Electric Dreams and Leather Jackets: Gary Numan’s Wild Ride
By Fred Spanner
“There were two or three years where I wouldn’t play Cars at all, till I realised that was just arrogant and I should fucking grow up and get over myself.”
He’s the leather-clad guy who crash-landed synths into the charts back when most bands were still faffing about with guitars. He appeared pale, robotic, and a bit alien around the edges. Numan made being awkward look cool decades before the hipsters caught on. From the ice-cold futurism of Are ‘Friends’ Electric? to his brooding industrial comeback, he’s lived through the lot: adoration, ridicule, cult worship, and then a resurrection worthy of a sci-fi epic.
Numan is the godfather of synth. A true legend, still creating music that feels like it’s beamed in from the year 3000. With over 10 million records sold, he recently marked a huge milestone: his 1000th live show. To commemorate it, he captured the moment in a time capsule of sorts — an album perfectly titled 1000.
When we speak, Gary is mid-tour across the U.S., taking a brief stop in Boston.
Your wife and daughters are out on a guided tour of Salem, and you’re stuck in a hotel room chatting with me. Sounds like you got a raw deal there.
Ha! They've just headed off in an Uber to go and do a tour of the Salem Witch Trials. I don’t know why they’re so excited. They’ve done it all before. To be honest, it’s getting near the end of the tour and I’m knackered, and I just don’t feel much like walking about. I’m much happier sitting here chatting to you in a nice warm room.
Give it five minutes with me, and we’ll see if you change your mind. You might still be able to catch them up…
Do you feel like you need to catch your breath a bit at this stage of the tour?
I can’t let myself think like that. As soon as this tour is over, we’re straight over to the UK for the next one. I’m just keeping my head down. I love it though. It is tiring, there’s no doubt about that, but I do enjoy the life. I don’t find it a burden at all.
We do it pretty hard. We’re touring with The Psychedelic Furs at the moment. I think the numbers are: they’re doing 17 shows, and we’re doing 35 in the same period. They’ll do one show and take a couple of days off, and we do a show and then another two. I’m not knocking it. It’s just the way we do it.
I took a day off a few days ago, and I felt worse for it. I was aching and wasn’t sleeping. I asked everyone on the tour bus if they felt better for the day off. Nobody did. We’d much rather just stay on the bus and keep hammering away at it.
I’ve just finished watching the first episode of the new series of Help! My House Is Haunted, which features you and your family as you battle to rid your Scottish home of evil spirits. Have things settled down a bit since?
I’ve not actually been there since January, when they did the program. As far as I know, it’s much the same as it was. I mean, I’m pretty frightened of all that I don’t find it exciting, and I don’t go looking for it. In the past, if there had been any kind of weirdness at all, I’d just run a mile. My wife loves it, but it’s not my thing at all.
I do believe in it. I know a lot of people don’t, but I do. It’s just that I’d much rather have a house that didn’t have any of that stuff going on at all. I’m just trying to come to terms with it. Just because there’s something there that’s not supposed to be, it doesn’t mean it’s trying to hurt you. It’s not The Exorcist or any of that fucking bollocks.
I just wanted to know who they were. Do they think they’re still alive, or do they see us being there as an intrusion? I just wanted to communicate with them and at least know who they were and why they were there, and we went some way towards that.
One of the most interesting things was the historian they brought out to look into the history of the house. That was more unsettling than anything, unfortunately. It’s a fascinating thing, though. When you’re in there, it’s incredible. It’s such an amazing house in a beautiful setting, and I’m incredibly grateful that I’ve been able to get it, so I’d like to find a way of being there and feeling comfortable.
It’s not unexpected, as it’s about 200 years old and it’s got plenty of history. It’s when the doors start banging downstairs. If I can treat it like it’s just a grumpy uncle banging about the place, I think I’ll be alright. The most disconcerting thing about it all is the figure that’s appeared in my daughter’s bedroom.
We did find out that someone was killed there in suspicious circumstances. There’s also a theory that it’s a previous owner who’s giving her a look as he thinks she should be working as a maid in the house. We’ve made the place a bit brighter, so it feels more lived in; lots of neon signs and arcade machines. We’ve tried to get rid of every creepy corner. The voices and the noises are still happening, but it has changed the feel of the place.
The original Gary Numan image was quite ghost-like, but I believe there was a reason for that.
I was very spotty, so I had to have extra makeup applied to my face before I went on camera. We pancake it all on to cover it up. It left me with pasty eyes, so we applied black makeup to make them stand out. The image kind of fell into place. It wasn’t quite by accident, but it wasn’t as contrived as it seemed.
I wanted an image, and the idea came from the album Replicas, which was my attempt to look into the future. I was writing a series of science fiction stories where the greed and corruption of humans had created a huge unfairness in society. The only way to get rid of that was to eliminate the human element of governance. It was handed over to a machine. You have to remember this was all science fiction back then, but now it's actually happening, scarily.
In the story, there were these machines called Mach Men who had cloned human skin. They looked almost identical, except for the eyes. That was what I was trying to be in my early years, and that is where the idea for the image really came from. It had to be perfect. It was a robot, and being fucking spotty wasn’t going to work.
You put a few noses out of joint when you first became successful. Some of the electronic bands who were there before you were perhaps a bit miffed.
I can totally understand why they might be a bit upset, but there was never any animosity. It was all a bit tongue-in-cheek. Andy McClusky of OMD called me the ‘Johnny Come Lately’ of electronic music, which was true.
I went into the studio to make a punk album, and the synthesiser was there. I’d never seen one before, and I was captivated by it. It sounded amazing, and it changed everything. I was unaware of OMD and The Human League. I was aware of Kraftwerk, but it didn’t do enough to turn me on to electronic music.
I thought the synthesiser was the future of music, and so I adapted those punk songs on the fly while I was there to use a keyboard instead of a guitar. It gave the songs a very different feel, and I had quite a battle with my record label, Beggars Banquet, to release it ‘cause it wasn’t what they wanted. I have to give them credit for taking the chance and eventually releasing it.
I then discovered other electronic bands that hadn’t had the success that I did. So I became the person who was given a lot of credit for being there at the start, but I’ve never taken that praise without mentioning that I wasn’t the first. They were the groundbreaking ones. I just contributed to it.
It opened doors for a lot of bands that were struggling at the time and failing to get heard, so I don’t feel bad about being the Johnny Come Lately, because I feel I did an awful lot of good for some of those who were there before me.
You’ve always believed you’ve been very lucky.
I was lucky enough to have the initial big hit. It could have been Ultravox or The Human League, but it was me. I never got big-headed or believed I was anything special. I’ve always thought from day one that I was lucky.
You can go right back before I even had a record deal. I was lucky to have had the parents I had. The support from them was un-fucking-believable, especially considering the fuckup I was. I was expelled from grammar school for being badly behaved. I was thrown out of the school I went to after that, and I dropped out of college. I was a disaster from an educational point of view.
So all their hopes and dreams of me having a normal life were gone. I was a disaster, but they still kept on supporting me and put everything on the line for me. So my good luck starts with the family I come from.
Did the support you had spur you on to work harder, especially through the difficult years?
My work ethic comes from my dad. His pride is in the effort you put into something. It’s about how focused you are and how hard you work to achieve something.
I mean, if I thought I was God’s gift to music- and some people do, of course- I’d just walk into a studio, squirt something out and just think it was brilliant. I think that’s a terrible way to be. I feel that, as much as I suffer from having a lack of confidence, which seems to have got worse over the years, I make up for it by working extra hard. My lack of confidence makes me want to do everything better.
I can come up with thirty different versions of a song because I think I can do it better, and quite often, I end up going with the first one I came up with. It really does happen. You can put a lot of work into trying to find the ‘better thing.’
I always feel that each subsequent album is making up for what I got wrong on the one before. And it should always be like that. I also believe that you’re only as good as your next record. I don’t believe in dwelling on past glories. It’s why I think the nostalgia part of what we do is sporadic.
There were two or three years where I wouldn’t play Cars at all, till I realised that was just arrogant and I should fucking grow up and get over myself. I just didn’t want to.
There’s a really big show in America hosted by a comedian, and they wanted me to go on and do Cars, and I said ‘no’. I didn’t care how big his TV show was; I didn’t want exposure that badly that I would regurgitate something I did 45 years ago. Then the record company got involved and tried to guilt-trip me into it.
I’m very cagey about what I did. This year, for instance, we’re doing the 45th anniversary of Telekon, so I can justify it a little bit. Also, when I tour these days, I don’t tend to do that many old songs. I’m aware that there are some fans out there who would probably like to hear a bit more than that, so I do these album tours now and again, where we just do the old stuff. That’s how I balance it.
Cars has propelled you into some classic TV shows. What did you think of Homer Simpson’s version?
Haha. The thing about that is it’s such an honour. It really is. I’m proud of it. It was on Family Guy, too. I’ve been on South Park a few times. They did My Name Is Ruin. I couldn’t believe it. It’s an honour. I was in a muppet film once. I remember going to see it with the kids and I hadn’t told them my song was going to be in it. We were in the cinema and it came on, and all the kids suddenly leapt up and shouted, “Dad, it’s you!”
It’s nice, though. It shows a level of recognition. If you’re on South Park or The Simpsons, you’ve made your mark. It’s probably the best measure of success.
If there’s anything that can top that, I’d guess it was your trip to Japan, where you met Freddie Mercury.
Ah, yes! I went to Japan to do some guest slots with the band Japan, who I thought at the time were my friends. We had this loose arrangement that I would turn up and do a few songs. In my head, it was all arranged, but I didn’t have a manager at the time, so nothing was set in stone.
Off I toddled to Tokyo, and- to cut a long story short- they weren’t as serious about it as I was, and they didn’t want me there. They kept leaving me behind, and I had to follow them in cabs like a puppy dog. So eventually I gave up and found myself walking around the streets of Tokyo and saw a poster for a Queen concert, and decided to buy a ticket.
So, I was sitting in the balcony of the place, and there was a bit of a kerfuffle starting. I stood up to see what it was all about, and it turned out it was me! I didn’t realise I was anything in Japan, but I got rescued by security and taken backstage. That’s when I met the band.
They were really lovely to me. I told them all about the shit with Japan, and they just took me under their wing. They couldn’t have been nicer. It was really special, ‘cause when I was a kid I went to see Queen at the Rainbow Rooms. I used to see quite a few bands there, and I used to hang around afterwards at the stage door to see if I could catch any of them. Most would just jump into a limo and disappear quickly.
I expected the same from Queen, but that wasn’t what they did. They invited everyone into their dressing rooms, signing everything, and it was such a lesson in how to look after your fans. I never, ever forgot it.
So, many years later, I’m now in Tokyo with them, and at an after-show dinner. Freddie was entertaining everyone. He was a really, really funny guy. Every story had you in stitches. With all that was going on, he still managed to notice I wasn’t eating.
I told him I didn’t really like that sort of food, but I was perfectly happy and just blown away to be there. I might have mentioned something about getting a McDonald's on the way home. Next thing I know, his driver turns up with a McDonald's for me.
The fact that he’d done this big show, and he’s the centre of attention, and yet he still noticed I wasn’t eating and did something about it was the mark of the man. He was a total fucking legend.
Your new album, 1000, is due to be released shortly, marking your 1000th concert. How did it feel performing it?
To be honest, I didn’t know it was coming up. I have a fan in America who’s a statistician, and he told me it was coming up, so I thought we needed to mark that. If he’d have said it was 2000, I’d have believed it, ‘cause this has been my whole life. The numbers become a bit blurry after a while. I think we’ve done another 200 since then.
The older I’ve got, the more comfortable I’ve got with touring. I feel as comfortable on stage as I do eating dinner. I feel like I know what I’m doing now. Every tour has its challenges, but I enjoy the life. A lot of people want to jack it all in after a while. I’m nowhere near that point. I don’t feel tired or jaded, and I still get excited about a gig and slightly nervous before I go on stage.
It’s an amazing way to live your life.