Depeche Mode co-founder added synth sounds to hits
LOS ANGELES — Andy “Fletch” Fletcher, the unassuming, bespectacled, red-headed keyboardist who for more than 40 years added his synth sounds to Depeche Mode hits including “Just Can’t Get Enough,” “Enjoy the Silence” and “Personal Jesus,” has died at age 60.
Depeche Mode announced his death on its official social media pages.
A person close to the band said Fletcher died Thursday from natural causes at his home in the United Kingdom. The person spoke on condition of anonymity.
“We are shocked and filled with overwhelming sadness with the untimely passing of our dear friend, family member and bandmate Andy ‘Fletch’ Fletcher,” the band’s posts said. “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.”
Fletcher formed the group that would become giants of British electro-pop along with fellow synthesizer players Vince Clarke and Martin Gore, and lead singer Dave Gahan, in 1980 in Basildon, England.
The band would break out a year later with their debut album “Speak and Spell,” which closed with one of the band’s enduring hits, “Just Can’t Get Enough.” Clarke was replaced by Alan Wilder after the album.
The group would find international success with 1984’s “Some Great Reward” and the single “People are People,” and their prominence would only grow throughout the 1980s and early 1990s.
Fletcher would lend his keyboards to classic albums including “Music for the
Masses,” “Black Celebration” and “Violator.”
The first of these led to a world tour that brought a live album, a documentary, and a legendary concert at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California, that represented the pinnacle of the band’s prominence.
A soccer fan with a penchant for chess, Fletcher assumed a low-profile in the group. He did not sing or write songs, and his face was never as familiar as those of his bandmates.
“Martin’s the songwriter, Alan’s the good musician, Dave’s the vocalist, and I bum around,” he said in the tour documentary, “101.”
But Fletcher was a uniting figure and often the tiebreaking vote in the squabbles of his more famous bandmates.
He also occasionally played bass in the band.
Depeche Mode was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2020. Gahan, Fletcher and Gore had to accept the honor remotely along with all the other inductees in the
pandemic year. As usual, Fletcher let his bandmates do nearly all the talking.
His death leaves Gahan and Gore as the only permanent members.
The eldest of four siblings, Fletcher was born July 8, 1961, in Basildon and raised in Nottingham, England.
He became childhood friends with Clarke, and with singer Alison Moyet, who would form Yazoo — known as Yaz in the U.S. — with Clarke after he left Depeche Mode.
As teens, Fletcher and Clarke would form the short-lived group No Romance.
With Gore, who Fletcher met at a pub in Basildon in 1980, they formed the trio Composition of Sound, with all three playing synthesizer. Gahan was recruited into the group later in the year, and the name was changed to Depeche Mode.
Fletcher is survived by his wife of nearly 30 years Grainne Mullan, and their children Megan and Joe.