It’s hard to believe it’s been more than three decades since the release of Gary Numan‘s The Pleasure Principle, the electronic-pop masterpiece that spawned massive hit single “Cars,” one of the defining tracks of the new-wave era. (The song has since been covered and sampled numerous times and been used in countless commercials, movies, TV shows, video games, etc.) To celebrate the highly influential album making in into the Billboard top 20 in 1980 and the recent multi-disc, 30th-anniversary reissue, Numan just kicked off a three-week U.S. tour that features him playing The Pleasure Principle in its entirety, along with songs from his entire career as well as tracks from forthcoming album Splinter. Numan will also be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our Q&A with him.
Numan: I really love sharks. Well, I’m really impressed by sharks is probably more accurate but it feels to me like love. They are undeniably beautiful, powerful, deadly and supreme at what they do and ruthlessly efficient. Why some of these attributes are considered good things in a shark and not so good in a human being, I don’t really know, but they are. Snakes, tigers, bears and a-thousand-and-one other deadly creatures, all dangerous, all impressive, all scary in their own way, but sharks seem to be top of the pile.
Perhaps it’s because evolution sorted the shark out before humans even walked the Earth. Job done, as they say, can’t do better than that if all you want to do is swim around the oceans and kill things, so off you go. Absolutely brilliant. So what happened to humans then? If nature got it so right with sharks millions of years ago why are we still such a problem? Maybe evolution is slowing down, losing its edge so to speak. Whatever, sharks are just perfect. They live in what is an alien environment to us, and that is terrifying enough, but they are big, fast, strong and they have huge teeth and they will eat you alive. How much more scary can you get?
I’m going to go cage diving one of these days. It’s on my list of things to do before I die—or to do as I die, knowing my luck. Free fall parachuting and going into space are also on the list but the sharks hold the biggest fear. I’m also terrified of deep water; I get a kind of aquatic version of vertigo. So, what with being in deep water and next to a shark I fully expect to make my own small contribution to the chumming process. Best I’m in the cage on my own, methinks.
Video after the jump.
