Gary Numan: 'I can't play very well'

Gary Numan has slammed people who call him pretentious, putting his success down to the fact that he 'can't play very well'.

In an interview with NME, the singer and producer explained how he wrote his first number one single 'Are 'Friends' Electric?'.

He said: "'Are 'Friends' Electric?'… it's actually two songs stuck together. Because I lacked the ability to finish either of them. I had a good verse, I couldn't think of a chorus for it.

"One day I'm playing this one, started playing that one… I'll put them together. You end up with a song five and a half minutes long and it goes to number one."

Numan added: "I became successful because I couldn't write songs very well. And I can't play very well. My success is based on not being able to finish songs properly and playing badly. That's going to keep you down to earth, isn't it? People say I'm pretentious? F**k off!"