Synth supremo Gary Numan was special guest of The Phill Jupitus Breakfast show on BBC 6 Music this morning. Arriving late, Gary was soon chatting about his worldwide success as an electronic musician citing Rick Wakeman and early Yes as his first exposure to electronic music. They also deliberated over whether a Stylophone was used on Chicory Tip’s Son of My Father and Space Oddity by David Bowie. The conversation turned to synths and how expensive they were in the early days. Numan said on his first two albums they would just rent a synth for a one day session and struggle to get everything recorded. After playing In A Dark Place and Halo from the Jagged album, Numan joked that the Musician’s Union tried to ban him from the airwaves for putting ‘proper musicians’ out of a job by using synthesizers! Numan said that Are Friends Electric with it’s dark, heavy synth sound, instrumental chorus and 5min 15sec duration was vastly different from the lightweight pop music in the charts of the late 70’s which probably accounts for it’s phenominal success. Jupitus played out with Numan’s choice, the single Opticon by Orgy. You can listen to the entire Gary Numan interview on the BBC 6 Music's Listen Again service on the BBC 6 Music website.

Phill Jupitus on BBC 6Music

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