Andy Fletcher
Depeche Mode stalwart BORN 1961
In later life, Andy Fletcher remembered his years as a teenage born-again Christian attending the godly Greenbelt rock festival with his future bandmate Vince Clarke. While he guiltily admitted that in time his faith withered, he stayed true to another mass movement which inspired immense devotion.
Born in Nottingham but raised in Basildon, he started making music with school friends Martin Gore and Clarke: when frontman Dave Gahan joined the now-electronic, three-keyboard outfit in 1980, Depeche Mode were born. After Clarke’s sudden departure in 1981, Gore assumed the songwriting role and led the group from synth-pop into increasingly complex, adult territories. By the late-’80s they were a huge international act, having broken America as few of their British contemporaries would. Gore would admit that ‘Fletch’ wasn’t musical and played parts he was given, and Fletcher would never have a writing credit with the band. Yet despite burnout-induced periods of depression and, during 1993’s mammoth tour for US Number 1 album Songs Of Faith And Devotion, a debilitating nervous breakdown, he emerged as a “sure and steadfast” presence who was also a capable chess strategist (he was cautious too – as the group enjoyed their earliest hits, Fletcher retained his office job at the Sun Life insurance company). Able to broker potentially ruinous in-band songwriting splits, he served a quasi-managerial function which enabled the massive DM machine to prosper to this day. 2017’s Spirit, their fourteenth album and most recent to date, was a Top 5 success across the world.
Fletcher’s extra-curricular activities included running Mute records’ sub-label Toast Hawaii and signing the group Client in the mid-noughties. He also DJ’d. When his sudden death was announced, his bandmates said in tribute: “Fletch had a true heart of gold and was always there when you needed support, a lively conversation, a good laugh, or a cold pint.”