Last month, Gary Numan was interviewed by the Quietus’ Simon Price at The Hospital Club in London in front of an audience of competition winners answering questions put to him by fans, and this week, we’ll be posting the film of the event in daily instalments.
In this first video, Numan talks about his surprise at still making music 35 years since he started, the experiences that inspired his recent album Splinter (Songs For A Broken Mind) and his "Forrest Gump years" that came from the apathy he experienced from taking anti-depressant medication and how he fought through them.
Of the latter, Numan says: "It flattens you out, so you don’t get really excited, you don’t get really down, it kind of levels you out, you’re not bouncing off the walls, which is quite a good thing to start with. But then you turn into this little zombie, you don’t really give a shit about anything. We lost Coachella, this really massive festival, because of the Icelandic volcano and I went, ‘Ah well, let’s go and get something to eat.’ The biggest disaster for me for the last twenty years and I didn’t give a shit."
The experience did, though, have an unexpected benefit for cat dealers, as Numan says, talking about an intervention staged by his wife and bandmates: "They said, ‘You’re not right, you’ve been on these pills for too long…’ and all I could think about when they were talking to me with this really serious stuff was, ‘I really feel like getting a new kitten’."
Have a read of our recent Quietus Interview with Numan here and take a look at his upcoming tour dates below, with tickets here:
NOVEMBER
Thu 7 – O2 Academy, Bristol
Fri 8 – Button Factory, Dublin
Mon 11 – O2 Academy, Sheffield
Tue 12 – O2 Academy, Newcastle
Wed 13 – O2 ABC, Glasgow
Thu 14 – Academy, Manchester
Fri 15 – O2 Academy, Oxford
Sat 16 – Roundhouse, London
Mon 18 – The Dome, Brighton
Tue 19 – Wulfrun Hall, Wolverhampton
