Shawn DeckerShawn Decker just can’t get enough Depeche Mode. Back in 1990, when he was an HIV-positive 14-year-old hemophiliac, he got to meet his music idols during their Violator tour. Shortly before then, Decker recalls, “my T-cells were floating around the 150 mark and Ryan White had passed in April of ’90. I think it spooked my mom into contacting the Make-A-Wish Foundation [to set up the Depeche Mode meeting].”

Fast-forward 25 years. Decker is a POZ blogger who works along with his wife, Gwenn, as a sexual health advocate. To celebrate his survival and to raise money for the MTV Staying Alive Foundation (he’s on the board), Decker has recorded a Depeche Mode cover album under his 10th-grade music moniker, Synthetic Division (how ’80s is that name!). Dropping World AIDS Day, December 1, the project is aptly titled Shaking the Disease: An Unlikely Tribute to Depeche Mode.

Check out his POZ blog for more details.