Gary Numan interview about new album Savage
Coming almost four years after his album ‘Splinter (Songs From A Broken Mind)’ earned the best reviews of his career and his highest chart-placing in 20 years, the iconic and highly influential Gary Numan releases his 22nd album ‘Savage: Songs From A Broken World’ today.
‘Savage: Songs From A Broken World’ is an album with a narrative that’s set in an apocalyptic, post-global warming Earth in the not-too-distant future. There is no technology left and most of the planet has turned to a desolate desert wasteland. Food is scarce, water even more so and human kindness and decency are just a dim and distant memory. Western and Eastern cultures have merged, more because of the need to simply survive than any feelings of greater tolerance or understanding. It’s a harsh, savage environment, as are the survivors who still roam across it.
Gary doesn’t like to look back, so Frontview Magazine talks with Gary about nowadays, not about the mega-succes Cars & Are Friends Electric.(1979)
‘Savage’ is in the meantime your 22 nd album, is it still exciting, with the same energy as in the 80’s?
Still exciting! A lot of things that made it a little bit different anyway, record label BMG, the press campaign. It takes a while to make an album, it’s quite an emotional thing, I still love doing this, making albums, writing songs.
Is ‘Savage’ the story about the future and a warning to save the future for our children?
A little bit. I’m not trying to criticize Donald Trump. It’s started like a sciencefiction story, a novel where I’m still working on. I started from a couple ideas from the book that I’m writing, just to give me something to start on with the album. It’s about the global warming , an apocalyptic future. When I started to write the album, it was the same time that Donald Trump appeared and started the political campaign. He was saying things about global warming , he alarmed me, quite frightening.
How was it to sing the new single on stage, along with your daughter Persia?
Fantastic! She’s not only on the album, just because she was my daughter. I was not trying to squeeze her in a career. She came from school, and I knew that she could sing, she was singing for years, really good. She had never really done studiowork with me. She did the first part of the Arabian section, so quickly, and we did another section, and that was also great & perfect. It really made a difference to the song. She deserves to be there. Then we decided to make a single of that song and make a video. She looks great, she got all the expressions. She knows what’s she’s doing and then we went on stage. Now we did fifteen shows in 5 different countries, also a big festival . I’m absolutely blowing away with that. For me, as a dad, it’s just lovely.
What was the influence of Ade Fenton (producer)?
His contribution is absolutely huge. I wrote the songs and give them the direction. When I sent the songs to Ade, I want him to understand exactly what I want for it.(pre-production) From then on, he just runs through it and he’s extremely clever,very fast, very creative. This is the fourth album that we made together. We had our disagreements, arguments the way we think the songs should go. We have argued, but always to get the best album at the end of the day. Before, I was panicing and trying to stop him and was trying to bring him back. And now he isn’t argueing anymore, he knows what I’m talking about. He’s got better and my songwriting has become bettter. I’m pretty happy now with the whole thing.
Filming in the desert for the videoclip ‘My name is ruin’, with high temperatures, was it suffering?
It was really hard with a temperature of 48 degrees. Not unbearable, but incredibly hot. Persia suffered a little bit with the heat. But it was the right place to be. You’ve written a song about a better place to be, so you have to be in the desert, in a heatwave. If it was in a studio, it didn’t feel right, it didn’t look right.
Who designed that dress that you wear on the cd cover?
We were looking for a long time, over a month, just search and search. We couldn’t really find anything that was absolutely perfect. So I ordered a lot of things, arrived from all over the world, but nothing that was perfect. So my wife just googled ‘desert warrior apocalyptic’. We found something in Bulgaria, that made pretty much of what I’m wearing now. We bought lots of it.
Is there already a favourite song of Savage to sing live?
The first song of the album, ‘Ghost Nation’, I love that one and ‘My name is ruin’, because of the great groove.
Any memories about Belgium?
Lots of festivals and our last gig in Depot Leuven, problaby one of our best ones.
You will be performing 2 times in LA this week.
We rehearsal today , San Diego on Wednesday, Los Angeles on Thursday. Then we go to San Francisco, Seattle. It’s a big tour, 30 shows in 35 days.
Returning to Europe in 2018?
Yes, another UK tour and Scandinavia, then to Australia, New Zealand and Asia.
How is your new life going there in Los Angeles?
I love it and I’m very happy. LA is not like most cities, very spread out and lots of communities. We live in the valley, north Los Angeles. The weather is always fantastic, friendly people. When the band arrived here, they had one day before rehearsals started. We showed them LA and went to Malibu with an incredible sunset. We went to an observatory, we looked out over the city from up the hills, sunset boulevard (Beverly Hills). The good thing about living here is, that you can choose the sort of life that you want. We can be at the ocean at 30 minutes, in a couple of hours we can be at the mountains. So much activity here.
