The Legion of Depeche Mode : The band’s bleak and danceable alternative rock attracts a devoted Southland following

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. They’re intelligent, enthusiastic young people--not the wild, rowdy sort you find at metal concerts.”

It was the very next night that the British rock quartet, known for its dark-toned synthesizer music, appeared at an autograph signing at the Wherehouse record store on La Cienega Boulevard near the Beverly Center. At least 5,000 intense--even fanatical--fans showed up. Some had camped out for 48 hours or more so they could be at the front of the line when their heroes arrived. Some of the fans proved to be too zealous.

Scheduled to sign autographs for three hours to promote the group’s new Sire Records album “Violator,” Fletcher and his bandmates Martin Gore, Dave Gahan and Alan Wilder were forced to cut their appearance short when a mini-riot erupted. Seven people, including one teen-age girl who was trampled, were injured as excited youths crushed against glass windows and surged forward to push through the store’s doors, Los Angeles police said.

City officials and police subsequently called for the store to reimburse the city for the estimated $25,000 cost of dealing with the disturbance.

On the day after the incident, Fletcher went on radio station KROQ-FM, which had sponsored the in-store appearance, to apologize to fans for having to leave early and for any disturbance their appearance had caused.

Despite the band’s intense following, most pop fans the day after the much-publicized incident were probably asking, “Depeche who?”

Indeed, Fletcher had quipped that very phrase during the West Hollywood interview.

He added at the time: “That’s what people must say when they hear about us. We have this cult following, but most people don’t know us. I’ll bet 99 out of 100 people wouldn’t recognize us if we walked down the street.”

Despite its huge following in Southern California (a 1988 concert at the Rose Bowl attracted more than 60,000 fans), Depeche has yet to have a platinum album in the United States, the million-sales achievement that is the measure of who’s really hot across the nation.

In most other areas, the audience for Depeche Mode’s bleak, danceable brand of alternative rock is smaller and considerably less fanatical.

What makes Southern California’s youngsters (the average age of Mode’s fan club members is 19) tune into Depeche Mode’s moody message in such huge numbers here?

“It’s radio,” Gore replied. “We get much stronger radio support here than anywhere else.” Extensive airplay on KROQ-FM, which specializes in youth-oriented alternative rock, in particular is credited with building Depeche’s rabid regional following.

The problem elsewhere in the United States, Fletcher explained, is that few cities have any alternative-rock stations--and most of the more pop-oriented Top 40 stations don’t play such non-mainstream music.

That’s why the band is touring the country talking to Top 40 radio programmers who have shown an interest in the band’s music. It’s part of a campaign to increase the band’s profile with the pop masses.

Tall and bespectacled, Fletcher, 28, looks like a young college professor. In the hotel suite, he was accompanied by keyboardist and lyricist Martin Gore, also 28, who seems half his size.

With his two-tone hair and skittish manner, Gore, who’s notorious for wearing black leather miniskirts, came across as a likable eccentric.

About the current radio campaign, Gore said, “We simply want more people to hear our music--people outside the narrow confines of alternative radio.

“What we want to do is get greater exposure for the music without compromising it. We still make music for ourselves first. We’re not going to alter it to fit any Top 40 format. What we’d like is for some of these Top 40 stations to alter their formats to include us.”

And what about Top 40 stations that don’t play Depeche music? Will they try to court them?

“We have a policy of not going to stations that don’t play us,” Gore explained. “They say, ‘We love you guys.’ But we know they’re lying. It’s degrading. We’re not in this business to degrade ourselves.”

This limited exposure, Fletcher pointed out, works in the band’s favor in one sense: “We’re underexposed on radio and on TV. You don’t see a lot of us on MTV either. This helps build up our concert audience because it’s the only place people can see us. Not like some of these big artists like Paula Abdul, who you see on TV every other

minute. They’re overexposed. That may help on one album but it hurts in the long run.”

Formed 10 years ago in Basildon, England, the group, part of the first wave of English pop-synthesizer bands to sweep into America, initially generated interest in this country in 1981 with a perky pop single called “Just Can’t Get Enough.” It was written by Vince Clarke, who left the band after one album (he’s now half of Erasure) and was replaced by Alan Wilder.

Gore successfully assumed the songwriting chores, confounding the forecasters who insisted that the group would sink without Clarke. A string of singles, such as “Everything Counts,” “People Are People” and “Stripped,” helped establish the band in the American alternative-rock scene through the ‘80s. Depeche Mode music has a spunky, funky techno-pop base suitable for any dance-music station in the country.

But those lyrics. . . .

Lyricist Gore is a modern-day Sylvia Plath, dispensing nihilism and irreverence to impressionistic teens who prefer their stark philosophical messages accompanied by a danceable beat. Doom-and-gloom lyrics and sunny rhythms collide with an impact that sends brooding young fans into reverie.

“The kids feel we’re talking to them, dealing with ideas that are important to them, reaching them on some level that other bands don’t,” Gore said. His most controversial songs are “Blasphemous Rumours” and “Personal Jesus,” the first single from the current album. Both have been labeled sacrilegious.

Such negative interpretations are no surprise, he said, since his songs are intentionally ambiguous and open to various interpretations.

“I write them that way,” Gore said. “They should be left open to the interpretation of the listener. Some people will give them a sinister, evil meaning. Songwriting is a mysterious art. When I sit down to write a song, the end result should be mysterious and have this dark quality.”

Needless to say, the one thing he won’t stoop to is writing a standard, cheery pop song. “Those ditties are too uplifting, too happy,” he said. “I find that approach to life and music unrealistic. I try to get a degree of realism in my music. That’s why a lot of it is so dark--and seems so irreverent.”

Depeche Mode is making plans for a summer tour--possibly going to regions where some people won’t be too favorable to such irreverence. “I can see us doing something like going down South on tour and getting shot at,” Gore said, shuddering for emphasis.

And what about those Depeche break-up rumors that have been circulating the last six months? Just another in a long line of false reports, Gore and Fletcher said.

“There’s been rumors about us breaking up for almost as long as we’ve been together,” Fletcher said. “We don’t know where all this stuff comes from.”

But the origin of the most recent one is no mystery. It was inspired by the release of Gore’s solo album, Warner Bros.’ “Counterfeit.”

About the project, which sold only a modest 100,000 copies, Gore said, “You make one solo album and some people swear you’re about to leave the band or there are creative differences. None of that is true in this case. We had six months off. It’s rare for us to have that much time off. I just wanted to do something to keep busy. I wanted to do something a little different.”

What’s different about this one is that not only does Gore sing--not badly either, by the way--but he’s also singing other people’s material. “I wanted to avoid conflicts,” he said. “If I’m writing for my own album and the band thinks those songs would be good for the band, there would be problems.”

After this year, he’ll have plenty of time to work on a sequel to that solo album. This year’s tour, Gore said, will be followed by several years off.

“We can’t keep up like this,” he said. “We need a few years break from all this. We’ve been doing it for 10 years without any huge breaks. There’s something insane about this business--about the cycle of making albums and going on tour to promote them. All of us in the band could use a long stretch of sanity.”