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" 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. "

Gary Numan

Punk

Trouble

Street

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" I'm hopeless at small talk and have a problem making eye contact. "

" I always say it took me 10 minutes to write 'Cars,' but if I am honest it could have been even less than that - and it has been a really successful song over the years. It is still massively used, in advertising, in films, and people do cover versions of it a lot. "

Gary Numan

I Am

Advertising

" I sometimes wonder if I might be a bit of a disappointment to people, because they are expecting all these '80s hits and what they get is a dark industrial wall of noise. "

" Being a display pilot is probably the thing I've been most proud of in my life. Don't really fly anymore now though. I have three small children and as most of my friends were killed in different accidents, I realised that it was probably just a matter of time before I went that way. "

" The industrial thing came about mainly through giving up trying to write pop songs in the early '90s. I don't think I was ever very good at pop music and as soon as I stopped trying, and started to write more the things I loved, it became much heavier and more aggressive. "

" It seems no matter what you say and how politically correctly and carefully you say it, you offend someone. Or at least I always do. "

" Strangely enough, when the Sugababes' 'Freak Like Me' went to number 1, which was built around my 'Are 'Friends' Electric' song, I had another song called 'Rip' go to number 1 in the Kerrang TV chart, so I was pulling new people in from very different areas of musical interest. That was quite an amazing week. "

" I think any song should sound good just played on a solitary instrument with the vocal. If you have those basics you have all you need. The production then just polishes that idea into the finished thing. "

" I did an album a long time ago called 'Replicas,' which was entirely science-fiction driven, or science-fantasy. Since then it's been a song here, a song there. It's not really a constant theme. I've written far more about my problems with religion, with God and all that. "

" Album sales have collapsed, with few artists making money from albums; touring is more lucrative. But I'm 53 now and won't be able to tour forever, so a logical step is to get into writing film scores. Trouble is, you need to be somewhere which has a big film industry - another reason why I'm thinking about living in California. "

" Any time anyone says anything nice about me, whether it's Lady Gaga or your neighbor, it's a nice feeling, I'm very grateful for it. It's very helpful for your career. Every time someone says something complimentary it introduces you to their audience. It gives you credibility. "

Gary Numan

Grateful

Nice

" I would never take part in one of those Eighties nostalgia tours, although I've been asked many times, because it's like admitting you have nothing new to offer. As long as I can keep making music I'm happy with, and people want to come to my gigs to hear it, I'll carry on. "

" I want to start my own airplane business. I'm going to buy two Dakotas, paint them up in war colours and do, er, nostalgia trips to Arnhem - you know, where the old paratroopers used to go - and charge them about 20 quid a time. "

" I am very old-fashioned about marriage. It is for life and I mean it. I always knew that when I met the right girl, the life I had before - being single, in a band, girls everywhere - would be over. "

" When you decide to do this kind of music then you just accept the facts. "

" I just didn't make music that you could sing with a big grin, still don't. "

" Before breaking into music, I had various jobs: forklift driver, driving a courier. But I was forced into working rather than doing it off my own bat because that was my dad's way: you got a job and paid your way. "

" I have always been far more interested in sound than technique, and how sounds work together, how they can be layered. I think electronic music, in its infancy anyway, allowed us to create music in a way that hadn't really been possible before. It created a new kind of musician. "

" I became famous so quickly and so young - it was daunting. I was immature and I used to say some really stupid things in interviews. I never smiled on stage so I looked really serious, but it was because I hated my teeth and was incredibly nervous. "

" I wouldn't say I'm vain - I'm just in a job where the way you look is important. Well, at least the facelift wasn't vanity, but the hair was. "

" I never call myself a singer, ever. I never will. I've always been really embarrassed about my voice. I've never been confident about it. I think it's a little bit better now than when I first started. There are people I admire who are genuinely brilliant singers and I know the difference between what they can do and what I can do. "

" I was always a bit different. I had a very happy childhood, but I could never hang on to mates. "

" I don't believe in sharing my money. If I go out and work my nuts off and make some money, I don't feel that I should have to share it with my community. "

" 'Are 'Friends' Electric?' was two songs: the verse part and the talking part. Two different songs I couldn't finish. One day I was playing the main verse part of 'Are 'Friends' Electric?' and after a few minutes I got frustrated, as normal, then started to play the other song, and realized they went together. "

" Ultravox were the blueprint for what I wanted to do, but I stumbled across them by accident. "

" I have a condition called Aspergers Syndrome, which is like a mild form of autism It means I don't interact properly in certain social situations. "

Gary Numan

Situations

Which

" I'd see an old person on the street and start crying. I couldn't understand how people could cope, knowing they only had so long left. It would be like dominoes and then the last one fell and I'm a little heap on the floor. Doctors put me on anti-depressants for a couple of years. "

Gary Numan

Street

Long

" Song-writing is therapy for me. I'm a very moody person, very difficult to live with. There's a lot going on and a lot of contradictions. My life is always one step away from disaster. "

" There does seem to be a kind of split. There are those people who are more entrenched in the early electronic years, and new people who have come to it because of people like Nine Inch Nails and Marilyn Manson. "

" I honestly don't know what criteria makes someone right-wing or left-wing anymore. The boundaries of those definitions seem to be in a state of flux. I'm not socialist, I know that. "