Joined by Gahan, a friend from Southend, the new group had a ready-made audience on Southend’s busy social circuit. He took politics at A-level and planned to go to university, but instead, he and Clarke formed a band with a classmate from Nicholas comprehensive school in Laindon, Gore. Martin Gore, Dave Gahan and Andy Fletcher attend the Q Awards in 2002. He retained his faith after he left the Brigade in the 80s, as Depeche Mode charted with taut electropop singles that would influence rap, EDM and metal, he felt guilty about not going to church. His church activities also sparked an interest in music, and it was there that he picked up his first instrument, a guitar. That period, he said, “shaped my moral beliefs and attitudes”. He attended church seven days a week, and with fellow member Vince Clarke, preached in the Brigade coffee bar. Andy joined the Christian organisation the Boys’ Brigade and remained a member until he was 18, during which he became actively religious. In the early 60s, his father, an engineer, was offered a job at a cigarette factory in Basildon, and they became one of the first families to settle in the Essex new town.
He was the eldest of two sons and two daughters born in Nottingham to Joy and John Fletcher. Rather, he viewed himself as “the tall guy in the background, without whom this international corporation called Depeche Mode would never work”.
When his death was announced, the Pet Shop Boys, old confreres from the hit-making 80s, tweeted: “Fletch was a warm, friendly and funny person who loved electronic music and could also give sensible advice about the music business.” During the Hall of Fame induction, Gahan characterised the early Depeche Mode as “outsider, eyeliner-wearing weirdos from Essex”, but Fletcher was never as unconventional as Gahan and Gore.
His knowledge of the industry was renowned.
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