Alan Charles Wilder (born 1 June 1959) is an English musician, composer, arranger, and record producer. A classically trained musician, Wilder was a member of the English electronic band Depeche Mode from 1982 to 1995. After his departure from Depeche Mode, the musical project Recoil—which began as a side project in 1986—became Wilder's primary musical enterprise. Wilder has also provided production and remixing services to the bands Nitzer Ebb and Curve. In 2020, Wilder was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Depeche Mode.
Alan Charles Wilder was born in Hammersmith, west London, on 1 June 1959 to Albert and Kathleen Wilder, the youngest of their three sons. Born into a middle-class English family, Wilder was musically gifted as a child, and was trained as a classical musician who was able to play flute, brass instruments and piano, the latter of which he received top marks for in his early schooling. However, he was largely uninterested in school, dropping out of university after one year. Influenced by rock and pop music acts such as David Bowie and Marc Bolan, Wilder wanted to work in the music industry, applying for jobs at recording studios, for which he was "rejected about forty times." He finally got a job as a tape op at DJM Studios in London, where he learned about studio equipment and grew his desire to be a musician. Wilder's role was the lowest rung of employees at the studio, with Wilder later calling his role "a tea boy, really - an overworked gofer", but later acknowledge how much it helped him learn, saying "I would get your training from real experience in a commercial studio, rather than trying to learn in a classroom. Working in the area of music entails so much more than simply twiddling knobs and knowing how to mic up a band. You'll have to start at the bottom — making the tea and being abused by producers, but you'll learn so much more than you would at any school." Wilder said that he "was great at the more musical aspects of studio work, such as tape editing, drop—ins, etc., but useless when it came to the [technical aspects of setting up studio equipment]". When bands would leave the studio for the day, they often left their equipment, which allowed Wilder to practice playing keyboards and drums and hone his skills.
For a few years, Wilder joined rock, reggae and pop bands including The Dragons, Real to Real, The Hitmen and Dafne and the Tenderspots, the latter of which he joined under the stage name "Alan Normal", but none of the bands lasted for long. It was just after The Hitmen had split in late 1981 that Wilder spotted an ad in the music magazine Melody Maker for a band that was looking for a keyboardist.
Following the departure of founding member Vince Clarke, the remaining members of Depeche Mode realized that their heavy tour commitments would necessitate finding a musician to help play on tour, so the band put an advertisement in Melody Maker stating "Synth / Vocals needed for electronic pop group with UK & International commitments – must be under 21." Wilder was initially vetted by Mute Records label owner and producer Daniel Miller, who allowed Wilder to audition in front of the band, which occurred at Blackwing Studios in London. Miller called Wilder "technically and musically very adept ... he could play
everything they requested with one hand tied behind his back." At their first meeting, Wilder was struck by the "rudimentary" level of the band's musical skills. Band member Andrew Fletcher had said in an interview the previous year, "None of us play piano. ... You'd have to go into it seriously, and we haven't got the time." Wilder found their initial meeting hard, as he came from a middle-class family, and the rest of the band came from working-class backgrounds. Wilder also later admitted that, while he didn't know much about electronic music when he auditioned, he knew who Depeche Mode were before he decided to go and try out for the part.
The band had auditioned many potential keyboardists before hearing Wilder; Gahan remembered later that "we auditioned [potential replacements] at Blackwing, and all these strange and wonderful characters showed up. And they were all dressed up to the nines, but couldn't play. And Alan [Wilder] came along and could play anything."
Wilder's ability to play along with the rest of the band easily, as well as his non-deferential treatment to the band, earned Wilder the spot with the band, despite being 22 years old. As Wilder was on unemployment benefits and was without work at the time, he was happy to join.
Initially hired as a touring musician and paid a weekly wage, Wilder's first show with Depeche Mode was a warm-up gig at Croc's in Rayleigh, England, on 20 January 1982. His addition to the band was reported in Smash Hits as being a 'trial period', with his potential to join the band later uncertain. Wilder played on Depeche Mode's See You Tour, with shows in the UK, Europe and the US, which ran from January to May 1982. In a later interview, Wilder said that "I wanted to always be a musician, and I always had a conviction about being a musician, I didn't want to do anything else ... but at the time I didn't see it [being in Depeche Mode] as a long term thing. It evolved into something I became more and more interested in." Looking back on his early days with the band, Wilder said that
"They were a very tight unit, somewhat self-deprecating and lacking in confidence. All the musicians I had been involved with prior to this had exuded self-belief, while enjoying little or no success. I'd never met a group like this one, and it made me wonder how they had come so far in such a short time. Then I realised how much of an influence Daniel Miller had over them. As I got to know them, it became clear that it was actually Vince Clarke and Daniel who had been the driving forces up to that point. Daniel was extremely protective of the group, and I found him a difficult person to get to know. With the others, they were friendly enough, but I must admit to feeling like an outsider. Differences in our backgrounds were never far from the surface."
In July 1982, the band, without Wilder, went into the studio in London to record their second album, A Broken Frame, which was released in September 1982. As a way of explaining Wilder's exclusion from the sessions, Fletcher said in contemporary interviews that "at the moment he [Wilder] is a live session man. He just plays live for us, not in the studio, but that might change."
After the release of the album, the band, with Wilder, supported it with the A Broken Frame Tour, which ran from October 1982 through May 1983 with shows in the UK, Europe, the US and Asia. It was during the UK leg of the tour, in October 1982, that Wilder was officially inducted into the band. His induction was without fanfare; producer Daniel Miller simply phoned Wilder to let him know that he was an official member of the band. Said songwriter and original member Martin Gore, "after Vince [Clarke] left and went to form Yazoo, we were getting ready to record a new album. Alan [Wilder] started playing with us, but we wanted to make certain that any change in direction in our music wasn't attributable to Alan joining. We needed to show we were capable of musical alteration by ourselves. So we recorded A Broken Frame with that in mind, although Alan will be playing on our tours when we perform songs from the album. Now we feel free for him to be a full time recording member of the group now that the change in pattern has been established!"
In mid-November, while still on tour but on a break between the UK and European legs, the band, now including Wilder, went back to the studio to record a new song, "Get the Balance Right!". The song was released as a non-album single in January 1983, before the US and Asian legs of the tour. Wilder co-wrote the single's b-side, "The Great Outdoors!", for the single with Gore. Wilder was also responsible for creating the 12" remix of the "Get the Balance Right!", cutting up tape and re-assembling it by hand to make the remix.