Garbage plans for 2003. ‘Album title TBC’

In Shirley Manson’s eyes, 2002 was Garbage’s “black year”, a year when legal hassles, record company bullshit and illness – specifically drummer Butch Vig’s debilitating viral infection – took much of the joy out of a heavy promotional schedule for their ‘beautifulgarbage’ album. This month, the Madison, Wisconsin quartet will bid to put such troubles behind them as they begin work on album number four. After the pop-heavy tone of the last album, expect Manson and her studio egghead bandmates to rediscover the dark side of their art once more with their new material. And, with three esteemed knob-twiddlers in the band, finding a producer won’t exactly present any problems.
Question: What does the new album sound like?
Shirley: “I think this one is going to be different. ‘beautifulgarbage’ was by far the lightest sounding, most unashamedly pop album of our career. Because we were all going through such dark times in our own lives at that point, I think we deliberately strove to make some uplifting music to take our minds off it. It gave us the most critically acclaimed album of our career, but the process to get there was a horrible one and I wouldn’t want to repeat it. Hopefully now we can go back to embracing the doom and gloom we’ve always loved in our music!”
Q: Are you doing anything different this time around?
Shirley: “We’re going to start by recording the album at a friend’s studio, to break out of our normal studio environment. Butch lives in LA now, so he’s not going to be at our studio all the time.”
Butch: “We’re gonna try to do this album faster, and write outside of the studio, have some ideas before we go in. With ‘beautifulgarbage’ we discovered we could trust our instincts more. This record will be interesting – we’ve gotten over our seven-year itch and that bodes well for all of us. However we reinvent ourselves, I think our fans will understand it.”
Q: Butch, surely you must have made enough money from ‘nevermind’ to stop doing this…….
Butch: “The reason I keep making Garbage records is because it’s more exciting than producing a nu-metal band.”
Q: Any other plans for 2003?
Butch: “Besides making the album, we’ve talked about doing a collection of ‘bummer’ songs. Like a Leonard Cohen album that’s super depressing. Some of my favourite songs are the quiet, depressing ones Shirley sings. And for the next record we want to make a five-minute movie for the enhanced section of e CD. I’d really love to make a film. Steve (Marker, guitarist) and I actually met at film school. We’d each have to make our own movies though, unhindered by the other three – we’re so opinionated it’s hard for us to agree on anything.”
(source: Kerrang! / sgupm47)