In his 30 year career, Gary Numan has seen the highs and lows of the music world. As one of the hottest acts of the early '80s, Numan scored three number one albums in a row in the UK. As the decade went on and he changed his sound, his career waned. In 1997, having changed his musical direction to a sound that embraced a harsher, industrial direction, Numan achieved rejuvenated critical and commercial success with the album Exile. Since then, he has released Pure and Jagged, both of which have seen Numan enjoy more success. As well as his musical output, Numan has become somewhat of a cult figure thanks to hit televisions shows like The Mighty Boosh and I'm Alan Partridge.
Gary Numan returns to Australia in March for his first tour since 1980. yourGigs caught up with him as he was still coming to terms with returning to our shores after all this time.
yourGigs (yG): You've had a busy European summer. What have you been up to?
Gary Numan (GN): In the last few months, I've been doing festivals around the UK and gigging my own shows in and around the festivals. Festivals actually pay very badly unless you're headlining. In fact, I've done two headliners and been paid badly even when you're headlining sometimes. What we tend to do is, if we get festivals, we put two or three of our own shows around them and make like a mini-tour of it. We've been doing quite a lot of that through the latter part of the summer. We've been quite busy with that. In between times, I've been in the studio mixing live stuff that we recorded earlier in the year for the DVD that I've got coming out. Wherever possible, I've been trying to get on with new stuff. We've got quite a schedule of new things that we're trying to get released. We're trying to get a new album ready for the end of the year, ready to come out in February, in time for the Australian tour, hopefully. Plus another new one ready for late summer. It's pretty busy at the moment and I've got three children as well which makes it even more difficult with dad duties and so on. It's been a very exciting and busy year so far.
yG: Has there been anything about this year that's really stood out for you as a highlight?
GN: It was my 50th birthday this year and also the 30th anniversary of being a professional in the music business. So it's quite a significant year for me for both of those reasons. We did a tour in March to celebrate both of those. The tour straddled my 50th birthday; I had it onstage in Manchester. We've done a couple of big festivals that have had a big impact of my career. It's been a very cool year, one of the best years I've had for a long time. Considering I've not had a new album our or anything like that is all the more surprising.
yG: In recent years, you've received a wider acceptance as a musician than in the past. Do you think your exposure to a new audience thanks to the resurgence in electronic music and also being name checked on The Mighty Boosh has helped this?
GN: There's a number of things that have played a part. The Boosh has been a surprisingly major one. When that first came on, I really loved the program. I find it genuinely funny as a fan. They asked if I wanted to come on and do a guest spot. I did it because I really loved it. I didn't think that it would have any kind of effect on my career. It's an amazing how big of an effect that's had but there's been many other things as well. Things like Sugababes and Basement Jaxx doing cover versions, people like Nine Inch Nails, Marilyn Manson and Foo Fighters doing covers or using samples. There seems to have been a re-evaluation of my earlier stuff and now it's considered in a much more flattering way than when it first came out. People talk about my first three albums as being these classic things. It just seems that people think about me completely differently to the way they did before. It's been lovely actually. Really, really lovely.
yG: For those who aren't familiar with your newer work, can you describe it?
GN: The last few albums that I've made, I've gone in a very different direction to where I was before. They're possibly more reminiscent of when I first started but much, much heavier. They're very industrial-oriented. They're very heavy from a melody point of view. Chorus-wise, they're quite anthemic. It's the kind of music I'm really into, so I want to develop that with the next one. I want it to heavier, darker, more aggressive, more anthemic if possible and more varied in tempo. I have a tendency to sit in a medium tempo quite a bit and I'd like to vary that around a bit. I think I can do a much better job than I've done so far. Although I'm very proud of Jagged and Pure, I think I can do it even better. That's kind of what I'm going for.
yG: Do you have many memories of your last time in Australia?
GN: I have some but it's such a long time ago, to be honest. I remember I had a really good time. I remember I got into a lift and the Village People were in it. That was a bit bizarre. Not long after that tour, my career began to slide quite badly. The first thing I did was abandon any overseas-type work. I realised that I was in trouble and I thought the first thing I should do was concentrate on Britain, sort myself out here and re-establish myself. Then, having done that, move overseas again. It also coincided with, in 1981, I decided to get out of touring. I had a real bad reaction to fame and I needed to get out of it for a bit and just calm everything down. I knew that I was quite immature and I had quite a lot to learn. I backed out of it quite nicely but coming back into it - disaster. All the opportunities were gone, really; I couldn't find a decent record company that was interested in me. It just went away. Those things have been building up nicely for a few years now and I'm in a much nicer position now to where I was at the end of the '80s. This is the first time I've had a genuine opportunity to come back to Australia and play. It's been a real disappointment that it's taken this long. The opportunity to come back there is a really major opportunity for me and I'm very grateful for it.
yG: What kind of set can we expect on this tour?
GN: I'm going to do very much what I do here. This is the only thing that concerns me. I'm quite a lot worried that people are going to be expecting some retro '80s thing and that is absolutely not what I'm doing. Primarily, 75 to 80% of the set is going to be from the last two or three albums and the one that's coming. There will be maybe five or six songs from the very early days at most. I do pretty much nothing from the middle years because I'm not particularly proud of the middle years. That's what I do if I go anywhere. I really don't do a retro thing at all.
Michael Hartt
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