From Intruder to AI Apocalypse: Gary Numan Prepares His Next Chapter on Australian Soil
Joining the SIMPLE MINDS V Tour 2027 as very special guest is GARY NUMAN, who makes his long-awaited return Down Under, his first Australian tour in over a decade. Few artists have impacted modern electronic music quite like GARY NUMAN. Rising to fame with hits, Are ‘Friends’ Electric? and Cars Numan pioneered a distinctive sound that helped define the future of electronic music and inspired artists across rock, electronic and alternative music – an influence that continues to resonate today. Known for his brooding atmospheres, driving beats, and powerful live performances, GARY NUMAN continues to captivate audiences across the world. This was an incredible interview as Gary talks more with Rob Lyon about the tour and the prospect of writing new music,
Awesome to be talking to you again. I reckon it was probably five years ago that I last spoke to you when the Intruder album was coming out. Hard to believe it’s been over ten years since you last toured Australia.
Yeah, well, I did have another one booked up that we were coming over for, and then COVID hit. It was within months of the whole COVID thing kicking off, so that ruined that. Then unfortunately, ever since COVID, the prices of everything went up, and very few of them came back down again. So what was already a difficult situation trying to get to Australia became even more difficult. It’s just impossible. To have the chance to do it now with Simple Minds is such a fantastic opportunity for me, because at the level I’m at, it’s so difficult to get over there, I can’t generate enough income from promoters to pay for it. It’s been very frustrating for quite some time. But with the Simple Minds thing, it’s perfect. It’s given me an opportunity I wouldn’t have had without them, so I’m very grateful.
Do you start worrying about the opportunity never coming up again? And with fuel prices the way they are, it must make it so hard for anyone contemplating an international tour?
It’s difficult everywhere. There are lots of people who do better than I do who are talking about how difficult it’s become. You really notice it on the bigger things, like a bus. Touring in Britain or Europe, the cost of a bus is double what it was five or six years ago. Double! The bus for the last American tour was $165,000, with the driver’s accommodation and fuel on top of that. A staggering amount of money just to cart everybody about. It’s not the same in Australia, but as an example, it’s getting harder and harder. It’s unfortunate, because it’s the most enjoyable part of it. That moment where you’re standing there, the fans are there, it’s loud, there’s nothing like it. It’s a thousand times better than slaving away in a studio. In terms of excitement and emotional reward, there’s nothing like touring. I’ve grown to love it. I didn’t like it too much when I first started, but for a very long time now, I really love it. It’s my favourite thing by far. So to see it becoming more difficult to make it viable is a worry, because I still feel like I’ve got plenty more years left to do it.
Touring with Simple Minds, does the relationship with those guys go back a fair way?
I knew them a long time ago. We haven’t stayed in touch directly over the years, but they supported me, strangely enough, in 1980 when I was in Germany and then they came to the studio to visit when I was making the Telekon album in 1980. They did a few things on the record, which was fun. So I’ve always kept an eye on their progress, which was amazing, they did incredibly well for quite some time. But we’ve not stayed in touch directly. I don’t know exactly how this current connection has come together. There are various people around us connected to both of us, so it might have just been somebody putting in a good word. When we did Glastonbury last year, that went really well, and I think a lot of people saw what I was doing who hadn’t been aware that things have changed from back in the day. It might have been that. There’s also somebody in their management who used to work at BMG and was my representative there, so that’s a possibility.
With such an incredible back catalogue, where do you even begin to focus on a tour set list?
I’m not a big fan of nostalgia, to be honest, or looking back. My interest in music, when I started and still today, is what I’m doing next. What new things can you find? What new sounds can you find? What can you do that you’ve not done before? That’s the aim. I don’t always succeed spectacularly, but that’s the aim: keep moving forward and finding things you haven’t done before.The thought of going out live on a regular basis and just doing primarily back catalogue stuff is not what I’m interested in. I want to look down at the set list when the tour’s beginning and be excited about each subsequent song. I don’t want to look down and think, “Oh, not that one again.” It’s important for me that I enjoy it more than anyone, and then I hope everyone else does after that. But I have to enjoy it first and foremost, this is my life, and I don’t want it to feel like a job where you’re just going through the motions.
I’ve been quite ruthless over the years in limiting too much back catalogue. But having said that, there are obvious things you do Cars, Are “Friends”’” Electric? and all the big ones. There are a few others I do because I’m able to rework them in a way that makes them sound newer and heavier and darker, so they sit more comfortably with the newer stuff. Every once in a while, when there’s a significant anniversary of a particular album, I’ll go out and do that album. So I do the retro thing on occasion when there’s a meaningful reason for it. But generally speaking, I’m looking forward, not backwards. If you’ve got people who write something that did all right forty five or fifty years ago and then spend the next forty five or fifty years living off the fading glory of that, that’s desperate. I’m not interested. I got into this business as a teenager because I was excited about writing new songs and trying to find something new, not with the intention of finding it and then sticking with it. It’s an ongoing experiment, an ongoing challenge to keep trying to find the next new thing. Anyone who comes to see me and expects an hour or hour and a half of just greatest hits from yesterday is terribly disappointed, I’m afraid, because I just don’t do that.
Speaking of newer material, is there new music in the pipeline? Is there anything you might even preview on this Australian tour?
Yeah, I’d like to, if I could. It’s been a while since I did Intruder , that was 21, so this has been the longest gap I’ve ever had between albums. For the last two, three years, my wife’s been really sick with a variety of different things. As one sort of got sorted, something else happened. She had a stroke, had a hole in the heart, had an operation in the neck because that crumbled and that’s paralyzed her arm. It’s been a nightmare, to be honest, and horribly worrying because a lot of it was serious. She had a kidney taken out. When you’re waking up frightened for what’s going to happen and worried about someone you care for, the thought of going into the studio and losing yourself in creative moments just goes out the window. The last thing I thought of doing was writing songs.
It wasn’t just sitting at home thinking about her, there was an awful lot of to‑and‑fro. We were in England for five months. She had one of the operations there and it went wrong, so we couldn’t leave because she wasn’t allowed to fly. She had to have more operations. I’ve started the new record, but there’s been a really long period where I’ve done virtually nothing to it. But we do seem to be getting through to the end of it now. I’m pretty confident I can start again in the next week or two. There are a couple more things she’s got to do, but if they go well, I think we’re through the worst of it. Then I can free my mind up and get back in the studio. The new album is meant to be focused on the dangers of AI, if I don’t write the bloody thing soon, it’ll be done, it’ll be out there, and it’ll be the world we’re living in. I’m trying to write an album that predicts what’s coming, so I need to get on with it.
It just puts everything in perspective, how important some things are more than others, especially with your better half.
Yeah.
You mentioned AI — it seems to be a daily conversation now, the perils of AI. Is it doom and gloom? I don’t see anything overly positive about it.
I think it’s capable of and will do extraordinary things outside of the arts, in terms of healthcare, research into diseases, and many more things I’m unaware of. I think it will do amazing things. I’m a little disappointed with the way it’s quickly beginning to dominate the music scene. It will write novels, make amazing paintings, probably do amazing poetry. Have you ever seen the ABBA show in London? It’s all AI, they’re not really there. You go to a gig, you’re in a venue, and you can see them, and it’s absolutely real. You cannot tell. It’s stunning how they’ve done it. I’d imagine there’s going to be more of that, bands you can go and watch but they’re not real. They’re avatars of a created human being. It’s a fascinating world.
I actually wrote about this in 1979. I did an album called Replicas where the control of humanity was handed over to a machine who would run it more efficiently, couldn’t be corrupted, couldn’t be bribed and it realised the only thing getting in the way of a smooth‑running society was people themselves. Get rid of people and everything runs far more smoothly. In 1979 it was unlikely nonsense science fiction and here we are now, it’s a very real possibility. If it goes wrong, that’s how it’s going to go wrong. My own feeling is the more we’re integrated, banking online, buying tickets online, shopping delivered, self‑driving cars, the more likely it is that machines will simply turn off the world as far as we need it. You’ll wake up and there’ll be no running water, no electricity, no gas. It would turn off the world and we’d become barbarians overnight. Within two weeks we’d be killing each other en masse. I see that as a very real possibility, and that’s the side I particularly want to write about. It’s very doomy and bleak, but for the first time ever it’s not science fiction, it’s actually possible. There are experts saying exactly that.
The trouble is, we’ve got the most incredible moment in human history, we’re developing this machinery, and we’ve got people like Trump running the world. When you need someone really intelligent, caring, full of humanity, we’ve got Trump and Putin and others. We couldn’t have a worse group of leaders at this most critical time in the evolution of the world. It doesn’t fill me with much confidence. But nonetheless, it’s a fascinating time to be alive. A key moment in human history, and here we are to watch it all happen before our eyes.
Especially with AI‑generated songs, you really have to have your wits about you now with random playlists. How can we support that? It’s sad for artists and fans.
I totally agree. It is. It’s weird. But then I say that and I’m not such a hypocrite because I’ve seen AI‑generated artwork and short‑form video, and it’s stunning. I hate myself for liking it. But it’s stunning, absolutely unbelievable. I think, am I just being an old‑fashioned stuck‑in‑the‑mud sort of person by not wanting to see AI spread when I’m actually enjoying some of the things it’s doing? I don’t know. Generally speaking, I don’t want it and I don’t approve of it, but even I have to admit I’ve seen things that are absolutely beautiful. I don’t know whether a human being could do it.
It always goes back to the live experience, AI can’t replicate the human experience.
Yeah, I hope that’s true. I’ve thought for quite some time that that is true. But when I saw that ABBA show, I was thinking, oh my god, they’re not there. They look as if they are. You forget you’re looking at something artificial because it’s so fantastically done. It’s really entertaining. I’m bopping away to Waterloo and all the ABBA songs I didn’t even know I liked and yet even between songs, some of them walk off the stage, you can see them walking off into the dark background. I don’t know how they do it, but it’s staggering. Absolutely staggering. So why wouldn’t people go to see a new band doing the same thing? I don’t know whether us playing live is as safe a job as I thought it was. I think we’re replaceable on every level now.
Well, I think there’s only one Gary Numan.
I think that helps, if you’ve already built up a following that likes what you do and what you say and the way you say it and the way you look. If you’ve already got that, you should be able to hang on to that for a few more years. But my two daughters are getting into the music business now, and I wonder if it’s the same for them. When they’re trying to build an audience, will that opportunity still be there? Or will they be pushed aside because there are all these stunningly beautiful AI perfections that people accept and are happy to go and watch?
Interview By Rob Lyon
Catch Gary Numan on tour with Simple Minds on the following dates, tickets from Destroy All Lines…
