GARY NUMAN: We recorded the album in early 1988; it took a year to get the deal signed and get it out. It was good fun actually, I co-wrote all the songs on it. Previous to recording the album the “Change your Mind” single from ’85 had done very well, Polydor, who we were signed to for the Sharpe And Numan thing, seemed to be very keen on the project. We were actually contracted to do four or five albums for them. It was all very exciting in the early days and it was a nice thing to be involved with. I remember the press called Bill and I “The odd couple.”

ROGER ODELL: In one sense I think I triggered off the Sharpe And Numan liaison because I wrote the lyric to "Change Your Mind" and Bill added the music to it later. Bill was making a solo album at the time and wanted to record some of our co-written pieces. We used Rock City Studios at Shepperton in the past for a couple of the Shakatak albums, and Gary also operated from there. It was a studio both Bill and I liked.

JESS LIDYARD: From1984 until 1987 I actually became the Managing Director of Rock City Sound and Video Studio complex at Shepperton (with associated record and music publishing companies). I gave up playing the drums apart from a few odd bits of session work and executive production. The organisation was a partnership with Gary Numan and associates Denny Laine (Wings) and members of Earth Band and Uriah Heep etc. The studios were initially very successful recording Sting, Police, Cliff Richard, Shakatak, Icicle Works, Phil Lynott, Phil Collins, Katrina And The Waves, Aztec Camera, Go West, Sham 69 amongst others with several No1's and Top 20 albums being made there.

BILL SHARPE: I went into the studios owned by Shakatak's management company and Nick Smith and I laid down all the backing tracks pretty much to a finished stage. Gary came in for a day or two and suggested ideas if he wasn't sure about any musical things and then we recorded his vocals over a period of 2 days and I have to say I was really impressed by the speed at which he liked to record, and his professionalism. We mixed the album and sent it up to Polydor and they decided to release it. It took a while to sort out the deal but they came round in the end. It's an album I haven't heard for a while since I seem to have given away all my copies but it's still one I’m very
proud of.

ROGER ODELL: I wasn't present at the recording sessions for the Automatic album as this was Bill's project. Nobody wanted this to be seen as "Shakatak meets Gary Numan!” So it was very much Bill and Gary’s conception.

BILL SHARPE: I remember at the time we were both suffering from a deliberate policy of not having our stuff played on Radio One, and Polydor decided, for reasons best known to themselves, that they didn't want an album. We were all disappointed at the time but Les McCutcheon, Shakatak’s manager agreed to put up the money to record the album. So I locked myself away in my studio for a few weeks and wrote all the songs for the album. I then sent the demos with me humming the tunes over the back tracks to Gary and he wrote the lyrics to my doodley singing! No easy feat I can tell you! As far as the inspiration for the songs was concerned I think when I went into my studio I had a very clear idea in my mind of the sort of songs and sounds I was looking for. And I could always hear Gary’s voice in my head when I was writing. And it was also quite exciting working on something a little bit different from Shakatak and also working with Gary. So once I started I guess I got onto a bit of a roll and came out the other end with what I thought were some good tracks. Apart from working with Gary, I also found time to write with and for other artists all over the world. From Yusuko Agawe in Japan to Annabella from Bow Wow Wow in the UK.

GARY NUMAN: I didn’t have hardly any say in the music at all; I just did the words which was how I wanted it. I liked to keep out of it more than usual. Because of that I wasn’t as devoted to it as my own stuff. Having said that I did really, really enjoy doing it and I was very keen to see it succeed. Unfortunately towards the end of it the managing director changed at Polydor and the one that came in was a different kettle of fish altogether, I wasn’t so keen on him and there was definitely a loss of enthusiasm for both Sharpe And Numan and the Automatic album, the sales went dead really. I think if the singles from it had done better, if they’d been No1 and No2 singles then it probably would’ve kept it going but I think they were looking for sales that were out of all proportion to the effort that they put into it. The promotion that went into the actual album was almost non-existent. It was quite pathetic to be honest with you. You cannot sell an album, no matter what, no matter who the artist is unless the public know its out. After the first couple of weeks when it wasn’t doing that much they basically just gave up completely. I was so surprised by Polydor’s abandoning of the record especially when such a lot of effort when into it.

BILL SHARPE: As far as there being other Sharpe and Numan tracks there are a few in early stages that we recorded a while ago (See Industrial, a member of Numanme, he has kindly provided a link to Bill’s myspace page. There you’ll find an unreleased Sharpe and Numan song provisionally entitled Sharpe and Numan demo Paul 2007). As far as a whole album though I’m afraid there is none, but who knows in the future, maybe we might work together again if Gary was interested. It’s been a while since we worked together and I know I would enjoy working with him again. Incidentally, I still have all the Sharpe And Numan records on original acetates and white labels.

THE FOLLOWING IS A BREAKDOWN OF SOME OF THE SHARPE AND NUMAN RECORDINGS.

“CHANGE YOUR MIND”
Never performed live.

BILL SHARPE: “Change Your Mind” started out as a group of songs I was writing for my first solo album Famous People. I went into Rock City studios in 1984 with engineer Nick Smith who was very important to the project with a view to making an album that was an opportunity to record a variety of tunes in different styles. As the process went on over several months “Change Your Mind” started to take shape and Nick and myself spent many days creating the backing track and experimenting with all kinds of technology we had available to us then.

BILL SHARPE: The intro itself was a happy accident through desk feedback and all sorts of playing around. When I listen back I’m not sure I remember exactly how we did it all but it's there so that's good enough. When we finished the backing track we were both thinking this sounds a bit special and then it was onto the next stage. Who do we get to sing the song? I hadn't really thought about that much since we'd had so much fun creating the back track. Nick had worked a fair amount with Gary at Rock City and he suggested maybe we should play the song to him and see what he thought. So we asked Nick to send him a tape and in a few days Tony Webb his father/ manager came over and said Gary would love to do the track. So we set up the session and Gary sang it almost in one take, and as we sat back we all thought, “wow, this sounds pretty good.” Later when the A&R guy from Polydor came down and heard it I could see on his face how excited he was. I think his comment was, “this could be number one all over Europe.” Well the rest is history. It didn't quite become number one all over Europe but it did really well. And I think the video helped which was a simple idea but worked well promoting us as different characters with different images. The odd couple as they called us I believe. When it became a hit we were all very excited but as it was just one track off the album, there was no talk of following it up at the time.

ROGER ODELL: I remember we were returning from a Shakatak tour of Japan, and I decided to write a series of lyrics to pass the time away. "Change Your Mind" popped into my head as a song title and I just worked around that. I gave Bill about a half-dozen lyrics when we got back to the <ST1:COUNTRY-REGIoN>UK, and for some reason he thought that it would suit Gary. I was quite amazed when I heard Gary's version, as I had not imagined the song could work so well in his style. I thought the result was pretty amazing. I must say though I have a lot of respect Gary, he’s a very unique artist. 

BILL SHARPE: The way it came out was a voice like Gary’s was really going to fit into it, I tried to do the vocal myself but couldn’t, I’m such a useless singer.

GARY NUMAN: It was Bill’s song really; I just sang on it, the words were written by the Shakatak drummer.

GARY NUMAN: When I heard the song I liked it very much, the only thing I was worried about was whether I could do it or not. I’d done the Lee Cooper Jeans ad back in 1978 and that was the last time I’d done any session singing so I was quite nervous.

BILL SHARPE: It was so quick really; I mean we did the track in two or three days.

GARY NUMAN: I felt no pressure on me to do anything, or prove anything, I just sat back and enjoyed the ride, and it did quite well which was the icing on the cake really.

“NO MORE LIES”
Never performed live.

GARY NUMAN: “No More Lies” was very up-tempo, both Bill and I had the clubs in mind when we made it.

GARY NUMAN: I’m not mad about the lyric on that one actually; it’s probably my least favourite lyric I’ve ever written. My heart wasn’t in it, I didn’t wanna do it.

BILL SHARPE: “No More Lies” was recorded when I think Gary and all of us were thinking of Sharpe and Numan as a more serious project and we were talking about recording an album. I remember when it became a reasonable hit we thought well, we've got three hit records already we should make an album.

GARY NUMAN: The single went top 40 without any support from the radio which I thought was quite an achievement.

“I’M ON AUTOMATIC”
Never performed live.

BILL SHARPE: I remember when we were recording “I'm On Automatic”, Nick and I had the same feeling we had with “Change Your Mind”, it just seemed to gel as a track, I thought it had a very strong chorus especially with Tessa Niles's answer phrases. Polydor also liked the track a lot and spent money on what I thought was really good artwork. I also liked Gary’s lyrics which were a kind of dig at the fact that Radio One particularly wouldn't play it or a lot of our stuff. I remember being very disappointed when I listened to the top 40 show on Sunday that it didn't appear, since that was usually the only time they might have played it. In fact the track only entered the chart at No 44 and as soon as the record company saw that they pulled it off priority, and that was it really. But I guess that's the way things go. I still think it's a great song.

GARY NUMAN: Those bad years towards the end of the 80’s, spent trying to revive a dying career was horrible. That constant search for fame and fortune was soul destroying and, I have to say, as this single will attest to, was largely unsuccessful.

“RIP IT UP”
Never performed live.

BILL SHARPE: “Rip It Up” is a song we remixed in Marcus studios along with “I’m On Automatic” and I like the heavy drum sound that Nick spent a while working on and the chorus I think with Tessa Niles and Gary’s vocals is quite hard and rocky.

“WELCOME TO LOVE”
Never performed live.

BILL SHARPE: I remember when we were recording “Welcome To Love” that it was nice to hear Gary singing a ballad and his vocal on that track particularly was very gentle and very moving.

“VOICES” + 1989 REMIX
Never performed live.

BILL SHARPE: “Voices” was written at the same time as “New Thing From London Town” and in fact the record company in <ST1:COUNTRY-REGIoN>Germany</ST1:COUNTRY-REGIoN> liked the track so much they used it as the A-side instead of “No More Lies.”

ROGER ODDELL: I had written "Voices." Gary recorded it but he decided to re-write the verse lyric. I think "Voices" was a chorus melody line of Bill's first, and then I just added lyrics afterwards.

“NEW THING FROM LONDON TOWN”
Never performed live.
Released as a single in August 1986.
ROGER ODELL: That was my original lyric, which Bill added music to later. The lyric was my reaction to the slightly self-absorbed, right-wing feeling that I got from the so-called New Romantics. 
GARY NUMAN: Initially it was given to me to see if I wanted it for my album not as a Sharpe And Numan thing at all, I didn’t really wanna do somebody else’s song on my own album although I did end up using it. We decided to do it on Numa instead of on Polydor because they weren’t interested in doing another Sharpe And Numan thing. When Polydor put out their single, which was in the middle of my “no radio play” time they got an enormous amount of play on it, then we put out another one, just as good a song with a decent video and not a dickie bird, nothing at all. 

BILL SHARPE: I got a phone call from Matt at Numa Records asking if I might be interested in making another record with Gary. I was happy to since I’d enjoyed the first experience and thought it would be great to continue the partnership. I’d written “New Thing From London Town” back in the late 70's even before Shakatak got together and thought it might work as a slightly darker song which might suit Gary’s voice. So we went into Rock City again and basically went through the same process as with “Change Your Mind.” It's was a much darker sounding song and less commercial than the first one which is maybe why it didn't do as well. And also it was on an independent label and sometimes it's harder to promote since there's less money etc.

ROGER ODELL: Its possible Polydor felt that there were no more potential hit singles with quite the same character as “Change Your Mind”, so they cooled off a bit. I think that’s why they let “New Thing From London Town” go to Gary’s label. I'm only guessing though.

Sadly I was unable to interview the guys further due to time constraints, the following are the other tracks recorded for the project.

“TURN OFF THE WORLD”
Never performed live.

“BREATHE IN EMOTION”
Never performed live.

“NIGHTLIFE”
Never performed live.

“SOME NEW GAME”
Never performed live.

“LOVE LIKE A GHOST” (B-SIDE)
Never performed live.