Gary Numan, in a new interview, shared some interesting thoughts on not being a nolstagia act:

I’m told often, and I think incorrectly, that I should not worry about any of that (being a nostalgia act).

I shouldn’t worry about whether it’s retro nostalgia; I should just go out and do these songs and enjoy myself.

And I actually think that’s a slightly kind of naive attitude, because you can be typed to a certain era and it can be very, very, very difficult to get out of that, no matter how many albums you make since that, how old you are and how long your career lasts.

If you’re tagged to that era, I think you might as well just f—ing shoot yourself in the head, really, ’cause you’re done for. And I think it’s really, really important to make sure that doesn’t happen. And that’s why I’ve been so cautious about any kind of nostalgia.

There are, over here [in the UK], a number of sort of TV shows which are very powerful and very good things to be on and I’ve probably said no to all of them at one point or another because they wanted to me to go on and sing Cars or one of the other older songs. And even though I would desperately need the publicity at times, I would say no to them because I’ve always been aware of the sort of bigger picture that if you’re just ever seen doing those things it just perpetuates this idea that you only ever wrote two songs or three and they were all written in 1980 or ’79 and that’s your career in a capsule.

So you have to be aware of that thing and if it means turning down really good opportunities, then that’s what you have to do.

Of course, fans still want to see him sing Cars, as he does with Nine Inch Nails in the video above.