Vince Clarke Samples

Vince grew up in Basildon, Essex, learned violin, then piano and formed Depeche Mode with Martin Gore, Dave Gahan and Andy Fletcher. He wrote their first hits but left after their debut LP 'Speak & Spell' allowing Martin Gore to take over songwriting duties and subsequently lead them to Worldwide success. Vince's career was however equally successful thanks initially to his groundbreaking partnership with Alison Moyet to form Yazoo (aka Yaz) who achieved major commercial and critical International success with a string of hit singles such as 'Only You', 'Don't Go' and 'Situation' and two LPs - 'Upstairs at Eric's' and 'You and Me both'. For a couple of years, after these two short but sweet ventures, Vince decided to try something different and formed The Assembly with Eric Radcliffe. The concept was to produce a string of 'one-off' studio productions with various artists and although in practice it turned out to be unworkable, it did spawn 'Never Never', a major hit featuring Feargal Sharkey on vocals and continued to work on numerous side projects in his career since. However the small ad he placed in Melody Maker in 1985 has led to his most successful and surprisingly long-lasting partnership as Erasure with Andy Bell. Despite a stuttering start and constant comparisons to Moyet's vocal sound and Clarke's previous commercial success Erasure emerged with a string of hit after hit and became Internationally acknowledged as one of the finest ever synth pop bands. Despite his previous 'incompatibility' with success and all that goes with it Erasure endured and the partnership flourished relentlessly for year after year. 'A Little Respect', 'Stop', 'Always', 'Sometimes', 'Chorus', and many many more hits followed along with LPs and even the tour schedule merry goround. He married in 2004, celebrated, as ever modestly, with a hamburger and is now also a very proud father. Although his 2009 Ivor Novello Award for an 'Outstanding Song Collection' might seem the perfect cherry to sit on top of the sweet synth pop cupcake he has expertly created over the decades nothing could be further from the truth. His latest collaboration is a reunion with his childhood friend and DM cohort Martin Gore and their VCMG project will no doubt be simply another chapter in the Vince Clarke songbook, with a fair few still to be written. I don't know whether it's despite all this, or because of it, but anyone fortunate enough to meet Vince personally will also confirm to you he's one of the nicest blokes you could ever meet. An extraordinary person with an extraordinary career to match.

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