Quartet Depeche Mode at one time had a great influence on the development of such genres as synth-pop and alternative rock. The face of this group and its most famous member is vocalist David Gahan. He managed to make a successful solo career, but he still received the status of a star in the group. For most people, David Gahan and Depeche Mode are inseparable concepts.

Childhood and youth

Like all the other members of the group, David is British. His homeland is Essex, where he spent his childhood. Ros David in the town of Basildon and was famous there as an incorrigible hooligan, who has one road - to prison.

This behavior had its reasons, because not everything was safe in his family. David's father left the family when his son was only six months old, and returned immediately after the death of his stepfather. For a ten-year-old child, this was a real shock.

David Gahan's early biography is full of dubious exploits: smoking, stealing and setting cars on fire, painting graffiti on walls. His favorite musicians were the newly emerging The Clash. Already at school, he tried to earn money, but it ended with the fact that David was not hired, having learned that he was registered with the local police. The offended teenager smashed the office of the officer who oversaw him to smithereens. As a result, David was sentenced to a year in the Romford Correctional Center.

After graduating from school, David Gahan went to work. He managed to be a lawn mower, handyman, cashier, and thus changed two dozen jobs. In 1977, he entered Southend College of Art, where he graduated as a retail designer.

Work in Depeshe Mode and solo career

Back in the late seventies, David Gahan became seriously interested in music. First, he became a sound engineer in the French Look group, and then at one of the rehearsals he met Vince Clarke. This was in 1980. Clark's new band, called Composition of Sound, lacked a vocalist, and he persuaded David to join him.

Now there were four members in the group: along with Vince Clarke and David Gahan, Andrew Fletcher also played there. It was David who came up with the band's new name. While in college, he occasionally read the French fashion magazine, or Depeshe Mode, and now suggested that the group be named the same.

Already the second single of Depeshe Mode has risen high in the British charts, and their first album brought real success to the musicians. The popularity of the group grew rapidly. At this time, Vince Clarke left the team. A few years later, he founded the duo Erasure with Andy Bell. Alan Wilder became the new keyboardist.

Depeshe Mode's music itself was also changing: it became darker, a bit of industrial was added to it, which, however, disappeared after the Some Great Reward album. From year to year the music became more and more atmospheric. The lyrics also became more serious - now they touched on sensitive topics such as racism or extramarital sex.

At a certain point, the popularity of Depeshe Mode crossed the borders of Great Britain, and then Europe, and became global. They became "trendsetters" among the emerging Goth subculture. Even in the USSR, they gained a lot of fans, and they copied their style of dressing and David Gahan's vocals. soviet group"Technology".

In the mid-nineties, Depeshe Mode almost broke up due to the fact that Gahan was addicted to drugs. He was treated for drug addiction for a long time, and in the late nineties he was able to return to the group. Around the same time, David began his solo career, releasing his first album in 2003. In total, he released two solo albums (2003's Paper Monsters and 2007's Hourglass). Not everyone received them as warmly as the work of Depeshe Mode, although Hourglass had a fairly high position in the charts, and in Germany reached the first line. In addition, Gahan has collaborated with bands such as Soulsavers and Junkie XL.

Filmed by David Gahan and videos, for example, for his song Dirty Sticky Floors.

And yet his main occupation was and remains the work in Depeshe Mode. He not only sings, but also writes some songs for the group.

Health problems

In the early nineties, Gahan became seriously addicted to heroin. He behaved more and more inadequately and irritably, quarreled with other members of the group, which almost brought it to the brink of collapse. Once David had a heart attack, another time he almost died from an overdose. In 1995, he cut his veins, and for two minutes he was in a state of clinical death. This was a kind of turning point - Gahan decided to be treated. After going through rehab, he quit drugs and returned to Depeshe Mode.

Personal life

David Gahan has been married three times. He married for the first time in 1985. In 1987 his son was born. The musician left this family when his addiction to drugs worsened.

Drugs also destroyed David's second marriage - in the mid-nineties, his wife, Teresa Conroy, announced that she was leaving him. In 1999, Gahan married for the third time, and at the same time his daughter was born. In addition to his daughter, he is raising his wife's son from a previous marriage, whom he adopted in 2010.

On VE Day, the one and only Dave Gahan of Depeche Mode, one of the best frontmen of our time, is celebrating his 50th birthday - and that is also a victory. Over drugs and weaknesses, over envious people and failures.

What gives him strength, makes his heart beat faster? What forces you to return to the studio again and again, record the thirteenth album, and then go on stage for the billionth time, sing “I feel you, your sun it shines”, dance to “Personal Jesus”, lead a forest of thousands of fan hands to “ Never Let Me Down" around the world?

Our tribute to the hero of the day - a few words about life values leader of one of major groups planets.

Music

In 1980, Vince Clarke heard 18-year-old tomboy Dave sing "Heroes" by David Bowie. Since then, Gahan has been the permanent leader of Depeche Mode - charisma, attractiveness, dark side, the drive of this cult group.

For a long time DM's main songwriter was Martin Gore, Dave only had to sing. But sooner or later, personal authorial ambitions had to take off - in 2003 Dave released the first solo album "Paper Monsters", gathered musicians, went on tour, even went to Kiev with a concert.

Only after that, songs written by Dave appeared in the repertoire of the Depeches - among them the hit "Suffer Well" and "Hole to Feed". In the second solo disc "Hourglass" Gahan is already an accomplished songwriter.

Well, let Dave in the vast majority of the band's compositions be only a performer. For viewers and listeners, it is he who is the key to the DM Universe. This image, this voice, these movements, this look... Depeche Mode is his life. Depeche Mode is our life.

“We at Depeche Mode never got rid of the teenage absurdity towards each other. We are still like this: like comrades, but like not. This awkwardness is still there, only now we have families and children.” By the way, about the family.

Family

Dave has been living in New York since 1997. At present it home keeps the third wife Jennifer (Greek by origin), common daughter Stela Rose and Jennifer's son from his first marriage, Jimmy.

Jennifer can be seen in the Depeche Mode video for the song "Suffer Well", where she appears as an angel, and then as herself.

This is what Dave told The Guardian in October 2007: “I am excited about all these things that I have remained ignorant of for so many years: being with children, being best husband listen to your wife.

And again: “All major quarrels with my wife begin with a dishwasher. Knives and forks should be loaded with the sharp end down. You can fit more if everything is placed as it should be. But if Jen leaves the room, I have a chance to cheat."

Complementing the theme of family, the photo on the left shows Dave with his older sister Sue and younger brothers Peter and Phil, and on the right - with his mother Sylvia.

NY

Since 1997 Dave has been living in New York and would not trade this city for any other. He likes to dine at Joe's Pizza on the corner of Sixth Avenue and Carmine, or take a leisurely stroll through Central Park, especially when everything is in bloom.

“New York is the first place in my life where I felt at home,” Gahan admitted in an interview with the New York Post. “Like any New Yorker, I have a love-hate relationship with this city. There are times when he presses, but when I'm away even for a short time, I can't wait to get home. I am a New Yorker."

It's funny that in 2003 Dave wandered around Kiev without security guards, looked around, calmly signed autographs (for example, near the Znannya bookstore), and when journalists at a press conference asked in surprise: "So, wasn't it scary?", he answered : "Of course not! Guys, I live in New York - it’s unlikely that something can scare me. ”

Sex

Dave Gahan is one of the most coveted musicians in the world. Like any sane man, he loves sex.

“It’s like in sex: the more you give, the better you get. Everything just gets worse with age. The more comfortable you feel, the better you know your body, the more you can show in bed.

heroin and chocolate

Heroin is in the past, but it is impossible not to think about it. After the success of the Music For The Masses" (1987) and "Violator" (1990) Dave was blown away. Alcohol, tons of heroin, parties to a complete shutdown - this does not pass without a trace.

The worst times for the DM vocalist came in 1993 - unsuccessful attempts to get off the needle, withdrawal, almost leading to schizophrenia. Paramedics gave Dave the nickname "Cat", because he, as it turned out, also had nine lives.

At a concert in New Orleans, Gahan had a heart attack - bandmates had to improvise an encore without him. Doctors insisted that the vocalist stop touring, but he refused.

In August 1995, an addicted Dave attempted suicide by cutting his wrists. “It was a suicide attempt, but also a cry for help. I was sure that they would find me." 1996 - an overdose of a mixture of cocaine with heroin or morphine (experienced people call this cocktail "redrum" - that is, "ovtsyibu") and clinical death.

“When I died, there was only darkness. In those two minutes that my heart stopped, some deep voice inside me said, "This is wrong." Like it's not up to me to decide when it's all over. It scared the shit out of me."

It was the last straw. The musician got out. Already in 1997, Depeche Mode released their next album, Ultra. Since then, the musician has eschewed even wine, realizing that any such temptation could start the snowball again. Today, according to Dave himself, heroin addiction has been replaced by addiction to dark chocolate. "The fans know this, so I always get a lot of chocolate on tour."

Drawing

In numerous interviews, the DM leader mentions all sorts of hobbies that help him relax: fishing, cars, swimming, skydiving, painting...

As for the latter, Dave has been fond of this all his life. the only school lessons on which he did not fall asleep were drawing and drafting. In adolescence, he often "bombed" his native Basildon with primitive graffiti. In the 77th year, the guy even entered the Southend College of Art.

In the early nineties, during the times of violent addictions, Gahan found an outlet in drawing. At his villa in Los Angeles, he could spend hours drawing not only on paper and canvas, but also directly on the floor, walls, ceiling - everywhere grotesque images. It was his psychotherapy, an opportunity to escape from reality.

In 1993, Dave painted every inch of the room and brought Martin Gore in there. It was only then that Martin first learned that his bandmate also had artistic talent.

They say that almost all the paintings drawn by Gahan during that period are irretrievably lost - they were stolen by fellow needles while the musician was lying in rehabilitation clinics.

In one interview, Dave was asked what historical figure he would like to be in the shoes of. The musician called Hieronymus Bosch - one of the most mysterious artists of all times. By the way, it was Bosch who inspired the photographer and music video director Anton Corbijn to make the video "Walking In My Shoes", which Gahan considers his favorite among DMs.

One day, thinking about the future, the DM leader said, “Perhaps in retirement I could sit at home on Long Island and draw all the time like Captain Beefheart. Crazy hermit - I like that idea."

Until this happens, we will wait for the album Soulsavers with vocals and lyrics by Gahan (released May 21, 2012), and in 2013 - a new album and tour by Depeche Mode. Happy birthday Dave!

Sergey Kane ,

09.05.2012

Dave Gahan sits in the conference room of the Knights Bridge Hotel, leaning his elbows on the table. His elastic wrists sprout from the sleeves of his biker jacket and bend like two thin trees in the wind. He has silver chains, a swindler's hair, a look emaciated from all the chemicals he's been using for years, and a sharp, irritable smile. Under the shirt is a giant tattoo of angel wings, he got it for ten hours. His piercing is almost invisible. Once he pierced his crotch, and then said: there are so many holes in his “apparatus” that he urinates like a garden watering can. Gahan nearly died three times. The first time he had a heart attack was on stage in 1993. He was carried out on a stretcher and the group had an encore without a leader.

Two days before we meet, Gahan, tanned as if fresh from a tanning bed, wearing a leather vest over his bare torso, is giving a concert in Glasgow. Out of habit, he looks around the front row for a devoted fan, one of the kind he runs into fifty times a year on his European tours.

- My vision! Gahan says. “I was prescribed sunglasses. I can look at the stars in the night - that's all. My home is far away, on Long Island, and when you lie on the lawn in the summer, the stars are like - bam! His fingers mimic a flash.

He thinks and speaks, picking up the pace, like all former drug addicts, the Essex accent is diluted with an American one. His bandmates Martin Gore and Andrew Fletcher are being interviewed at another hotel. Because Depeche Mode Dave Gahan doesn't get along. Gore and Gahan live in different parts of America. They meet only when there is a need for it: they approach each other in order to travel with grandiose shows the whole world, speaking in front of stadiums where sixty thousand people gather at a time.

fans Depeche Mode not like those cold play. They managed to become a separate race, a diaspora: a gothic mass, watching their idols with gratitude and awe. It seems that there are more people who want to see the band live than ever. And no one understands why.

A successful band is a life sentence. A man at 18 or 25 is different from a man in his forties or seventies, but rock stars spend their lives with their fans, to a certain extent signing a pledge not to change. I ask Gahan, 55, married three times and died three times, if he thinks the problem with the group is that all of its members went to different schools?

- Undoubtedly! Dave answers. “Fletcher and Horus have some kind of pact that I constantly tried to wedge into. He waves at imaginary colleagues. "Hey, I'm here too, with you!" But now I have stopped bothering: a lot of time has passed, and I realized where my place is.

Gore, the songwriter, and Fletcher, the keyboardist, studied together at Basildon. Gahan went to another school and occasionally visited the Romford Correctional Center for petty theft and auto theft. Over time, he graduated from Southend Technical College as a window dresser. Gore and Fletcher spotted him while he was performing Heroes David Bowie at a jam session and Gahan joined the band.

“Because nothing f***ing else happened in my life at all!”

In 1992, Gahan went to Spain, where he, Gore and Fletcher were going to record an album. He had moved to Los Angeles two years earlier, leaving his wife and child in England, growing a beard and getting piercings all over his body. Gahan was constantly talking about American music, about Jane's Addiction And Alice in Chains. He weighed 57 kilograms and got hooked on drugs.

Gahan remembers this time well:

“Let me burn, but I felt real power!” I was filled with confidence. Our manager looked at me and said, “Great! That's what we need!" When I think back to those days, I think I must have shocked the others a bit. I was constantly showing off.

In America, Dave no longer thought about his native Basildon. Depeche Mode ceased to be boys from the province: in 1988 they played in front of a crowd of 60,000 at a stadium in Los Angeles. They had armies of goth fans and clubbers from Detroit.

Renewed and skinny Gahan destroyed the cozy little world of the Spanish villa, where the band came to work on the album Songs of Faith and Devotion. He imprisoned himself in the room. Photographer Anton Corbijn, who was hired by the band to shoot the new image, periodically visited Dave to check if he was okay. When Gahan wasn't using drugs, he was creating something other than music.

“I started painting in oils,” Dave recalls. “Mostly portraits or something like that. Once Anton came into my room, and I was sitting, painting a portrait of my cat. The cat flew in space. And Anton said that he takes pictures only because he cannot draw. He liked my pictures. He kept repeating: “You have been sitting here for several days. The boys want you to come down and sing a little." I think they hated me then, but I didn't care.

For a whole generation, the new Dave Gahan has become an idol. On television, a depressive character with black circles for eyes twisted his arms in deserts and followed dubious women down dark corridors. Teenagers got the feeling that everything was so: that the person who composed Personal Jesus, engages in self-flagellation. Small news line on the channel ITV Chart Show reported by: vocalist Depeche Mode last week was taken to the hospital after a suicide attempt.

Suddenly, the music press, which loves when lines come to life, was completely overwhelmed by Dave. All the magazines that criticized him wrote about him. Depeche Mode at the beginning of the journey, and Gahan gave interviews to everyone. Lots of interviews.

In 1997, in an article entitled "A Conversation with a Dead Man," he told NME that drug abuse was part of his strategy:

“I decided there were no more fucking rock stars. No one is ready to go their way to the very end. And I created a monster... And dragged my body through the mud.

But there was one problem: he could not control the process. One of popular stories those years - as during the 1993 tour (magazine Rolling stone called it the craziest tour of all time) Gahan bit British journalist Andrew Perry on the neck like a vampire. Gahan later confessed to him, "You're the only one who thought to ask if I was okay."

In 1994 Gahan's mother and son Jack came to visit him from England and found Dave on the bathroom floor. He told them he was on steroids. In August 1995, he called his mother from Los Angeles and cut his wrists while talking. Two years later, an overdose caused his heart to stop for two minutes.

I was warned before the interview that memories of those times are painful for him, but Gahan picks up any topic almost immediately.

“I had fun in LA.” His eyes sparkle. - With my second wife Teresa, whom I married there, we had a great time. We had no problems with her - only I have one. I behaved disgracefully. And she divorced me.

After clinical death, he moved to New York, where his girlfriend, actress Jennifer Skliaz, lived. They have been married for twenty years.

“She didn't love me, she loved Billie Holiday and John Coltrane. And I realized that I need to be with people who absolutely do not care that they hang out with Dave Gahan.

Gahan saw his father only once: when he was ten years old, returning from school, he found a stranger at home, whom his mother introduced as his father. The man took them for a walk with his sister, “bought us gifts: I think a sweater,” and then disappeared forever.

Malaysian bus driver Len Kelcott left the family when Dave was six months old. Gahan later learned that Len was constantly calling their neighbor, one of the few who had a phone, and wanted to talk to his son. But his mother did not tell him about it.

“It would be nice to know that I have a father,” Gahan laughs. “But almost everyone has stories like that. My mother was raised by an aunt, whom she considered her own mother. Horus had something similar.

Martin Gore was thirty when he found out that his father was a black US soldier.

“The only thing that unites Horus and his father,” Gahan says, “is love for David Bowie and peas.

Mine latest album Spirit Depeche Mode recorded in a stressful environment. Producer James Ford had to come up with psychological training: Gore and Gahan expressed to each other at the table everything that was boiling.

All their quarrels started when Gahan decided that he would write songs himself.

- I said: “Martin, I should be your partner in the studio. I can't be the dude who just sings and gets over-paid anymore." Gahan co-wrote the song cover me from the new album. He gets excited when he talks about her. This song is about the man who discovered new planet, flew to her and realized that she was exactly the same as the previous one.

“This song is about wanting to be loved,” Gahan says. — Most life I tried to figure it out.

When he showed the song to Gore, he did not understand all his metaphors.

- And I say to him: “F ***, what do you even understand? I never criticize your songs Martin, I just sing them!”

When you see Gahan on stage, you ask yourself: why is he doing this? He is too arrogant. His arms are open like Jesus's, the holes in them have closed up and become scars. Pouty lips worthy of Freddie Mercury; the butt is more unbridled than Mick Jagger's, and the strong, deep baritone contrasts with his lean figure.

“When I imagine how I will stand on stage in my seventies, I am terrified,” says Gahan. - It's really scary. When I think about the future, I imagine walking along a deserted beach with Jennifer and a couple of dogs - and me with a beard to the balls.

“Martin and I have had a strange relationship for many, many years…” he says. — scene — the only place where I don't feel my age... We have so many songs, I look at them separate blocks, laid out by era, they are all different for me. They are all in different colors. I think that's how people perceive music, right?

It took years before he became the singer he dreamed about in the early 1990s:

- I wanted to reach such a level that even other people's songs became mine if I sing them. And Gore was always satisfied because he fully expressed himself through our songs.

“I have been married three times,” Gahan says. I am one of those people who gets up and leaves. But Depeche Mode is the only place I don't leave.

“I didn't fully understand it. And I probably never will.

Does Martin Gore understand this?

- I think yes. I think he understands everything very well.

I ask him if there are any bands in which the musicians get along with each other?

“If someone says that there are such groups, I don't think they are sincere,” Gahan concludes. We all have inflated egos. The trick is that it is impossible to understand where the ego destroys everything beautiful, and where, on the contrary, it helps to create.

When the interview ends, Gahan stands up - his silver chains jingle - and hugs me. I can smell his leather jacket. When I leave, he calls me and hugs me again:

“Sorry, this is me. ≠

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Biography, life story of Dave Gahan

Dave Gahan (born David Calcott) is a British musician and leader of Depeche Mode.

Childhood and youth

David Gahan was born on May 9, 1962 in Epping, Essex. His childhood was far from cloudless - he had to endure the first divorce of his parents, the death of his adoptive father Jack Gahan and the second flight of his father, Lin Calcott. David's mother Sylvia Ruth worked in the Salvation Army, but her son was far from charitable deeds. On the contrary, the guy had fun stealing cars, painting graffiti in the wrong places and vandalism. Not surprisingly, by the age of 14, Dave had a bunch of drives to the police station. After graduating primary school, young Gahan tried to work for a short time changed a lot of professions - from a seller of soft drinks to a handyman at a construction site.

In 1977, David entered the Southend Art College, during his stay in which he received the specialty of a window dresser. An interesting fact is that John Lydon () and George O "Dowd (Culture Club) studied at the same institution. Student years Gahan spent in a punk environment, however, having matured a bit, he changed his bearings.

Musical career

In 1980, he met Vince Clarke, who at that time was a member of the French Look group. A little later, when Clark, in company with Andy Fletcher and Martin Gore, started another project, Composition Of Sound, Dave was invited to their rehearsal. The composition Heroes performed by Gahan made everyone great impression. David was immediately accepted into the team, and thus the first line-up of Depeche Mode was formed. By the way, the name of the group was invented by Gahan, who borrowed it from a French fashion magazine. Depeche Mode quickly gained popularity and, despite the changeable musical climate, stomped their own path to the heights.

The path to fame for David was not easy and was accompanied by a number of personal troubles. In 1991, his first marriage collapsed, and a few years later, the second also broke up. In addition to family troubles, Gahan was also tormented by drug problems. In May 1996, a bad habit almost brought the musician to the grave, but the ambulance doctors managed to save him from the consequences of a heroin overdose.

CONTINUED BELOW

David had to undergo a nine-month rehabilitation course before he could return to normal life. Having got rid of the heroin fetters, Gahan continued his work in Depeche Mode, and his personal life soon improved (he married for the third time, and, apparently, successfully). After touring in support of The Singles 1986-1998, David began to think about solo career, and his first attempt in this field was the performance of the song A Song for Europe, made for a tribute to Roxy Music. Since 2000, Gpan with his friend, guitarist Knox Chandler, began to record material that formed the basis of his debut album. Released in 2003, Paper Monsters was a moderate success and received mixed reactions from the press.

The most successful single was Dirty Sticky Floors, which took the 18th line in the British charts, and the album itself only reached the 36th position. In support of the disc, Gahan held a world tour, which resulted in the release of the Live Monsters DVD. In 2005, David returned to the Depeche Mode camp, but this time not only as a vocalist, but also as the author of several songs.

In 2007 Dave Gahan released his second solo album. The Hourglass record turned out to be more electronic than Dave's debut compilation, and gained great popularity. Hourglass entered the number best albums years of Great Britain, France and Germany.

In 2012, Gahan released a collaboration with the electronic rock band Soulsavers album Light the Dead See. The album had some success. In 2015, the musicians got back together to record Angels & Ghosts.

Wives and children

In 1985, Dave married Jo Fox, his longtime girlfriend. Two years later, a son, Jack, was born in the family. In 1991, the family broke up.

Just a year after his divorce from Joe, Dave is remarrying. Teresa Konra became his chosen one. This marriage lasted 3 years.

Gahan married Jennifer Skliaz in 1999. In the same year, Jennifer gives the musician a daughter, Stella Rose. In 2010, Gahan adopted Jim, his wife's son from his first marriage.

drugs

Dave Gahan became addicted to heroin in the 1990s. A couple of times the musician was literally returned from the other world. In the mid-90s, Dave had a heart attack on stage, but despite the protests of doctors, he returned to work, giving himself only a short break.

In 1995, Dave Gahan tried to commit suicide. A little later, the musician said that he cut his veins solely in order to attract attention. In 1996, due to an overdose of speedballs, Dave experienced a small death - his heart did not beat for about two minutes. After such shock therapy, Gahan began to struggle with his bad habits.

Dave Gahan(Eng. Dave Gahan; born May 9, 1962, Epping, England) is a British musician who has been the vocalist of Depeche Mode since its inception in 1980. In 2007, Q magazine ranked Gahan #73 on their list of the 100 the greatest singers and at number 27 on the "100 Greatest Frontmen" list.

David, or Dave as he is more commonly known, is the frontman and main vocalist of Depeche Mode, and co-wrote three songs on the band's 2005 album Playing the Angel - "Suffer Well", "I Want It All" and "Nothing's Impossible" - three songs from the album Sounds of the Universe (2009) - "Come Back", "Hole To Feed", "Miles Away/The Truth Is", and three songs from the album Delta Machine (2013) - "Secret to the End" , "Broken", "Should Be Higher". In addition to singing, from time to time he plays the piano and guitar (in the studio). During the tour in support of his first solo album, Paper Monsters played the harmonica.

In addition to participating in Depeche Mode, Dave periodically takes part in side projects, and since 2003 has been engaged in solo musical career, in which he recorded two albums - Paper Monsters (2003) and Hourglass (2007). On May 21, 2012, The Light The Dead See album was released, recorded with English rock musicians Soulsavers. On October 23, 2015, the album Angels & Ghosts was released, also recorded with English group soulsavers.

Early biography

David Gahan (née David Calcott) was born on May 9, 1962 in the village of North Wild, near Epping, Essex, UK, to bus driver Lyn Calcott and conductor Sylvia Root. The family also had eldest daughter Sue (b. 1960). Dave's mother and grandmother worked in the Salvation Army, the family was religious. When Dave was six months old, his father left the family, and a few years later the Calcotts officially divorced. Shortly thereafter, Sylvia married Royal Dutch Shell employee Jack Gahan, who adopted David and his sister. The family then moved to Basildon. Subsequently, Sylvia and Jack had two children, stepbrothers Gaana, Peter (1966) and Phil (1968).

In 1972, Dave Gahan's adoptive father died. This deeply shocked him. After Jack's death, her husband came to Sylvia's house. ex-husband Lyn Calcott. The musician will later say about the meeting with the biological father:

I will never forget this day. When I came home from school, there was someone unknown in my mother's house. My mother introduced him to me as my real father. I remember saying that it was impossible because my father had died. How was I to guess who this man was? From that day on, Lin often came to our house, until a year later he disappeared again. Now it's forever. Since then, he has not contacted us. As I got older, I started thinking about him more and more. The only thing my mother told me about it was that he moved to Jersey to open a hotel. original text(English) I "ll never forget that day. When I came home from school, there was this stranger in my mum" s house. My mother introduced him to me as my real dad. I remember I said that was impossible because my father was dead. How was I supposed to know who that man was? From that day on, Len often visited the house, until one year later he disappeared again. Forever this time. Since then he had no contact with us. By growing older, I thought about him more and more. The only thing my mother would say, was that he moved out to Jersey to open a hotel

While at school (en: Barstable School), Gahan often skipped. He got into trouble with the law, Gahan painted graffiti on the walls of the school, smoked, listened to The Clash and the Sex Pistols. In the end, street hooliganism led Dave to the police, and then to juvenile court. Gahan was fond of car theft and arson. Dave himself said that he liked the pursuit by the police, he was turned on by the feeling of the chase, that he was "really wild." While in the last grade of school, Gahan tried to get a job as an assistant locksmith at North Thames Gas, but at the request of his overseer officer he was forced to tell about his criminal past at an interview. In the end, he was not hired for the job, prompting Gahan to vandalize his overseer's office. As punishment, Dave was sentenced to imprisonment at the Romford Juvenile Correctional Center. Dave had to serve his sentence every weekend for a year.