Gary Numan: ‘We’re close to the end of the world as we know it’-Dave Freak-Entertainment – Metro

Gary admits to having been apprehensive about his huge Wembley gig in May: ‘It was a little overwhelming… I was so frightened of messing up’ (Picture: Steve Jennings/Getty Images)

It has been a long journey, but May saw Gary Numan finally make a triumphant return to Wembley Arena after 40 years away, and it’s an occasion he’s marking with a looming live album and film.

‘It was a little overwhelming as I was getting ready, to be perfectly honest,’ the pioneering musician confesses about returning to the 12,500-capacity London venue.

‘I had to be taken to one side and calmed down twice, and that never happens to me — I’m pretty laid back usually and don’t really get nervous. I was so frightened of messing up, of ruining what I desperately wanted to be a night to remember forever.’ But he need not have worried. ‘I loved it, every minute of it,’ he declares, proudly.

‘One of the best nights of my life! It lived up to everything I’d spent the last four decades dreaming of.

‘The crowd was immense and they roared their way through the entire show, the band was faultless, the equipment worked perfectly, it was just the best night.’

Gary has overcome his nerves about the comeback from his retirement from live performance in 1981 (Picture: Stuart Westwood/REX/Shutterstock)

Tubeway Army’s 1979 album Replicas catapulted Gary to overnight stardom, with the cold, synthetic Are ‘Friends’ Electric? an unlikely UK Number One, a feat repeated with the buzzing solo single, Cars.

Further chart hits stacked up, but in 1981, he grandly announced his retirement from live performances, marking the shock news with three storming sell outs at, yep, Wembley Arena.

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Although he’s never stopped recording, and soon returned to gigging, it was pretty well all downhill from there for Gary, as his fortunes rapidly declined (literally and metaphorically). It seemed likely he’d never attain those Wembley heights again.

Recalling those landmark 1981 shows today, he says his lasting memory is simple: ‘Realising that it was the best decision and yet equally the biggest mistake of my entire career. I needed to step back in 1981,’ he reports.

Gary achieved overnight stardom with Tubeway Army’s 1979 album Replicas, featuring the unlikely UK Number One hit Are ‘Friends’ Electric? (Picture: John Rodgers/Redferns/Getty)

‘If I hadn’t done that I would have been a drunk, a drug addict or dead within a year or two.

‘I realised that, and so took that huge decision to just stop everything and step back. I took some time to breathe, to figure out what this new “rock star” life was all about. I needed to understand and identify what was good and what was bad about it, and so move forward, when I was ready, with caution. It was a really smart thing to do. But I should have just done it quietly and secretly. I shouldn’t have made a big thing of it with the “I’m retiring” statements.

If he hadn’t ‘retired’ from doing live gigs in 1981 after his string of hits, Gary would have soon been ‘a drunk, a drug addict or dead’, but now he’s well and truly back (Picture: Steve Jennings/Getty Images)

‘So the way I went about it was all wrong and did enormous damage to my career. Playing at Wembley again was finally getting back to the place I was when I ruined it all. I never thought it would take four decades, though.’

The post-fame years were tough for the electronic artist, whose releases shaped pop, hip-hop and industrial genres. Critical hostility, public indifference and financial difficulties led to him considering packing it in.

Pop, hip-hop and industrial genres of music have been shaped by Gary’s work (Picture: Duncan Bryceland/REX/Shutterstock)

But his rehabilitation, if you will, has been ultimately rewarding and significant, as each turn-of-the-millennium release has built on the last, with 2013’s Splinter returning him to the UK Top 20 for the first time in 31 years, while 2017’s Savage and last year’s Intruder both hit Number Two. What’s even more remarkable about Gary’s ‘comeback’, is the fact that these aren’t pop records — they’re brutal warnings.

‘[Intruder] looks at the problem of climate change from the planet’s point of view,’ Gary explains. ‘If the planet could articulate the way it feels about humanity and what we’ve done to the world, what would it say? Would it be disappointed, disillusioned, hurt? Would it feel betrayed? Would it be angry, and if so would it want to fight back? Is it already fighting back?

He once considered packing in his musical career completely but Gary is back with a vengeance; pictured in concert at the Glasgow O2 Academy in May (Picture: Duncan Bryceland/REX/Shutterstock)

‘Is Covid an example of the way it’s chosen to fight back? Is Covid the first of many more attacks still to come?

‘Does it see us as a mistake, as the golden creation gone rogue? The one thing that is certain is that without us the planet will recover and flourish, if it can rid itself of us quickly. It’s fighting to survive, and we are the enemy.’

Last year’s number two hit Intruder looks at climate change from the planet’s point of view; Gary thinks the earth is angry at what humans have done to it and is fighting back (Picture: Adam Berry/Getty Images)

‘We are a truly unpleasant creation for the most part — greedy, ruthless, wasteful, vicious and callous. I genuinely believe that humans are one of nature’s rare mistakes. We shouldn’t be here.

‘We were made too intelligent, too adventurous, too inquisitive and yet too ignorant and too selfish. A terrible mix, and look at the results! We’re actually living close to the end of the world as we know it, and half the people on it still don’t even see a problem.’

Pictured at the O2 Institute, Birmingham, in May, Gary loves performing live and his Intruder dates have marked a career high (Picture: Steve Johnston/REX/Shutterstock)

Despite his grim vision for the future, Gary admits he relishes performing live, with his Intruder dates marking a career high.

‘I’ve been touring for over 40 years and this tour has been the most enjoyable as far as crowd reactions are concerned,’ he says ahead of his final UK date in the Intruder jaunt — at R-Fest, with The Stranglers, Peter Hook, Squeeze, Hawkwind, and PWEI.

‘It’s usual when you play a lot of shows to have one or two that are just a bit dull compared to the others. That hasn’t happened on this tour, not once.

‘Every night the crowds have been full on so we’ve really enjoyed the excitement and confidence that comes with that.’

Gary headlines R-Fest, Blackpool (Aug 4-7,) on August 6.

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