The Pleasure Principle is an album that's provided its maker, Gary Numan, with both instant and delayed gratification. Three decades ago, when the now classic electro album first came out, it made a massive impact culturally and commercially. The Pleasure Principle, and the iconic single it spawned, “Cars”, hit the number one spot simultaneously on the album and singles charts in the UK in September, 1979. The following year, the records crashed the US Billboard charts, making the painfully shy young vocalist, composer and musician a household name here too.
Numan's Kraftwerk-inspired tracks, which channeled the voice of the machine, had a raw energy and DIY aesthetic that served as the bridge between '70s punk and the early dance and hip-hop scenes of the 1980s. Indeed the bare break beats from the opening segment of "Films" (the fourth track on The Pleasure Principle) became the sample of choice for a generation of producers, thanks in part to the song's inclusion on Street Beat's tastemaker compilation series Ultimate Breaks and Beats (which served as the primary DJ and studio sample resource pre-CD).
Ironically, as the spotlight faded on Numan, the sounds he created proliferated exponentially through the fabric of pop music culture. As a new generation of producers sampled samples, the origins of these staple breaks escaped many. However those in the know - such as Basement Jaxx, Armand Van Heldon, Afrika Bambaataa and Dr. Dre - openly covered, used, credited and paid homage to Numan's body of work.
In 2002, Numan once again toped the charts in the UK with an all-girl band called the Sugababes and a song called "Freak Like Me." The track was essentially a highly produced and super slick mash-up of the top line from Adina Howard's "Freak Like Me" and the riff and groove lifted directly from "Are Friends Electric," a song Numan recorded pre-Principle with his band Tubeway Army (which first hit the #1 single spot across the Atlantic in May, 1979).
More recently, Trent Reznor outed himself as a fan, inviting Numan to perform his songs with Nine Inch Nails during the band's 2009 shows in London and Los Angeles. The strong reaction Numan received following his guest spots at NIN's four final shows in LA in particular turned heads, and a coveted invite to play Coachella this year was forthcoming. Unfortunately, fallout from a volcano in Iceland, which grounded flights throughout Europe, meant that Numan, along with several other artists, was unavoidably a no-show at the festival. However fans won't be disappointed for long, since a dedicated tour honoring the 30th Anniversary of The Pleasure Principle will stop off in 15 US cities this fall.
We called Numan up at the East Sussex home he shares with his wife and three children to talk about the shows, his music - past and present - and the realities of life
beyond The Pleasure Principle.
NP: Can you talk about a little of what you have planned for this tour?
GN: We actually did it a little while ago in the UK. It was the 30th anniversary of an album called
The Pleasure Principal, which first came out in '79 in England, and 1980 in America. It's 30 years since it got to number one and it's not an anniversary that's likely to come again really for me. By the time it's 40, I'm going to be 60-odd and I probably won't be doing this anymore. Even though I'm not a big fan of retro, it seemed a reasonable thing to do. We did a tour in November of last year, just doing
Pleasure Principal for the first half of it, and then new stuff for the second half. And because I don't really like retro things at all really, I didn't expect to enjoy it so much, but it just seemed the right thing to do. I played keyboards and everything, and it surprised me, I actually quite enjoyed it. I think because it was a mix, the first part of the show was this particular album, which I have sort of grown to be more proud of than I was when I actually released it, and then there was new stuff after that. It felt like it was almost like a documentary set of where you were and where you are, so it didn't feel entirely nostalgic and retro, which I was grateful for.
That actually went much better than I expected. It sold really well. Then, we were going to come to America in the early part of this year to do Coachella, and to do another couple of shows. The promoters that were putting on those shows were interested in doing the
Pleasure Principal thing that we've done here, and I thought it'd be cool. It was just two shows, so I didn't mind so much. Then, that got blown out because of the volcano. So now we're coming back to do it properly, and the
Pleasure Principal thing seems to be kind of the vibe that everybody wants for the tour. I'm okay with that. All we're really doing is that particular album and that kind of a focus on it. It's nothing special. It's not as if we've got a massively impressive light show or anything like that. It's really concentrating on the fact that that album came out 30-odd years ago now, and a number of people have talked about it being influential, and a number of people have done covers of the songs on it, or taken samples from the songs on it. So it's become - I shouldn't say "important" because it sounds like I'm blowing my own trumpet - but it's become one of the better-known albums for this genre of music anyway. So we're kind of going out and celebrating that fact. Then, when that's done, hopefully they'll be a new album and we'll come back and do more music.
NP: It almost feels to me like that volcano was sort of serendipitous for you. 'Cause instead of Coachella, we're getting a whole tour from you in more optimal circumstances.
GN: Coachella, to me, seemed like a massive opportunity. I was absolutely, just hammered when [the volcano erupted]. Of all the weirdest things you could imagine stopping a tour, a volcano wasn't one of them.
NP: It isn't something that you'd have contingency plans for.
GN: It wasn't top of my list when I woke up that morning and thought, "What's going to go wrong today?" It felt like a massive opportunity and the fact that the two shows they'd put either side of it, or with it, both sold out, for me was quite a good thing. It's not as if they were massive venues or anything, but none-the-less, for me, that was a step forward. Because the last time I was there, it wasn't that great to be honest. I began to feel that it was all over for me. It feels a lot more positive now. I did the Nine Inch Nails thing last year and got a lot of positive feedback from that.
NP: Right, you got up on stage with Nine Inch Nails and performed some of your songs while they were on tour in LA.
GN: We did it here first. Trent invited me along to the
O2 in London, which is a big place, and that was just brilliant. I actually couldn't believe how kind the audience was. Because if it was me, and I was going to see Nine Inch Nails and somebody stood up and did two non-Nine Inch Nails songs, I don't know if I'd be very happy about it to be honest. I was kind of expecting that sort of a reaction really, but, it actually went really, really well and I was kind of blown away by that.
Then Trent invited me over to do the American part of it as well, doing a very similar thing, just going on and singing a couple of songs. Because the London experience was so good, I was really keen to do that. But I could only do the Los Angeles things because of other commitments. I came out and did the last four shows that they did. Again, it was just a brilliant experience, because Nine Inch Nails are my favorite band anyway. I'm a huge admirer of Trent Reznor's, so to be involved at that moment, at that sort of level, was just a real honor. I was massively flattered and in awe of the whole thing really. It was just really, really cool. But the spin on from that, the effect that that's had on me and the opportunities that have come to me since then, have been really noticeable. That's why, not only was I in awe of it at the time, I'm really grateful for it now. It's been just a brilliant experience from beginning to end.
NP: How did the Trent thing come about?
GN: A long time ago, we were doing a show in Baton Rouge, near New Orleans, and he had come to see us with Clint Mansell [of Pop Will Eat Itself].
NP: Was that during your 2006 tour?
GN: I think it might have been the one before that actually.
NP: Wow.
GN: I can't remember when it was. He was making the
The Fragile anyway, so it was before that actually. He bought me a cover version that he'd done of a song of mine called "
Metal," and it was just brilliant. I was blown away by that - not just the fact that it was so good, but the fact that they'd even bothered to do it. I just thought it was the coolest thing ever. So I got to know him a little bit then, and whenever they came here to play I would go and see them and I would meet up with him. So it's kind of, not a close relationship, but it was friendly and ongoing.
Then, when they was doing that last tour, somebody sent me an email saying that there was a link on YouTube of them doing the "Metal" song live. Because my wife is an absolutely obsessed Nine Inch Nails fan and she knows Trent obviously through me, she got in touch with Trent via the tour management and said, "are you going to be doing it in London," because I was coming, and "wouldn't it be a good idea if..." All behind my back. I had no idea she was doing it. The first thing I know, I got an email from Trent saying it was great idea. I didn't even really know what he was talking about, then it all kind of fell into place. It was just brilliant. I would've never have had the courage to ask myself, and it was such a great thing to do, and, as I say, it sort of went on to even better things. So I'm very grateful to my wife really, for being sneaky.
NP: [laughs] Ah, women, you can't trust 'em.
GN: [laughs]
NP: I guess Trent's got a little bit of time on his hands now he's knocked the Nine Inch Nails thing on the head. Are you guys going to be collaborating on your new album?
GN: I don't know about the new album. When I was with him in September, we went out for an evening and he said at the end of that we should do something together, but that we should do something that nobody expects. Not a continuation of what I've done, or a continuation of what NIN has done, but something completely different that would surprise people. But since then, obviously, he's done the [How To Destroy] Angels thing, and he's doing a film score I think with Atticus Ross at the moment. So I know NIN are quiet, [but] Trent is as work obsessed as ever. Pinning him down to actually say what days could we do it is a little tricky in itself. But hopefully when we go back there on this tour we'll be able to meet up with Trent. We've got some time in Los Angeles so maybe we can meet up and maybe get some tracks done. I hope so. I'd love to. For me it'd be a great thing to do. But I wouldn't ever want Trent to feel like I was pushing for it or using it in any way. So I'm very passive with the whole thing. I guess, I want it to happen...
NP: But you're being very British about it.
GN: [Laughs]
NP: Don't want to presume.
GN: Yeah, a bit I guess. I just wouldn't want him to think that I was using him to try to advance myself, so I'm absolutely not pushy. I just have to hope that I don't go so far in the passive way that it looks like I'm not interested.
NP: Exactly. It's so weird, Americans see being pushy as a virtue whereas English people would be horrified if they were ever considered to be such a thing.
GN: It's weird, I don't really understand the American psychology at all. I'm so British through and trough. I really struggle, and I'm quite shy anyway. I'm not bristling with confidence or ego. I'm actually quite laid back and shy about the whole thing. Like I said, I would never have gone on stage if it hadn't been for my wife being pushy behind my back. That would never have happened. I would never have thought, never dreamed of actually asking if I could come and sing one of my songs on his show. I'd rather poke myself in the eye with a needle than do that.
NP: I have to say though, I was doing some research last night and I was watching an interview with you on
Graham Norton's show a couple of years ago. What really struck me was that you seemed so much more happy in your own skin now then you were when you first had success back in the late '70s, early '80s. You seemed very relaxed and comfortable, and actually at the point where you were finally able to enjoy your success.
GN: Yeah, I think that's true. I think when it first happened, well, first of all, it happened very quickly. I think that's always a bad way to have it. If you could ever choose, then I would choose a slower line to success. I went from being completely unknown to number one in about two weeks. From my first TV appearance to being number one was two weeks, and then I was massive everywhere. That's quite a lot to take in, especially when you're a solo act. It's not as if you're part of a band and you can share the burden, share the worries, and the stress, and the shock of it. It's quite a lot to take in. I was with a brand new record company that had no experience either. I didn't have a manager. I was looking after myself. I felt very much out on the deck. Almost immediately I was plunged into something that I was totally unprepared for and totally ill-equipped to deal with. Although I was 21, which seems quite old these days compared to the age of some people that have become successful, to me, it was very young. And, I was a young 21 as well. I was a very immature, childish 21.
Where I should've just been enjoying every moment of it and just having the best time of my life, I was panicking and worrying, and kind of overawed by the whole thing, and intimated for much of it. I said some stupid things, and certainly did stupid things. I've got no sensitivity. I'm Asperger's, so I don't really understand subtlety and interaction too well. There's a lot of personal communication skills that I think are very important if you do this for a living, if you want to have a relatively easy ride through it - and I have none of them. I think people found me abrasive or obnoxious or whatever - and I'm really none of those things - I just don't know how to be.
That's become better as I've gotten older. What was shocking at first isn't anymore because you've been doing it for such a long time you kind of get used it. I think that's what happened now. Now I'm comfortable, and, of course, it's at a much lower level now. It's nothing like it was in those days. So all the weirdness that goes with being that successful that young isn't there anymore. It's kind of settled down to a more pleasant, bumbling along kind of path really. It's just easier now. If I go out, people don't scream and faint and all that sort of stuff. They just shake your hand and say hello. It's a much easier way to be, 'cause I'm nowhere near as successful as I used to be. All that's kind of tailed off now.
NP: Well you say that but in England you had the number one with the Sugababes. America didn't experience that, which is a shame because I loved what they did.
GN: I love what they did. I thought it was great. When that happened and it went to number one, I was doing lots and lots of interviews at the time, and almost everybody was prodding me to say something bad about it. To ridicule the Sugababes, or to just be a shit in one way or another. I couldn't understand why people wanted that, and I didn't have any of it. I don't think I've ever said a bad word about it because I don't have a bad word to say about it. I thought they did a really good job. I thought the music sounded really good, even though it was 20, 25 years after I'd first written it. I was fine with it. I thought it was great.
I remember I went to see The Mission in London, because I know Wayne Hussey really well, and I had goth girls coming up to me in the crowd, giving me a hard time because of the Sugababes. I thought, how snobby is that? ...Because you've got pink hair and wear black clothes, doesn't mean to say that your taste in music is the only valid taste there is. I just don't like the attitude anyway. There's lots of things that I don't like. I actually have very narrow taste in music, but I don't go around slagging off the things that I don't like because there's something for everyone. I'm quite tolerant. [laughs] God, that's not the right word is it?
NP: Ah, tolerant works.
GN: I wouldn't put people down because they like things that I think are dreadful. You get what you can out of life through music or anything else. You find what you love.
NP: What can we expect from the new album? 'Cause musically, you've made a progression and your later work is very different from what people perceive as the classic Gary Numan from the
Pleasure Principal era.
GN: Well the last two or three albums that I've done, I've actually been really happy with where I've gone. I like the direction of them, and I like the whole feel of it after certain music that I've been into for the last 10 years or so. All I want to do with the next one is just do it better. I want it to be darker, heavier, and more menacing. More epic, if you like, in terms of light and shade. I want to do what I've done before but better. I also want to make it much more aggressive, much more powerful, almost like a wall of noise. That's a very bad description, but it's kind of the way I feel it in my head. It's just everything that I've done, but more of it, you know, darker, heavier, and so on. I'm very bad explaining music I'm afraid - that's about as good as it gets.
NP: What's inspiring you lyrically?
GN: For a quite long time I've been having a bit of an issue with religion and so on, but I think I've done it to death.
NP: Right, 'cause you are famously an atheist.
GN: Yeah. Yeah. A few years ago, me and my wife, we couldn't have children naturally, or at least we couldn't for a while, so we did IVF. We were very lucky, in the first attempt that we had IVF, Gemma got pregnant. But then there was something that was really horribly wrong with it, and it was just horrible, and then it died. It was all heart breaking stuff, and I remember getting messages from people telling me how much god loved me. And [I'd think], "Fuck off." For that reason it just really got to me and I was on a bit of a crusade with it. But I just think I've done it a lot now. I feel like I've explored [it]. I could actually write songs about it until the day I die because it's an unending sort of inspiration, but I think, from a fan's point of view, I've probably done it enough or too much actually. So where I go next is a bit different.
With the last album,
Jagged, I tried to look at some of the more bizarre people that I've met over the years, and the things that they were into and that kind of stuff. I magnified it a little bit for the sake of entertainment, but, none-the-less, you're looking back into your own past and the people that you've met through the last 20-odd years or so. 'Cause there's been some peculiar and frightening people at various times, that were into some strange and interesting things. I thought I'd write about that a bit, but I recon about a third of it was still going back into the god thing.
But the next one, I actually don't know yet to be honest. For me, the lyrics come at the very end of the album, so it's one of those things that I don't necessarily have to think about too soon. The music is well underway now, but the music is all done with working titles. Then the lyrics, they come towards the end of it, [and] the proper titles come from that.
NP: So you make the tracks, and then you do the top line melody and lyrics on top of the tracks at the end?
GN: I do the top line right at the beginning. I'll have a vocal line and the melody, sometimes quite complex multiple melodies going on, but I won't actually have any lyrics for them. I'll just sing noises. You know when you're laying out text when you're laying out magazines, it looks like weird Roman shit?
NP: Right, you just use dummy text.
GN: It's like an audio version of that. That way you get to know what type of word will fit a certain part of the song. I've never done it the way where you write lyrics first and then you make the music fit. I write the music first, get the atmosphere, the mood, get all that sorted out first. Then the lyrics will just flow because that bit of music puts you in a certain frame of mind anyway and that automatically takes you towards a certain type of lyric, word or feeling. For me, it's just a natural progression. The mood creates the lyric, rather than trying to create a mood because of a particular lyric. I actually don't know what's normal. To me, that seems quite an obvious way to do it. I know other people do lyric first.
NP: I think each to his own process. Sonically, I know that you've flipped between synth-based and guitar-based music. Where on that scale is the new music falling?
GN: I would say it's getting more and more synth-based with the new one, far more electronic. The guitar is still going to be a part of it, but the emphasis is swinging very much back to - not synth necessarily - but just noises. Noises and weirdness, and that kind of thing, rather than guitar grooves. Although the one I wrote yesterday is a guitar groove, so I'm still doing that. It's not that it's going to be all synthesizers, it's where the main focus of it switches. I think the last one, certainly the one before that and the one before that, were very much a guitar emphasis, but now it's swinging very much the other way again.
NP: Being a gear head, is there a particular piece of equipment that's exciting you right now?
GN: As far as hardware, I'm still using a thing called Access Virus, which is a brilliant, brilliant keyboard. It's too damn unreliable for taking out live, but it actually puts out some really good noises. I love that. In terms of hardware, that's the only one that I'm into for the minute; Software-wise, quite a few things really. Omnisphere, obviously, which I think everyone has now and knows about. That's just absolutely awesome. And there's a company called Native Instruments who've got a series called Kontakt. There's actually seven now, but I bought Kontakt 6, which is actually an array of different bits of software that all do certain things. That's absolutely brilliant. That and Omnisphere are the background of all the new stuff.
NP: Outside of music, you were also known for playing with some pretty spectacular toys. Are you still flying?
GN: Not too much now, no. Since the children come along there just isn't the time. Whereas before on a Saturday morning you'd wake up and if it was a nice day you'd go down the airfield with your airplane, or you go off to do a air expo in Europe or somewhere. You'd be away with the airplane for the whole weekend, doing all your loop-the-loops and all that kind of stuff, you know, really exciting. Now, you wake up on a Saturday morning and the kids want to go to the beach, or the kids want to go to the park. Your life becomes totally dominated by these little things who just get whatever they want really.
NP: What crazy things do the kids have you doing? What are they into?
GN: Honestly, it's a two-month cycle of obsession. At the moment it's horses, everything's all about horses for one of them. The other one is Thomas the Tank [Engine], so today they've been out to a park near here that's got a Thomas the Tank train that runs around.
They've been through dinosaurs. We've been up to the museums in London looking at dinosaur bones. That was a big thing for a bit. Then it was Pink. We had to go to London and watch Pink in concert, which [my daughter] got halfway through before she fell asleep. Then we had the Madonna period, we've had a Gwen Stefani period. They're quite musical, we've have lot of musical periods.
NP: You've got two daughters?
GN: Three. All young.
NP: Surrounded by girls.
GN: Yeah. Fantastic. [laughs] It is actually. It is fantastic. But, I'm surprised at how much they fight - just the amount of time - you could say almost every minute of the day. Even working is a problem. Just trying to get out to write songs, because your days are now broken up into chunks. You might have an hour here and a couple of hours there. Before I'd get up in the morning and I just had all day to do nothing but think about songs and spend time in the studio working on ideas. It's not like that now, and I'm useless when it comes to working in chunks. So my actual amount of output, if you like, the amount of work that I'm doing, is just a fraction of what it used to be. And that's a problem, 'cause I'm not the youngest thing in the world and I need to be working as hard as possible because I don't know how many years I've got to still do it, and the opposite is happening. I'm genuinely worried about it. I don't know what to do. I love them so much and I don't want to not be there and not be a part of their lives - especially at this stage when they're so young - but I've got to work to give them the life I want to give them.
NP: I guess that's why a lot of artists hole themselves away while they're recording albums, just so they can have a period of concentration.
GN: I could see that. For me, the compromise would be if I had a studio, even if it was just a mile away, but so you can go out to work in the morning. So you leave the house, and you leave all their little things. Not that I want to leave, I don't mean that, but I need to get away. I need to go somewhere. At the moment I've got a studio in the garden, and it's just pointless. You go out to the studio and two minutes later they're knocking on the door [and they're going], "Can I have some orange?" They've had to walk past their mom to come and ask me. Then they want to sit in and watch, and then they never do. They start pressing things and chatting. It's lovely, but it's so not conducive to actually writing songs.
NP: Well Virginia Woolf said it, an artist needs a room of one's own. You need a space where you can lock yourself away from distractions.
GN: Yes, absolutely true. Distractions, they will kill your career more than anything else you could ever do.
NP: I think that's often the battle artists have, because you feel selfish asking for that, but it's essential for an artist's soul just to be able to lock yourself away and create. Like you say, you want to be able to give your kids the life that you want them have, and that does require that you to allow yourself to be selfish, and I guess that's the hardest thing.
GN: Yes. Yes, that's exactly right. It's one of those things that it's easy to say, but it's much, much harder to actually do, and I still haven't got on top of it. You know, my oldest is just coming up to 7, so I don't know if I ever am going to get on top of it. The amount of songs that I'm writing now is nothing. In 1979, I think I wrote three albums in a 12-month period. I'd be lucky if I write an album within five years now. I want to. I love it just as much as I ever did, but there's all this other life stuff that gets in the way.
NP: The ironic thing is that although you might not be making any new tracks yourself, other people are making new tracks using your music. So probably in terms of where your music appears, you've probably got one of the highest outputs of any artist ever. And knowing where you come from, understanding what Essex represents, it must be so bizarre for you to have the likes of GZA from Wu-Tang Clan, Afrika Bambaataa and Dr. Dre using you as an inspiration for their music - all of these hip hop greats who couldn't come from a more opposite world.
GN: Yeah, it's great. Again, like the Nine Inch Nails thing, it's incredibly flattering and all that. I do not take it for granted. Every time I hear that someone else has sampled something or covered something, I get a huge grin on my face. I'm really, really proud of it, and I ring up my mates and tell them. I do think of it as a cool thing, and I'm still shocked that it happens. I think that my mental attitude, or self-awareness if you like, is still very much the same as it was when I was 19 or 20. I go into a studio and do my best to write the songs that I write, and I just hope that people like them. I have no expectations whatsoever.
When people like what you do, it's nice to see that. I'm genuinely surprised and pleased about that. I don't expect it. I think that's one of the reasons why I've handled the years that have not been so good, when the press have not been so kind, because I didn't really expect anyone to like what I did anyway. So if I get a bad review, I've almost been expecting it. I'm not crushed by it. You see what I mean? I think there's other people that are far more confident than I am, which I envy, but when they get a bad review, they're staggered by that, that somebody could actually not like what they did. And they're ruined people, sometimes forever, and I'm so the opposite of that.
NP: It's actually good that you expect the worst because then when the best happens, you actually enjoy it. Whereas someone that's over confident and expects the best and gets the worst, they just don't enjoy any of it.
GN: I don't do it for the praise either. I don't do it to get good reviews and for everyone to know who I am. I do it because I love doing it, first and foremost. To me, what I do for a living is a lovely big cake, and if you get a good review, or if something sells particularly well, that's just like the icing on the top. I actually love doing what I do anyway. I would choose to do this for a hobby even if I couldn't earn a living from it. I'm just happy that I get up in the morning and then, apart from having to take the kids to the park, I can pretty much do what I want. I have that kind of the freedom in life, which I don't think many people really have. I massively appreciate that, and you don't have to be the biggest thing in the world to have that, to have that kind of a life. I think very early on, I recognized that and enjoyed it.
I'm very realistic. When you're touring, for me anyway, you're in a lovely big bus. You're with your mates. My wife comes with me, so everything is cool. You're going out, you're traveling all over the world, which I love to do anyways. You're going on stage each night and playing your songs to people that like them. That's a pretty brilliant way of living. I've got no qualms with it. I never quite understand all these people who hate touring and say it's very stressful and that sort of stuff. I don't really get that. I think it's a great thing to do and I love it.
The US Pleasure Principle tour kicks off at Club Firestone in Orlando, FL on Aug 17. For full tour dates visit GaryNuman.co.uk. 
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I can't wait!!! 
I stuck a radical change after changing my work schedule at the store, I now work in the morning, so I have the evenings to see friends, do crafts, or go to the beach! still hot here .. 
