Joining us for a special Audacy Check In today with KROQ's Klein & Ally is with Dave Gahan and Martin Gore of U.K. synthpop favorites Depeche Mode to discuss their upcoming album Memento Mori, 2023 touring plans, and more.

Rock & Roll Hall of Famers Depeche Mode are currently preparing to drop their fifteenth studio album, Memento Mori, featuring the haunting new single "Ghosts Again." The forthcoming full-length is due to arrive in the spring of 2023, and in celebration, DM will be taking the songs on a worldwide trek beginning in March, with a ton of recently added new dates to their already stacked 2023 tour itinerary now set for the US, Canada, and Mexico.

With DM always at the top of the list of inspiration for countless artists and bands, frontman Gahan says they're "quite flattered across the board," when hearing their music has moved others to create. "If you inspire anybody to make music or try it for themselves in any way, shape, or form then we must be doing something good. That was the same for us. You talk about [David] Bowie... there's this inspiration to want to join that club."

"Bands who say they're inspired by us," Martin, says, "it's very flattering but I don't often think that they really sound that much like us." Gahan adds, "they're not trying to sound like us, it's more the fact that we were very much do-it-yourself; we kind of built our own thing with the help of people like you who got our music out there in a very sort of alternative way. It wasn't the norm... Depeche Mode has never been a band that you could put into a category... we've created something that's become it's own thing. I think other bands and artists are inspired by that idea as well. You've gotta go your own way, you'll be told to do this or that and go in this direction, and 'you'll have a hit is you do this.' That wasn't something that we ever played into."

Looking ahead to the upcoming Memento Mori World Tour, Martin shares that the band is thrilled that ticket sales have been doing so well. "It's incredible... the single is just getting an amazing response too. Maybe it's come along at a fortunate time in our career. Fortunate for us that we've released something that's probably more commercial than anything we've released in a long time. But its come along at the right time after the spike of the 'Enjoy The Silence' TikTok thing and The Last Of Us 'Never Let Me Down Again.' Maybe all of that coming together has really culminated in this big explosion."

Of course, they can't forget that they're also in the Elizabeth Banks-directed Cocaine Bear flick as well. Laughing as he just found out their single "Just Can’t Get Enough" is included in the soundtrack, Dave says, "I'm kind of intrigued by this film, I wanna see this!" He continued, "that song has been used in so many forms, for so many different metaphors, but the bear with his face in a bowl of cocaine or whatever that is, that's gotta take the biscuit."

"I think, at certain points, something aligns," Gahan shares about the current DM era. "I don't know what that is... right now, I think Martin and I are quite fortunate, especially as we've been through a lot in the last year and this is still a thing that we're going through, having lost Fletch. Things change and something is shifting -- and for some reason, you don;t really know what's gonna happen next. 

As the band and fans continue to mourn the passing of founding member Andy Fletcher in 2022, during a special event in Berlin, Germany announcing the upcoming album, frontman Dave Gahan shared that, "Fletch would have loved this album. We’re really looking forward to sharing it with you soon, and we can’t wait to present it to you live at the shows next year.”

Don't miss Klein & Ally's full Audacy Check In with Dave and Martin of Depeche Mode, above -- and stay tuned for even more conversations with your favorite artists on Audacy.com/Live.

Words By Joe CIngrana Interview by Klein & Ally