Home
Authors
Tags
App
Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App
" When I was 11 I became a massive fan of The Monkees. We had a so-called 'band' of kids on my street and we'd go along to people's houses and mime to Monkees records. "
Gary Numan
Fan
Along
Go
Related Quotes:
" 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. "
Gary Numan
Driving
You
Doing
" 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
Me
I Am
Advertising
" When I was a kid it was big news when someone flew around the world in a little aeroplane, but nobody cared when I did it. Then, to rub salt into my wounds, the customs people ripped my aeroplane to pieces, looking for stuff. "
Gary Numan
Kid
World
News
" There's no point in lying saying I am doing really, really well because I'm not; I'm cult level. "
Gary Numan
Point
Doing
Lying
" I'm very intolerant and I get fed up with people easily. "
Gary Numan
Fed Up
Get
People
" In the mid-1980s to the early 1990s I was writing songs not because I particularly liked what I was doing, but because I was desperately trying to get back into the charts. I really didn't enjoy it. I didn't like the music I was making, I wasn't proud of it, like I have been before or since. "
Gary Numan
Early
Enjoy
Music
" 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. "
Gary Numan
Business
War
Time
" 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. "
Gary Numan
Say
Serious
Famous
" I've spent a lot of time in the United States and I'm not under any illusions that it's a crime-free nirvana. I'm well aware it has plenty of problems, though they seem to be associated with particular areas. "
Gary Numan
Time
Well
United
" I was a loner as a child and happiest at home, launching toy rockets and aeroplanes. When I started causing trouble in my third year at grammar school, Mum was really surprised. My parents sent me to a child psychologist, who suggested I might have Asperger's syndrome. "
Gary Numan
Parents
Child
Home
" 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. "
Gary Numan
Time
Proud
Life
" When you decide to do this kind of music then you just accept the facts. "
Gary Numan
Music
Facts
You
" I just didn't make music that you could sing with a big grin, still don't. "
Gary Numan
You
Still
Sing
" 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. "
Gary Numan
Good
Need
Sound
" 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. "
Gary Numan
Looking
Place
Street
" 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. "
Gary Numan
Live
Step
My Life
" 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. "
Gary Numan
Always
You
Someone
" 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. "
Gary Numan
Step
Writing
Thinking
" 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. "
Gary Numan
Know
Boundaries
Anymore
" 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. "
Gary Numan
Music
Think
Together
" 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
Me
Nice
" The idea of collaborating with anyone else was quite daunting. If Battles had any trepidation in asking me, I can assure you I had more after agreeing to do it. "
Gary Numan
I Can
Battles
You
" 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. "
Gary Numan
Early
Loved
Good
" 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
Me
" I've always considered myself to be fiercely patriotic. I love Britain - its history and the down-to-earth attitude people have. "
Gary Numan
People
History
Attitude
" I got involved in music because I love everything about it, but now I'm in it you see the other side and it isn't much fun. Not as glamorous and enjoyable as you imagine. "
Gary Numan
Music
Love
Fun
" I met Gemma, my wife, when she was 12. She had a schoolgirl crush on me and her dad had arranged for her to meet me. Later, she started coming to my concerts, but I only got to know her well after her mother died. I rang to see how she was, and that's how it started. "
Gary Numan
Know
Meet
Mother
" I'm very lucky in the sense that I've got a voice that's distinctive. Not good, but distinctive. That's a very useful thing to have in this business. I'm glad on the one hand that I've got it, but I wish it was more powerful. I wish I had a greater range. I wish it was more accurate at times. "
Gary Numan
Good
Powerful
Business
" 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. "
Gary Numan
Life
Marriage
Always
" 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. "
Gary Numan
Amazing
Week
Song