Legendary new wave pioneer Gary Numan recently released Dead Son Rising, a far more experimental and unique album than such previous releases as Jagged (2006), Pure (2000) and Exile (1997). On the new album, Numan teamed up with longtime collaborator Abe Fenton to co-write and produce the effort which originally developed out of a collection of demos Numan had from previous projects.
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The original ideas behind these songs are now barely visible," he explains. "
In the last nine months, the album had grown into another animal, something more experimental and fluid. It ended up being something I’m really very proud of."
The new material ranges from the heavily anthemic The Fall to the Arabic and ghostly We Are Lost as well as the standout, "Dead Sun Rising." Numan may be known more for his synthesizers than his guitar playing, but as you’ll read, the guitar has been the foundation to much of Numan’s music and career and was the first instrument he actually picked up at a young age, and one that remains his most cherished. In this interview Joe Matera spoke to Gary Numan about the new release, his love of guitars and how he developed his style and sound.
UG: The new album Dead Son Rising, seemed to have been quite a laborious process for you. I read an interview where you stated you suffered a crisis of confidence during the making of it?
Gary Numan: Yes that is correct and quite a lot actually, so it ended up being a long winded process, but that was mainly due to my own fault to be honest. The original idea for it and it may be quite an insulting term, but it was suppose to be a filler album, between the last studio album which was called Jaded (2006) and the next one which we’re already currently working on called Splinter. I knew that it would take a long time to do the next album and so needed something in between to keep people interested because I didn’t want to loose momentum, so that was the plan. But that plan didn’t work out. I don’t actually keep many old songs around. In fact for the first twenty years of my career I didn’t keep anything, if a song didn’t work I would erase it. It is a very ruthless attitude as I am a lot more interested in something new and working than something that isn’t working.
So about ten years ago I thought that it was a stupid thing to do and started to keep the material. So there was about 15 or 20 songs that I had never used and hadn’t erased. My producer Abe and I, we culled the ones out of those that we thought we could do something with. I really thought it’d be a quick process where we’d finish them off and get an album out and to the fans. But I’d be honest about it and let the fans know what it was, that they were old songs that were finished off and were released to keep people interested. Anyway, we did it and got the album finished and then I didn’t like it. It didn’t come out the way I wanted it and I wasn’t happy with my melodies and the arrangements so I walked away from it. And for a year and a half, I didn’t even listen to it at all. Then one day I was on holiday with my wife, and I was getting the kids breakfast one morning and she’s playing this music in the background and it was great, so I went to her and said, ‘that’s brilliant, that’s the sort of thing I want to be doing’. And she turned around to me and said, ‘its you!, that is the stuff you’ve done that you have been telling me for the past two years that you didn’t like!’ I couldn’t believe it. It had been so long since I listened to it that I didn’t even recognize my own stuff. I think what happened was I got into some sort of frame of mind at the time that no matter what I did, it couldn’t fix it and so I got more and more down. It was like some downward spiral thing.
"It was suppose to be a filler album. I needed something in between to keep people interested because I didn’t want to loose momentum. But that plan didn’t work out."
But I realized that I did like it and came back to it, and felt embarrassed by my attitude and so wanted to finish it. But this time we had another good look at it and decided to take it back to the bare bones of it and rebuilt it so it was an even better album. And in the process of doing that, I came up with a number of new ideas and added more songs to it, so the original demos that sparked the whole thing, are pretty much gone so there is very little remaining of the melodies and arrangements. And it no longer feels like a filler album, it feels like a proper album now. So it originated from those original songs but turned out quite different. And I feel so much better about it now and proud of it.
You also play guitar on the album as well…
Yes I did some of them and I did play all of the guitars initially but then after we redid the tracks, a lot of them were also done by Steve Harris who has been my guitar player for many years and still is from time to time. My main guitar player though is Tim Muddiman who did a lot of the guitar work on the new album too. So collectively, it’s us three on the new album.
What guitars did you all use?
Steve used a Gibson Les Paul and I used a Gibson Les Paul too while Tim used a number of Dean guitars.
People tend to think you’re primarily a synthesizer player and not a guitar player, yet guitar was the first instrument you took up and played?
Yes, guitars are primarily my first love. I have this guitar, a Sunburst Les Paul that I first bought when I was a teenager and which I still have it today. It has been smashed three times, and it has been rebuilt three times, but I love it to death and it’s my prized possession. I know I’ve made my career because of synthesizers, but they come and go for me, they’re like screwdrivers, you get one and then loose it, so you go get another one and if you break it, you just get another one. There is no sentimental feeling for keyboards. But with my guitar, it is sentimental as it’s been with me on every record I’ve ever made. It’s been with me on every show I’ve ever done and through every up and down of the career. It’s got bits and pieces missing from it from where it’s been smashed but I just love it and it means the world to me. I would never dream of selling it. And I don’t buy any other guitars, or ever will.
So do you write your most of your material on guitar primarily?
Most of it actually starts with drum loops. I get a groove going first and from then on, with the majority of songs, I will go to a keyboard. For many years I only went to keyboard and never touched guitar for quite a long time for songwriting, especially during the Nineties. On the more recent albums I have done, I have moved back onto guitar. For example The Fall from the new album was written on guitar completely. And with many of the other songs, I would work a melody on keyboard and then would use guitar for the chords and stuff like that stuff, but it is something I’m definitely moving back into.
You actually developed your initial style and sound by experimenting with guitar effects?
That is because I’m not really interested in technique. I’m not a very good guitar player I’m not a really good keyboard player. I am just alright and have enough ability to put songs together. But what I am interested in is sound. And that’s why I could never really understand a lot of the hostility towards synthesizers. It is just about sound which is what music is about, an arrangement of sounds. And it shouldn’t really matter where they come from, whether it comes from a guitar or a keyboard or somebody hitting a drain pipe with a microphone attached to it which is then put through a load of pedals. And that’s what I was doing really. I had all these guitar pedals on the floor and I’d get a synthesizer and plug it through it, and I had the drums through them, I had everything through them and I’d twiddle and twiddle until it started making noises I really liked. And that’s where I came from really and my songs are the way they are because of that. Because I am not as gifted as a musician, my songs are very simple they rely very much on melody and atmosphere. And the vibe, the feel and the mood that comes out of them, has more to do with the sound rather than a beautifully played solo.
"It originated from those original songs but turned out quite different. And I feel so much better about it now and proud of it."
Well some of it was written on guitars, Cars was actually written on bass but the album before it, Replicas (1979) which is now considered to be one of the first big electronic albums, well half of that album doesn’t even have synths on it, and that album, with the exception of the track s Are Friends Electric?, and Down In The Park, was all written on guitar. So that is very much a guitar album. The Pleasure Principle was the album where I was beginning to move across more, so the majority of that album was written on an upright piano that I had at home.
Bands such as Marilyn Manson and Nine Inch Nails have all cited you as a huge influence, so how do you feel about the effect you have had on many of these bands?
I’m so flattered that I can’t really tell you how much it means. But the way I see it is, I’ve been very lucky and have written some big singles and albums here in the UK and things have gone really well. But I absolutely know for a fact, that to have a hit single, you need to be very lucky. You need to be to in the right place at the right time with the right record label with the right radio support, and there are lots of things that need to fall into place, none of which have anything to do with the music. And that is just a fact. If the music is good, it certainly helps but it is not absolutely essential. But you do need to be very lucky and have some very good people around you to make these things happen.
You mentioned earlier that you also are working on another new album called Splinter which you plan to release next year?
Yes but Splinter is just a working title at the moment. I am hoping to get that ready by April in fact it is quite important that I get it ready by April because that means we can have a summer release for it and then can tour it in the later part of next year. I like to tour the two albums together. We’ve already done a small tour in the UK and will be doing another one in December. The only problem I have had so far is that some of the work I was doing was on Logic on my laptop and some of it was on Pro Tools on my main computer which is a Mac, and all the stuff I had on Logic which was around nine songs, I accidentally erased it all on the tour back in September. But I still have the MP3s of them so its not a total lose, but its going to be a bit of a nightmare to recreate all of them again, but hopefully I’ll be able to do that and get back on track to aim for an April release.
Interview by Joe Matera
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