A UK tour, main stage at Ireland’s Body & Soul Festival, and performing at Sonisphere, that’s quite a busy summer. Are you nervous or excited?
I’m very excited. I’ve been doing this for a long time so it’s rare to find me nervous these days. I love playing live, I love touring and I love festivals so it’s all good as far as I’m concerned.
Aside from Splinter have you been working on any other music?
I’ve written a film score for an animated apocalyptic nightmare of a film called From Inside. I’m also working on a collaboration track with Jean Michel Jarre for a new album he’s putting together.
Do you approach music making differently now to how you used to?
Not really. The song writing process is much the same in that I sit down at a piano, or piano sound on a soft synth, and work out the melody, chord structure and arrangement. After that’s done the song is built up layer by layer. What is very different now is the amount of technology employed at that layering stage. The tools we have now are trulyphenomenal compared to what we had when I first got involved in electronic music.
What was it like the first time you ever performed?
I hated it. I could barely hold a conversation days before the gig even took place, I was so nervous. I couldn’t see how I was ever going to have a career on stage. It was my dad actually that took me to one side and said if I couldn’t find a way to handle the nerves I should look for another career. That’s why I got into images and personas back in the day. I could hide behind them.
Do you still get that feeling?
No. On rare occasions I do get a bit nervous but nothing like the way it used to be. It really was bad.
Do you miss the days of the Tubeway Army?
For me Tubeway Army was a three-piece punk band. When I started making electronic music the band split up and I went my own way with Paul Gardiner, the band bass player. I wanted to be known then as a solo artist but the record label didn’t want to drop the Tubeway Army name so it lasted for two albums, until I had enough leverage to get what I wanted. So, no, I really wouldn’t want to go back to being in a punk band. But, if you mean go back to the days of Are Friends Electric and the months when it all kicked off, then yes I would, just for a minute. Just long enough to tell myself to calm down and enjoy the moment. I didn’t do that when the initial success happened, I was too busy worrying about what to do next.
What frame of mind do you have to be in when writing music and why?
I go out to the studio on a Monday morning, sit down and start to play. It usually takes just a little while for the world and all those day-to-day concerns to slip away. You just float, in a way. The ideas begin to flow, and you lose yourself to some extent in whatever place your imagination takes you. For me it’s nearly always a dark place so I guess my state of mind must be dark, but it doesn’t seem to feel that way. It feels exciting.
You’ve influenced a lot of modern electronic music, would you consider yourself a pioneer?
I’ve read a lot of comments about me being a pioneer. I was at the sharp end of something extraordinary. The onslaught of electronic music was, quite possibly, the last major revolution in music and I was a part of that but I was just trying things out to see what I liked. It was all very basic. I didn’t even know what the controls on a synth did; I just twiddled, pushed and pulled until they made a noise I liked.
What do you think about electronic going mainstream and being picked up by manufactured pop artists?
It doesn’t bother me at all. Synths, like guitars, drums and all the rest, are just the screwdrivers and hammers of the music business, they’re just tools. What matters is not who is using them, but how good is the music they’re making with them.
Who have been your biggest influences?
Marc Bolan and John Foxx. After them a thousand and one other people. The world is full of clever people doing clever things. You must keep your ears and eyes open at all times and let it seep in, like little sparks that can then ignite your own imagination and creative ideas.
If you could go back in time to any era, what would it be and why?
If I were able to I’d go back to the time just before the meteor hit that started the events that caused the extinction of the dinosaurs. I would genuinely love to see what life was like back then. I’d like to look up and see the sky filled with that meteor. Arguably the most catastrophic event in the history of the planet, it would be amazing to see that beginning.
Gary plays Holmfirth Picturedrome 3rd July, Sonisphere 4th July and Alt Fest 16th August.
Single I Am Dust demo teaser on Mortal Records.
Credits
Text Tish Weinstock