盖瑞·纽曼

Gary Anthony James Webb (born 8 March 1958), known professionally as Gary Numan, is an English musician. He entered the music industry as frontman of the new wave band Tubeway Army. The band's second and final album, 1979's Replicas, reached No. 1 on the UK Albums Chart, and spawned a UK No. 1 single with "Are 'Friends' Electric?". Following the band's split, he released his debut solo album The Pleasure Principle later in 1979, which also reached No. 1 in the UK and produced another UK No. 1 single with "Cars". Although his commercial popularity peaked in the late 1970s and early 1980s, he has maintained a strong cult following since then. He has sold over 10 million records.

Numan is regarded as a pioneer of electronic music. He developed a signature sound consisting of heavy synthesizer hooks fed through guitar effects pedals, and is also known for his distinctive voice and androgynous "android" persona. He received an Ivor Novello Award, the Inspiration Award, from the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers, and Authors in 2017. In June 2025, Numan made his debut at the Glastonbury Festival.

Early life

Gary Anthony James Webb was born on 8 March 1958 in Hammersmith, West London. His father was a British Airways bus driver based at Heathrow Airport. He was seven when his family adopted his cousin (father's nephew) John, who would become a musician and play in Numan's backing band. He was educated at Town Farm Junior School in Stanwell, Surrey; Ashford County Grammar School; and Slough Grammar School, followed by Brooklands Technical College in Weybridge, Surrey. He joined the Air Training Corps as a teenager and briefly held various jobs including Heathrow Airport bus driver, forklift truck driver, air conditioning ventilator fitter, and accounts clerk.

When Numan was 15, his father bought him a Gibson Les Paul guitar, which became his most treasured possession. He briefly played in various bands and looked through advertisements in Melody Maker for bands to join. He claims to have unsuccessfully auditioned as guitarist for the then-unknown band the Jam before joining Mean Street and the Lasers, where he met Paul Gardiner. The latter band would soon become Tubeway Army, with his uncle Jess Lidyard on drums and Gardiner on bass. The band signed a recording contract with Beggars Banquet Records. His initial pseudonym was Valerian, probably in reference to the hero in French science fiction comic series Valérian and Laureline. He later picked the surname Numan from an advertisement in the yellow pages for a plumber whose surname was Neumann.

Music career

1976–1981: Tubeway Army and the "Machine Trilogy"

Numan came to prominence in the 1970s as lead vocalist, guitarist, songwriter, and record producer for Tubeway Army. After adopting a punk rock-style, they signed a recording contract with Beggars Banquet Records and released their debut single "That's Too Bad" in February 1978, an attempt at making commercial punk music. It was followed by the recording of an album's worth of demo tapes in March 1978 (later released in 1984 as The Plan), and a second single, "Bombers", which like the first single did not chart. The two singles were released again as a gatefold doublepack in 1979, and in 1983 a re-release of "That's Too Bad" reached No. 97 on the UK singles chart.

Tubeway Army's eponymous, new wave-oriented debut studio album, released in November 1978, sold out its limited run and introduced Numan's fascination with dystopian science fiction and synthesizers. During the recording of the album Numan found a Moog synthesizer left behind in the studio and the transition towards an electronic sound began. Though the band's third single, the dark-themed and slow-paced "Down in the Park" (1979), did not appear on the charts, it became one of Numan's most enduring and oft-covered songs. It was featured with other contemporary hits on the soundtrack for the American drama film Times Square (1980), and a live version of the song appeared in the British concert film Urgh! A Music War (1982). Following exposure in a television advertisement for Lee Cooper jeans with the jingle "Don't Be a Dummy", Tubeway Army released the single "Are 'Friends' Electric?" in May 1979. After a modest start at the lower reaches of the UK singles chart at No. 71, it steadily climbed to No. 1 at the end of June and remained on that position for four consecutive weeks. In July its parent studio album Replicas also reached No. 1 on the albums chart.

At this point Numan was recording his next studio album with a new backing band, having recruited keyboardist Chris Payne and drummer Cedric Sharpley. At the peak of success, Numan opted to premiere four songs in a John Peel session in June 1979 rather than promoting the current album and the Tubeway Army group name was dropped.