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| ARCHIVE INTERVIEW. 2001 |
| 1? | You say you are not prepared to compromise your current musical style in favour of more 'chart friendly' material and yet you still seem desperate to have chart success. With the next new album promising to be even darker surely you must give up any dreams of getting in the chart. Or do you have some master plan for further singles? |
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Well, first of all I don't think I've shown any signs of being desperate to
get back into the charts. On the contrary, I've said many times that it was giving up on my chart ambitions that led me back to
the music I'm making now. First with Sacrifice, which was a pivotal album in my career in many ways, and then through Exile and
Pure. Without the restraints of trying to write radio friendly songs I was able to let my imagination flow more freely and to
experiment with sound again. I think the last three albums have all been proof, if proof were needed, that I'm writing songs
that are, by daytime radio standards in the UK at least, radio unfriendly and therefore with little expectation of getting
into the chart. The album chart is a vague possibility I suppose but certainly not the singles chart.
I am determined never to fall back into the trap of trying to write music with the sole aim of creating chart hits. When I first started making music my aim was to write the music I loved and be proud of it. If success came along then it would come, not because I had cleverly guessed where public taste and demand were heading, but because the public had heard something a little different and were interested. I lost that ideal for many years and then, with Sacrifice, I tripped over it, lying dusty and forgotten on the roadside. I won't lose it again. I will not change the way I write, or what I write, out of a desire to be famous and to have chart success. I'm not clever enough to even have a guess at what I would need to write to achieve that in any event. I just want to be proud of the music I make and that pride does not come only from chart success. It's true that I want to be successful but there are ways of being successful that don't involve the singles chart and being interviewed on childrens TV inbetween the latest boyband and Britney. |
| 2? | When you look back over your career what has been most deflating for you: Spending a year making a record, having it go to number 1, whilst being slagged off all the way, or spending three years making a record, having it universally praised by the press, but fail to chart? |
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Neither have been deflating in all honesty. I'm able to concentrate
on the good aspects of both those situations and just be aware of the bad side. With the number 1 albums and bad press
I enjoyed the fame, the fan reactions, the money and the life style. With the more recent highly praised but non chart
albums I concentrated on the recognition of quality that the albums received, the praise of other musicians and the way
that they helped confirm my status as a viable artist in the current scene, long after I'd been written off as dead and
buried. It would be a mistake, and very self defeating, to have allowed the negative side of either of the scenarios you
mention to have become dominant in my mind.
The time that I feel was most difficult were those 'middle' years when I didn't get any chart success and was still being rubbished, or even worse ignored completely, by the media. There were some times then that I found very hard. |
| 3? | During the making of Pure you experienced a lot of personal tragedy, which ultimately became woven into the record. Although this was a painful experience did it help with the writing of the album in any way? If so, are you worried about writing the new album because everything is going well at this time, and you tend to excel when things are going badly? |
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I don't entirely agree that I excel when things are going badly. My
life was at its worst when I wrote those late 80's and early 90's albums and I didn't seem to be excelling then. Also life
was good when I wrote Exile so it's not always the case that I need to be down to write a good album. I think this
misunderstanding goes way back to comments I made early on in my career when I would often say that I can't write when
I'm happy, that I need to be suffering somewhat to be creative. It hasn't been that way for many, many years. I put
that early kind of thinking down to my moody nature, always worse it seems in a younger man, and the stresses of new found fame.
The horrible things that happened during the making of Pure didn't help in any way at all but they did alter the weight and power of the lyrical content. What was going to be an album concerned mainly with my attempts to understand some seriously screwed up people, and why they do the things they do, turned into an album that was also coloured by my coming to terms with what had happened. It gave real substance to the album. This doesn't mean it turned out any better, just different. I'm not worried at all about the next album. I don't need, and never want to go through again, a long catalogue of tragic events to be creative. I have imagination and I would rather imagine terrible things than actually experience them. Too late now for that though, these things have happened and cannot be undone. My life experiences will always have an effect on what I write, they do for most people that write I would imagine. I think it's entirely possible to write and album that's dark and heavy without it being depressing. Such albums should be exciting and thought provoking and that's my challenge for the next one. |
| 4? | With the quality of home video equipment improving all the time, have you ever considered doing a kind of 'The making of the album' video? It could feature you writing and recording in your studio, and follow the ups and downs of the recording process, as a kind of year long documentary. I'm sure fans would be interested in buying such a thing. |
|
Not only have I thought about it but I think I've mentioned it a few
times. I've certainly talked about the new video editing package that we've bought recently and the DVD authoring software.
We've also bought broadcast quality cameras and I've been given tutorials on how to make it all work. It's a lot to learn
on top of everything else that's going on but it is a major part of where we see our future going. We intend to repackage
all of our old videos (those that we can find) and rerelease them on video and DVD. Before anyone writes in I will not be
going back to those old recordings and remixing stuff in 5.1, I don't have the time, inclination or the equipment to go
back to 20 year old tape stock, much of which has deteriorated beyond use, and remixing stuff so that the hihat can sound
like it's living up someones backside. The old stuff will be made available on DVD, with few extras. The pricing will reflect
that however.
With newer releases I will make more use of what the tecnology has to offer although I still have a huge amount to learn. I've talked about 'tour diary' type of video/DVD releases which would concentrate more on life off stage rather than simply being a concert video with a few minutes of the band getting off and on a tour bus. I would like to show, in some detail, what goes on behind the scenes in putting a tour together and keeping it going once it kicks off. A DVD that follows the making of the album I've already started to film. The problem with that of course is that writing a song is an incredibly boring thing to watch. I sit at a keybaord for hours on end playing more or less the same passages over and over again with minor little changes every once in a while, until it sounds right. I then sit for many more hours trying those musical parts against a variety of sounds until I find the right one. I might then tweak that sound for the rest of the day with microscopic adjustments, only audible to me as, by now, I have my ears so far up my botty I honestly think I can hear such tiny changes. Nonsense of course half the time. I think most people, having watched a song writer 'in action' would rather watch paint dry. However, edited cleverly, and only keeping the good bits, it might be possible to show how things are done without sending people to sleep. That's what I intend to try. |
| 5? | George Lucas says films are never finished they are just abandoned. Would you agree this is true of albums and do you agree that a song continues to evolve, to some degree, when you take it on tour, when each musician adds their own 'live' spark? |
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I would agree totally with all of that. My albums are always finished
by a deadline finally arriving, not because I've made it as good as I think I can make it. I always think, I always know
actually, that they could be better. The deadlines that eventually stop work on an album are quite often the final, absolutely
last, you won't get another one type of deadline as well. I normally add at least a year to what record company people give
me as the initial deadline. Not because I'm awkward but because it just always seems to work out that way.
However, I do feel that even though we, songwriters, believe we could make an album better after it's been delivered to the label, most of us are also aware that it's good enough (or else we would simply refuse to hand it over) and that we have reached the point of making improvements so slight that only we can notice the changes. This is probaly the correct time to deliver an album. You are proud of what you've done, but still driven onwards to try harder and make the next one better, to make up for the shortcomings of this one. If that makes any sense. |
| 6? | If you count 1977 as your first year in the music business, then 2002 will be your 25th year. Will you be celebrating this or planning any special events to ensure this fantastic milestone in your career does not just slip by unnoticed? |
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My first single, 'That's Too Bad', came out on February 10th, 1978 and that's the day I consider my professional career began. I was signed to Beggars Banquet before that but I was still working in a warehouse up to the day that first single came out. That's why I consider my career to have started on that day. Therefore, for me, my 25th anniversary comes in February 2003. It's impossible to know what state my career will be in then but I intend to mark it well. I haven't made any plans as yet though. |
| 7? | The effort you put into the making of your music, particularly the last three albums, is well documented. Could you explain why, year after year, you encounter the same problems with distribution, advertising and publicity? Most recently the North American Tour, the Andy Gray single and the festival billing. Surely after all these years in the business, you must understand how to overcome these sort of problems? |
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I know how to overcome a lack of advertsing yes. You spend a lot
of money and buy it. That's what you hope your record company will do. You also hope they will spend money buying rack
space and window displays in all the major retail chains. You hope they will stump up the money for a great video.
You hope they will spend tens of thousands of pounds on radio, press and TV promotion companies. You ask then for
tour support money, for great CD packaging, for many other things that all help to sell an album. What you get,
usually, is sod all and a lot of excuses.
One of the strange quirks that you may have noticed is how you see an album, that has already sold millions, being TV advertised up to a year after it was first released, giving yet another boost to its already multi platinum sales figures, while another album, that's dying due to a lack of promotion, is abandoned. It's all to do with money and what you, the record label that is, get back for the risks you take. People lie. Even my 20 plus years in the business doesn't make me immune from a good 'what we're going to do for you' piece of record company bullshit. I sat and listened to the most impressive, and long winded, talk from the Spitfire head man about what they were going to do for the Pure album. I find out that it's not happening, AT ALL, when I get there to start the North American tour. Without being able to read every magazine, go into every record store, listen to every radio station and watch every TV programme to find out what is actually being done to promote the album/tour, you tend to rely on what so-called facts are being given to you by the people supposedly 'working their asses off' trying to sell the album. By the time you find out enough to realise that NOTHING is being done it's already too late.
The Andy Gray single fiasco remains a mystery. I sat in a meeting with Eagle, who were keen to go with the Andy Gray remixes, and was told that they were sending out white labels the very next morning to Andy, who had good contacts and plans of his own to help the record, and to a specialist promotions company. I left the meeting, which was long and talked exclusively about all the ideas that were about to unfold to push the single, very satisfied that a good plan was being put into operation. I go home, get on with my other business, touring, etc etc etc and assume that things are happening. Tony, my manager, breathes a sigh of relief that the single is now taken care of and gets on with organising the various tours around the world that are due to begin soon, a massive task if ever there was one. My mind considers that sorted and I begin to concentrate on the thousand and one other things that are happening daily in this extremely busy period. But, they didn't send out any white labels, they didn't do anything at all about the single. It was as though the meeting never happened and not one single person at Eagle thought to tell us, at any time, that they had changed their minds. I don't even know if they did change their minds. It felt more like they had just forgotten about it. What you need to understand is that quite often, to make things happen, a large number of people are involved in a long, and sometimes fragile, chain. Everyone denies any responsibility for anything that goes wrong. No-one wants to spend any money, apart from the major lables on their major stars. Record companies will always try to achieve the most sales with the smallest spend. All promises are worthless, all guarantees guarantee absolutely nothing. Everything said is only partly true at best, often total fiction. People make mistakes and, for example, mess up the artwork and you can bet your life that it's too late to correct it or else the album 'will have to go back two weeks' and you miss all the advertisng spots you've already paid for (except they probably haven't paid for them at all) and then certain elements of my own fan base start accusing ME of putting the album back as a ploy to somehow make more money, and finally, when the shit really hits the fan, the man who's job it was to make sure everything ran smoothly has 'left the company'. For what its worth the amount of publicity achieved during the Pure period, in the UK at least, was very good. Not the sort bought by record labels though, the sort you get when magazines want to feature you. Even that can have a price, the 'you slap my back' approach which is how the world turns mostly. I lost a major multi page feature in a huge selling UK monthly because Eagle didn't, or couldn't, pay for two journalist tickets to New York and a hotel room. I'm sure Eagle have their own accounts to get right but, from my point of view, it was a major set back. Now I don't think that my being in the business for such a long time gives me any more power over situations like that than someone putting out their first album. You might say that I could have paid for it myself but consider this. At the time the Spitfire problem became apparent I was already losing a small fortune by being in America touring, a very expensive business is touring, and we were already trying to find the money to pay for our own video as Eagle were unwilling to do so. The artist is not always in a position to buy the labels responsibilities. And, if you do, what incentive does the label have next time if it believes that it can get away with such things because the artist will stump up the money? This is not an attack on Eagle. They did the best they could and I have no regrets whatsoever about my time with them. All record labels operate in very similar ways, it's the nature of the beast.
I don't think many people have any idea just how well we have done to be where we are today. We have overcome problems that you couldn't begin to imagine and kept our head above water when all we had to fight with against the battleships in the business was a leaky rowing boat with only one oar and a water pistol. We have survived when hundreds upon hundreds of acts, thousands probably, many signed to major labels for big money with high powered management teams advising them, have sunk and disappeared forever. The problems we face, as mentioned in your question, are faced by most acts to some degree. What matters is how you make the best of what opportunities come your way and don't dwell too long on the disappointments. |
| 8? | Having spent the last 20 years trying to get people to appreciate what you have achieved in the music business, do you feel it was wise to begin distancing yourself from your early career when, at last, the World seemed ready to accept it? We understand your motives for this but do you feel you have missed a big marketing opportunity? |
|
I haven't spent the last 20 years trying to get people to appreciate
what I've achieved. I've spent the last 20 years trying to get people to listen to each new album as it came along. I
have never been one for looking back. My desire to distance myself somewhat from what I've done before is not a new thing, it's
the way I've always approached my career. It's a very natural, and sensible, thing to do in my opinion. Apart from
that, I do not believe for one instant that the world is suddenly ready to accept my early successes. I don't even
know what that means exactly. Having some notable people say I was influential and put out cover versions of my stuff
is a million miles away from mass acceptance by the world at large. And why would I want people to suddenly become interested in my past
anyway? I'm not interested in it, I'm interested in what I'm doing now and where I'm going, not where I've been. I
have never believed that the way to move a career forward is to keep harping on about your past. It reeks of desperation
to me.
It's understandable that, if you don't continue to achieve the same high level of success, people will only remember the things that were successful. That soon becomes an obstacle to any opportunities that promote new music. It's what has happened to me and it's the thing I am most driven to get away from. The public at large are people who's only interest in music is what they hear on the radio as they drive to work. They assume that if you are not in the chart regularly you no longer make music. Hardly a day goes by without someone saying to me 'Isn't it about time you made another record, that Cars song was great', or something similar. People have thought for years that I quit the business because I'm no longer on Radio 1 or Top Of The Pops (in the UK that is). Younger people, for many years, didn't even know who I was. That is now beginning to change and the reason for that is my obsession with focusing on what I'm doing now, turning down all promotional opportunities if they involved a heavy nostalgic element (which in my opinion made such opportunities self defeating) and carefully looking at every step we take that we had any control over.
You must bear in mind though, in all of this, that I have not distanced myself so far from my past that I haven't been able to make some good use of it. Fear Factory and the Cars cover did me nothing but good, Marilyn Manson joining me on stage in Los Angeles to sing Down In The Park, Nine Inch Nails releasing their version of Metal, Armand Van Helden and the Cars based Koochie and many others have all been used to create the interest and credibility that I now enjoy and which is now turning increasingly towards my current music. I have allowed the past to play a part in the present when it seemed to work for me rather than against me: When the connections made were pointing me towards a new generation of music fans to add to those already with me. I think our approach has been absolutely right. It's been a very risky strategy but the only one open to us if I was ever to be considered a viable artist in the current scene. It's worked. I'm now considered to be a man who wrote a lot of good stuff before, as influential and innovative, and, after the reaction to the Pure album, very much part of what's going on now. I do not agree that a major marketing opportunity has been missed. I believe that we have skillfully avoided being branded an 80's act forever and successfully relaunched me into a business that had written me off as dead and buried. But we still have a long way to go. The 80's tag lingers on in places and I have another album to make that needs to keep the upwards momentum going. I still have a massive mountain to climb but I'm sure our path is the right one. |
| 9? | You have said that one of the reasons you enjoy festivals is that it puts you in front of people you normally would not be performing to. Why have you not tried to support NIN or Marilyn Manson, or any other large band for that matter? If they are happy to write music with you, then surely there is mileage in exploring this opportunity? |
|
To begin with you make the mistaken assumption that we haven't
tried to get on tours with bigger artists. We have. Not Nine Inch Nails or Marilyn Manson but others. It's something
that we will continue to try but you need to understand the way these things sometimes work. Often tours are sponsored
by companies who have their own agendas as to what other bands should appear. Sometimes tours are supported by record
labels who also have their own agendas as to support bands. Some bands don't want a support act that could possibly blow
them off-stage. I'm not saying for an instant that I could blow anyone off-stage of course but some other acts might
be nervous of such a situation. Some support slots are 'sold' whereby a support band 'buys on' to a tour. This can be a
major source of revenue for the main band and these slots are often taken up by major labels with big budgets who are
keen to push a new band to a big audience. Sometimes support slots are worked out by the agents and promoters concerned
who also have other acts they wish to promote.
Also, even though I'm mentioned by many major acts as being an influential part of their history, that doesn't mean I'm the only one. They probably have a number of people that have had an influence on them that they would rather tour with. Then again, many bands would be absolutely against touring with anyone that had influenced them for obvious reasons. Now that I have an agent with a large roster of heavy weight acts I may begin to enjoy some of the advantages that comes with that. We are already talking about next year and who will be touring with who. |
| 10? | You admit you are not selling as many records as you would like. Why do you put the new music on the Phone Lines? Granted, it's good to hear how things are developing, but all of 'Pure' had been heard before its release. Some people must be making a purchasing decision before the release. Surely you could increase the demand by making sure people had to buy it to hear it! |
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I don't see how not playing new stuff on the phone
lines would somehow force people to buy the album. Surely, anyone would listen to the album in-store before parting
with their money? Unless of course they were keen enough to want it regardless of whether they liked it or not, in
which case not having it on the phone lines wouldn't make any difference anyway. No-one should be expected to buy
an album before they've heard it at least once.
The phone lines only operate in the UK in any event and so only a small part of my world sales are potentially affected by playing new music on them. I believe the Nu-Music phone line is a good idea. If people feel that the surprise of the new album is lost by listening to new songs on the phone line they can simply choose not to call the phone line number. If anyone feels that the album isn't good enough to buy because of what they hear on the phone lines then I consider that to be a useful service. I wouldn't want to sell an album to anyone that didn't like it. The Nu-Music phone line is for those people that DO want to check out the album as it's being made. It can create a lot of interest and enthusiasm, and generate a great deal of excitement and anticipation when fans hear things they like. The phone lines are not good quality audio and so anything heard on them can only ever be a teaser to the full blown high quality versions you get with the final CD. I'm very proud of the phone line idea. I think it must be quite rare for an artist to allow fans such an insight as to the direction and progress of each new album. I think it involves the fans in a way that few other artists are willing to do but I don't think it does any damage to sales. |
| 11? | When all is said and done, what with Koochie, Basement Jaxx and possibly the Panasonic Engineers advert, it seems that it's still 'The Pleasure Principle' that is causing a stir. Is this frustrating and has it been instrumental in your decision to make the new album more electronic? |
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I think that perhaps you misunderstand me when I say
I intend to make the new album more electronic. It will sound like a progression of Pure, harder, more aggressive but
with less of what I consider to be my slightly cliched rock guitar parts that popped up on Pure once in a while. I
don't mean that as a criticism of Pure in any way, just a way of moving on by identifying things that could be improved.
It will have nothing whatsoever to do with The Pleasure Principle album in any way, shape or sound.
As for The Pleasure Principle being the album that is still causing a stir I would have to disagree. Basement Jaxx use a sample from that album but also one from Telekon. The new 13 Ghosts movie ad uses Fallen from Pure. Dark, from the Exile album, was used on the Dark City movie soundtrack album and the ad for the Romeo Must Die movie. When you consider that The Pleasure Principle album, and Tubeway Army and Replicas for that matter, are now published by Universal I think it's amazing that we are getting as much use of our Numan Music published tracks as we are. It says a great deal for the strength of the new material as it has no giant publishing company working the catalogue and yet is still picking up usage all over the world. I hope to have a better arrangement for my own published material in the near future which should bring even greater usage of newer material in films, TV and ad campaigns. So, no, I'm not frustrated at all, quite the opposite. |
| 12? | Although it frustrates you when fans go on about how much they like your early videos, without a more recent video they have little choice. What happens to the 'rights' for a 'Rip' DVD or Brixton Live DVD now that you've left Eagle Records? Does leaving mean that you lose control over yet another chunk of your career, and quite an important chunk at that? |
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I didn't have any control over it when I was signed
to Eagle. When an artist signs a deal with a label he agrees to write songs FOR that label on a royalty basis. The record
company own those recordings and, notwithstanding a political tap dance at times depending on the current popularity
of the artist, they have the say in what happens to those recordings. All I could do when I was signed to Eagle, and
to all the other labels I've been signed to, was try to build a relationship whereby my wishes for any given release
or project were taken seriously and my reasons for thinking along a particular line were understood. I had no power
whatsoever in the real world.
What happens to the Rip DVD now is unclear. I'm hopeful that our good relationship with Eagle will continue to allow us to help each other out in a variety of ways in the future. The Brixton show was not intended for a DVD actually as Eagle couldn't come up with the budget they had been quoted. Not surprisingly to be honest as it was a stupid amount of money they were being asked for. A lot of people are using the new craze for DVD, and most peoples lack of understanding of it, to charge mad money for things. We've gone out and bought the technology that should allow us to make our own DVD releases and bypass the problem. I also don't remember having too much to say about fans liking of early videos. I wasn't even aware that fans had a great liking for early videos for me to be frustrated by. I think most of my videos have been crap to put it bluntly. Some were alright, one ore two were quite good but most were crap. We suffered from a lack of money for videos very early on in my career and scratched around for years trying to make them for peanuts and a nice cup of tea. We had no choice. Now though, things are changing and I'm hopeful that we will soon be making decent videos on a regular basis, with or without a major deal. |
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