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.
No comments:
Post a Comment