2017-03-21 Very Good Trip, France Inter, Paris, France

Notes

Martin Gore was interviewed for Michka Assayas' Very Good Trip show. The interview took place at the Peninsula Hotel in Paris, on March 20th or 21st. One of the things he talks about is Chuck Berry, who had died on March 18th. The show was uploaded on Franceinter.fr afterwards. The songs have been cut out of the broadcast and the interview was re-uploaded below.

Apart from mainly talking about 'Spirit', he also brings up the full story of his African-American father for the first time ever, which he hasn't talked about since 2001 since he always described it as "one of those things I'd rather not talk about". We transcribed that part here:

Martin: Well, interestingly enough, I found out when I was 31 that my biological father was black, which I had no idea about. So you do wonder if there's something that has passed on genetically.

Michka: That's incredible. How did that happen? How did you learn this?

Martin: Well, my mother had kept it a secret for 31 years. I knew that my father - the one that brought me up - wasn't my biological father, but the only thing she told me was that my real father, my biological father, was an American.

Michka: Is he still alive?

Martin: No, he passed away.

Michka: You met him?

Martin: Yeah, I did, yeah. I met him quite a few times.

Michka: So he lived in the United States?

Martin: Yeah, he lived in Virginia.

Michka: Virginia. What did he do [for a living]?

Martin: Ehm, he worked in a machine parts factory.

Michka: Did he have a family?

Martin: He... I think he had... He got married once, but not for very long. I think he had one of a child, a daughter, but he didn't know where she lived. I don't know. He didn't know where she was, or... But, yeah it was... My mother... So one day I just, I had heard about somebody who recently tracked down their biological father and they told me of the process, and apparently these people just knew the name of the town. So I called my mother, and I said, "I'm interested in my biological father", and I was on tour at the time. She said, "We need to talk. Let's wait till you get home." So when I got home, she told me the full story. And she gave me a name, and she had a telephone number.

Michka: And your father played any music, or...?

Martin: No. He wasn't himself a musician, but he went to church, and his whole family, and sang. He had relatives that were musicians. I've met some of his relatives who were musicians.

Duration: 11:29 minutes (out of 51:45 minutes)