According to Numan, this was an unintentional result of acne ; before an appearance on Top of the Pops, he had " spots everywhere, so they slapped about half an inch of white makeup on me before I'd even walked in the door.

Moving away from the pure electro-pop that he had made his name with, Numan then experimented with jazz, funk and ethereal, rhythmic pop.

In addition to Numa's commercial failure, a lack of radio play ( his records were removed from the BBC Radio 1 playlist ) and sales drained the fortune ( he estimated £ 4. 5 million ) Numan had amassed in the late 1970s.

2001 did see the band with a stable line-up, achieved during the Aura sessions featuring Downes, Payne, guitarist Guthrie Govan and ex-Manfred Mann's Earth Band / The Firm / Uriah Heep / Gary Numan / AC / DC drummer Chris Slade ( who had first joined Asia in 1999, briefly ).

Meanwhile, Karn had become a sought-after session musician and worked with artists such as Gary Numan, Kate Bush, and Joan Armatrading.

By this time Tubeway Army had decided to abandon live shows – Numan was unhappy with pub-venue gigs on the often violent London punk scene ( the only known recording of a Tubeway Army concert – a London show from February 1978 – was released as a bootleg album in the early 1980s.

The song was the first release credited solely to Gary Numan after he dropped the band name Tubeway Army, with which he had released four singles and two LPs, including the number one UK hit " Are ' Friends ' Electric?

Musically, the new song was somewhat lighter and more pop-oriented than its predecessors, Numan later conceding that he had chart success in mind: " This was the first time I had written a song with the intention of ' maybe it could be a hit single '; I was writing this before ' Are " Friends " Electric?

By this time, Billy Currie had been recruited by the rising star Gary Numan in 1979 to do a presentation at the Old Grey Whistle Test show with his band Tubeway Army.

Numan had been a fan of Ultravox and Currie was also asked to play on Numan's début solo album, The Pleasure Principle, and its subsequent tour.

Palladino, who had also collaborated with others including Tears for Fears, Go West and Gary Numan, featured on three of Young's albums, No Parlez, The Secret of Association and Paul Young.

Numan had previously been Minister of Fisheries and Deputy Prime Minister.

When Arthur Numan went off to Rangers at the end of the 1999 – 00 season, Bouma was moved to left-back where he had to compete with Danish international Jan Heintze.

* Rika ( in the Japanese version ) is a Numan, the product of a thousand years of continuous research in genetic engineering by the biological support system artificial intelligence, Seed ; she is effectively a descendant, clone, and superior version of Nei, originally born to carry out the will of Seed and had since her birth developed into a surrogate daughter for the artificial intelligence.

Taking the detachment of Numan ibn Muqarrin under his command, he moved to Abraq, where the retreated apostates had gathered, and defeated them.

Gary Numan had popular songs laced with Scientology references in the 1980s such as " Me, I Disconnect from you ", " Praying to the Aliens ", and " Only a Downstat ", influenced directly by Burroughs ' Scientology-based writings.

Gary Numan ( born Gary Anthony James Webb on 8 March 1958 ) is an English singer, composer, and musician, most widely known for his chart-topping 1979 hits " Are ' Friends ' Electric?

Later he picked the name " Numan " from an advert in the " Yellow Pages " for a plumber " A. Neumann ".

Numan rose to prominence at the end of the 1970s as front man, writer and producer for Tubeway Army.

Warriors was the last album Numan recorded for Beggars Banquet Records, and was supported by a 40-date UK tour ( again with support from robotic mime and music duo Tik and Tok ) – Numan's first live tour in the UK since his Wembley appearances in 1981.

In 1991, Numan ventured into film-scoring by co-composing the music for The Unborn with Michael R. Smith ( the score was later released as an instrumental album in 1995, Human ).

Numan re-evaluated his career and went in a harsher, more industrial direction with his songwriting on the album Sacrifice — for the first time he played almost all the instruments himself.

Fear Factory produced a cover of " Cars " ( featuring a prominent guest appearance by Numan himself ) for the digipak version of their album Obsolete.

Numan also provided narration for Voltaire's short film Odokuro in 2011.

Numan is known for his love of flying, a passion which has featured in some of his music videos (" Warriors ", " I Can't Stop ").

After the breakthrough of Tubeway Army and Gary Numan in the British Singles Chart, large numbers of artists began to enjoy success with a synthesizer-based sound in the early 1980s, including Soft Cell, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, Japan and Depeche Mode in the United Kingdom, while in Japan, Yellow Magic Orchestra's success opened the way for synthpop bands such as P-Model, Plastics, and Hikashu.

Synthpop's early steps, and Gary Numan in particular, were also disparaged in the British music press of the late 1970s and early 1980s for their German influences and characterised by journalist Mick Farren as the " Adolf Hitler Memorial Space Patrol ".

In the second series episode " I Know What Alan Did Last Summer " he enthusiastically plays " air-bass " to the Gary Numan song " Music for Chameleons ", and in " Never Say Alan Again " is seen drumming along inside his Lexus to the theme of Return of the Saint which he plays at full volume insensitively at the cemetery whilst having given his assistant Lynn ten minutes to commemorate the anniversary of her mother's passing.

They were always grateful to Numan for his help and support.

The track has been a UK Top Twenty hit for Numan in three successive decades: on its original release in 1979 ( making number one ); in 1987 as the ' E Reg Model ' remix ( making number 16 ); and again in 1996 following its use in an advertisement for Carling Premier beer ( number 17 ).

Numan performed " Cars " using a set of two dozen automobiles and their horns in an innovative 2010 commercial for DieHard.

" The band also asked Numan to record a spoken word piece for the introduction of Obsolete.

" The result would be satisfactory for both parties, and Numan praised the band as " brilliant, really easy to work with.

During the song's promotion, Gary Numan joined the band for a concert performance in Brixton, London to much enthusiasm.

Sköld played guitar on the band's 2007 world tour, Rape of the World, with Rob Holliday ( formerly guitarist / bassist for Curve, Gary Numan, The Mission and The Prodigy ) taking over bass duties.

The album Clues, produced by Palmer and featuring Chris Frantz and Gary Numan, generated hits on both sides of the Atlantic, first with the radio-friendly single " Johnny and Mary " and then " Looking for Clues ".

In Egypt's last legislative and presidential elections in November and December 2005, the party won 6 out of 454 seats in the People's Assembly, and its presidential candidate Numan Gumaa received 2. 9 per cent of the total votes cast for president.

On January 18, 2006 the supreme committee for the party ousted its chairman Numan Gomaa from the party and from the presidency of the board of al-Wafd newspaper.

This prompted the singer, Gary Numan to go solo and in the same year he release the Kraftwerk inspired album, The Pleasure Principle and again topped the charts for the second time with the single " Cars ".

While angry like his punk contemporaries, Numan suppressed his anger and " got really hung up with this whole thing of not feeling, being cold about everything, not letting emotions get to you, or presenting a front of not feeling ".

The band appeared all dressed in black and near-motionless, Numan in particular giving a performance often referred to as being " like an android " ( a style that was later reported to have been a means of covering stage nerves but which then became his trademark ).

The song " Down in the Park " is credited as being performed by Gary Numan although technically it was recorded when Numan was using the band name Tubeway Army.

They often cited their main influences as being the Sex Pistols, Gary Numan and the Beastie Boys, whilst also claiming to be huge fans of East 17 and Take That.