Depeche Mode frontman Dave Gahan claims that his “screaming soul” looked down on his lifeless body after he famously died for two minutes following an overdose in 1996.
The 50-year-old singer, whose band release their new album ‘Delta Machine’ today (March 25), said it felt like someone had turned off a light when he flatlined in an LA hospital. He told German newspaper BILD: “The first thing I realised in the hospital was that I exited my body. I was floating underneath the ceiling and could observe exactly what was happening underneath me: Paramedics were running around my body and tried to save me. I screamed that I wasn’t actually lying down there but above them.
“I believe it was my soul screaming which had already left my body and became a witness of what happened to my body. At that point I was clinically dead, my heart wasn’t beating. These seconds seemed like hours to me. And suddenly, there was a complete, frightening darkness around me. As if someone had turned off the light.”
When he finally came around, the star woke up in handcuffs for being in possession of drugs. “When I woke up, I was tied to the bed with handcuffs. Policemen were standing in front of me and read my rights to me. I was arrested because of possession of cocaine and heroin.”
Gahan added: “The court let me do a therapy. For about a year, I lived in a detoxification clinic with other drug addicts and alcoholics. I regularly had to do a urine test. If they had found a prohibited substance only once, I would have had to go to jail in Los Angeles for two years. I was really afraid of this. For the first time in my life, it became clear to me that I am not immortal.”
The electro-veterans recently revealed that they they turned down the opportunity to win a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Brits this year after learning that ITV had no intention of airing footage of them accepting the award.