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. – Gary Numan
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
When I went to record my first album, which should have been a punk album, there was a synthesiser in the control room. I’d never seen one before but they let me have a go on it and I loved it to bits. – Gary Numan
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
Ultravox were the blueprint for what I wanted to do, but I stumbled across them by accident. – Gary Numan
There’s no point in lying saying I am doing really, really well because I’m not; I’m cult level. – Gary Numan
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
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
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
I’m not good at happy, lightweight kind of music. I’m not really good at pop music. ‘Cars’ is probably the only true pop song I ever wrote. I wish I could write more, but I’m not very good at it. – Gary Numan
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. – Gary Numan
I became an air display pilot. I used to teach it. I was an examiner for a few years as well. It was great fun. I would still be doing it now if pretty much everyone I knew who was doing it hadn’t died. In the first team I joined there were six people in it. By the time I stopped, there was only me and one other left – everyone else had died. – Gary Numan
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
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
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. – Gary Numan
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
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’d been a Bowie fan before punk and used to get no end of trouble. I was always getting knocked about and having to run up the street, getting chased by people. It was horrible. – Gary Numan
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
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