Gary Numan
Gary Numan
Gary Anthony James Webb, better known professionally as Gary Numan, is an English singer, songwriter, musician and record producer. Born in Hammersmith, London, he first entered the music industry as the lead singer of the new wave band Tubeway Army. After releasing two albums with the band, Numan released his debut solo album The Pleasure Principle in 1979. Most widely known for his chart-topping hits "Are 'Friends' Electric?" and "Cars", Numan achieved his peak of mainstream popularity in the late...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionPop Singer
Date of Birth8 March 1958
bigs stills
I just didn't make music that you could sing with a big grin, still don't.
electronic inch marilyn nine people
There does seem to be a kind of split. There are those people who are more entrenched in the early electronic years, and new people who have come to it because of people like Nine Inch Nails and Marilyn Manson.
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I think that when we are dead, we are worm food, I don't believe there is a greater place. I don't believe there is a greater purpose or a greater being. I have none of that. I wish I did to some degree, because the older I'm getting, the more I am aware of death and the inevitability of it, and it frightens me now, in a way that it didn't when I was younger.
admitting although asked carry eighties gigs happy hear music nostalgia people
I would never take part in one of those Eighties nostalgia tours, although I've been asked many times, because it's like admitting you have nothing new to offer. As long as I can keep making music I'm happy with, and people want to come to my gigs to hear it, I'll carry on.
bit brilliant call confident genuinely people singers
I never call myself a singer, ever. I never will. I've always been really embarrassed about my voice. I've never been confident about it. I think it's a little bit better now than when I first started. There are people I admire who are genuinely brilliant singers and I know the difference between what they can do and what I can do.
excitement great hugely lifestyle love prefer studio touring work
I much prefer touring to anything else. Studio work is great, and can be hugely satisfying, but live work has the excitement and the lifestyle that I love.
feeling great time
It was a great feeling the first time I got to No.1 with Are Friends Electric? in 79.
band deal everybody good playing pop punk quite reason record signing version weak worked
The reason I started, and got into playing punk as a band was quite mercenary, to be honest. I wanted a record deal and everybody was signing punk bands, so I started doing it. My own weak pop version of it really, we weren't particularly good or convincing, but that's what I did, and it worked and I got a deal.
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'Are 'Friends' Electric?' was two songs: the verse part and the talking part. Two different songs I couldn't finish. One day I was playing the main verse part of 'Are 'Friends' Electric?' and after a few minutes I got frustrated, as normal, then started to play the other song, and realized they went together.
airplane business buy charge colours nostalgia paint start time trips war
I want to start my own airplane business. I'm going to buy two Dakotas, paint them up in war colours and do, er, nostalgia trips to Arnhem - you know, where the old paratroopers used to go - and charge them about 20 quid a time.
everywhere girls knew life marriage mean met
I am very old-fashioned about marriage. It is for life and I mean it. I always knew that when I met the right girl, the life I had before - being single, in a band, girls everywhere - would be over.
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The idea of collaborating with anyone else was quite daunting. If Battles had any trepidation in asking me, I can assure you I had more after agreeing to do it.
allowed create created electronic far infancy interested music possible sound sounds work
I have always been far more interested in sound than technique, and how sounds work together, how they can be layered. I think electronic music, in its infancy anyway, allowed us to create music in a way that hadn't really been possible before. It created a new kind of musician.
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When I was 11 I became a massive fan of The Monkees. We had a so-called 'band' of kids on my street and we'd go along to people's houses and mime to Monkees records.