Andrew John Fletcher (8 July 1961 – 26 May 2022), also known as Fletch, was an English keyboard player and founding member of the electronic band Depeche Mode. In 2020, he and the band were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Early life Fletcher was the eldest of four siblings born to Joy and John Fletcher. The family moved to Basildon from Nottingham when he was two years old, when his father, an engineer, was offered a job at a cigarette factory. He was active in the local Boys' Brigade from an early age, primarily to play football. Career Depeche Mode Fletcher, and acquaintances Vince Clarke and Martin Gore, were in their mid-teens when punk rock arrived on the music scene. Fletcher said this was "obviously the perfect age to experience it", noting that "we were very lucky in life". Fletcher and Clarke formed the short-lived band No Romance in China, in which Fletcher played bass guitar. In 1980, Fletcher, Clarke and Gore, the trio now all on synthesisers, formed another group called Composition of Sound. Influences on their work included Siouxsie and the Banshees, the Cure, Kraftwerk, the Human League and Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (OMD). Clarke served as chief songwriter and also provided lead vocals until singer Dave Gahan was recruited into the band later in 1980, after which they adopted the name Depeche Mode at Gahan's suggestion. Clarke left the group in late 1981, shortly after the release of their debut album Speak & Spell. Their 1982 follow-up album, A Broken Frame, was recorded as a trio, with Gore taking over primary songwriting duties. Musician and producer Alan Wilder joined the band in late 1982 and the group continued as a quartet. In 1989, while preparing Violator, Fletcher experienced anxiety problems and depression; the band advised him to seek help in an institution. He attributed this to an obsessive-compulsive disorder from his father and the loss of his sister in her early twenties. In 1993, he had a relapse during the recording of Songs of Faith and Devotion. One year later, he had to leave the Exotic Tour/Summer Tour '94 for nervous exhaustion, and the band played without him in South America and the US; "I had a massive nervous breakdown on that tour ... The [tour] was 187 gigs and, unfortunately, I had to pull out of the last leg". Depeche Mode