Dave Gahan, born 9 May 1962 in Epping, Essex, England) is the baritone lead singer for the English electronic band Depeche Mode, and is also an accomplished solo artist.
Born into a working class family, to parents Sylvia (a conductress on London's buses known as "a clippy") and Len (a bus driver), Dave Gahan was six months old when his father left the family. Sylvia and Len divorced two years later and his mother moved Dave and sister Sue (born 1960) to Basildon, Essex, after Sylvia met and married her second husband Jack (an administrator with Shell Oil). The Gahan family continued to grow with the birth of two more brothers Peter (born 1966) and Phil (born 1968). Dave and Sue were raised under the impression that their mother's second husband, Jack Gahan, was their natural father.
Tragedy struck in 1972 when Jack died when Dave was ten. Gahan recalls how he "came home one day and found this bloke (his biological father) at home". Of the incident, he has said: "I'll never forget that day. When I came home from school, there was this stranger in my mum's house. My mother introduced him to me as my real dad. I remember I said, that was impossible because my father was dead. How was I supposed to know who that man was? From that day on, Len often visited the house, until one year later he disappeared again. Forever this time. Since then he had no contact with us. By growing older, I thought about him more and more. The only thing my mother would say, was that he moved out to Jersey to open a hotel". "Mum had kept it back from me 'til there was a need to tell me about my birth father, it's a different generation and you can understand I guess she thought she was doing the right thing".
Gahan compensated for the loss of his father by becoming something of a "real wild boy with a chip on my shoulder, a real yob". His crimes as a youth included stealing cars, vandalism, and spray-painting graffiti on walls. As a result he had visited juvenile court three times before he was 14.
Within six months of leaving Barstable School in July 1978, Gahan found and lost something in the order of twenty jobs, from selling soft drinks, working in a green grocers in Basildon Bus Station, cashiering in Sainsbury's Petrol Station in Savacentre, to working on a construction site. Dave also applied for a job as an apprentice fitter with North Thames Gas. He was told by his probation officer to be honest with the interviewer, and as a result, he admitted his criminal record but claimed he was a "reformed character". Of course, he did not get the job.
Eventually, he earned a place at Southend Art College, which he enjoyed immensely. After three years, he gained the British Display Society Award, which allowed him to get jobs doing displays in shop windows and shopping centres.
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