Legendary Gary Numan celebrates 40 years of music

GARY Numan returns to Ireland to play the Olympia Theatre Dublin on Sunday, September 22 as he marks 40 years of making music.

Notorious for hits such as 'Are Friends Electric?' and 'Cars', Numan's early career was too often misconstrued, tainted by a sometimes fraught relationship with the media and challenged by the hostility of the music industry at the time.

Numan, however, stuck to his guns, outlasted his naysayers, and became renowned not just as a pioneer but as an institution.

Today, with a career that has spanned nearly four decades, his approach to electronic music remains an inspiration to artists across genres and eras, from stadium goliaths such as Depeche Mode, Prince and Nine Inch Nails to alternative heroes such as Beck, Damon Albarn and Marilyn Manson.

Even Kanye West owes him a debt and David Bowie once credited him with “writing two of the finest songs” in British music. It's no surprise he recently received the Ivor Novello Award for Inspiration.

Now, Numan is preparing his 22nd studio album entitled 'Savage (Songs From A Broken World)'. He's a busy guy. A self-proclaimed “one-man band”, Numan has always been something of an outlier living on his own terms.

A mark of overcoming that challenge is currently slightly red and raised on his forearms with the lyrics of the new album's opening track 'Ghost Nation' tattooed there, a reminder of the work.

A famous recluse, he once said: “Fame makes you a target for every disenchanted idiot.”