Everything about Vince Clarke totally explained
Vince Clarke (born
Vincent John Martin in
South Woodford,
London, on
July 3 1960) is an
English pop musician and songwriter, who has been involved with a number of successful pop groups, including
Depeche Mode,
Yazoo,
The Assembly and
Erasure.
Raised in
Basildon,
Essex, Clarke initially studied the
violin and then the
piano.
In the late 1970s Clarke and schoolmate
Andrew Fletcher formed the short-lived band "No Romance in China". In 1979 he teamed up with Fletcher to form "French Look", an early incarnation of
Depeche Mode which was later re-named "Composition of Sound", following the addition of
Martin Gore. Vince Clarke initially handled vocals.
Depeche Mode
In 1980 singer
David Gahan was drafted in to complete the line up and the band was re-named
Depeche Mode. The band initially adopted a slick synthesised
electropop sound, which produced the album
Speak and Spell and the Clarke-penned singles "
Dreaming of Me", "
New Life" and "
Just Can't Get Enough" in 1981. Clarke left Depeche Mode shortly thereafter. There were many rumoured reasons pertaining to his departure, but the one that's most commonly said and that he's admitted to was because he didn't enjoy the direction that the band was going. In addition, in later interviews (including the documentary on a remastered release of
A Broken Frame), it was stated that he didn't enjoy the public aspects of success, such as touring and interviews, and found himself frequently at odds with his bandmates, particularly on the tour bus. When asked about his departure from Depeche Mode in the
VH1 Behind the Music television series he said, “I think everybody in the band, especially myself, imagined that the reason we were doing so well was because of themselves… We were pretty young and very lucky, and things had happened very quickly for us and I don’t think we were really mature to handle the situation”. Depeche Mode went on to achieve international stardom.
Clarke has commented on Depeche Mode's post-
Speak and Spell material as being a little dark for his taste, but good nonetheless. When asked about it, he said, "Martin was a strong writer. He always had been. And I think when I left, it gave him chance just to sort of emerge as the songwriter. I mean, he could always write songs. It's not like he just started because I left".
Yazoo
Clarke then teamed up with singer
Alison Moyet (at the time known by the nickname of 'Alf') to form the
synthpop band
Yazoo (known as Yaz in the
U.S.), which produced two albums and a string of hits including "
Don't Go", "
Situation", "
Only You" and "
Nobody's Diary".
Yazoo split in 1983, and Moyet went on to have a solo career. The group will be reforming in 2008 for a series of live dates to celebrate 25 years since the duo's split-up.
The Assembly
In the following few years Clarke teamed up with Eric Radcliffe and their idea was to collaborate as one-off associations with different artists on each new single, thus the name
The Assembly, notably with
Feargal Sharkey the hit "Never Never".
Two years later, another collaboration took place with
Paul Quinn of
Bourgie Bourgie, the result was the single "One Day" by Vince Clarke & Paul Quinn. However, the project never took off, and Clarke moved on to other projects.
Erasure
In early
1985 Clarke put an ad in
Melody Maker for a singer, and the forty-first applicant was
Andy Bell, who was a fan of his earlier projects. He teamed with Bell to form the group
Erasure, and the duo became a big selling act in British pop music with international hits like "
Oh L'amour", "
Sometimes", "
Chains of Love", "
A Little Respect", "
Chorus", "
Love to Hate You", "
Take a Chance on Me" and "
Always".
The band has released fifteen albums to date and have enjoyed a long string of hit singles spanning their twenty-one years together, most recently topped off by the 2005 top five hit "
Breathe" taken from their
Nightbird album. In 2006 Erasure produced a country-western style acoustic album consisting of mostly non-single cuts from their previous albums. This album,
Union Street was preceded by the single "
Boy" originally included on their
1997 Cowboy album.
On
January 26,
2007, in a video message on the official Erasure website
(External Link
) the band announced the release of their sixteenth (thirteenth studio) album, entitled
Light at the End of the World. Released in the U.K. on
May 21, 2007, with a U.S. release the following day, it was preceded by the single "
I Could Fall in Love with You", released on
April 2, 2007. The second single, "
Sunday Girl" was subsequently released. Both tracks went to the No. 1 spot on the Billboard U.S. Dance Club Play chart.
The album was produced by
Gareth Jones and was a more 'dance oriented' effort than some of their more recent work with Clarke making reference to the new material sounding potentially a bit more like Andy Bell's
2005 solo effort
Electric Blue.
Erasure went on to tour with
Cyndi Lauper,
Deborah Harry,
Margaret Cho and other artists, for the 2007
True Colors tour of the United States, a tour which benefited gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender freedoms and rights. Erasure then went out on their own, headlining the "Light at the End of the World" tour in North America and Europe.
The band released a new EP,
Storm Chaser, in September 2007. The EP contains 9 tracks, one of them the winner of an online fan remix contest, for the track "When A Lover Leaves You", from the
Light at the End of the World album.
Vince Clarke has stated in recent interviews that a new Erasure album is already in the works, one of a darker soundtrack nature.
Additional work
In July, 1984, Vince teamed with Neil Arthur and Stephen Luscombe of
Blancmange (band), Pandit Dinesh and Asha Bhosle. The group, West India Company, released a four track self-titled e.p.
Clarke teamed with synthpop producer
Martyn Ware (of
Heaven 17) in 1999 as "The Clarke & Ware Experiment" and released the album
Pretentious. The duo collaborated again in 2001 for the album
Spectrum Pursuit Vehicle, which was created with "3D music technology" specifically designed for listening in headphones. 2001 also saw the release of the Clarke-produced album
Erasure's Vince Clarke which featured
The Peter Pan Effect, an album that he and
Eric Radcliffe produced for his long time friend,
Robert Marlow. Clarke wrote "Let's Get Together" for the pop girl group
Girl Authority for their second album,
Road Trip. The song was meant to be for
Depeche Mode, but was canceled out. Clarke also co-wrote "What Do I Want From You?" with
Freeform Five for their album
Strangest Things(2005).
Vince was an essential component of a 2007 project called
Family Fantastic(External Link). They have produced two albums,
...Nice!(External Link) and Wonderful.
Remixes
He has remixed the following songs for artists other than Erasure:
Production and recording methods
When Clarke started out in the music industry in 1979, all synthesizers were analogue. In order to connect analogue synthesizers, drum machines and sequencers together, a complex series of patch cables was required controlling each aspect of the instruments sound. When the
MIDI standard was introduced in 1983, Clarke, like most other electronic musicians, gradually migrated to the new technology. MIDI only requires one cable per instrument connection. However, he never felt as comfortable using MIDI as he did with his older analogue instruments, despite the ease of MIDI controllers and connections. For the Chorus album in 1991, he gathered together his collection of analogue synthesizers from various recording studio locations in London and set up a small studio in Amsterdam. This led Clarke to assemble an intricate patch system to more easily enable the control of his analogue instruments. In a 1993 interview for the Erasure fan club magazine Private Ear, Clarke stated about analogue “I can hear and feel that it's tighter than MIDI - we can even prove it using 'scopes. Because everything is clocked simply, it arrives bang on the beat. The whole production starts to 'tick over'. Just look at Kraftwerk's stuff. I think that 'feel' has been lost with MIDI sequencers. No matter what you do with MIDI, the music will never sound as good as it did in the good or Futurist days. That's why our tracks sound the way they do."
Clarke continued to expand his collection of analogue synthesizers and in 1994 set up 37B, a recording studio within his custom made home, named ‘Ammonite’, in Surrey. From 1994 to 2003, all Erasure albums were either wholly recorded or at least part recorded at 37B.
Clarke moved to Maine in 2004, but was unable to transport his studio equipment with him. Subsequent Erasure albums have been produced using computer based MIDI software synthesizers which Clarke stores on his laptop computer.
Personal life
Clarke currently lives outside of
Damariscotta, Maine with his wife Tracy, whom he married in May 2004, and their son.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Vince Clarke'.
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