Gary Numan is back in the studio with plans to release a new album this coming October, and he wants your help. Numan has launched a pledge campaign which will reward contributors not only with a brand new album, but will also offer a unique insight into the whole creative process. Through a combination of written, audio and video updates, pledgers will be able to follow Gary at every stage. To give you an idea what to expect and also giving us a rare glimpse into his music making process, Gary has released a short video and a full statement…
Gary Numan on his Pledge campaign:
“Making an album is often a long and tortuous process. As a fan you usually just get the finished product, an album slickly packaged, professional and shrink wrapped for your pleasure. But you miss entirely the journey it took to get that finished product to you. I would like to change that. With my new album, the 21st album of my career, I would like to involve you from the very beginning. I want you to be a witness to the entire process, from the very first note played, through every up and down as the days unfold, as each song comes together, as each lyric takes shape and as the first glimmer of art design comes into my head. Some days will be good, ideas will flow easily and I will be happy and excited. Other days will be awful, and I will be miserable and fighting yet another fight in a life long battle with confidence, or the lack of it. But this is the process. As a songwriter, as an artist, you struggle with a wide range of demons. I’ve said often that making an album is like climbing a mountain. It’s a huge task, a huge challenge, like an emotional roller-coaster, and it is not easy. If anything, they get ever harder to make, but they are always exciting.
More than just wanting you to be involved though, to be a regular viewer to my progress on the album, I want to maintain my independence in the music business. I do not wish to sign conventional, industry standard deals and tread the well worn route that has been the norm for musicians for decades. This campaign will also allow me to do that, to be truly independent.
With this new album I have deliberately held off of writing anything until this campaign is in place. I will start to write it the day the campaign is launched and I have eleven months to get it completely finished as the release date I’ve set for it is mid-October, 2016. Three years exactly since ‘Splinter’ was released. I have no idea how I want it to sound, or who will work on it with me, if anyone. It doesn’t even have a working title as yet. It’s as blank a canvas as I’ve ever had and everything that happens will happen with you as part of it.
I will record regular updates, some audio, some video. You will hear snippets of songs as they progress from first note to finished versions. You will hear me explain how I write and I will guide you through my entire process from beginning to end. When you pre-order the album, not only will you receive the new music and exclusive items when the album is ready, you’ll also have intimate access to the making of it from beginning to end. Hopefully, when the shrink wrapped album is eventually in your hands, you will feel a closer connection to it than any other album I’ve ever made. That’s my hope.
For me this is an incredibly exciting project, one that I hope you will join in with me.
For more information on Gary’s Pledge campaign click here.
