Depeche Mode Music Group

By the time news leaked Monday that Depeche Mode lead singer Dave Gahan had tried to commit suicide last week, the English singer had already checked out of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and was recuperating at his West Hollywood home, where the attempt took place. Michael Pagnotta, a publicist for Gahan, said Tuesday that the singer left the hospital on Saturday.

Street closures? It seems Hollywood "Just Can't Get Enough" of them. Authorities plan to shut Hollywood Boulevard near its storied intersection with Vine Street on Thursday for a free concert by the electro-pop band Depeche Mode. Parts of the 8 p.m. event will be videotaped for airing later that night on the "Jimmy Kimmel Live" show.

Depeche Mode lead singer David Gahan, who survived a suicide attempt last August, was arrested early Tuesday morning after overdosing on drugs, authorities said. The arrest of Gahan, 34, for investigation of cocaine possession and being under the influence of heroin capped a traumatic weekend for the record industry. Bradley Nowell, lead singer for the Long Beach-based punk-reggae trio Sublime, was found dead in his San Francisco motel room Saturday, apparently of a drug overdose. He was 28.

For the overwhelming majority of Depeche Mode's storied three-decade ascension from disposable New Romantic heartthrobs to chart-topping rock stars who could fill stadiums, the division of labor between bandmates was never a question. Dave Gahan was the group's focal point: its preening figurehead, a leather-clad baritone and unrepentant hedonist with a lust for life (well, women, drugs and booze) that famously killed him for a few minutes in 1996.

For the overwhelming majority of Depeche Mode's storied three-decade ascension from disposable New Romantic heartthrobs to chart-topping rock stars who could fill stadiums, the division of labor between bandmates was never a question. Dave Gahan was the group's focal point: its preening figurehead, a leather-clad baritone and unrepentant hedonist with a lust for life (well, women, drugs and booze) that famously killed him for a few minutes in 1996.

Street closures? It seems Hollywood "Just Can't Get Enough" of them. Authorities plan to shut Hollywood Boulevard near its storied intersection with Vine Street on Thursday for a free concert by the electro-pop band Depeche Mode. Parts of the 8 p.m. event will be videotaped for airing later that night on the "Jimmy Kimmel Live" show.

"Death is everywhere," begins the first verse of "Fly on the Windscreen," one of the more cited compositions in the dark oeuvre of Depeche Mode, the growingly popular English synthesizer-pop quartet that headlines sold-out shows Friday and Saturday at the Forum in Inglewood and Dec. 7 at the San Diego Sports Arena. "There are lambs for the slaughter / Waiting to die / And I can sense / The hours slipping by / Tonight / Come here / Kiss me / Now. . . ."

Only eight months after Depeche Mode's singer David Gahan injected a near-fatal mixture of heroin and cocaine at a hotel in West Hollywood, the English band is back with a new single and an album on the way. It's more than even the most optimistic fans of the veteran group would have ever imagined.

Martin Gore of Depeche Mode has some advice for the band's fervent L.A. fans who plan to trek out to the Coachella Music and Arts Festival to see the group's headlining set on Saturday: "For this," he said with a chuckle, "it might be a good time to leave the black clothes at home." The reason is the thermometer: Temperatures in the high 90s are expected over the weekend for the seventh edition of the premier Southern California festival.

Talk about famous last words. During a recent afternoon interview in his West Hollywood hotel room, Andy Fletcher, keyboardist with the British synth-rock group Depeche Mode, mused, "Our fans are very intense--even fanatical. I don't think people realize just how zealous some of them really are." A few moments later, the outgoing young musician added: "But our fans don't get out of hand. They get excited and overeager sometimes, but they're mature and under control.

Martin Gore of Depeche Mode has some advice for the band's fervent L.A. fans who plan to trek out to the Coachella Music and Arts Festival to see the group's headlining set on Saturday: "For this," he said with a chuckle, "it might be a good time to leave the black clothes at home." The reason is the thermometer: Temperatures in the high 90s are expected over the weekend for the seventh edition of the premier Southern California festival.

MARTIN GORE, the musical architect and primary songwriter of pioneering English electro-pop group Depeche Mode, recounts a surprise that happened to band mate Andy Fletcher last year. "Andy has been deejaying in clubs a lot, as have I, and he was playing upstairs at a club in Europe somewhere with about 400 people," Gore says. "And after, he went downstairs -- and there was a Depeche Mode convention going on with 5,000 people!"

Only eight months after Depeche Mode's singer David Gahan injected a near-fatal mixture of heroin and cocaine at a hotel in West Hollywood, the English band is back with a new single and an album on the way. It's more than even the most optimistic fans of the veteran group would have ever imagined.

Depeche Mode lead singer David Gahan, who survived a suicide attempt last August, was arrested early Tuesday morning after overdosing on drugs, authorities said. The arrest of Gahan, 34, for investigation of cocaine possession and being under the influence of heroin capped a traumatic weekend for the record industry. Bradley Nowell, lead singer for the Long Beach-based punk-reggae trio Sublime, was found dead in his San Francisco motel room Saturday, apparently of a drug overdose. He was 28.

By the time news leaked Monday that Depeche Mode lead singer Dave Gahan had tried to commit suicide last week, the English singer had already checked out of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and was recuperating at his West Hollywood home, where the attempt took place. Michael Pagnotta, a publicist for Gahan, said Tuesday that the singer left the hospital on Saturday.

David Gahan, leader of the top-selling British pop band Depeche Mode, is recovering in a hospital after trying to commit suicide, authorities said Monday. Police responded to an emergency call at the singer's Los Angeles home last Thursday and found he had slashed his wrist with a razor blade. "He sustained a two-inch laceration to his wrist," said Detective Joel Brown of the West Hollywood Sheriff's Department.

MARTIN GORE, the musical architect and primary songwriter of pioneering English electro-pop group Depeche Mode, recounts a surprise that happened to band mate Andy Fletcher last year. "Andy has been deejaying in clubs a lot, as have I, and he was playing upstairs at a club in Europe somewhere with about 400 people," Gore says. "And after, he went downstairs -- and there was a Depeche Mode convention going on with 5,000 people!"

About 100 Los Angeles police officers outfitted in riot gear were sent to a La Cienega Boulevard music store Tuesday night after fans of the British rock group Depeche Mode, who had turned out en masse for a record-signing event, became unruly.

Anton Corbijn hates being called a "rock photographer," even though he's the world's most in-demand lensman of pop musicians. * To him, that label suggests someone who enjoys documenting the backstage and cocktail-party scene. Corbijn prefers to take his subjects away from all that--to somewhere like, say, Joshua Tree National Monument, where his suggestion for a U2 photo location led to that band's most famous album title as well as cover.

Depeche Mode's most controversial moment came with the British group's 1984 hit "Blasphemous Rumours," an outrageously bleak narrative in which a young girl survives a suicide attempt and dedicates her life to Jesus, only to get knocked over by a car and placed on life support. The moral, such as it was, came in the oft-quoted chorus: "I don't want to start any blasphemous rumours / But I think that God's got a sick sense of humour / And when I die / I expect to find Him laughing."