Alan evolved in different groups the first one was the Dragons . Alan worked as "tea-boy" in Studios, and spent his time when studios were free to pratice on the instruments and work on the technique part, in which he was interested ...

After the "rock experience" with the Dragons , he went to form a "New wave" group with jazzy influences named  : Daphne and the tenderspots, in which they made a single : "Disco Hell"  , he wasn't really happy about ut, he went through other groups as well as The Hit Men , and finally he ended in Depeche Mode, by answering to an  interview in the Melody Maker at the end of  1981 , because the band needed someone to help them after the departure of Vince Clarke.

He even lied to be part of Depeche Mode because they were searching for someone under  21  and he was already 22 !!
He helped them in 1982 in the process of the new album "A Broken Frame" but didn't have an important part , he wasn't a member, until  the end of  1982 . ( You can see him  for the first time in the video of "See You" ) but Alan is a brilliant musician, and his knowledge of technique, and music , inspired DM and at the end of  1982 he became officially a member ...
You can feel his influence already on the 3rd album of DM , "Construction Time Again" , with the use of different sounds...
he's a big influence in DM's music and sound evolution , he always was the "technique" guy, the one which was able to produce music which suits Martin's beautifull lyrics and David's voice ...

He really take big part in the production of DM albums with Violator and SOFAD , in which he took a long time re-working each song until it wa perfect, and you can consider that if Dm has such good songs, Alan has big influence in it ...
But Alan always wanted to try other things  that's why he also worked on his solo project: Recoil , with which he released his first LP : "1+2" in 1986 and a first album : "Hydrology"in 1986. In  1992 he released "Bloodline" a very good album also, in which he worked with different artists such as Douglas Mc Carthy of Nitzer Ebb ( in which he helped in production of one of their album) or Bukka White and many more...

The dark years of Alan in DM were the SOFAD tour, which has been destructive for the whole band, but Alan was quite the only one which one in charge of the whole producing  staff with the album, he worked a lot for this album ... and the others were losing themselves with their problems , so after the SOFAD tour, in  1995 , Alan announced his departure from Depeche Mode
after 13 years of collaboration because he felt his work wasn't recognized anymore inside the band.

In 1997  he released a new album with Recoil called "Unsound Methods" , also with 2 singles : "Drifting" and "Stalker"  and it is one great album, which show the musical genious he is ...
In this album he got help from various artists, such as Douglas Mc Carthy again, but also Siobhan Lynch, but also, the woman he lives with : Hepzibah Sessa  with who he has a cute girl  named Paris
Alan released an album called LIQUID in 2000 and released his last album in July 2007 called subHuman...