Post by Lick The Pavement on Mar 5, 2005 22:19:28 GMT -5
SHIRLEY Manson has arrived in London - or to be more precise, a sprawling hotel suite overlooking Hyde Park - amid the sort of rumours that can only be good for the release of a record. Most involve Garbage, the Scottish singer’s American-based band, who have sold more than 10 million albums since forming a decade ago. Their latest, Bleed Like Me, was due out this time last year and the delay is said to be down to band infighting, which at one stage got so bad all four members threatened to quit.
"It’s true," says a surprisingly chirpy Manson, curled up on a sofa in the hotel suite in a funky outfit of stripy dress over skinny jeans. "None of us thought we would make this album. It wasn’t the usual disagreements over musical direction; we really weren’t getting on. There was so much grief - and I mean that in the Scottish sense of the word - that no one wanted to work together. If one of us came up with an idea, the rest would refuse to work on it. In the end, we all walked out."
It has been a difficult few years for Manson. While touring in 2002, she lost her voice and was warned she might never sing again. An operation to remove a cyst from her vocal chords was successful, but she had to rest her voice for 12 months and by the time she could use it, it looked like she might be without a band.
Then, Manson’s mother was diagnosed with breast cancer - from which she has since recovered - and the singer is rumoured to have separated from her husband after nine years of marriage.
On the subject of her marriage, Manson clams up. Her reaction is not unexpected, although in the past she has been happy to talk about Edinburgh-based sculptor Eddie and their bizarre transatlantic relationship, which appeared to involve meeting up about twice a year. Today she sports a large, green, oval ring, but not on her wedding finger, where she once wore a spiky silver one.
It was home to Scotland, however, where Manson fled - "back to hang out my family" - when Garbage seemed to be splitting up. Despite now dividing her time between Los Angeles and Madison, Wisconsin (where Garbage do all their recording at band member and former Nirvana producer Butch Vig’s Smart Studios), her Edinburgh home is the only one she owns.
Manson returned to LA last year when Garbage resolved to patch up their differences. Having spent much of her teens and twenties struggling in Scottish groups - notably Goodbye Mr Mackenzie and Angelfish, in which she was spotted by Vig for the vacant position of Garbage singer - Manson wasn’t about to give up on the band mates she used to describe as "my three best friends".
"It did cross my mind to make a solo album and had things not worked out, that’s what I would have done," says Manson. "But I like being in groups. It’s hard because it’s always a struggling democracy, but nothing beats being creative with talented people."
LA was considered neutral ground and producer John King of the Dust Brothers was brought in to facilitate relations within the band. "Well, that was the plan," says Manson, "but it didn’t work. Some of us still wouldn’t be in the same room as others."
By the time Garbage left LA, however, they had recorded one track, ‘Bad Boyfriend’, featuring former Nirvana member and now chief Foo Fighter Dave Grohl on drums. So strong was the song that the band decided to try again, this time back in Wisconsin and with no outside producer. There was, says Manson, "a huge blow-out".
"I’d call it a face-off/home truths session," she says. "No one hit anyone, although I wish they had. It would have made for a much cleaner, healthier environment. Unfortunately, the men in Garbage are passive/aggressive. They wouldn’t throw a punch between themselves, never mind hit a woman."
Garbage built enough bridges not only to continue recording, but against the odds to make one of the best albums of their career. Bleed Like Me is an energetic rock record that captures the band’s powerful live sound and does away with many of their trademark studio tricks.
Yet while Manson is understandably pleased with the result, the fact that she is promoting the album on her own - previously she insisted all interviews be with the band so it didn’t seem like she was stealing the limelight - suggests all is still not rosy in the Garbage garden.
Whether the band sink or swim should become clear later in the year, when Garbage go on the road again. Their troubles appear to have begun during the lengthy tour for their last album, 2001’s Beautiful Garbage, a disappointing record that spawned few hit singles and sold disastrously in the States. In a bid to help sell the record, Garbage not only toured on their own, but went out supporting No Doubt and U2.
"We actually had a great time on the U2 tour," says Manson, "but there were already a lot of unaired issues. Communication problems, you could call it. I’ll give you a good example. One night, we realised no one had seen Butch for ages. Turns out he had been in his bed with a fever for two and a half days and not bothered to tell anyone. That’s typical of the boys in the band. They won’t deal with anything until it reaches crisis point. I mean, I try to bring stuff up, but you can’t force people to talk."
What began as another Garbage grievance soon became serious. When Vig almost fell into a coma, he was rushed to hospital and found to have Type A hepatitis. A replacement drummer was hired until Vig recovered, but he had only just rejoined the band when he was back in hospital, this time with Bell’s palsy. Then, during the No Doubt tour, Manson lost her voice.
"I had a cyst on my right vocal chord," she says, "although I didn’t know that at the time. I had never had any problem with my voice before, but on tour I was being shot up with a lot of steroids to keep the inflammation in my throat down. The trouble with that is you can’t actually feel your throat at all, so when you sing, you can be squeezing your vocal chords together and that can cause a cyst."
Manson saw several doctors who all warned her that the operation to remove the cyst could permanently affect her ability to sing.
"I did freak out for a while," she says. "My brain didn’t quite go as far as to think what I would actually do with my life if I couldn’t sing, but the thought was always there. It was horrible."
It was a trip to see her friend Gwen Stefani’s vocal specialist in Philadelphia that put Manson in touch with the man who would help her. While there, she met an opera singer who recommended a New York surgeon who claimed he could remove the cyst risk-free. He did, and although Manson’s throat took time to recover, the operation turned out to have beneficial side-effects. The most obvious was to Manson’s voice, which sounds more forceful and more versatile than before.
"It’s because of my virgin chords," she says. "They sliced a lump off my throat and, quite literally, I had virgin chords again. It’s amazing, like I got a wee tighten-up when I was in there. Doctor, while you’re down there, can you just give it a screw."
Even less expected was the impact the operation had on Manson’s state of mind. From almost losing her most prized asset, she discovered a confidence lacking in the past.
"Sitting in that surgeon’s office made me realise I’m a real singer," she says. "I have sung since I was 15 - that’s 23 years - and I had never considered myself a professional before. It felt great to finally accept that this is what I do for a living and know that, hey, I’m really rather good at it."
Manson has suffered self-esteem problems in the past. The first time we met, six years ago, she was so insecure she decided, after an amicable interview, that I
didn’t like her and was going to write as much. When it came time to have her photograph taken, she locked herself in a toilet and refused to come out.
"Yeah, those were dark days," says Manson of the period which was Garbage’s most commercially successful. "I was crazed all the time. I’m better now, although I’m still nowhere near 100% comfortable with myself. I never will be, not about the way I look. I don’t freak out when I see myself on a billboard any more, but it still doesn’t make me feel good."
In person, Manson seems supremely strong-willed. Forthright, opinionated and at times argumentative, she is also great fun, with a dirty laugh and a love of innuendo.
She is pretty, and has modelled for Calvin Klein and MAC make-up, was once offered a huge sum
to pose nude for Playboy, has appeared on the cover of Vanity Fair in a female pop icons issue, and has hordes of teenagers drooling over her latest look on the internet - for which she writes a regular fans’ diary.
That said, Manson is very wary of the web. "I’m far too vulnerable. I had a terrible experience on the net a while ago and I’m very cautious with it now. I was reading the Garbage message board and came across this whole thread about my weight. Someone wrote that I had been eating too many Twinkies and I was absolutely devastated.
"I phoned up my dad, wailing. I said, ‘Dad, I must be really fat,’ expecting him to give me loads of sympathy and reassurance. Instead, he told me it served me right for looking to a place like that for self-affirmation. I have never looked since."
"It’s true," says a surprisingly chirpy Manson, curled up on a sofa in the hotel suite in a funky outfit of stripy dress over skinny jeans. "None of us thought we would make this album. It wasn’t the usual disagreements over musical direction; we really weren’t getting on. There was so much grief - and I mean that in the Scottish sense of the word - that no one wanted to work together. If one of us came up with an idea, the rest would refuse to work on it. In the end, we all walked out."
It has been a difficult few years for Manson. While touring in 2002, she lost her voice and was warned she might never sing again. An operation to remove a cyst from her vocal chords was successful, but she had to rest her voice for 12 months and by the time she could use it, it looked like she might be without a band.
Then, Manson’s mother was diagnosed with breast cancer - from which she has since recovered - and the singer is rumoured to have separated from her husband after nine years of marriage.
On the subject of her marriage, Manson clams up. Her reaction is not unexpected, although in the past she has been happy to talk about Edinburgh-based sculptor Eddie and their bizarre transatlantic relationship, which appeared to involve meeting up about twice a year. Today she sports a large, green, oval ring, but not on her wedding finger, where she once wore a spiky silver one.
It was home to Scotland, however, where Manson fled - "back to hang out my family" - when Garbage seemed to be splitting up. Despite now dividing her time between Los Angeles and Madison, Wisconsin (where Garbage do all their recording at band member and former Nirvana producer Butch Vig’s Smart Studios), her Edinburgh home is the only one she owns.
Manson returned to LA last year when Garbage resolved to patch up their differences. Having spent much of her teens and twenties struggling in Scottish groups - notably Goodbye Mr Mackenzie and Angelfish, in which she was spotted by Vig for the vacant position of Garbage singer - Manson wasn’t about to give up on the band mates she used to describe as "my three best friends".
"It did cross my mind to make a solo album and had things not worked out, that’s what I would have done," says Manson. "But I like being in groups. It’s hard because it’s always a struggling democracy, but nothing beats being creative with talented people."
LA was considered neutral ground and producer John King of the Dust Brothers was brought in to facilitate relations within the band. "Well, that was the plan," says Manson, "but it didn’t work. Some of us still wouldn’t be in the same room as others."
By the time Garbage left LA, however, they had recorded one track, ‘Bad Boyfriend’, featuring former Nirvana member and now chief Foo Fighter Dave Grohl on drums. So strong was the song that the band decided to try again, this time back in Wisconsin and with no outside producer. There was, says Manson, "a huge blow-out".
"I’d call it a face-off/home truths session," she says. "No one hit anyone, although I wish they had. It would have made for a much cleaner, healthier environment. Unfortunately, the men in Garbage are passive/aggressive. They wouldn’t throw a punch between themselves, never mind hit a woman."
Garbage built enough bridges not only to continue recording, but against the odds to make one of the best albums of their career. Bleed Like Me is an energetic rock record that captures the band’s powerful live sound and does away with many of their trademark studio tricks.
Yet while Manson is understandably pleased with the result, the fact that she is promoting the album on her own - previously she insisted all interviews be with the band so it didn’t seem like she was stealing the limelight - suggests all is still not rosy in the Garbage garden.
Whether the band sink or swim should become clear later in the year, when Garbage go on the road again. Their troubles appear to have begun during the lengthy tour for their last album, 2001’s Beautiful Garbage, a disappointing record that spawned few hit singles and sold disastrously in the States. In a bid to help sell the record, Garbage not only toured on their own, but went out supporting No Doubt and U2.
"We actually had a great time on the U2 tour," says Manson, "but there were already a lot of unaired issues. Communication problems, you could call it. I’ll give you a good example. One night, we realised no one had seen Butch for ages. Turns out he had been in his bed with a fever for two and a half days and not bothered to tell anyone. That’s typical of the boys in the band. They won’t deal with anything until it reaches crisis point. I mean, I try to bring stuff up, but you can’t force people to talk."
What began as another Garbage grievance soon became serious. When Vig almost fell into a coma, he was rushed to hospital and found to have Type A hepatitis. A replacement drummer was hired until Vig recovered, but he had only just rejoined the band when he was back in hospital, this time with Bell’s palsy. Then, during the No Doubt tour, Manson lost her voice.
"I had a cyst on my right vocal chord," she says, "although I didn’t know that at the time. I had never had any problem with my voice before, but on tour I was being shot up with a lot of steroids to keep the inflammation in my throat down. The trouble with that is you can’t actually feel your throat at all, so when you sing, you can be squeezing your vocal chords together and that can cause a cyst."
Manson saw several doctors who all warned her that the operation to remove the cyst could permanently affect her ability to sing.
"I did freak out for a while," she says. "My brain didn’t quite go as far as to think what I would actually do with my life if I couldn’t sing, but the thought was always there. It was horrible."
It was a trip to see her friend Gwen Stefani’s vocal specialist in Philadelphia that put Manson in touch with the man who would help her. While there, she met an opera singer who recommended a New York surgeon who claimed he could remove the cyst risk-free. He did, and although Manson’s throat took time to recover, the operation turned out to have beneficial side-effects. The most obvious was to Manson’s voice, which sounds more forceful and more versatile than before.
"It’s because of my virgin chords," she says. "They sliced a lump off my throat and, quite literally, I had virgin chords again. It’s amazing, like I got a wee tighten-up when I was in there. Doctor, while you’re down there, can you just give it a screw."
Even less expected was the impact the operation had on Manson’s state of mind. From almost losing her most prized asset, she discovered a confidence lacking in the past.
"Sitting in that surgeon’s office made me realise I’m a real singer," she says. "I have sung since I was 15 - that’s 23 years - and I had never considered myself a professional before. It felt great to finally accept that this is what I do for a living and know that, hey, I’m really rather good at it."
Manson has suffered self-esteem problems in the past. The first time we met, six years ago, she was so insecure she decided, after an amicable interview, that I
didn’t like her and was going to write as much. When it came time to have her photograph taken, she locked herself in a toilet and refused to come out.
"Yeah, those were dark days," says Manson of the period which was Garbage’s most commercially successful. "I was crazed all the time. I’m better now, although I’m still nowhere near 100% comfortable with myself. I never will be, not about the way I look. I don’t freak out when I see myself on a billboard any more, but it still doesn’t make me feel good."
In person, Manson seems supremely strong-willed. Forthright, opinionated and at times argumentative, she is also great fun, with a dirty laugh and a love of innuendo.
She is pretty, and has modelled for Calvin Klein and MAC make-up, was once offered a huge sum
to pose nude for Playboy, has appeared on the cover of Vanity Fair in a female pop icons issue, and has hordes of teenagers drooling over her latest look on the internet - for which she writes a regular fans’ diary.
That said, Manson is very wary of the web. "I’m far too vulnerable. I had a terrible experience on the net a while ago and I’m very cautious with it now. I was reading the Garbage message board and came across this whole thread about my weight. Someone wrote that I had been eating too many Twinkies and I was absolutely devastated.
"I phoned up my dad, wailing. I said, ‘Dad, I must be really fat,’ expecting him to give me loads of sympathy and reassurance. Instead, he told me it served me right for looking to a place like that for self-affirmation. I have never looked since."