Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App

" 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. "

Related Quotes:

" 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

" Fame came quickly. I was only 19 when I secured my initial recording contract and my first two hit records - 'Are 'Friends' Electric?' and 'Cars' - were number ones. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" Maybe I over-do the 'not-80s' thing. It should be a part of my life that I've got some sort of pride in, but I've got this huge chip on my shoulder about '80s nostalgia - and it annoys fans sometimes. "

" 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

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" My dad was a baggage handler at Heathrow and careful with money. He worked hard and had three jobs when I was young. I wish I'd inherited his care for money. Sadly, I've grown up to be rather scatty when it comes to finances. "

" I have one brother, John, an airline pilot, who is seven years younger. He's adopted, though we're still blood related - he's my cousin. My parents couldn't have any more children after me, so when Dad's brother died, they adopted John, then just a baby. "

Gary Numan

Baby

Parents

" 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 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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'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

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

" I've always considered myself to be fiercely patriotic. I love Britain - its history and the down-to-earth attitude people have. "

" I think if you are creative then it's an unstoppable thing. It just keeps coming throughout your entire life. "

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

" 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

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "