He’s not normally one for looking back but Gary Numan is planning to raise a glass to some very important anniversaries in 2019. “Next year is the 40th of my first two big albums, it’s quite a big deal,” says Gary, referring to Replicas and The Pleasure Principle LPs. “If I’m going to do any retrospective career thing that’s the best time to do it because there’s a justification for it, a reason for doing it.”
Numan’s creative drive is such that he prefers exploring new projects. “I don’t like nostalgia, I just don’t. If you still have an ongoing and active career then you’re keen on what you’re doing now and what you’re doing next, I’m not particularly interested in what I’ve done in the past. When you’re out on stage doing new stuff it feels exciting. It’s where you’re at as a person at that particular time, emotionally.”
He recently issued a live album, but it’s always a struggle including the old songs. “Constantly playing stuff that you’ve performed many, many times can become tedious, stuff that you wrote when you were 19 and 20,“ he says. “You don’t think or feel that way any more, you don’t really want to be doing all that stuff repeatedly – it feels like you’re standing still.