was offered a job at a cigarette factory in Basildon, and they became one of the first families to settle in Essex’s new town. Andy joined the Christian organization Boys’ Brigade and remained a member until the age of 18, during which time he became actively religious. He attended church seven days a week and preached with his colleague Vince Clark at the Brigade’s coffee bar. This period, he said, “shaped my moral beliefs and attitudes.” His church activities also aroused interest in music and it was there that he took his first instrument – the guitar. He kept his faith after leaving the Brigade; in the ’80s, while Depeche Mode made charts with tight electropop singles that would affect rap, EDM and metal, he felt guilty for not going to church.
Martin Gore, Dave Gahan and Andy Fletcher attended the Q Awards in 2002. Photo: Yui Mok / PA
He took level A politics and planned to go to university, but instead he and Clark formed a group with a classmate from Nicholas High School in Landon, Gore. Joined by Gahan, a friend from Southend, the new group had a ready audience in Southend’s busy social chain. The band’s musical direction was shaped by Gore, who bought a revolutionary synthesizer at the time, while their image, according to Fletcher, was “post-Blitz kids in shirt shirts.” He got a job as a clerk at SunLife Insurance and stayed with her until he was pretty sure he could make a living from music. So far, Depeche Mode’s second single, New Life, has reached number 11 on the charts and they have topped the pop music scene.
They maintained a significant presence in the charts in the 1980s and 90s, as the music developed in a richly decorated and gothic direction from the late 80’s. Substance abuse, especially by Gahan, overshadowed their huge ’90s concerts – the 14-month Devotional tour was described as “the most depraved rock’n’roll tour ever” by Q. Fletcher magazine, who once viewed the tour as “so much fun”. He was depressed now. He was also used as a mediator by the gloomy Gahan and the glamorous Gore during their regular creative debates.
“We Had Something”: How Depeche Mode’s Andrew Fletcher saw the music, the fans and the band – video
Gahan sobered up in the late 1990s and the band resumed recording and live playing. Gore and Gahan began a solo career, but Fletcher, who once said he had little interest in songwriting, started his own record company, Toast Hawaii. He signed with the band Client, which released several albums, but the label has always been secondary to his engagements in Depeche Mode and little has been heard of him since leaving Client in 2006. His involvement in the band sparked interest in DJing – he learned the techniques of their concerts, and then occasionally played solo sets in clubs and festivals.
Since the mid-1990s, Fletcher and his wife, Graine Mulan, have run a restaurant in St John’s Wood, north London. He sold it a decade later, blaming “all the little things that went wrong.” It was enough of a game to re-enter the hospitality trade in 2021, investing in the restart of a pub in Hampstead, the Duke of Hamilton.
Grane, whom she married in 1993, is going through it, as are their children, Megan and Joe.
Andrew John Leonard Fletcher, musician, born July 8, 1961; died on May 26, 2022
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