Alan Charles Wilder (born 1 June 1959) is an English musician, composer, arranger, and record producer. A classically trained musician, Wilder was a member of the English electronic band Depeche Mode from 1982 to 1995. After his departure from Depeche Mode, the musical project Recoil—which began as a side project in 1986—became Wilder's primary musical enterprise. Wilder has also provided production and remixing services to the bands Nitzer Ebb and Curve. In 2020, Wilder was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Depeche Mode.
Early life and musical career Alan Charles Wilder was born in Hammersmith, west London, on 1 June 1959 to Albert and Kathleen Wilder, the youngest of their three sons. Born into a middle-class English family, Wilder was musically gifted as a child, and was trained as a classical musician who was able to play flute, brass instruments and piano, the latter of which he received top marks for in his early schooling. However, he was largely uninterested in school, dropping out of university after one year. Influenced by rock and pop music acts such as David Bowie and Marc Bolan, Wilder wanted to work in the music industry, applying for jobs at recording studios, for which he was "rejected about forty times." He finally got a job as a tape op at DJM Studios in London, where he learned about studio equipment and grew his desire to be a musician. Wilder's role was the lowest rung of employees at the studio, with Wilder later calling his role "a tea boy, really - an overworked gofer", but later acknowledge how much it helped him learn, saying "I would get your training from real experience in a commercial studio, rather than trying to learn in a classroom. Working in the area of music entails so much more than simply twiddling knobs and knowing how to mic up a band. You'll have to start at the bottom — making the tea and being abused by producers, but you'll learn so much more than you would at any school." Wilder said that he "was great at the more musical aspects of studio work, such as tape editing, drop—ins, etc., but useless when it came to the [technical aspects of setting up studio equipment]". When bands would leave the studio for the day, they often left their equipment, which allowed Wilder to practice playing keyboards and drums and hone his skills.
For a few years, Wilder joined rock, reggae and pop bands including The Dragons, Real to Real, The Hitmen and Dafne and the Tenderspots, the latter of which he joined under the stage name "Alan Normal", but none of the bands lasted for long. It was just after The Hitmen had split in late 1981 that Wilder spotted an ad in the music magazine Melody Maker for a band that was looking for a keyboardist.
Depeche Mode (1982–1995) Joining as a touring musician Following the departure of founding member Vince Clarke, the remaining members of Depeche Mode realized that their heavy tour commitments would necessitate finding a musician to help play on tour, so the band put an advertisement in Melody Maker stating "Synth / Vocals needed for electronic pop group with UK & International commitments – must be under 21." Wilder was initially vetted by Mute Records label owner and producer Daniel Miller, who allowed Wilder to audition in front of the band, which occurred at Blackwing Studios in London. Miller called Wilder "technically and musically very adept ... he could play everything they requested with one hand tied behind his back." At their first meeting, Wilder was struck by the "rudimentary" level of the band's musical skills. Band member Andrew Fletcher had said in an interview the previous year, "None of us play piano. ... You'd have to go into it seriously, and we haven't got the time." Wilder found their initial meeting hard, as he came from a middle-class family, and the rest of the band came from working-class backgrounds. Wilder also later admitted that, while he didn't know much about electronic music when he auditioned, he knew who Depeche Mode were before he decided to go and try out for the part.
The band had auditioned many potential keyboardists before hearing Wilder; Gahan remembered later that "we auditioned [potential replacements] at Blackwing, and all these strange and wonderful characters showed up. And they were all dressed up to the nines, but couldn't play. And Alan [Wilder] came along and could play anything."
Wilder's ability to play along with the rest of the band easily, as well as his non-deferential treatment to the band, earned Wilder the spot with the band, despite being 22 years old. As Wilder was on unemployment benefits and was without work at the time, he was happy to join.
Initially hired as a touring musician and paid a weekly wage, Wilder's first show with Depeche Mode was a warm-up gig at Croc's in Rayleigh, England, on 20 January 1982. His addition to the band was reported in Smash Hits as being a 'trial period', with his potential to join the band later uncertain. Wilder played on Depeche Mode's See You Tour, with shows in the UK, Europe and the US, which ran from January to May 1982. In a later interview, Wilder said that "I wanted to always be a musician, and I always had a conviction about being a musician, I didn't want to do anything else ... but at the time I didn't see it [being in Depeche Mode] as a long term thing. It evolved into something I became more and more interested in." Looking back on his early days with the band, Wilder said that
1982: A Broken Frame
In July 1982, the band, without Wilder, went into the studio in London to record their second album, A Broken Frame, which was released in September 1982. As a way of explaining Wilder's exclusion from the sessions, Fletcher said in contemporary interviews that "at the moment he [Wilder] is a live session man. He just plays live for us, not in the studio, but that might change."
After the release of the album, the band, with Wilder, supported it with the A Broken Frame Tour, which ran from October 1982 through May 1983 with shows in the UK, Europe, the US and Asia. It was during the UK leg of the tour, in October 1982, that Wilder was officially inducted into the band. His induction was without fanfare; producer Daniel Miller simply phoned Wilder to let him know that he was an official member of the band. Said songwriter and original member Martin Gore, "after Vince [Clarke] left and went to form Yazoo, we were getting ready to record a new album. Alan [Wilder] started playing with us, but we wanted to make certain that any change in direction in our music wasn't attributable to Alan joining. We needed to show we were capable of musical alteration by ourselves. So we recorded A Broken Frame with that in mind, although Alan will be playing on our tours when we perform songs from the album. Now we feel free for him to be a full time recording member of the group now that the change in pattern has been established!"
In mid-November, while still on tour but on a break between the UK and European legs, the band, now including Wilder, went back to the studio to record a new song, "Get the Balance Right!". The song was released as a non-album single in January 1983, before the US and Asian legs of the tour. Wilder co-wrote the single's b-side, "The Great Outdoors!", for the single with Gore. Wilder was also responsible for creating the 12" remix of the "Get the Balance Right!", cutting up tape and re-assembling it by hand to make the remix.
1983: Construction Time Again
In early 1983, Depeche Mode went into the studio to record Construction Time Again, the first album in which Wilder was included. Wilder brought both a Synclavier and an Emulator, which allowed the band to capture and manipulate sounds in a way they hadn't been able to prior. Wilder wrote a handful of songs for the album, including "Two Minute Warning", "The Landscape Is Changing", as well as B-sides "Fools" and "Work Hard". Wilder felt that, as this was the first Depeche Mode album he worked on, he should take part in songwriting, although he did not consider it his strong suit, saying, "I felt I should participate in the process. However, it became clear that my strengths were more to do with placement of sounds and the structuring of the music, and I suppose my classical upbringing was a factor in this. What I really added was an enthusiasm and desire to experiment more. I was also desperate for us to be taken more seriously, which meant producing a darker, more weighty sound." He later added that "at one point I did try and persuade Martin [Gore] to co-write because I thought as a team we might be able to write some good songs together, but he completely blanked that idea. He wasn't into it at all."
After releasing the album, the band supported it with the Construction Time Again Tour, which ran from September 1983 through the end of that year, with over a half-dozen one-off shows stretching through mid-1984.
1984: Some Great Reward
1984's Some Great Reward was, according to Gore, a "turning point" for Wilder's role in Depeche Mode, as he started to focus more on the production of the band's songs, and took over a greater role in engineering the band's sound. Wilder wrote "If You Want" for the album, and the B-side track to "People Are People", "In Your Memory". "If You Want" would be the last song Wilder wrote that appeared directly on a Depeche Mode album, although he would write more B-side material for their next album in 1986. After the recording sessions for Some Great Reward were over, the other members of the band went on holiday while they left co-producers Daniel Miller, Gareth Jones and Wilder to finish the production of and mixing of the album. Wilder had held off on arranging his own vacation, saying, "I foresaw the fact that we were going to go over deadline and held off arranging one [holiday] myself because I didn't want to miss out on the whole mixing process." The album was the first time it was noted that the rest of the band would leave the album's arrangement and mixing to Wilder while they would leave, with Gore later saying Wilder would "often sit in the studio with Daniel [Miller] and Gareth [Jones] till two or three in the morning" while the rest of the band was out at a club.
The supporting Some Great Reward Tour ran from September 1984 through July 1985, and saw the band's first shows behind the Iron Curtain.
In 1985, Depeche Mode focused on a singles release instead of a full album; the band recorded two new singles, "It's Called a Heart" and "Shake the Disease", both released in 1985 and included on the compilation albums Catching Up with Depeche Mode (1985; US release) and The Singles 81→85 (1985; UK release).
1986: Black Celebration
Depeche Mode's next album, Black Celebration, recorded in late 1985 and early 1986, saw Wilder living with his girlfriend Jeri Young. The album sessions are notable for including Wilder's last writing contributions to the band in the B-sides "Black Day" and "Christmas Island". Starting with this album and going forward, Wilder's more notable contributions to Depeche Mode were as a musician, arranger, and producer. Although Black Celebration saw the whole band credited for its production, it was Wilder who was effectively the third producer for the album alongside Miller and Jones. Years later, Wilder said he stopped songwriting for the band because it didn't come naturally to him, and he struggled with the lyrics, saying "My interest is more about atmosphere and production and editing and all the other things." Black Celebration was released in early 1986 and supported by the Black Celebration tour, which ran from March to August of that year.