Images Courtesy of Press Here Publicity; Jiro SchneiderWhile Depeche Mode is known for bringing electronic music and synth-pop to the mainstream, the English band has also had a profound impact on modern hard rock and metal. In a piece called "Are Depeche Mode Metal's Biggest Secret Influence?", Rolling Stone interviewed a variety of today's rock singers, including Marilyn Manson and Deftones frontman Chino Moreno, about how they were influenced by Dave Gahan and company.
"I don't know about what appeals to other bands, but for me, I think it's just music that you put on because it's got sex appeal to it," Manson says of Depeche Mode's music. "That's what inspired me about it. That and it has a hypnotic feel."
Manson released a cover of one of Depeche Mode's biggest hits, "Personal Jesus," in 2004, which in turn became one of his most successful singles. He still performs "Personal Jesus" live with what he calls a "southern Baptist bible-pulpit" style.
For Moreno, Depeche Mode was the first band he ever saw in concert, and he remembers that night as a driving force towards his own career in music.
"I fought my way to the front to be against the barricade," Moreno says. "I have a feeling it's what launched me into wanting to make music, just by seeing the energy. It was just something else, one of my fondest and greatest memories of coming of age."
Moreno has previously covered Depeche Mode's "Sweetest Perfection" and "To Have and to Hold" with Deftones. He says that his favorite Depeche Mode songs are "a little unsettling."
"It's darker-themed and there is a lot of love- and relationship-type things, but it's not happy music," Moreno adds. "You never really know what they're singing about, they're never really just so open and out front about it. When you listened to them, you sort of ran with the mood of it and you connected it to wherever you were in your life at the time."
Depeche Mode's last album was 2013's Delta Machine.
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