Members of rock band Depeche Mode (from left) Andrew Fletcher, Dave Gahan and Martin Gore promote their upcoming album Spirit in Milan. [Photo/Agencies]

Readying a new album and stadium tour for next year, Depeche Mode feels free. The group, which helped bring electronic music into the mainstream with a flurry of hits, finally is setting its own pace.

Spirit, the first Depeche Mode studio album since 2013, will come out in the first half of 2017, and a 32-city, 21-country tour across Europe starts in May.

The shows together could pull in more than 1.5 million fans, even before dates in North America and Latin America expected later next year. But the group is relaxed.

"I think there is more freedom at the moment," keyboardist Andy Fletcher said as the group announced its plans in Milan, the site of one of Depeche Mode's numerous live albums.

Martin Gore, a fellow keyboardist and the group's main songwriter, says that Depeche Mode grew accustomed to cranking out albums annually in the early 1980s after the band's birth in Basildon, just east of London.

"To put an album out every year, that's quite a lot of pressure, you need a lot of creativity, and maybe you can do that when you're younger," says Gore, 55.

"I think, when you get older, you need more time if you want to keep the standards of the record."