…continued from Part 1
Has the internet helped, with less reliance on radio playlists? It’s a question he considers at length, before addressing the recent debate on downloading.
“I think the internet is brilliant, as a tool, and it’s made a big difference for me, being able to communicate.” There is a flipside, though. “The problem is, if you’ve got a website you’ve still got to tell people that you’ve got it, so you’re back to the problems of letting people know you’ve got an album out. I’ve not found that the internet is a magnet for anyone that might possibly be interested in me.”
And on downloading? “They talk about free downloads being something you should accept, because it encourages people to find a way of getting into your music and will help with tickets for gigs and so on. I’m not noticing that – I’m still selling the same tickets for gigs that I was 10 years ago. Some of the foreign sites with free downloads that have got counters, it’s interesting – but from a point of view for making albums for a living, that’s gone for me. On the last album, I still haven’t covered the cost of what it was to make – and I make albums cheap, nearly all at home in my own studio. Yet if I’d had earned the amount that have downloaded it for free I’d have done alright. If there is anything good about it it has put the influence back on playing live.”
We move on to discuss his approach to live music. “When I started we always had a massive light show, and it was a way of competing with the rock gods – you’re not going to impress as much just standing there playing your keyboard. So I got people in to play, to make it more a conventional line-up, but the light festival meant that you could listen to the music if you wanted, watch the light festival, or watch a few of us on stage moving around. I just thought that was the best way to go about it. If you’ve got a phenomenal light show around it that compensates, but I personally find the most interesting thing to look at onstage is someone who is really passionate about the performance they are giving. If you’ve got both, then you’re quids in!”
He considers the artists he admires live. “Rammstein I would say is brilliant to watch, and I saw The Prodigy at Brighton, and thought they were awesome. I would say that was probably the best live show I’ve seen for a long time, it was absolutely relentless. With them, everything works live, even the stuff from the albums – it just explodes.”
This year Numan has done more outdoor events. “In the first 20 years of my career, I didn’t do festivals at all. There’s one thing I remember, that just before I made it Ultravox did a festival at Reading, and they got absolutely hammered. It freaked me out so much I thought there’s no way electronic music is ever gonna make it at a festival. It was only when I got asked to do the V festival by Jarvis Cocker, who was picking the bands for it that year, that I agreed. At that point I couldn’t get radio play, so I realised that was the only way I was going to get seen by more than just my own people. So I did that one and it was really good, rather than just doing my own event.”
Festivals, he says, “are really hard to get unless you’re flavour of the month, and I think there’s a real stigma attached to people who have been around a long time, if you’re not U2 or massive like that. There’s quite a lot of preconceived ideas that you have to try and get over, but luckily so far my festival experiences have been really good.”
Even in the week of interview, Numan has had two requests for sampling. How does he feel about the whole idea? “Primarily it’s flattery. I’m proud people want to do it, and use yours rather than write their own. But equally I’m surprised so many people do it, because I find it easier to write a tune. The idea of borrowing a bit of someone else’s, it’s a bit alien to me. That’s a little riff, it’s not the only one in the world! With the ones this week, it’s the ‘Cars’ riff with someone talking over it. I would say surely you could think of something of your own? Most of the money you make from it will come to me now, but then again maybe that’s what you deserve, if you can’t write a riff of your own. I’m just surprised that people don’t seem to be arsed! Churning out riffs, it’s something I do all day long!”
‘Churning out riffs’ is at the heart of his studio practice. “Most of the writing process is sitting down playing. You might come out with a piece you like and loop it, and something that catches your ear – you see what happens. You record a lot of that stuff, then go back to it later and play around with it, chop it up. And then you start to process it properly, putting your own sounds on it. A lot of the early stages you’re looking for bits, then you start to put those bits together, then you find a good sound for it. Then you’ve got your building blocks.”
That sounds familiar.”It’s a bit like Lego really, and it looks like lego a bit sometimes on the screen. Quite often the first month or so of songwriting for me is amassing a collection of sounds and clips. The last album I gave myself five days per song – the first day to come up with the ideas, the second day to sort out the arrangements and shit, and the other three days to flesh it out from a production point of view, so you have a reasonably produced version of it. And then you can send it off.”
Does he use the old equipment still? “No, not at all. I thought I had a mini Moog in the garage the other day, but couldn’t find it. I don’t have any allegiance to old gear, I don’t collect keyboards at all. I’ve got a guitar that my dad bought me, I really love that – it’s been on every record I’ve ever made and every tour I’ve ever done, it’s covered in scratches and bits of cardboard hold it together. It’s got a proper career-long history, and I love it. I’ve never had that with synthesizers. People talk about mini Moogs and get all teary eyed – but to me, they just make noises!”
Numan’s current album project is Splinter, due early 2010. “It’s sliding a bit”, he readily admits. “The early-ish part of next year is the aim now. I’ve got an armful of bits but it’s putting them together, that’s the bit I’m really looking forward to doing. My problem is I’m easily distracted with the children! I’m thinking of buying an industrial unit, having it somewhere else as the studio is in the garden at the moment. I need to be able to go to work, it’s very different from going into the garden. You never get your mind into that other place where it needs to be.”
It’s about mindset. “I need to get my brain into a place where it focuses on the sounds and the vibe the song needs. You need to be away from all of that, the kids knocking on the door and stuff.” Not that he shows resentment for this, you understand. “I used to be really productive in the studio at home, but now it’s been thrown out the window. I do have a reasonably big boat, it sounds a bit flash but it’s a sound idea, I’ve been thinking of setting up a ProTools studio there.”
Transport – it’s a Numan preoccupation, and no form excites him more than flying. “It was the biggest thing for me for a while. I’m an aerobatics display pilot, and was an examiner for people that wanted to be display pilots. So if you suddenly bought an aeroplane and thought you could be a display pilot you’d come to me. It’s designed to keep people alive, so that someone rich doesn’t go up and kill themselves!” I ask him if he has hooked up with that other celebrated pilot, John Travolta, but he shakes his head. “I gave Bruce Dickinson a ride in my aeroplane though, when he was still doing lessons, and he’s gone on to big aeroplanes now. I did that for a bit and had my own air taxi company, but I had a chance meeting with someone that took me to World War 2 aeroplanes, and I just loved it.”
Flying doesn’t translate much into his music, however. “I’ve only written two songs about it, and both were about that sensation that something’s about to go bad. I flew round the world in 1981 in a little airplane, and had some real adventures in that. If you spend a lot of time in them you find they have their own personality – every machine does. They have all kinds of ways of communicating to you, you begin to notice things like a strange little rumble. You start to explore what it might be, and can be aware of a problem coming a long time before it actually happens. But now it’s not so good, because you’re half way over the Pacific, and have a long way to go!”
He’s had worse, too. “We had an engine come apart, we were coming out of Greenland into Canada and the right hand engine started to break up. That was quite frightening, because it was late at night, minus 50 degrees, and the propeller was moving. It was amazing it kept running. It was terrifying, we had about four hours to go or four hours back, and had to make a decision as you had to fly up a channel and back, manually.” He laughs. “So I’ve only written two songs, but not one about how lovely it can be. I’m not good at that, writing songs about lovely things, I’m much better at darker stuff.”
It’s a natural point on which to finish. Numan is a candid, very talkative interviewee but never garrulous, and in the space of an hour has put his career and life into context. As the media celebrates the role of the synthesizer in the music of the last 30 years, it’s only right his life and works should be to the forefront of any of those discussions.
Gary Numan MP3s or CDs
Gary Numan on Spotify
