Gary Numan
Gary Anthony James Webb, known professionally as Gary Numan, is an English singer, songwriter and musician. He entered the music industry as frontman of the new wave band Tubeway Army. The band's second and final album, 1979's Replicas, reached No. 1 on the UK Albums Chart, and spawned a UK No. 1 single with "Are 'Friends' Electric?". Following the band's split, he released his debut solo album The Pleasure Principle later in 1979, which also reached No. 1 in the UK and produced another UK No. 1 single with "Cars". Although his commercial popularity peaked in the late 1970s and early 1980s, he has maintained a strong cult following since then. He has sold over 10 million records.
Numan is regarded as a pioneer of electronic music. He developed a signature sound consisting of heavy synthesizer hooks fed through guitar effects pedals, and is also known for his distinctive voice and androgynous "android" persona. He received an Ivor Novello Award, the Inspiration Award, from the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers, and Authors in 2017. In June 2025, Numan made his debut at the Glastonbury Festival.
Early life
Gary Anthony James Webb was born on 8 March 1958 in Hammersmith, West London. His father was a British Airways bus driver based at Heathrow Airport. He was seven when his family adopted his cousin John, who would become a musician and play in Numan's backing band. He was educated at Town Farm Junior School in Stanwell, Surrey; Ashford County Grammar School; and Slough Grammar School, followed by Brooklands Technical College in Weybridge, Surrey. He joined the Air Training Corps as a teenager and briefly held various jobs including Heathrow Airport bus driver, forklift truck driver, air conditioning ventilator fitter, and accounts clerk.When Numan was 15, his father bought him a Gibson Les Paul guitar, which became his most treasured possession. He briefly played in various bands and looked through advertisements in Melody Maker for bands to join. He claims to have unsuccessfully auditioned as guitarist for the then-unknown band the Jam before joining Mean Street and the Lasers, where he met Paul Gardiner. The latter band would soon become Tubeway Army, with his uncle Jess Lidyard on drums and Gardiner on bass. The band signed a recording contract with Beggars Banquet Records. His initial pseudonym was Valerian, probably in reference to the hero in French science fiction comic series Valérian and Laureline. He later picked the surname Numan from an advertisement in the yellow pages for a plumber whose surname was Neumann.
Music career
1976–1981: Tubeway Army and the "Machine Trilogy"
Numan came to prominence in the 1970s as lead vocalist, guitarist, songwriter, and record producer for Tubeway Army. After adopting a punk rock-style they signed a recording contract with Beggars Banquet Records and released their debut single "That's Too Bad" in February 1978, an attempt at making commercial punk music. It was followed by the recording of an album's worth of demo tapes in March 1978, and a second single, "Bombers", which like the first single did not chart. The two singles were released again as a gatefold doublepack in 1979, and in 1983 a re-release of "That's Too Bad" reached No. 97 on the UK singles chart.Tubeway Army's eponymous, new wave-oriented debut studio album, released in November 1978, sold out its limited run and introduced Numan's fascination with dystopian science fiction and synthesizers. During the recording of the album Numan found a Moog synthesizer left behind in the studio and the transition towards an electronic sound began. Though the band's third single, the dark-themed and slow-paced "Down in the Park", did not appear on the charts, it became one of Numan's most enduring and oft-covered songs. It was featured with other contemporary hits on the soundtrack for the American drama film Times Square, and a live version of the song appeared in the British concert film Urgh! A Music War. Following exposure in a television advertisement for Lee Cooper jeans with the jingle "Don't Be a Dummy", Tubeway Army released the single "Are 'Friends' Electric?" in May 1979. After a modest start at the lower reaches of the UK singles chart at No. 71, it steadily climbed to No. 1 at the end of June and remained on that position for four consecutive weeks. In July its parent studio album Replicas also reached No. 1 on the albums chart.
At this point Numan was recording his next studio album with a new backing band, having recruited keyboardist Chris Payne and drummer Cedric Sharpley. At the peak of success, Numan opted to premiere four songs in a John Peel session in June 1979 rather than promoting the current album and the Tubeway Army group name was dropped.
In September "Cars" reached No. 1 in the UK. The single found success in North American charts where "Cars" spent 2 weeks at No. 1 on the Canadian RPM charts, and reached No. 9 in the US in 1980. "Cars" and the 1979 studio album The Pleasure Principle were both released under Numan's own stage name. The album reached No. 1 in the UK, and a sell-out tour followed; the concert video it spawned is often cited as the first full-length commercial music video release. The Pleasure Principle was a rock album with no guitars; instead, Numan used synthesizers connected to effects units to achieve a distorted, phased, metallic tone. A second single from the album, "Complex", made it to No. 6 on the UK singles chart.
In 1980, Numan topped the UK Albums Chart for a third time with Telekon, and the singles "We Are Glass" and "I Die: You Die", released prior to the album, reaching No. 5 and No. 6 on the UK charts. "This Wreckage", the only single taken from the original album release, entered the UK top 20 in December that year. Telekon, the final studio album that Numan retrospectively termed the "Machine" section of his career, reintroduced guitars to Numan's music and featured a wider range of synthesizers. The same year he embarked on his second major tour with a more elaborate stage show than The Touring Principle the previous year. In April 1981, Numan decided to retire from touring following his upcoming series of concerts at Wembley Arena, where he was supported by the Canadian experimental musician Nash the Slash and Shock, a rock/mime/burlesque troupe whose members included Barbie Wilde, Tik and Tok, and Carole Caplin. Living Ornaments '79 and '80, a live two album boxed set from the 1979 and 1980 tours, was released at this time, reaching No. 2 in the UK charts. Both albums, also individually released as Living Ornaments '79 and Living Ornaments '80 also charted. The decision to retire would be short-lived.
1981–1983: New musical directions
Departing from the pure electropop that he had been associated with, Numan began experimenting with jazz, funk, and ethereal, rhythmic pop. His first studio album after his farewell concerts was Dance. The album charted at No. 3 on the UK charts, with an eight-week chart run and produced one hit single, which reached No. 6. The album featured several distinguished guest players; Mick Karn and Rob Dean of Japan, Roger Mason of Models, and Roger Taylor of Queen.With his former backing band, Chris Payne, Russell Bell, and Ced Sharpley now reformed as the synth-pop band Dramatis, Numan contributed lead vocals to the minor hit "Love Needs No Disguise" from the studio album For Future Reference and lent lead vocals to the first single released by his long-term bassist Paul Gardiner, "Stormtrooper in Drag", which also made the charts. However, Numan's success began to wane as he was outsold by the Human League, Duran Duran, Depeche Mode, and his prior support act, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark. With each new studio album, Numan would take on a particular persona, but none seemed to catch audiences' attention like he had been able to in 1979.
Numan's fourth solo studio album I, Assassin produced the top 10 hit "We Take Mystery ", as well as the top 20 singles "Music for Chameleons" and "White Boys and Heroes", the album peaking at No. 8 with a six-week chart run. The heavily percussive funk style made several tracks from the album, such as the 12" version of "Music for Chameleons" and a special remix of "White Boys and Heroes", unexpected successes in the American club scene and in October 1982 he embarked on a US tour.
Warriors further developed Numan's jazz-influenced style and featured contributions from avant-garde musician Bill Nelson of Be-Bop Deluxe, and saxophonist Dick Morrissey. The album peaked at No. 12, produced two hit singles including the top 20 title-track and, like I, Assassin, spent six weeks in the charts. Warriors was the last album Numan recorded for Beggars Banquet Records, and was supported by a 40-date UK tour.
1984–1993: Record label foundation, collaborations, and career downturn
Numan subsequently issued a series of albums and singles on his own record label, Numa Records. The first studio album released, 1984's Berserker, was Numan's first foray into music computers and samplers. The album was accompanied by a new, blue-and-white colour scheme and visual, as well as a tour, a live album, video, extended play, and the title track as a single. The track charted within the UK top 40. Despite this, the album divided critics and fans, and ultimately performed poorly, stalling at No. 32 on the UK chart. Numan cites many reasons for this, including distribution issues.A collaboration with Bill Sharpe as Sharpe & Numan, in 1985, was more successful; in March of that year, the single "Change Your Mind" reached No. 17 on the UK singles chart. A few months later, the live album White Noise and a live EP with tracks taken from it reached No. 29 and 27 on the charts, respectively.
Numan's next studio album, The Fury, charted slightly higher than Berserker, breaking the top 30. Again, the album heralded a change of image, this time featuring Numan in a white suit and red bow tie. However, for the first time in his career, none of the three initial singles released from the album managed to reach the top 40, barely entering the top 50 on the UK charts.
The following year, Numan scored two top-30 UK singles, with "This Is Love" in April 1986, and "I Can't Stop" in June that year; the subsequent studio album, Strange Charm, was released later that year, but only spent two weeks on the albums chart, where it peaked at No. 59. In November of that year, a version of the song "I Still Remember", from the previous studio album, was released as a charity single, but stalled at No. 74 on the singles chart.
Further collaborations with Bill Sharpe spawned two more Sharpe & Numan hits with "New Thing from London Town", peaking at No. 52 in 1986, and "No More Lies" at No. 35 in 1988. In 1987, Numan performed lead vocals for three singles by Radio Heart, a project of brothers Hugh and David Nicholson, which charted with varying success. A studio album was also released, credited to "Radio Heart featuring Gary Numan", with Numan only appearing on three tracks; the record failed to chart. Also in 1987, Numan's old label, Beggars Banquet, released the double disc compilation album Exhibition, which reached No. 43 on the UK Albums Chart, and a remix of "Cars". The remix, titled "Cars ", charted at No. 16, marking Numan's final Top 20 hit.
Numa Records, which had been launched during a flurry of idealistic excitement, folded after the release of Numan's eighth solo studio album Strange Charm. Numan would reopen the record label in 1992, yet it was again shuttered in 1996. In addition to Numa Records' commercial failure, Numan's own amassed fortune, which he estimated to be around £4.5 million, was drained. He then signed a recording contract with I.R.S. Records for the release of his final studio album of the 1980s, Metal Rhythm, which also sold relatively poorly. For its American release, the record label edited the album's title to New Anger after the lead single's title, and also changed the album cover's colour from black to blue and remixed several of its tracks, against Numan's wishes.
In 1989, Sharpe & Numan's sole studio album Automatic was released through Polydor Records, though this too failed to garner much commercial success, briefly entering the charts for just one week at No. 59, eleven spots lower than Metal Rhythm, which had been released nine months prior. "I'm on Automatic" was the only single to be released from Automatic; it reached No. 44 on the UK singles chart. Its disappointing sales led to plans for a second Sharpe + Numan studio album being abandoned.
In 1991, Numan ventured into film-scoring by co-composing the music for the American science fiction horror film The Unborn with Michael R. Smith. After Outland, another critical and commercial disappointment and his second and last studio album with I.R.S., Numan reactivated Numa Records, under which he would release his next two studio albums. His first Numa Records release, Machine + Soul, is considered by many, including Numan himself, to be a career low point, released primarily to pay off debt. After the poor reception of the album, Numan considered leaving the music industry entirely. In 1993, he released a single "Cars ", a techno remix of "Cars". That same year, he supported OMD on their concert tour.