Artist Interviews

Q&A: Gary Numan

By | Published on Thursday 31 March 2011

Gary Numan

Gary Numan formed electro-punk outfit Tubeway Army in 1976, releasing the career-defining seminal single ‘Are Friends Electric?’ three years later. The same year he released his solo debut ‘The Pleasure Principle’ which included another New Wave classic in ‘Cars’, a track which single-handedly popularised the use of synthetic, computerised hooks produced by analogue instruments like the Polymoog and the Minimoog.

Gradually venturing further from his electro-pop beginnings over successive albums, Numan developed a more harder-edged, industrial sound which is oft-cited by the likes of Nine Inch Nails and Marilyn Manson as a major influence on their own music. Having last released an album in 2006 – the critically-acclaimed ‘Jagged’ – an in-demand Gary is still very active on the live circuit.

Ahead of two appearances headlining Back To The Phuture events in Manchester on 1 Apr and London on 2 Apr, Gary agreed to tackle our Same Six Questions in his own inimitable style.

Q1 How did you start out making music?
I was interested in music from a very young age. My parents bought me a small acoustic guitar when I was about four or five and I started to learn guitar chords straight away. They encouraged my interest in music from day one. As I got older I found that I was far more interested in writing my own tunes rather than learning to play other people’s.

Then, as a teenager, I became fascinated by the rock star lifestyle and decided that I wanted my life to revolve around music, being in a band, writing songs, touring, and and all that. So I joined a few local bands playing at weddings and the like, and then started my own, split up, joined others, and so on, until I was in a punk band I called Tubeway Army. That became just two of us, my friend Paul Gardiner and myself. We got a record deal with Beggars Banquet, discovered electronic music, had a big single, and here we are 33 years later.

Q2 What inspired your latest album?

The last one to be released, quite a while ago now, was called ‘Jagged’. It was a look back at some of the seedier things that I’ve done, tried, thought about, and people I’ve known who were a tad extreme to say the least, over the years. Like a walk down Memory Lane at midnight with all the street lights out and things lurking in every shadow. So it was inspired by a conflicting mix of shame and desire to do it all again.

The album I’m working on now, ‘Splinter’, has more to do with regret and fear. It’s still in the making though, so it could evolve into many different areas. I don’t really make happy uplifting albums. Don’t think I could if I tried.

Q3 What process do you go through in creating a track?

These days, usually, I work on basic grooves first. Get a piece of music that is essentially rhythm based and then start to build up a chord structure and arrangement, often with the main vocal melody as part of that. Once I’m happy with that I add a variety of noises and parts so that the song has a clear vibe and direction. Then I pass it on to my producer Ade Fenton who adds many more levels of cool stuff. Finally it comes back to me where I write and record the finished vocals, add any final parts that I can think of and mix it.

Q4 Which artists influence your work?
These days Ade Fenton has the biggest influence on what I’m doing in that we talk things through constantly. We are listening to, and learning from, music all the time. Ade is a work obsessed fanatic who never seems to stop so he is a never ending flow of suggestions and ideas.

Outside of that I try to get influence and inspiration from as many sources as possible. It’s very counter productive to let yourself be influenced by just one band or artist. You need to gather in as much as possible, learn constantly how things can be improved, add it to your own bag of tricks and try to keep moving everything forward. I don’t listen to other bands much to be honest, not at the moment anyway, but music comes from many places, not just bands.

Q5 What would you say to someone experiencing your music for the first time?
Thank you for listening. Don’t think that any one album encapsulates everything that I’ve done because it doesn’t, try to check out things from different decades at least because the music has evolved considerably over time. Most of all, try to experience it live as, in my opinion, that’s where it works best.

Q6 What are your ambitions for your latest album, and for the future?
I love doing what I do, and don’t ever want it to stop, although I know it must at some point. My ambitions are simple, to keep doing this for as long as I can. I would like the next album to be number one around the world and I don’t care how unlikely or ridiculous that sounds. But, if it doesn’t make that, and it probably won’t, I would like to have enjoyed making it, touring it and, most of all, I would like to be proud of it.

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