Alan Charles Wilder (born 1 June 1959 in Hammersmith, West London, England) is an electronic musician, composer, arranger and record producer. He is best known as a former member of Depeche Mode. He is also the founder of an electronic music project named Recoil. Recoil started as a side project to Depeche Mode, but when he left the latter in 1995, it evolved into Wilder's primary project. Wilder has also provided production and remixing services to the bands Nitzer Ebb, and Curve.

Alan Wilder was born into a "rich nor poor" family in Acton, West-London. Known, by many, as Depeche Mode's only trained musician, began piano at a very young age, through the enouragement of his parents. Later on, he learned the flute and became a leading musician in his school bands. After school, Alan worked as a studio assistant at DJM Studios. This lead to him ending up working for bands such as "The Dragons," "Dafne and the Tenderspots" (as Alan Normal), "Real to Real", and "The Hitmen".

Following the departure of Vince Clarke, Depeche Mode put out an ad in the melody maker "Keyboard player needed for established band - no timewasters". Even though the ad was looking for someone under 21 (Alan was 22), he lied about his age to get the job and got away with it.

For many years, Wilder was seen as the musician in Depeche Mode. As such, he is credited by much of the fan base for moulding Martin Gore's songs and sculpting the sound that became known as the Depeche Mode sound. His efforts can be felt all over classic albums like "Black Celebration", "Music for the Masses" and "Violator".

It is rumoured his departure in 1995 was due partly to being taken for granted in the band and not having any say musically, apart from forming Gore's embryonic songs into Depeche Mode masterpieces.

After the release of Recoil's 2000 album "Liquid", Wilder announced his semi-retirement from recording. This was partly due to the way Mute had promoted the album and its singles.

In 2005, Side-Line.com reported that Wilder was going back into the studio to work on a new Recoil project. Also according to Side-Line, plans may be in the pipeline to re-work the Depeche Mode back catalogue he was originally involved in and bring it up-to-date with 5.1 surround sound mixes and digital remastering.

The only place for Official Recoil and Alan Wildernews is the Shunt website


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