Richard Spencer, an American Nazi who we’d all love to punch, is widely credited as the person who coined the term “alt-right.” Apparently, he’s also the one in charge of picking the soundtrack for his legion of deplorables, and he’s dubbed Depeche Mode as their band of choice.
“Depeche Mode is the official band of the alt-right,” Spencer said today when asked about rock music during the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), according to New York Magazine correspondent Olivia Nuzzi. He would later be stripped of his credentials and booted out of CPAC due to his “repugnant views.”
The official designation should be confounding to anyone even vaguely familiar with Depeche Mode, whose political views have never embraced anything even remotely close to Spencer’s. In fact, their most recent single, “Where’s the Revolution”, calls on listeners to rally and reject the current political state. Spencer’s words came as a total surprise to Depeche Mode, too.
“That is a pretty ridiculous claim. Depeche Mode has no ties to Richard Spencer or the alt right and does not support the alt right movement,” a representative for the band told Gothamist. It’s not the first time the UK outfit has denounced white nationalism and its ties to the Trump regime. In an interview late last year, founding member David Gahan compared Trump to Hitler, saying, “The things that he’s saying sound very similar to what someone was saying in 1935. That didn’t work out very well! The things that he’s saying are cruel and heartless and promoting fear.”
Spencer later tweeted that he was just “joking” about Depeche Mode’s “alt-right” status, but maintained he’s been a “lifelong fan” of the band. A cursory scroll of his Twitter account in January reveals that to be true; at one point, he even polled his fans on what they consider to be the best 2000s Depeche Mode album.
To recap: Depeche Mode are not down with Spencer or the alt-right; Spencer and the alt-right community are still fuckheads.
Below, revisit footage of Spencer being punched in the face (to the tune of Phil Collins’ “In the Air Tonight”).
