GARY NUMAN He is pop's very own man for all seasons. He pioneered electronic music, brought darkness to the charts and now his influence lies everywhere in music. However, did you know that his latest video was the most requested promo on young rock fans channel Kerrang TV? Did you know that his last three albums were the most critically acclaimed of his whole career? Did you know that he is about to work with Elvis remixers Junkie XL? Did you know that his new greatest hits compilation 'Exposure' covers the period of 1977-2002? From his early electro hits such as 'Cars' or 'Are 'Friends' Electric' to the dark industrial sounds of recent tracks like 'Pure' and 'Rip', it's all there. There are songs that have been covered or sampled by an incredibly diverse range of artists. Talking to Gary, I was curious to know how he felt about everybody using his songs, particularly Armand Van Helden who used huge chunks of 'Cars' on his rather pervy chart hit 'Coochie' "That was pretty much 'Cars' that he scratched and then added a few bits at the beginning and end. I think technically that was a sample but it was actually more like a cover but I don't mind. I'm not a massive dance fan so it wasn't really my sort of thing. I was flattered in a way but I thought the Bassment Jaxx thing [they used two of his songs on 'Where's Your Head At'] was much better. My own musical preference is for industrial/rock stuff. My favourite band in the world is Nine Inch Nails and they did one of mine a little ago. To have people that you admire as being ground breaking, Trent Reznor (NIN main man) talked about me being a big influence with what he does - that's a lovely thing to hear, when you hear that you've been an influence on what you think are the best band in the world. Then they do one of your songs! Marilyn Manson did one of mine and Fear Factory and Foo Fighters! Then you've got the dance people doing their bit and then there's Sugababes, Moloko and Republica. I was in the r 'n b charts! I've not been there before! So, to have some kind of effect on such a wide range of music is really quite flattering. I'm really proud of the whole thing." It's a particularly refreshing turnaround for Gary, who has suffered a large amount of animosity from the music press in the past. "Certainly through the 80's and early 90's, I had a fairly shit time with the press but I think a lot of that was my own fault. I have no bitter and twisted feelings about it, that's just the way the world turns at times. There are times when the things that you say and the music you make are just not what a certain group of people want or are into. Music journalists are just a group of people and they change over time or other people come in with different opinions. I'm changing, my music's changing and the way I am as a person is changing, so maybe I'm not saying as many offensive things to them. It's just the way it works and I don't have a problem. Well, I had a f***ing problem because it did a lot of damage to my career but I've got no scores to settle. I'm just glad that now it's got much better and I'm getting on with them better than I did before. I'm getting good reviews and they seem to like what I'm doing now. I'm getting a lot of credibility now and things are generally very different now to how they were. I didn't always put things as well as I could have done. Electronic music, when it came along, was not liked in certain parts of the press. They considered it Mickey Mouse music, they thought you just pressed buttons and music came out. Then I got to number one with it and they said 'Oh, you're going to be a one hit wonder'. I got to number one again and they said 'Oh, you're going to be a two hit wonder'. No matter what happened, it was never really accepted. Then electronic became a lot more acceptable and other people started having hits with it and they liked them but they couldn't quite bring themselves to like me. It just went on and on, so I stopped talking to them because everything I said was twisted anyway. When you first become successful, you're usually pretty young, well I was. Everything about it is new. Your whole life's been turned upside down. You're learning everyday while you're still running towards something that you can't see. It's a strange position to be in and you're making fairly important decisions that are going to affect your life and you're probably the last person that should be making them! You're so affected or intimidated and bothered by what's going on around you that you're kind of ricocheting. Rather than making sensible decisions, you ricochet from one crisis to another. It's a very weird time. It's brilliant on one hand and terrifying on the other. You are making these decisions that are going to come back and haunt you and I made quite a few stinkers!" I asked Gary about the 80's revival tours that people have been putting together over the last couple of years. The nostalgia industry may have kicked in and the money may be there for the taking but Gary's not taking the bait. Ever the futurist, the whole idea of wallowing in the past is not a palatable one to him. "There have been about 3 or 4 that have gone out to America and I've been asked to do all of them. I think it's the kiss of death. I think it's a horrible thing to do. People that are doing it, I've got no problem with them - it's their career, it's their life and they've got their own reasons for doing it. They say things like 'Well, we have to some old songs but we can do some new ones as well so it's a chance for getting the new stuff heard' - who the f*** are they kidding? What it is, is a load of people coming along that remember you from a long time ago who wanna hear old songs from twenty years ago and then go home. That's all it is. They're not going to go out and buy the new album and it's going to cement you firmly as an eighties act. It's like admitting that you've run out of ideas. It's like admitting that your best days are over, so you're going to sing all the songs that you wrote twenty years ago because they were the good ones and that's the ones that this audience remembers. They're all pretending that they're going to get some new lease of life out of it but I don't see it happening and I think for me to do it would have been an absolute f***ing disaster. I hate the very thought of it, I hate nostalgia and retro in general. I get it off old fans who say 'Oh, you should be putting out 'Are 'Friends' Electric?' now. What on earth are you talking about? Why on earth would I want to do that? It's not about making money and selling records, there's a lot more to it than that. I've got enough money, thanks. I'm not as rich as I once was but I'm alright. I want my next record to be some cutting edge thing that no one's heard before. I don't want it to be some f***ing twenty-five year old thing that I've just regurgitated because I'm cashing in one some little, well - big, thing that's happening at the moment. What a horrible idea! I've got some of me own fans saying that I'm stupid to have missed the opportunity! For f***s sake! You know, it gets on my nerves a bit." The night before our chat took place, Gary had appeared on Graham Norton's show performing one of his old hits. I had to ask him about that. "As a rule, because I'm so anti-80's, anti-nostalgia, I wouldn't have done it because he wanted me to do 'Are 'Friends' Electric?'. I would say four out five things that I get offered, they will have a nostalgic twang to them. It's just not me and I'm not doing it. I would have turned down Graham Norton, even though I like him a lot, because I don't want to be doing an old song but because of the Sugababes connection, it kind of was alright and they said I could do the new version of it which is much more heavy, a kind of industrial version and they were cool with that so we did it but it was a little bit awkward for me." It had to be mentioned, that when Gary was interviewed, he looked incredibly uncomfortable. "Graham Norton's whole thing is that he takes the piss out of you, isn't it? There are so many things in my past that you can make fun of. I've got a long history of dodgy haircuts, dodgy images and all kinds of things, dodgy songs probably that I thought he was going to pull out and rip me to shreds with. I had no idea; they won't give you a tip off at all as to what's coming at all. I was really, really nervous as to what he was going to come up with and how I was going to defend myself. Everything that he was going to come up with, I was gonna laugh at because I'm quite aware of my own failings and my own mistakes in the past but to have them aired on national TV is a bit embarrassing! I didn't realise how worried I was until I sat down and I was shitting myself! It was alright, I said to him afterwards "I think you let me off pretty lightly there!"" Graham Norton took the rather unexpected avenue of telling Gary and his wife Gemma, who was in the studio audience, that they heard about their love of candles. A couple of candle related gifts were brought on. Gary was presented with the 'Clone Your Bone' candle kit. I could not stop myself asking 'Have you cloned your bone yet?' "They didn't give me that! I asked about the other thing, the 'Match Your Snatch' but Gemma said 'I've already got one'. Sneaky cow had had one for about six months, just waiting for the right moment!" Gary got off a lot more lightly than the brave member of the audience who agreed to test the kit off camera. He returned with a candle that looked like it would not have provided a light for very long. It looked a little staged. "No, it was him! I swear to you, it was him. I spoke to him afterwards and he said he went round the back and there was five people with all the gear, and they were all blokes! He said absolutely nothing happened at all, he was nervous as f*** and wished he'd never volunteered! That was the best he could do! There was another thing that they didn't show. At one point, Graham Norton went to a website called 'I Like Cars'. It started pretty normal with a bloke photographed with his car. Then it was photographs of bits of his car like wings and mirrors and I'm thinking 'this is getting a bit odd' as it started showing the exhaust pipes. The final picture was this bloke shagging his own car up the exhaust pipe! I was thinking 'You can't put that on the telly!' It was so funny, there were even instructions on how to avoid getting heat burn on your knob end!" What more could you ask for in an interview subject? He's a legend, he's an innovator, he's a celebrity, he's opinionated and he's got some great anecdotes. It's good to have him back in the limelight. Interview by Simon Netherwood Big thanks to Ian Cheek Make sure you look at http://www.numan.co.uk Copyright © Sound Culture 1996-2000. All rights reserved.