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“Synth-pop is dead." Such was my recent proclamation in these very pages. Yet no sooner had the ink dried than the echo of a pulse, a strengthening heartbeat, visited my ears from the least likely of sources: Gary Numan. The New Wave icon, whose 1979 hit "Cars" made him synth-pop's original superstar, had released a new disc, Exile (Cleopatra), that positions him as the genre's prodigal son and potential savior. How did such a miraculous resurrection come about? "I went back to writing songs for the fun of it, for the hobby again, as it used to be when I first started," Numan informs me from a Pittsburgh hotel room. "And all the imagination came back, all the worries associated with trying to keep a career going just disappeared." It's been a snaky road between Exile and the day a man born Gary Anthony James Webb adopted the last name "Numan." Flashback to Britain, late '70s: The singer for Tubeway Army enters a recording studio and finds a MiniMoog keyboard. He switches it on and a warm analog warble bursts forth. Suddenly punk seems passé, electronic music the true view of tomorrow. Success rushed in. Songs like "Cars" and "Are 'Friends' Electric?," with their crystal-sharp synthesizers and futuristic imagery, made Numan an overnight sensation. Onstage, the awkward young man hid behind elaborate light shows, makeup and a "paranoid android" persona that made people think he wanted to be a robot. But Numan was human, and he made miscalculations. The press, already sour-graping that an ex-punk rocker admitted wanting wealth and fame, lashed into him at every opportunity. Numan seemed to insert both feet firmly in his mouth at every turn, such as the time he admitted voting for Margaret Thatcher. Today, he insists that he's learned his lesson. "It doesn't seem to matter what you say--you're going to upset one half or the other--so just keep out of it," he says, then adds, "I sing songs. That's what I do. I do not try to run the country." Regardless, the slavering dogs of the British press corps had rent his credibility asunder, labeling him a jingoistic poster boy for the Tory party (which he's not--he most recently supported Labor) and a wacko with a tendency to crash his vintage stunt plane (again untrue--he's one of the best acrobatic aviators in the U.K.). Under continual attack by the media and suffering from declining record sales, Numan lost his original inspiration, sacrificing art for an overtly commercial approach to counteract the slumping numbers. In 1992, he hit bottom: Broke and broken, the once-rich man made a record, Machine & Soul, that even he thought was utter bollocks. Then something happened. Standing at the edge of the abyss, teetering on hopelessness and giving up on mainstream success, he rediscovered the joy of music for its own sake. Sacrifice, released in 1994, was hailed by loyal "Numanoid" fans as one of his best. Soon artists like Nine Inch Nails, Tricky, Smashing Pumpkins and the Prodigy were stepping forward to proclaim themselves both fans and students of Numan. With renewed vigor, he released Exile, a loosely conceptual album rotating around the theory that the Devil is not the opposite of God but an integral part of Him, a vindictive personality trait that emerges when the Big Guy's had a bad day. It's appropriate that this dualistic notion would come from someone whose career has been through both heaven and hell, sometimes simultaneously. The music, too, drives the point home, with cloudy, dark-wave techno swirls whirling around the occasional pop highlight. Numan's quick to capitalize on his newfound vibe; he's currently touring America for the first time since 1982 (yes, '82). "This is very much starting again, as far as I'm concerned," he says. "I do not want to be nostalgic. I don't want this to be a 'retro' tour." To that end, don't expect the lavish neon productions of yesteryear; this is a simpler, more humble Numan. "We have a drummer, two keyboard players, a guitar player and me," he says with a slight electric thrill. "We use the house PA, the house lights and we just get on and do it. It's a very pure, down-to-roots-level kind of thing. There's an excitement to it, there's a closeness." He's come full circle. The man some have called the "Godfather of Electronica" is returning to his embryonic stage, ready to learn and willing to work. There are new horizons for this old veteran to explore. "I've talked to people who've thought Exile is my first album," Numan says. "They don't even know that I wrote 'Cars' or any of those things. They think I'm a new act. And to me that's a cool thing." |
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