Vince Clarke

Clarke was born on July 3, 1960, in South Woodford, Essex and raised in nearby Basildon. He initially studied the violin and then the piano.

In the late 1970s Clarke and a schoolmate formed the short-lived band No Romance[?]. In 1979 he teamed up with Martin Gore[?] to form "French Look" which was later re-named "Composition of Sound". Vince Clarke initially handled vocals. In 1980 singer David Gahan was drafted in to complete the line up and the band was re-named Depeche Mode.

Depeche Mode initially adopted a slick synthesised electropop sound, which produced the hit album Speak and Spell and the hit single "Just Can't Get Enough" in 1981. Depeche Mode went on to achieve international stardom.

Clarke left Depeche Mode soon after the release of the first album. He then teamed up with singer Alison Moyet to form the electropop band Yazoo, which had a number of hits.

Yazoo split in 1983, and Alison Moyet went on to have a successful solo career. In the following few years Clarke had one-off associations with several artists.

In 1985 he put an ad in a music paper for a singer, and out of thousands of applicants he chose Andy Bell[?], who he teamed up with to form the group Erasure.