Gary Numan Credits Trent Reznor for Building His Confidence

For years, Gary Numan has fought his past as the electronic and New Wave pioneer who hit the top 10 with the 1980 smash 'Cars.' "I'm overly obsessed perhaps about being seen as a retro or nostalgia act and so I've tended to avoid it completely," Numan tells Spinner of why he didn't perform his early material for so long.

But in recent years, Numan has loosened up on that a bit, playing albums like 'Telekon' and 'Replicas' in their entirety. Now, when Numan returns to the States for a highly anticipated tour later this year, he'll be performing all of 'The Pleasure Principle,' his 1979 hit album that spawned 'Cars' and 'Metal,' and earned Numan his biggest success.

"'The Pleasure Principle' anniversary came along towards the end of last year in Britain. It's the 30th anniversary of it hitting No. 1," he says. "On that particular tour, I decided I was going to play keyboards as well, so I played keyboards for the whole 'Pleasure Principle' thing, which I hadn't done since I wrote it and recorded it. I actually really enjoyed it; no one was more surprised than me."

Another thing that brought about the change of heart was encouraging words from friend and longtime admirer Trent Reznor, who brought Numan out onstage in L.A. for the final four shows of Nine Inch Nails' "Wave Goodbye" farewell tour. That meant the world to Numan as an artist. "A great deal of the way I feel now is thanks to Trent and what happened when I was in America with him," Numan says. "He sent me an e-mail at the end of that, just as I was leaving to come home, which is one of the loveliest things I could've ever wished for. It's just really confidence-building."

Numan also believes those L.A. shows were very important for his upcoming tour. "The way he brought me into those 'Wave Goodbye' shows and put me in front of his crowd was just a really, really brilliant thing to do," he says. "I said to him at the time I was really honored to be there and really grateful for him to give me the opportunity. No doubt about it, it introduced me to a huge amount of people that perhaps hadn't known about me before."