InThe the wake of her newrebel album, Garbage singer returns Shirley Manson tells Stylist’s Anita Bhagwandas why music needs “gobby, alternative women with guitars”
Photography: Matt Irwin
n 1995, when broke hearts with re-imagined New Year all come at once. So Garbage released Sixties tough-girl style and coaxed much so, that I had to have a quiet their debut, self- even elitist music fans to fall for word with myself. “Play. It. Cool”, I titled album, with her effortless punk poise. Manson I pleaded, as I glimpsed her singles such as was the woman everyone wanted flame-red hair peeking around Stupid Girl and Only Happy When to be. More relevantly, she was the the door and my pulse started to It Rains, lead singer Shirley woman I wanted to be. gallop. Any sense of journalistic Manson was the ultimate indie Meeting Manson, now 45, decorum I had vanished as she poster girl. In the male-dominated at her record label’s office in greeted me in her deadpan Britpop scene, she commandeered west London was like my Scottish tones. I was about crowds with her sultry bravado, Christmas, Halloween and to talk music with my idol…
STYLIST.CO.UK 5 9 Shirley Manson
You’ve been a personal My husband came in and I was inspiration to me for years. crying silent tears. Who inspires you? What do you make of the Patti Smith. The older she gets the controversy surrounding Lana? braver she becomes, and the more I was astounded by the negativity. I fall madly and passionately in love They’re calling her a fake; they did the with her. She’s an incredible artist same thing to me. I was outraged at and does everything on her own the time. I’d been in a working band terms. She’s never injected herself for a decade and they’re telling me with substances to look younger. STYLIST’S ANITA I’m phony? Some people seem to She’s my touchstone; whenever PLAYING IT COOL think having a musical past is sinister I’m freaked out looking in the WITH HER IDOL and hate her for it. It’s bewildering. mirror and seeing myself age, Patti SHIRLEY WITH Smith inspires me not to worry. CLOSE FRIEND GWEN Do you think there’s too much never going to let me release STEFANI IN LA, 1996 pressure on women in general now? a record.” So, I just stopped Like, “What would Patti Smith do?” It’s almost like we’ve gone back to making music. I got a TV role [Laughs] Exactly. And Siouxsie Sioux that there’s no alternative to that pop the Fifties. Women are allowed to playing Catherine Weaver on too. They’re just so creative. world. In the last decade we’ve have a career and children, but Terminator: The Sarah Connor stuffed our feelings and everything they’re also expected to balance the The burning question is, where have Chronicles which was amazing fun. that isn’t perfect down inside us. two while looking sexy and perfect. you been for the last seven years? That kept me busy for about a year Nobody has spoken about their fears, I have a theory that 9/11 changed It’s been a long time! I travelled to and a half. Then I decided I was ready their frailty or their negative thoughts. things dramatically. We’ve gone back India, Africa, Laos and Bhutan, just to get my band back together again… to try to disengage from the world I love pop music, but I also want a to a petrified, war-time mentality. and life I’d been leading for the last So, presumably this new album balance to that. I want to hear what I think that’s why music, in particular, 15 years. I was an empty shell of is quite potent with all those women have to say; there are no has started to reflect this very a person, because all I’d done was feelings going into it? gobby, alternative women with guitars all-singing, all-dancing, Broadway-like tour and make breakfast – on repeat. It is. Battle In Me was the first song on the radio at the moment. entertainment that we see in the I’d lost contact with all my friends and charts at the moment. Because it’s didn’t see their children grow up. “I MISS THAT FLAWED MESS THAT WAS a distraction and nobody – when I didn’t even have a house; just my PREVALENT IN THE NINETIES. WE HAD they’re scared – wants to exercise career. I needed a break. REAL WARRIOR WOMEN – MOUTHY feelings of negativity. And music didn’t factor into it? GIRLS WHO HAD SOMETHING TO SAY” Do you think that women in music are chastised for talking about Eventually, I decided that I had to we wrote after getting together again Like Courtney Love? politics, or areas outside of music? get back into music but wanted after seven years. Even as I was Exactly. I miss that kind of flawed Absolutely. Even on our fan pages to make an art school-type record. spewing the words for the first time, mess that was really prevalent in people will tell me to “shut up,” if I talk I met [producer] Greg Kurstin and I remember thinking to myself, ‘This is the Nineties. We had real warrior about anything non-music related; we wrote a set of songs together then how we should sound’. There’s a line women like Courtney, Elastica’s they just want me to sing. I think took them to the record label. They in the song, “Let’s take a torch to the Justine Frischmann, Gwen Stefani, people feel resentful of anyone in the basically said, “We’re not interested past and the future.” That’s my Alanis Morissette – mouthy girls who public eye who has an opinion about in this, it’s not radio-friendly. We feel mantra; you don’t have to be wrote their own material and had wider issues. Expecting someone to you could have a really big pop career, married to who you were. something to say. be non-thinking and non-feeling is and we would like you to make an This sense of liberation seems Is there anyone you’ve got your repellent, and quite frankly, I want international radio song.” I’m thinking missing in the current musical sights on for stardom? to say, “Get off my Facebook page, to myself, ‘OK, this is not good…’ climate – it seems so overly When I heard Azealia Banks’ first get off my Twitter account, if What did you do? sexualised now. track 212 I got chills. I watched the that’s how you feel.” Honestly? I went home and said to my People like Rihanna and Lady Gaga video for Lana Del Rey’s Video Games husband, “I’m f***ed. Because unless are sexual, but they’re doing it in an on repeat, sat on the edge of my bed Not Your Kind Of People is out now I give them what they want, they’re interesting way. What scares me is with my computer on my knees. on Stun Volume; garbage.com
WHO’S FOLLOWING IN SHIRLEY’S FOOTSTEPS IN 2012?
From haunting harmonies to in-your-face rhyming, these frontwomen are all putting their own, unique spin on the music world
IGGY AZALEA NIKI AND GABBY YOUNG FIRST AID KIT FOE This tough-talking THE DOVE & OTHER Acoustic brilliance Hannah Louise Clark Australian has The Swedish ANIMALS from Swedish sisters is just 21 and is rhymes that would electro-pop duo Ragtime, jazz, folk Johanna and Klara already being make a sailor blush; create beautiful – there’s nothing the Sodenberg, who toy compared to PJ but her own brand of soundscapes with incredible Young with woozy summer Harvey, but her rap is undeniably their ethereal vocals doesn’t dabble in. harmonies and bone-chilling noir is infectious. and melodies. FOR FANS OF: haunting lyrics. entirely her own. RAPPER IGGY AZALEA FOR FANS OF: FOR FANS OF: FOR FANS OF: FOR FANS OF: IS SET FOR Florence And Azealia Banks SUPER-STARDOM Ladyhawke The Machine Laura Marling Blood Red Shoes
FOR MORE OF ANITA’S REVEALING INTERVIEW WITH SHIRLEY GO TO STYLIST.CO.UK PHOTOGRAPHY: MATT IRWIN/TRUNKARCHIVE.COM, GETTY IMAGES
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