And I used to go the punk clubs such as a gay club in Poland Street that everyone would go to because it was the only place you could go to looking like that without getting beaten senseless. |
For years I couldn't understand why people thought I was so arrogant - now it all makes a bit more sense. |
I genuinely don't know how many albums I'm going to sell when the new album comes out, because I honestly don't know how many fans I've actually got at the moment. |
I honestly try really hard to talk to people, as though everyone's the same. No-ones better, no-one's worse, I don't think one job is better than another. I really try to look at the world and everyone in it evenly. I seem to be widely misunderstood often. |
I love lyrics by bands that have struggled, and they have gone through experiences, be it drugs, sex, whatever it might be, but have gone through experiences that I perhaps haven't, and I find that struggle with demons fascinating, I love all that stuff. I don't often see that in these reality TV people. |
I think that when we are dead, we are worm food, I don't believe there is a greater place. I don't believe there is a greater purpose or a greater being. I have none of that. I wish I did to some degree, because the older I'm getting, the more I am aware of death and the inevitability of it, and it frightens me now, in a way that it didn't when I was younger. |
I'd been a Bowie fan before punk and used to get no end of trouble. I was always getting knocked about and having to run up the street, getting chased by people. It was horrible. |
If I thought that any of this was pre ordained, then it takes away any kind of incentive to struggle, or to put up with things, to reach for those impossible dreams, all those dramatic things. |
If you didn't have a record company or a PR company that was really out there pushing you then you couldn't get to them, so everything drifted away. Then the internet comes along, and all of a sudden, you have this central place where anyone, anywhere in the world can type Gary Numan into a search engine and find me and find out what's going on. |
It was a great feeling the first time I got to No.1 with Are Friends Electric? in 79. |
The reason I started, and got into playing punk as a band was quite mercenary, to be honest. I wanted a record deal and everybody was signing punk bands, so I started doing it. My own weak pop version of it really, we weren't particularly good or convincing, but that's what I did, and it worked and I got a deal. |
There's no point in lying saying I am doing really, really well because I'm not; I'm cult level. |
When you decide to do this kind of music then you just accept the facts. |
Without doubt, there are unexpected pressures that come with success, that I would be surprised if many people are prepared for, or even aware of beforehand, that takes getting used to. But then again, when you're doing very well, you earn a great deal of money so at least you can sit there worrying in a nice big house, rather than a little house. |
Yea things are good! |