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Tubeway Army were a London-based new wave band led by lead singer Gary Numan. Formed at the height of punk rock in 1977, the band gradually changed to an electronic music sound. They were the first band of the electronic era to have a synthesiser-based number-one hit, with their single "Are 'Friends' Electric?" and its parent album Replicas both topping the UK charts in mid-1979. After its release, Numan opted to drop the Tubeway Army name and release music under his own name as he was the sole songwriter, producer and public face of the band, but he retained the musicians from Tubeway Army as his backing band.
Webb was a prolific songwriter. The band began playing gigs on the punk scene in London and managed to secure a record deal with the independent Beggars Banquet label. In February 1978 the punk rock style debut single "That's Too Bad" was released, but failed to make much impact. Shortly after the band made demo recordings (later released as The Plan) to give Beggars Banquet an idea of the songs they had. In summer 1978 a second single, "Bombers"/"Blue Eyes"/"OD Receiver", was released, but failed to chart.
During this time the band went through some line-up changes, changing drummers and briefly adding a second guitarist, but due to musical differences Webb and Gardiner split with them as they wanted to move away from punk rock.
By this time Tubeway Army had decided to abandon live shows – Webb was unhappy with pub-venue gigs on the often violent London punk scene. Their last gig in July 1978 (sharing the bill with The Skids) was abandoned halfway through the set because of violence and Webb decided that Tubeway Army would become a studio-only band. (There are only 2 known recordings of Tubeway Army concerts – Live at the Roxy in 1977 and a London show from February 1978 – this was released as a bootleg album in the early 1980s. It was later officially included under the title Living Ornaments '78 as bonus tracks on the 1998 CD re-release of the Tubeway Army album).
At this point Numan was keen to distance his music from punk rock and wanted to drop the Tubeway Army group name and release the album under his own stage name, but Beggars Banquet rejected the idea. The album was released with the title Tubeway Army on blue vinyl in November 1978. Whilst the album's modest initial pressing of 5000 copies sold out, it did not enter the album charts at that time, and no singles were lifted from it.
The next single, "Are 'Friends' Electric?" was released in May 1979 and became the band's first entry on the UK Singles Chart. After a modest start at no. 71 it steadily climbed up the chart reaching the No. 1 spot in June. The underlying context of this song was also a reference to a Philip K. Dick novel, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? A special picture disc helped boost sales but what particularly grabbed the British public's imagination was Tubeway Army's appearance on the BBC show The Old Grey Whistle Test, followed soon after by a slot on Top of the Pops on 24 May 1979. The band, now including Ultravox keyboardist Billy Currie, Chris Payne, Paul Gardiner and drummer Cedric Sharpley, 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 single remained at number one in the UK charts for four weeks, with Replicas following suit in the album charts. By the end of 1979 "Are 'Friends' Electric?" had become the fourth highest selling single in the UK that year.
At the peak of success, a John Peel session in June 1979 was credited as Gary Numan, and the Tubeway Army group name was dropped. Gary Numan The Pleasure Principle - The First Recordings Beggars Arkive Numan would however keep the same musicians as his backing band on his subsequent solo releases and tours.
| 1978 | Tubeway Army
| 14 | — | — | — | — | |
| 1979 | Replicas
| 1 | 11 | 8 | 37 | 124 | |
| 2009 | Replicas Redux
| 96 | — | — | — | — | |
| "—" denotes releases that did not chart | |||||||
| 1984 | The Plan
| 29 |
| 2019 | Replicas - The First Recordings
| 31 |
| 1978 | "That's Too Bad" | 97 | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | |
| "Bombers" | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | ||
| 1979 | "Down in the Park" | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | |
| "Are 'Friends' Electric?" | 1 | 12 | 12 | 23 | 14 | 3 | 9 | 8 | 105 | ||
| "—" denotes releases that did not chart | |||||||||||
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