Chords for Gary Numan: 'My Asperger's is an absolute advantage'

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ Yeah, I moved there at the end of 2012, I think it was.
I did an album pretty much straight away, and then I did a film, Score, and I've just finished another album.
I work from home, so yeah, I'm going to be working there all [Gb] the time.
We got here on Sunday, and [D] it rained until this morning.
[G] So, no, I don't find that very inspiring.
I don't [Abm] find the sun inspiring either, though.
[N] From in there, it seems good to me.
There's things that you love and things that you don't.
But it's always been that way, always will be.
I see no drop in standard.
I see the same variety that there's always been.
Production quality is getting stronger and stronger, it seems to me, as time goes by.
Sometimes that's stronger than the songwriting that's underneath it, but [E] again, it's always been that way.
I don't see [Db] any radical shift in one way or another, to be honest.
[B] There's always going to be people coming along [N] that can write, always.
There's a lot of people on the planet, and among some of them, there's going to be good songwriters.
And there's people that know how to exploit that and work it, and people that know how to take advantage of it.
So it's just as much as it's ever been.
I look around, and I see great songs and great people performing them.
I think electronic music seems to have been absorbed now into pretty much everything.
_ [Bb] There's not many songs that [Db] you're hearing now that doesn't have some kind [G] of keyboard or synth element added to it, or samples in particular.
It's [A] become so diverse, in fact, that it's difficult to know where you would [G] actually call it [Eb] electronic.
We just call it production techniques, in terms of sampling and so on.
So it's [Bb] just very much [G] absorbed into the mainstream [F] now, I think.
Which is fine.
[Ab] If you're [D] an electronic musician, you're pretty much driven by [N] technology.
That is the thing that gives you what you need.
And so every year, there are new things coming out, new software, new packages.
[D] It's just never-ending.
So that makes it, in a sense, easier for us, [Abm] because we're just being fed things all the time, with new sounds and new ways of working.
So [Gb] you almost have to be [D] inventive to keep up with it, or to be a part [Gb] of it.
So I think it does make our job [G] easier than it seems, really.
Now, I'm not interested in what I did yesterday, let alone [D] 35 years ago.
That's all gone, all that stuff.
But I've got everything [C] now, software, [N] computer-based.
_ I don't struggle to keep up with technology.
I'm just constantly eager to see what's coming next.
Because that's been my whole life.
I've just been with technology my whole life, as it applies to music, anyway.
It's always been a very exciting part of it for me.
[G] I love learning about new stuff and trying to [Eb] figure out how it works and how I can use it.
[F] But especially what's coming next.
[G] I did about half a [Gb] dozen in the last couple of years.
At the moment, I'm just concentrating on [G] my album, then.
[Ab] That's ready, that's coming out.
[D] _
[Gb] I did something with a Mexican band called [Eb] Tite and O'Ago, that was fun.
[G] Jean-Michel Jarre did that, that was great fun.
[E] A band called Dusky, [G] I don't know if that might come out by now, I'm not even sure.
But I do that sort of thing a lot.
[Eb] But I [F] do it too much, I think, actually.
I need to just, what I'm doing now, just not do that.
And concentrate on my own thing for a bit.
It's heavy [Db] electronic, industrial, [N] _
menacing, kind of miserable stuff.
It's lovely, but it's a relief, to be honest.
I find it all a little bit nerve-wracking, actually.
Jarvis is really cool, he gets up there and chats away and is really in his element.
I've got Asperger's, I'm vaguely autistic, I can't really do this stuff.
Honestly, without wishing to be fakely humble, I think I was just lucky.
Honest to God, I was in the right place at the right time.
And I come across synthesizers fairly early on.
And was lucky enough to be the first one to make it.
And so you get a lot of credit for being the person that opened the doors to it.
But really there was other people doing it before me, better than me.
I was just_
Just timing.
I find it hard to take any credit for that, really.
Because people like Ultravox were on their third album, I think, when I made my first one.
And it was better than mine.
And they didn't make it then, and I did.
So I'm just really aware of how good the people were that I was trying to be like.
And yet, it happened to me.
So it's difficult to get too full of yourself when you feel that way.
But having said that, life has been what it is.
And I am very proud of this.
I'm glad it happened the way it's happened.
I don't really_
When you play live, you have to do some of that stuff.
You remind yourself about it.
[B] But not really.
I'm not particularly interested in yesterday, let alone 30 years ago.
I'm very excited about what's coming, always.
Whether that's music or life or anything, really.
And I think it's my nature to be that way.
So I don't look back on_
I don't listen to old music much.
I don't look back and think, if only_
Each one should be an improvement on the one before.
And you should be able to learn from the one you did last time.
But not to keep looking back and looking back.
And certainly not to try to recreate it.
And I think that was awful.
I hate nostalgia.
And this sort of looking back to look forward kind of approach to it.
I never got it.
But life, really. _
Life is full of challenges.
No matter how old you are or how much you've done.
[D] It's full of it.
I've got kids now.
There's a challenge.
Constantly moving goalposts situation.
It's just_
And not just in your own life.
We've got Trump.
And there's all these [Ab] other things happening in the world.
Which are frightening.
So you think about that.
And all of [F] these things bleed their way into what you're doing.
In one form or another.
So life itself is just a never-ending source of inspiration.
I think it has an effect on_
Maybe not the songwriting itself.
Although it may do.
But certainly on your attitude.
[Gb] And how you deal with things.
And how you cope with the ups and downs.
That come along with it.
I think it makes a big difference.
I see it as an absolute advantage.
To people that don't have it.
I pity them.
Because they don't have certain abilities that I have.
To disconnect emotionally.
[Ab] I think I can [Eb] bear the abuse.
Stuff like that.
It just doesn't worry me.
I'm blinkered, focused in where I'm going.
And I think we have obsessive tendencies.
But that's a very useful thing to have.
If you want to do this for a living.
It gives more than it takes.
Pretty much.
That's going to be next year.
With the touring side of it.
I'm just really excited about that.
It's been about 4 years.
Since the last one.
So it's been a while.
Love it.
Best part of it.
It really is.
Best part of it.
You're travelling the world.
Doing your shows every night.
People are going mad.
And you're with your best friends in the band.
Gemma comes with me.
There's no bad side to it.
It's absolutely brilliant fun.
And I will miss it.
Come the day it's over. _ _