Gary Numan: "I Pretty Much Ruined My Own Career" (Interview)

Photo by Ed Fielding Photography

Thirty-five years after the release of Cars, Gary Numan’s reputation has grown as one of the most important artists in the world of electronic, industrial and goth music, influencing a generation of musicians including Trent Reznor, Marilyn Manson and Beck. Numan’s most recent album, Splinter (Songs From A Broken Mind) is being hailed as his best work since his Tubeway Army days. Gary Numan is bringing his Splinter show to New Zealand with one show at Auckland’s Studio on May 23rd. The 13th Floor’s Marty Duda spoke to Gary Numan recently, just after the artist had wrapped up a successful tour of the United States, where he now resides.

 

 

 

You can listen to the interview with Gary Numan here:

Or, read a transcription of the interview here:

MD: You just finished touring the US and I was kinda interested in knowing if touring the US has changed for you since you’ve moved to the United States?

GN: It feels more um, it’s strange actually, it feels like home, you know and I’m very loyal to it you know, I’m touring around with my band and I’m familiar now. I can sort of point them in the right direction for certain things, I understand things better about being here. It’s made me more comfortable, I mean I’ve always loved touring. US has been my favourite place to see but um West Coast etc. especially but yeah its good, I always felt like a local as we were driving around. I love it, I think being here has really helped as well. You know I’ve got American management now and um it’s made a big difference. I’m coming into America this time with a far higher level or expertise and help than I’ve ever had before and it really is making a difference, its noticeable you know, pretty much straight away. So fingers crossed that that keeps going because I had very high hopes for me, part of the reason for moving here was to try to make America happen for me better than I’ve ever done it before but that’s obviously not the only place in the world you know, there’s plenty of places that I’m very keen to do better in.

MD: Right. Yeah because I was living in the United States in 79 – 80 you know when your first wave of music came over and I guess you were kind of you know, being British, you were kind of being considered you know, maybe one or two hit wonder at that point and it must have been very difficult for you at that point coming from overseas to kind of break in, in a bigger way than you had in the United Kingdom. So is the promotion of this album kind of a way of making amends for maybe past mistakes as far as promoting yourself in the United States?

GN: It is really. I think the first few albums that I’ve put out here I was with a company called ATCO, it’s a part of Atlantic and it was done very, very well, very powerful company, very well connected and I came in on the wave of the British success. Yeah so I came in as this you know, I just had two number one albums, two number one singles in Britain, so I came here you know, with a lot of interest around me with the big record companies. Obviously you know, initially things went very well and then I just shot myself in the foot so badly I couldn’t begin to tell you. And I pretty much you know, sort of pretty much ruined my own progress, my own career, so and then for the next fifteen, twenty years or so, I don’t think I came back to America for like sixteen years, I think it was sixteen, maybe longer than that not at all. You know and obviously that’s a kiss of death really.

MD: Yeah.

GN: So I was amazed that when I actually did come back in the late, I think it was the late 90s, mid to late 90s, I was amazed that anyone here even remembered who I was you know, and um it was alright, it was alright. It was still a core of people and a core of interest in the media and so on, that got me going again and it’s interesting, I could honestly say that if I had to put up my hand and be honest, I’ve done more to ruin my own career than anybody else on the planet. So I think I’ve been very lucky, I really do, I mean I could’ve done more things wrong. I’m still going out and touring, I’m still doing well. If anything, this last tour and this album have done better than anything I’ve done pretty much since I was at the beginning. So that’s just amazing for me but I am in a better position now you know, we are doing it properly and I think because I’ve managed to hang on to that and I just hang on to it actually because a lot of people that come in now are actually new people so it’s not even a case of hanging on really but you know, whatever I think I’m in a good position now and I’ve got a good foundation to just keep working here and keep on doing it properly and build it and build it. I my hope is there would be a spin-off to that you know what I mean, into other countries. The thing is though, at the end of all that I just like doing what I’m doing, you know I talk strategically sometimes and I talk about commercial success but I’m actually really bad at all that. You know thank Christ I’ve got people around me that do understand it cause I’m shit at it.

MD: Right

GN: I don’t have the interest. I wanna make albums that I love, I wanna make albums that I’m really, really proud off and that’s my end of it you know. That’s what I do. What I want to happen after that is I would like them to be successful but I have absolutely no skills whatsoever in making that happen. You know I don’t, through all the years that I’ve been doing it, I do not understand it at all, I don’t understand the music business, I don’t understand how record companies work, I’m absolutely useless, I really am my worst enemy when it comes to this so I realised this quite some time ago you know,  the best thing I can do is just make the records as good as I can, put all of my skills if you like, into that and not worry about the rest of it you know, to just what will come will come.

MD: Right, well I think you know, people think there’s a science to this whole record business thing and I have a feeling, my gut reaction is that that is probably not true and theres a lot of luck and circumstance involved into as well and the people who kinda put themselves up to being experts are kind of possibly blowing themselves up a little bit more than they deserve I’m guessing. And theres probably a lot of artists who secretly feel the same way you do about you know, the approach to their career.

GN: Yeah it’s quite possible you know, I’m pretty sure that there are people that do have some insight into what works and what doesn’t, but even with all of that insight you’re still gonna need to be lucky, you’re gonna have to be lucky you know, it’s just the way it is you know, I know when I very first became successful in Britain, It was absolutely massive. I know how incredibly lucky I was for that, how many things just fell into place at just the right time for that to happen as big as it did. So I’ve never been under any illusions that I’m anything special you know, I know that I’ve been very lucky and the fact that I’m still here now is another you know, testament to the fact that I’ve been incredibly lucky. You know as I said I couldn’t have handled my career any worse really, I’m still kicking around.

MD: Well I think you’ve done.. your legacy as it were in New Zealand seems to be much different than say the United States. There seem to be a lot of people here who have continued to follow you over the years and kind of paid attention to what you’re doing and know you know, kinda kept you in the forefront of what they’re thinking about musically. Have you found that to be the case?

GN: Well I’ve only been to New Zealand once, um I think in 2010, since it very first started, I think it was in 1980, I don’t have a good feel for it and that’s one of the problems you’re gonna hear. When it comes to choosing what songs you’re going to play, as I’ve been going around the various countries on this tour, I just had no idea what songs people know in the different countries. You know, I can go to one country and I would have done very well there, I go to another country and I’ve never done very well there and it’s very, very up and down you know, I’ve had a consistent level of popularity around the world, it’s all over the place and I’ve found it really tricky to try and come up with the right set. So again I’ve just stopped worrying about it you know, I just thought you know fuck it, I’m just gonna do what I like. I’m gonna do the songs I like and we’ll see how it goes. It’s working really well.

MD: That’s the way to go. So I’m assuming then the Splinter tour that you’re bringing to New Zealand is going to be similar to what you’ve been doing in the States that you’re not necessarily needing to alter it that much?

GN: No we won’t be altering it that much. We’re doing you know, the bulk of Splinter gets played right through the evening. We do certain old songs that have some relevance. Theres a song called Metal that Nine Inch Nails covered, Down in the Park that Marilyn Manson and Foo Fighters have covered. I tried to find old songs that have that kind of relevance, to other people you know, that have made their mark in other ways and also I tried to find old songs that are capable of being reworked so that they can be made more industrial, more powerful, more aggressive so that they sit more comfortably beside the newer songs. It’s a bit of a you know, a bit of a game to it really, trying to find the right songs that will work, the right songs that you can beef up but also the right songs that have that connection I’m looking for but I think we got it, I really do. We’re gonna make a few changes, really just for our own sake really just so we’re certainly not we don’t get bored of doing the same set but essentially, it’s pretty much what we were doing before, certainly the same format we were doing before, but it’s worked really well you know, I really think we got the right balance with it.

MD: it’s interesting you have a kinda of interesting symbiotic relationship with Nine Inch Nails specifically who were just here a couple months ago and put on an amazing show. I mean they, Trent Reznor has obviously been influenced by you, and you’ve used his guitar player Robin. What is the, what do you see as how the two of you kind of respond to each other or have this kind of relationship?

GN: I’m not sure really. Obviously it begins many years ago you know, Trent talked about listening to my stuff when he was first getting Nine Inch Nails together and tryna formulate the sound he was aiming for with Nine Inch Nails and I was obviously a part of that by his own words. So that’s where it started I guess, over the years when I was going through a particularly bad period, I thought my song writing was terrible, I really wasn’t happy with what I was doing. I had lost my direction for a bit there, this would be early 90s. I met my wife in 92 and she started to play me things that I had not heard before and Nine Inch Nails is one of them and I suddenly thought that is what I should’ve be doing. That is brilliant, it’s absolutely brilliant stuff and it was as if it guided me back to myself again and it got, I started to do much heavier music, I have to liken it to when I first started I was on a path, I knew exactly where I was going, and then the success thing came along and things started to get a bit weird and I kind of wondered off that path a little bit and I got lost and I couldn’t find my way back again and things like Nine Inch Nails, not just Nine Inch Nails but other things around at that time and subsequently actually, have helped me to, gone and rediscover my love for electronic music again and it bought me back onto that path and so I think, I genuinely believe what I’m doing now is what I would have been doing anyway if I hadn’t had wandered off but I do feel like I’m back doing what I do best and I think that’s one of the reasons why the early songs work well with what I’m doing now is that there’s a direct continuation to what I was doing back in the late 70s nearly 80s with what I’m doing now, it’s much heavier, much more grunter and much more darker now you know, obviously its moved on a lot but I see a link between the two, it’s the bit in the middle that I’m not happy with, yeah I don’t do any of that stuff live you know, there’s an entire era of my life that I just don’t particularly feel proud of and I don’t play. I do early stuff, I do recent stuff, I don’t do anything from the middle.

MD: Alright, would you say that theres some kind of correlation between the fact that you’ve gotten heavier and darker to something about yourself that connects with those kind of feelings. Why does that work for you better than say, what you were doing in your middle period?

GN: I think its realising what interests you the most you know, what you do best really. A lot of the stuff in the middle years was a reaction to what had come before. I became very successful doing a certain kind of music, I was very happy with that but I almost immediately and almost as a reaction to I should do something else now. I wanted to be a broader musician, I wanted to have, I didn’t just wanna be known for doing electronic music, I wanted to broaden out and do different things so I started to meander into different areas you know, a bit of jazz funk over here and some fretless bass over there. Bringing backing vocals and saxophones and God knows what and all these things and I just wandered too far away you know, I lost, I think I lost sight of the core of what I was actually any good at or where my heart was actually, that’s a better way to put it. Where my heart was, I just wandered too far away from it wasn’t until 93, 94 you know when I met my wife and she played me all this other music, it pulled me back, it pulled me back and it was hearing things that I love and thinking fuck, I used to do that, that’s the sort of thing I used to do. It just brought me back you know, I’ve been very happy um to be back and I pretty much stayed there ever since. I think I’ve made five or six albums, I can’t remember for sure, since that moment. It’s kinda like reinventing yourself, it’s difficult sort of to explain quickly

MD: Right sure, you’ve always, you’ve been considered a notorious kind of forward thinking artist that you’re always trying to push yourself to do something new and I was wondering if that puts an awful lot of pressure on you, it would be very easy for someone like you to kind of continue to do what is expected of you and does that pressure come from your inner self or does it come from your fans or how does that work?

GN: No it doesn’t come from outside, without wanting to sound arrogant, I really don’t mean it to sound that way but I don’t really listen to anyone else.

MD: Right, fair enough.

GN: It does sound a bit arrogant that part, I don’t mean that way. I’m very clear about what I want to do and where I want to go and I really don’t listen to advice, I think one of the problems that I had in that middle period that I mentioned, is that exactly what I decided to do you know, the career wasn’t going so well during the mid-80s and onwards and I started to listen to advice and it was just the worst you know, I could’ve done. It was a very big part of also helping me to lose my way and so I don’t listen, I really don’t, but yeah it is kind of an arrogant kind of focus on what I want to do and where I want to go but I think it’s reasonable, you know it’s my career and it’s my life. I think it’s fair enough to be slightly arrogant about that and to be kind of bullish about what you want and where you want to go. I think if we just do what our fans want, we should end up doing nostalgia tours for the rest of lives. I’ll be doing endless remakes of Cars. You would live on past glory because a lot of your fan base want you do stay there forever. You can’t, you really can’t listen to that sort of thing and the other thing that I’ve noticed is that pretty much everyone you speak to thinks that they know what’s best. People that have never written a song in their life. ‘I know what you should be doing, do you really? Okay’. I won’t listen to any of that, no it’s just that I’m writing the music that I love, you know I’m very happy with what I’m writing, I’m very proud of it and I see no reason to listen to anyone else you know, I like what I’m doing, I don’t feel like I’m missing anything but in terms of pressure about going forward I don’t really feel it that much, you know there is that pressure to try to make the record as good as it can be and I think with the next one I might feel it a bit you know, because Splinter has had some incredible reviews, people talking about it being the best album I’ve ever made and things like that. Well that’s obviously going to be very, very difficult to follow, so I’m aware of that but in terms of just wanting to move forward and you try to do new things each time, I’ve never seen that as a pressure, that if anything you know, that’s the reason for getting up in the morning, that’s what we’re here for is to try to do something new with each album. You know that old saying, you’re only as good as your next album, I absolutely believe that’s true you know, if we don’t offer something new, something worthwhile with each new album that we make, we don’t deserve to be here. You know there’s plenty of other people that are very, very good just sitting there waiting for an opportunity and if people like me that have been around a long time stop offering something worthwhile, then we really should piss off you know and give someone else a chance. You have to earn, you have to earn that place you know and you have to keep on earning it year after year, if you’re touring or making albums, whatever it is and I really do believe that. So but I don’t feel pressured by that to be honest, it’s just part of what you do really.

Watch a video trailer for Gary Numan’s Splinter tour here: [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9mWhOxfemQ]