Interview Smash Hits (17th September 1981)

 

CASH OF THE TITAN

"I got tired of looking like an extra from 'Star Wars'''. Gary Numan opens his heart (and wallet). Mark Ellen decides to take singing lessons. Aerial photos by Stuart Franklin.

"I WANTED to be famous like I wanted to breathe, then. Now I just want to be rich."

There you have it, really – the revised (and unashamedly direct  statement of intent from what I'm assured is the "new" Gary Numan."New" in music, in look. in person, in approach.

Personally I think the contents of his new "Dance" LP break little new ground, but the figure on the cover has certainly been in for a servicing. The Numan wardrobe, once crammed with rigid space-age jump-suits. is now hung with a range of loose lightweight Gangster togs and crisp felt hats.

As for the person inside them, you won't find his current attitude surprising if, like me, you'd always considered Gary a businessman first and foremost and a musician second. I now detect a note of almost swaggering self-confidence about him, the air of someone who, at the tender age of 13, wanted to be a popstar and a pilot and has come to realise both dreams before his 24th birthday. And made a few quid into the bargain. How much, l wonder? Is he a millionaire?

"Not 'cash-in-hand'," he says, matter-of-fact. ''I'm a millionaire in 'assets'."

What kind of 'assets'? The list seems endless. There's the house in Virginia Water (an "investment"), the fleet of three aeroplanes that make up the Numan Air Company (a "tax fiddle"), a choice of "flash sports cars", a helicopter, a hovercraft, shares in a restaurant business and a hand in Scratch Records. He's even going to start sponsoring a Formula One racing car when he's back from the 6-week, 51-stop world flying tour that's planned for this September.

Music and Flying he regards as business, though he refers to them both as "hobbies". It's obvious which one he prefers. Asked what's the proudest moment of his life he answers "getting my pilot's licence. You get more respect for being a pilot than a popstar."

IT'S IMMEDIATELY clear that Gary isn't even remotely like the frail. Slightly pinched-looking figure who's been cornering so much of the pop market for the last couple of years. He talks virtually non-stop and cracks jokes, frequently at his own expense. The stage character was, he admits, an invention sparked by a fantasy hero who first appeared in short stories he wrote at school.

''The central character developed into 'Mach•Man', who was a character I got from an old 'Oz' magazine. He was a machine with a human skin – very tall and always dressed in black - and whatever he did, he did with ruthless efficiency. He was like an alternative Clint Eastwood; he wasn't massive but he was awesomely powerful in a completely different way.

And no-one could quite work him out. That's why I took him as a stage persona. And that's why I never used to talk to anyone. It served two purposes: first, it retained that sense of 'mystery' - for a while; and secondly, I just Couldn't think of what to say to them anyway!

"But evenlually I just got fed up with it, to be honest. I got tired of looking like an extra from 'Star Wars’!”

THE NEW look - the "Humphrey Bogart" - was inspired by a TV programme on '30s millionaire/eccentric and gangsterish dresser, Howard Hughes. He chose it because "it was virtually opposite to what I was doing before". It follows a nine-month lay-off "to give people a chance to forget the old look". On this occasion it's topped off with a Japanese brooch that he bought for his Gran and has since borrowed back again, plus the familiar film of mascara that gives him the complexion of a nine-pint blood donor.

Gary doesn't strike me as someone who spends a lot of time walking down the highstreet in broad daylight.

"I never do," is the answer. "But then again, I never did. I don't mix. Never have done. The only walking I ever do is from the house to the car, and from the car to the 'plane."

I wondered if this kind of isolation was increased by his having been the press whipping boy for the last year or so. Had any of the ir comments upset him?

"You can't be that upset when you're earning figures with masses of noughts on the end!"

I show him a magazine I'd bought that morning. In it he's reduced to being merely "a pimply. pasty. Painted popster".

"Pimply! Yeah. that's a good one! I remember the last time I had a spot. April the 28th at Wembley. That's how pimply l am! What else does it say? 'Pasty and painted'. That must take in about 20 of the Top 30 singles in the chart! l suppose now it's fashionable. All I wanted to do when I started out was to make it showbusiness again. Now, I keep reading these interviews with these New Ones like Depeche Mode - 'New Ones'! Makes me sound like a old man. doesn't it? - and they say 'We just want to make it Entertainment again'. I said all that two years ago and got slagged for it! You can't help feeling a little bitter sometimes."

Can he afford not to feel competitive now?

"I've never really understood the competition in music. When Adam Ant got to the top of the charts I sent him a telegram saying. y’know. ‘Congratulations’. Apparently nobody else did. Everybody was too busy slagging him off 'cos he was nicking some of their market. There's no 'threat'! I'm not going to die! Just because people buy Adam Ant records, it doesn't mean they're not going to buy mine! It may do. But, then again, my slagging him off isn't going to do any good."

It seems strange, I tell him, that none of his optimism is reflected in his music. "Dance" seems just as sombre as his other LPs.

"Which is easiest to write – a happy story or a sad story? It's easier to write about things that are heavy and nasty."

Does that mean that all the ideas on "Dance" are imaginary?

"No they bloody ain't ... bitch! Not you, the person they're about! There was a 'little incident' in February that involved one particular person who thought she could make an awful lot of money out of saying what it was like to be with me for six months. You don't expect that. I was all set for, y'know, the ring - the lot! I thought 'That's it. My life's complete' and then it turns round and hits you like an atom bomb. And that's what the album's about. Maybe that's why it’s•’sombre’.”

(Things have brightenEd up a bit since then, except that Gary's current girlfriend's ex-husband recently drove across the Numan garden and attacked him with a bunch of roses. The day before the album cover photo session, too. "Really annoyed me, that. Made a real mess of me lawn as well!").

Did he think anyone would understand what the LP was all about?

"One person will for sure. It was written for one person."

What about the rest?

"Well, people are always trying to find out what lyrics are about. Nine times out of ten they're wrong." Does he feel he owes his fans anything?

"It's a case of the chicken and the egg. Now. which comes first - the pop star or the fan? The fan has to buy the record to make the star; the star has to write the record for the fan to buy it. They should be grateful to me that I made that record; I should be grateful to them that they bought it. and believe me I am. I must never expect them to buy my next one; they mustn't think that I should make another one.

"Same applies to touring. They shouldn't expect me to ever tour again. I've never preached. The only message I’ve ever had is that I don't owe anything. In two or three years time, who's going to remember me then? Adam comes along - or someone else and - and - boom! - they're gone! No loyalties. No looking back. We don't need Gary Numan any more'. Out go those badges from the drawer. Does that sound cynical to you?"

It's realistic’ maybe, but it doesn't sound very sympathetic.

"Sympathy doesn't come into it! Supposing I went up tomorrow in my aeroplane and something went wrong and I'm dead. Within a week my fans would be buying somebody else’s records and the press might even write something nice about me! It's like the boy at school that all the girls fancy. Then he moves to another school and they all start fancying someone else."

There you have it - the "new" Gary Numan. Love it or leave it, but don't say it isn't honest.

Concorde 2 Brighton 24th June 2025

 

Here's Gary at one of his Glastonbury warm-up gigs at Brighton's Concorde 2. Thanks to Chatts for the share. He really has done a good job with this one as the venue is pretty small and prone to getting very hot when at capacity, which of course was the case for this trio of gigs. Details are gven in the download notes. A friend of mine now living in Hove went to one of these (the third date to be announced) and said that it was his gig of the year so far - and in all the years that I have known him I was unaware that he had any interest in Numan's music!

FLAC: https://we.tl/t-2mpPznm2Iv

Artwork: https://we.tl/t-9MTEqUbJHo

Top 30 'Cross-over' Albums #1 Dance - Gary Numan

Ok, so here is the first of those albums that I mentioned in the last post. Having said that they are not all Numan albums, I am kicking of with just such an album. 1981's 'Dance' is first up. Oh, and just to say that whilst these albums will be numbered 1 to 30, this is just numbering and not ranking. In actual fact, the entire concept of a Top 30 is a bit of a nonsence really as I am sure that if I were to construct a list on Monday only to repeat the exercise on a Friday, at least 30% of the content would be different... but I guess that is how music takes most people. 

So I will be honest here. 'Dance' is not an album that receives heavy rotation on my turntable (no pun intended there). At the time of its release and immediate aftermath, I was starting to discover punk (albeit 5 years or so after the event) and the likes of The Damned and The Stranglers pushed some of Gary's material to one side. Earlier Numan material was in my mind more compatible with me as a punk fan (well, it came from a similar place in time and space).

It's funny though, as and when I do give 'Dance' a run out, it propels me back to that time, even the thoughts and concerns that occupied me at that time, such is the brilliant ability of music to evoke such strong feelings and memories!

In April 1981, Numan drew a line under his black clad, machine rock years with the spectacle of his Wembley Arena 'Farewell' shows. Tired and disallusioned with touring Numan intended to make moves into the new medium of video and to focus on studio recording in place of live performance (well, it worked for The Beatles didn't it?).

The Wembley shows were also a fond adieu to the stalwart musicians that formed the core of the band that he had spent the last three years on the road with, Ced Sharpley, Rrussell Bell, Paul Gardiner and Chris Payne, who less Paul, went on to form Dramatis. Gary gave them a parting gift in the form of 'Love Needs No Disguise' which gave Dramatis a minor hit (on the back of Gary's vocal contribution). The track also featured on a Japanese CD release of the album years later.

For the making of the album, Gary pulled in a number of musician mates to record with, perhaps most notably, given the direction that the music took, Rob Dean and Mick Karn of Japan. Karn's fretless bass is one of the stand out features of 'Dance'. The calibre of the musicians involved in the making of 'Dance' ensured that the overall result was a slick and highly accomplished body of work.

But old prejudices are long enduring and this was the case with the section of the music press (New Musical Express in particular) who were fixated with the image of Numan as the opportunistic Bowie clone last seen fleeing from the HA9 area of London clutching bags of the kids hard earned pocket money. Paul Morely wasn't a fan! But reading through his assessment of the album, one line stuck out for me.

"Noone of any worth will be influenced by Gary Numan, despite his best wishes".

In that assessment Mr Morely was ultimately proven to be way of the mark.

The NME review is harsh but in the discussion of where 1981 left a musician like Numan, now faced with formidable competition, was a fair point to a degree. However, whilst bands like Depeche Mode and Soft Cell clearly drew influence from Numan's early success, other bands, notably The Human League and OMD were at least comtemporanious (if not older) than Tubeway Army (the electronic version). In that sense Gary had had his own stroke  of luck (an appearance on OGWT) that enabled him to leapfrog The League and OMD and fast track to huge success. Having achieved that success, holding on to it was always going to be the challenge. As they say 'you're only as good as your last race' and 'when you get to number one, the only way is down' etc etc. From a commercial perspective these turns of phrase certainly carried meaning in terms of his own career.

Here's what the critics had to say.

New Musical Express 5th September 1981

And if Paul Morely didn't like it, well there was worse to come within the pages of Record Mirror (in the past a rare supporter of young Gary).

Record Mirror 5th September 1981

I suspect that at this point in his turbulent relationship with the UK's music press he had abandoned reading his own reviews. If he was still inclined to do so, he may have taken a shred of comfort from the opinion of the reviewer in the more teen orientated 'Smash Hits'.

Smash Hits 30th September 1981

If nothing else, 'Dance' provides a powerful example of just how rapidly bands could change in the late '70s/early '80s. Think about it, in four short years, Gary Numan had transformed from a young punk with three chords on the Roxy stage to an musician crafting 9 minute album tracks.

Top 30 Albums with Possible Numan Cross-over

Here's something that I started on my other music blog, aural sculptors, just in an attempt to mix things up a bit. On that site I have kicked off a theme of posts along the lines of a Top 30 of punk albums. For these albums I will do my best to pull together contemporary information that appeared in the music press at the time of a given albums release (reviews, adverts, interviews, live shows etc.). You get the picture I am sure.

These won't just be Numan albums, I will draw from a lot of the stuff that I was listening to back in the day (and still to this day). Let's see how we get on.

Glastonbury Festival 28th June 2025 DVD

 

Here then is a DVD I authored this weekend of Gary’s Glastonbury set. I have followed some of the reaction to this, his first appearance at the renowned Somerset festival, and the reaction was very positive indeed. All credit to Gary Numan. Even as a seasoned performer, Glastonbury is a tough gig, which is why so many bands opt for pre-Glastonbury warm up gigs (Numan did three shows in Brighton in preparation). This is entirely understandable, Glastonbury being the most famous festival in the world, no other event is going to put you and your band in front of so many people, be they physically present or watching on television. He may have played a multitude of huge arenas in his career, but playing to an audience who have specifically paid out to see you and you alone is a far different proposition to playing to a massive audience who at a push may know ‘Cars’ and ‘Are ‘Friends’ Electric? I have no idea why ‘Halo’ was but from the running, I assume for programming purposes to bring the broadcast in on just under an hour. Who knows, either way, it makes for a great addition to the collection.

DVD Image: https://we.tl/t-xEpF8CzZ7b

Artwork: https://we.tl/t-G4ULFCPLVI