Shirley Manson on writing Garbage's new album while recovering from surgery

Australia Broadcast Center

3 days ago

Shirley Manson thinks her band mates are "f***ing lucky" to have her.
The Scottish frontwoman is one of the coolest figures in alternative rock, and has led Garbage — made up of bassist Duke Erikson, guitarist Steve Marker and drummer Butch Vig — for more than 30 years.
In those years, the band, remarkably still in its original configuration, has sold more than 20 million albums and earned critical acclaim, starting with its self-titled 1995 debut, which included dark rock singles like 'Only Happy When It Rains' and 'Stupid Girl'.
But it hasn't all been smooth sailing. In 2004, Garbage quietly disbanded midway through recording their fourth album, Bleed Like Me, amid communication issues, pressure from its label and a vocal injury for Manson.
A year later, the band cancelled their scheduled European tour dates and announced an indefinite hiatus, which lasted (mostly) until they reunited in 2010.
Now, Manson tells Double J: "We've enjoyed a long career together and we still enjoy each other's company, which is kind of a miracle, really.
"Because it's hard. When you're stuck together for that long, it's like a really dysfunctional family unit.
This year, Garbage is back with a new record, their eighth studio album, Let All That We Imagine Be the Light.
Manson recorded some of her vocals for the new album from a bedroom in Los Angeles, as she was recuperating from not one, but two, hip-replacement surgeries.
The first, in 2023, was a long time coming: In 2016, while touring Garbage's sixth album, Strange Little Birds, she fell off stage into the security barrier at a concert in Los Angeles. At the time, she seemed unhurt, but it left her hip "battered".
As Manson was recovering from the first surgery — suffering brain fog from the painkillers, and using a walker to get around — the band were deep into writing what would become Let All That We Imagine Be the Light.
"I was all higgledy-piggledy, as we say in Scotland," Manson says. "And I wasn't really myself."
Not feeling up to joining her band in the studio, she encouraged them to go on without her. They sent her pieces of music to write lyrics for when she was up for it, with "really trite" titles like 'Ding Dong' or 'Brats' or 'Bad Kitty'.
'Bad Kitty' ended up sticking: It became the record's second single 'Get Out My Face AKA Bad Kitty'.
"The male members of the band could never remember the actual title of the song and they kept referring to it as 'Bad Kitty'," Manson explains.
"When I put the sequence together on the record, I kept the 'Bad Kitty' so they would know which song I was referring to."
Manson's other hip collapsed just after Garbage's show at Wembley Arena in London last year, leading to them cancelling their US tour. The shows were scheduled just before the band planned to start mastering the new album.
It was the physical and mental toll of her recovery that shaped the kind of songs Manson wrote for the new album.
They're a marked shift from the tracks on their previous record, No God No Masters, whose lyrics directly comment on social injustices, including racism, sexism and misogyny, and Manson's social media presence, where she is outspoken on political issues, including the war in Gaza.
"I just couldn't separate myself from what was happening to me in my own life," Manson says. "And I was really struggling with what I saw going on around me: the world felt very violent and chaotic and full of intolerance, and it really was getting me down."
She found herself in what she describes as a physical, mental and spiritual depression. It led her to reach for "something that felt more positive".
"I wanted to tune into love, which sounds so hackneyed and cliched," she says.
Manson's quest to "find love out there in the world, for myself and for my wellbeing", is immediately apparent on the record, which opens with the single, 'There's No Future in Optimism', and the refrain: "If you're ready for love…"
"In the search for love, I realised it's a mighty force," Manson says. "There's many different shapes of love in the world. It's not just romantic love. It's all kinds: being in love with your community or, in my case, my band, or with the Earth and the ocean and the animals.
"I had to really reach into that in order to pull myself out of what felt like a bit of an abyss."
Manson's health struggles also brought up ideas around aging, which became a theme of Let All That We Imagine Be the Light.
In 'Chinese Fire Horse', Manson sings: "You say my time is over/That I have gotten old… That I should do the right thing by everybody/And I should just retire."
But she retorts in the chorus, over angular guitars: "I may be much older, so much older … But I've still got my power in my brain and my body."
Manson admits she did think she would find getting older — and her body changing — a frightening prospect. But, as she sings on 'Sisyphus', the first song she wrote for the record: "This little body of mine is going to make things right."
Instead, her health struggles have left her feeling grateful and with a new understanding of her body as she approaches her 60th birthday next year.
"I suddenly realised: 'Oh my God, I am aging and I've had a 30-year career with this band,'" Manson says.
"I'm like an elder all of a sudden, a grown-up. But that's been quite beautiful in a funny way … I am enjoying the ride in a way that I didn't expect I would.