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Vince Clarke (born Vincent John Martin, South Woodford, Essex, England, 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, 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" which was later re-named "Composition of Sound", with 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 rumored reasons pertaining to his departure, but the one that is most commonly said and that he's admitted to was because he did not 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. 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" and "Only You". Yazoo split in 1983, and Moyet went on to have a solo career. The Assembly In the following few years Clarke had one-off associations with several artists, notably with Paul Quinn of Bourgie Bourgie with single "One Day", and Feargal Sharkey as The Assembly with the hit "Never Never". Erasure In 1985 Clarke put an ad in Melody Maker for a singer, and the forty-first applicant was Andy Bell, a fan of his earlier projects. He teamed with Bell to form the group Erasure, and the duo became one of the biggest selling acts in British pop music history with international hits like "Oh L'amour", "Sometimes", "Chains of Love" and "A Little Respect". 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. Additional work 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 currently lives in Maine with his wife Tracy, whom he married in May 2004. Their son, Oscar, was born shortly after. | ||||||||
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