Gary Numan on the music industry: ‘It’s a pretty ruthless business’
As he gears up for an outdoor show at Glasgow’s Queen’s Park Arena, Gary Numan chats to Fiona Shepherd about his problem with nostalgia, the importance of melody and dealing with daughters who ignore his sage advice
What are your plans for your forthcoming Glasgow show? I’m looking forward to that; it’s the biggest thing I’ve done in Glasgow for a long time. The first concert I ever did was in Glasgow in September 1979 at the Apollo so everything started for me there and every time I go back it just feels like going home in a way. Musically, I’m working on new stuff so if that goes well there should be one or two new songs I could bring into the set.
Can you tell us more about your new material? I know exactly where I’m going with it. I just need to write the tunes to match the idea. The last two albums have been connected to climate change. Savage was about the effect on humanity should the climate apocalypse happen and Intruder was about if the Earth could speak, how it feels about what we’ve done to it. The next one is looking at the effects on humanity of AI in the near to mid-term future. In 1979 I did an album called Replicas about handing over control of society to a computer. That was very much science fiction in 1979 and here we are today where it’s actually happening. I am excited to get on with the album because it’s long overdue. The working title is This Is How It Ends.
How was your first experience playing an 80s music cruise earlier this year? I thought it was going to be horrendous. I’m ashamed to admit it was money that convinced me to do it. My principles have always been stronger than that in the past. I was getting lots of advice that I really should do it and get over myself, so I gave it a try and it was surprisingly ok. I’m just so uncomfortable with nostalgia or being seen as a nostalgia act. For me it’s always been about what I’m going to do tomorrow rather than what I did yesterday. I got interested in music in the first place because it was all about this new world of sound that was suddenly available to us.
And for your troubles, you attracted criticism from the Musicians’ Union in those early days. They said some really ignorant things, like you are putting string players out of work. I’m trying to come up with noises that you’ve never heard before. We’re certainly not trying to replicate things that have been out there for hundreds of years. In that respect, the 2023 acoustic tour was a bit of curveball. When you’re doing a normal show, it’s this huge wall of noise and lights and spectacle so you can almost blunder through it. This was so much more difficult than a normal gig; you’re so exposed. I wasn’t convinced that the songs would translate to being done acoustically because they are quite heavy electronic songs. I was surprised at how well it did work. That’s probably because the most important thing for me as a songwriter is melody. The first thing I do is the tunes, so if you strip the songs down to the barest essentials you’ve still got what you need to make it work.
Your music is frequently sampled by other artists. Have you ever returned the favour? I’ve sampled a few sound effects from films a long time ago, which was a bit naughty. I would rather come up with my own grooves and beats but it’s not quite as pure as I’m painting. A lot of these software synths that you buy now will come with a library of 10,000 sounds and I will gladly use those. I would not be interested in taking someone else’s.
How do you feel about your daughters Raven and Persia following you into the family business? I’m all for it. There’s a downside to it, obviously. You are judged constantly. Sometimes the public can be pretty scathing, especially in the social media world. I worry about it because it’s a pretty ruthless business. My advice has always been ‘don’t read feedback’ because the horrible thing will be the one you remember: they have ignored that completely. They laugh about it. I couldn’t do that. It used to cut me.
Despite your anti-nostalgia stance, do you have plans to mark your half century in music? Oh yes, that’s such a milestone, you can’t let that go by! The 50th anniversary of my signing is in 2027. The first single came out in ’78 and ‘Are “Friends” Electric?’ and ‘Cars’ the next year. I am going to go for it because it’s a big thing. I should be proud of it and I am.
Gary Numan tours until Thursday 6 August.
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