Gary Numan was born Gary Anthony James Webb in the Chiswick and Hammersmith Hospital, London, at 10:30 p.m., March 8th, 1958 to Beryl and Tony Webb. Ever since birth Gary has been very close to his parents. He is an only child although his parents did eventually adopt his brother Johnny, from Gary’s widowed aunt. He was a shy boy in his early school days, and his mum would often help him miss the required weekly assembles. During his early school years his ambitions to be a stage performer were non existent. He did however pass his Eleven Plus exam. His parent’s were ecstatic. At the age of twelve he set fire to his house. Not on purpose, he was reenacting the sinking of the Bismark and caught the curtains on fire.
He also started Grammar school at the age of twelve. In his first year he was labeled as a trouble maker and things got progressively worse from that moment on. His shy inhibitions were often miss-interpreted as arrogance, and that got him in more trouble. It was during this transition that he acquired his first guitar and amp. The guitar was such a big and bulky thing that he could barely get his hands around it. The whole set cost about 15 Ł’s. After that he bought what he thought was a genuine Gibson Les Paul at a cost of 37 Ł’s. It turned out to be a fake. It took him a while to come to grips with his guitars, but o this day the guitar is his favorite instrument.
The first band Gary ever saw live was Nazreth at the Rainbow Theater in London in 1974. The shear size and sound of the PA system fascinated him. A strange thing happened during this show. Every time the guitarist hit a particular note with just the right amount of feed back Gary would fall down.
**“It was as though that note, played that way, was connected to an ‘off’ button in my sense of balance. La la la went the song, weeeeeh went the guitar, down went Gary!”*
Gary had a few friends from his school that were interested in being in a band. Having cool parents they were very supportive so they ended up gathering around at Gary’s house. When he was 15 he decided that one-day he would be famous.
Gary soon joined a band called “Crimson Lake.” They took him only because he had a decent guitar. After “Crimson Lake” came “Black Gold” who were on the same sort of circuit. In 1977 he started a band with some of his mates called “Mean Street.” Gary did all of the writing. It wasn’t long before the band started to complain about this, which was unfounded considering they hadn’t actually finished any songs yet. Gary eventually got feed up and moved on.
Soon after Gary meet Paul Gardiner while auditioning for another band called the “Lasers.” Thanks to Paul’s insistence Gary got the position. These would be the foundations of “Tubeway Army.” That first day Gary had changed their name, and had them playing all his songs. They went through a number of different line-ups relatively quickly, but the foundation remained Gary and Paul for quite some time.
When playing live in those early years, Gary’s nerves often got the better of him. Being terrified of public appearances in his early school years he did not seem the sort to choose pop star as a profession. He pressed on. Amazingly enough Gary did not get seriously mixed up in drugs or alcohol. A few bad experiences seemed to make clear the ill effects. Something many people don’t realize until it is often to late. On October 16th, 1977 Gary’s parents paid for three demos to be recorded at Spaceward studio in Cambridge. It was all punky material, for Gary believed that was what record contract people wanted. Shortly after those demos Martin Mills and Nick Austin came into the picture with “Beggars Banquet” On the first album Gary choose the name Gary Valerian, for lack of any better ideas. He wanted to be mysterious. We should all be happy he changed it, I for one have no idea how to pronounce Valerian.
After the release of their first album simply titled “Tubeway Army” Gary and Paul hurried back into the studio ASAP to record “Replicas.” Although some of the songs off that album are deeply personal to Gary, most are sci-fi in nature. Gary had his first hit with that album and “Are ‘Friends’ Electric” became his first #1 song, followed by “Replicas” which became his first #1 album. He was 21 years old, and by this time taken the name Numan.
Gary’s next album “Pleasure Principle” rode the wave to number one on the back of “Cars” which is today, probably his best known song. Even if you don’t know who the hell Gary Numan is you’ve probably heard of “that guy who played ‘Cars’.” “Pleasure Principle” was also the first album in which Gary went solo. Gary followed the success of his albums with a monstrous tour, including giant light shows. He lost a lot of money pleasing his fans; those lights weren’t cheap. And I hope they all appreciated it. Money problems would haunt him further along in his career, but at the moment no one seemed too all fired concerned about how much they were loosing.
Gary followed the tour by heading back into the studio and releasing a new single “We Are Glass” which is a song about how he felt in the wake of his new found fame.
“Fragmented, transparent, hard, brittle, cold, sharp and just about ready to break apart into a thousand pieces.”
Gary made a video for “We Are Glass” but it was banned, although he liked it. It seems that destroying TV’s promoted violence in 1980. Hum…. “I Die: You Die” followed “We Are Glass” and was pretty much a statement to the British press about how much they sucked. Gary followed the single releases with “Telekon” but decided not to put the two singles on the album. Telekon shot straight to number one. And rightly so if I don’t say so myself. Gary had a surplus of new songs and wanted to give his fans more bang for their bucks. It might have been a mistake. But Gary made a lot of mistakes. You have to remember that this was in the days when vinyl (god rest it’s soul) still reigned supreme and there wasn’t room for everything he would have liked to put on.
Teletour followed the album, and although Gary still had a lot to learn his stage persona has loosened up a bit, and he had a grand time. Also by this time he had decided not to tour for a while. It was another big mistake, but Gary felt his sanity was in question. The Japanese lyrics in “This Wreckage” mean “I Leave You” and that just goes to show how long he was thinking about stopping touring. It was a hidden message to his fans. I find it very interesting in retrospect, but then again I wasn’t even born yet and it probably would have broken my heart at the time. I still admire him for it. I’m sure a lot of people probably condemned him for the decision, but to me it took guts. Gary did say good bye to his fans in a smashing manner. He had three sold out concerts with bigger, brighter, better, light shows with robots scooting about the place and pretty much loosing tons of money on it. “Telekon” is probably my favorite of his older albums. Even though the album in a whole has a very “So this is what it’s like to be a pop star and it sucks” feel I find myself smiling. I suppose if I had been around when the preverbal shit hit the preverbal fan, it would be very different. I love the sci-fi feel. “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep” is actually a very good book. I read it after finding out it was the inspiration for “I Dream of Wires” and have now moved onto Saberhagan’s “Beserker” series. Gary has a deep love of sci-fi, or at least he did when he was growing up and a lot of his early works are influenced by books or his short stories. “Replicas” in particular was based very much on his stories. I bet they are interesting. I hope he does write a book. I’d buy it. Hell, I’d buy loads and start giving it away as birthday presents.
More to come as I write it.

All quotes indicated by an asterisk are direct quotations from “Praying to the Aliens” written by Gary Numan with Steve Malins, and is his autobiography. Published in 1997 by André Deutsch Limited a subsidiary of VCI plc. It is also where I got the majority of my information, and I recommend it to all Numanoids who haven’t already read it. What I have included here is the icing on the cake. His story is so much deeper, and so much more interesting. So basically I wrote a nice summary any teacher would be proud of. Consider it a teaser for the real thing. It can be purchased on his web site, at a reduced cost, I believe.