White Trash

Knitting, mortgages and respect for J-Lo – has self-proclaimed rock’n’roll high priestess Shirley Manson lost her cutting edge? Neil Lewis gets intimate….
“Everybody thinks I’m going to be a cunt”, says Shirley Manson and then laughs mischievously, reclining among a clutter of sofa cushions in her salubrious suite at Kensington’s Royal Garden Hotel. “But I’m not, I’m sweet and nice. Always. Ha ha!”

If the Garbage singer seems determined to shatter her notorious public image – previously part vampish goth diva, part Edinburgh gobshite – then she’s doing an excellent job. This lunchtime, Manson comprises a riot of smiles and throaty cackles, despite her suitcase’s decision to go terminal-hopping between LAX and Heathrow airports. Even her make-up is decidedly low-key, offering a smudge of lipstick and a delicate flick of eyeliner beneath her fiery red hair.
So not the big mouthed hellion of legend then? She smiles. “I have my moments. I can take car of myself, I’m not easily intimidated. But I’m pleasant and I’ve got really good manners. I don’t want to make anyone uncomfortable.”
Right now, the Garbage singer has a good reason to be pleasant. After three years of aborted recordings, mysterious throat cysts, a near death, and the split and reunion of her band, she is with us today, apparently fit, happy and surprisingly mellow. Moreover, out of all this chaos a fourth Garbage album has emerged – the effervescent pop grunge of Bleed Like Me. Yet it seems this is one achievement she’d rather forget: “”Not one minute of it was fun,” she sighs. “Except when I was singing. That was the only time it was fun. I think I was in there for 14 days and that was complete drudgery.”
So how did you keep sane?
I knitted myself a scarf [laughs]. It was beautiful, I’ve had so many compliments. I’ve knitted since I was a wee girl, but I had a traumatic experience when a knitting nancy smashed my mum’s Venetian glassware.
A knitting what?
A knitting nancy. It’s a thread reel with four nails on the top. You use it to thread your material and you make a long tube of knit with it. I’d made a super-long knitting nancy and I’d put it on the mantelpiece. Before I knew it, I’d turned my back and my knitting nancy had fallen and smashed my mum’s glassware. I didn’t knit again until recently.
This is not the kind of conversation I thought we’d be having…
I know! Ha! Knitting saved my life.
So you don’t worry about being cool then?
No, I honestly don’t. It’s boring. I’ve never thought of myself as cool and it’s nothing I’ve ever aspired to. At the end of the day it’s a really unhealthy notion. It’s like fascism. The school of cool is really evil and I don’t think it’s nice. What’s cool anyway? What the fuck does cool mean? Cool gets you fuck all. [Shouting] Cool gets you fuck all!
So I started knitting recently because it felt like my whole life was going down the toilet when I was making this record. I was sitting in the studio for hours and hours, for days and days. I had to feel like I’d achieved something.
So why was recording Bleed Like Me such a painful experience?
“We’ve been together a long time and we had a couple of years where we’d all got to the end of our tether with the band. There were issues that we hadn’t really dealt with. We all retreated into our own little worlds and we stopped talking to each other. It wasn’t much fun… it was just weird.
What were the problems within the band?
I don’t know what it was – it wasn’t one specific thing, it was just years and years of growing up together and not having a discussion about where we wanted to go. It was that simple.
Were you arguing a lot?
Oh no, there’s never arguing in Garbage. It’s all super-passive-aggressive. I hate that, I’d rather fight somebody [laughs]. Even if I got my fucking head kicked in I’d prefer a fight.
Did you ever consider a Metallica-style shrink to keep the lid on things?
Yes! Our management work with Metallica too, so they kept saying, ‘If things are that bad, maybe we should get an expert in?’ We were loath to get involved in that though. And so we eventually got it out of ourselves. But there were moments when we thought ‘Fuck it, we’re going to have to get someone in here’. But we came through and the atmosphere’s fine now.
And Butch Vig (drummer, producer) nearly died a couple of years ago…
Yeah, he was really, dangerously ill with hepatitis. And because nobody was talking, nobody knew how bad it was. He was laying in a hotel room, practically dying, close to a coma and we were out partying with U2. He kept saying ‘I don’t feel right’. And I kept thinking ‘For fuck sake, you moaner, get a fucking grip. Stop being a moany old cunt – we’re on tour with U2, it’s supposed to be fun. Get a life’. Little did I know was he was actually dying. I felt really bad. And then I lost my voice. We were headlining Roskilde, and thirty seconds in, nothing would come out of my mouth. It was awful. Absolutely awful.
How did you fix your vocal chords?
We were playing Russia later on and I saw a vocal specialist at the Bolshoi. I was really excited because I thought it would be really glamorous. And I got there and it was this grotty place with blood on the floor and a nurse sanitising her instruments over a naked flame. So I thought, ‘Fuck this, get me out of here.’ So in the end Gwen Stefani’s vocal specialist diagnosed a throat cyst.
Bloody hell, it’s a miracle you’re still together after ten years.
[Laughs] I can’t believe it. It’s scary. We haven’t celebrated yet, but we’re going to have a party this year. Even to have a record deal after all this time is amazing. Some bands don’t even get to put out a second record and we’ve done four now, although it’s harder, particularly for women in rock. There were hardly any to begin with and a very few have survived. It’s really frightening.
Where have all the women in rock gone? There has to be more to music than Joss Stone.
I don’t know. There are three girls that I really love: Brody Dalle, Peaches and Karen O. But that’s only three amazing people in the last ten years.
And there’s Courtney…
Yeah, but Courtney and me came out at the same time. We’re peers, but there’s been no-one else giving us a run for our money. It’s insane. Where are they? Technically speaking I shouldn’t be out here doing a fourth record, but there’s nobody else doing it, so fuck it. I’m going to carry on until these bitches drive me off the block.
Do you feel that you have become a role model for the current generation?
No, not a role model. Brody and the others are their own people and they’re bringing something different themselves, but I feel part of that lineage. That feels good to me. In order to break through like they have, you have to do your own thing. That’s a mistake a lot of girls make: they try to be like somebody else. It’s always the unique individuals who make it.
Do you still love rock’n’roll?
Oh yeah, touring’s the best bit. It’s the only bit that I live for. I hate making records, it doesn’t interest me. Don’t get me wrong, I love the end result, I love having records that I’ve made, but I just want to have fun… in the moment. And that’s what touring is to me. It’s the fucking best drug ever.
But you’re away from home, friends and family…
[Defiantly] I love it. It’s complete escapism. You don’t have to worry about bills, mortgages, money. You don’t have to worry about anything apart from getting your fat arse up on stage every night. And I love the tourbus. It’s really relaxed, you get in your bunk and you’ve got the really weird rhythms of the road. It’s really soothing. The only thing I don’t like are the toilets.
But there are rules for that sort of thing…
Oh yeah, very, very strict rules. Although recently I’ve hear confessions from band members and their p[partners about incidents that have gone unnoticed by my highly sensitised nose. There are all kinds of things going that I can’t see… but I can smell.
So you’re quite a drifter then?
I’ve never thought of myself that way, but considering I’ve been adrift since I was a kid I must be to a certain degree. It’s probably a commitment thing. I don’t like committing myself to one place for very long. I like feeling free, I like to think, ‘Ooh I’m going to London this week and I’m going to stay there until I have to go somewhere else’.
There must be times when you want to curl; up on the sofa at home with a cup of tea and Changing Rooms?
But if I’m at home I end up worrying about housework and cle4aning. You’ve got to think of other things… bills, tiles, leaking roofs. I don’t want to deal with all that stuff.
Sounds like much of Shirley Manson’s life is really quite normal.
I am normal. I’m the most normal person I know. I can go to the supermarket without hassle. I have the best of both worlds because my life isn’t severely impacted, but I get to do something really exciting. I feel like I get all the perks without the downsides. I was on a plane from LA yesterday and Robbie Williams was there. When I got off I was fine, but he had cameras thrust in his face. I couldn’t deal with that.
So when you’re in upper class on a transatlantic flight with someone like Robbie Williams, is there an unwritten code of celebrity etiquette?
It depends. Robbie was very lovely and sweet. Sometimes you’ll sit there and you’ll have a conversation – it depends on whether you like the other person’s music or their personality. If you don’t like somebody, you don’t bother them and hopefully they won’t bother you. Unless somebody’s a real prick you’ll probably acknowledge them because it’s polite.
So who’s been a real prick?
[With a wry smile] No one that springs to mind.
Liar.
[Laughs] No, certainly nobody that deserves to be called a prick in a national publication.
But you’ve never held back from mouthing off before. Notoriously, you once said that you wanted to punch J-Lo in the face…
I did, yeah. I met her afterwards and it was fascinating. We were doing a magazine shoot. I was talking to somebody and I could feel the molecules shifting behind me. I couldn’t see anything, but I knew something was happening and then I turned round and saw her coming straight towards me.
So what did you do? Did you start cracking your knuckle’s at this point?
Well, she was bringing some of the New York street to my door – Jenny from the Block kicking off. But she was very nice. She thrust her hand out and introduced herself and did not drop eye contact. I had to be the one who played submissive dog and I loved her for it.
She just locked her eyes on mine and I couldn’t handle it. I had to look away. I thought ‘That’s why she’s so successful’. I don’t regret saying that I wanted to punch her. I felt it was very true at the time – she was a pain in the arse – but she’s much more chilled out now.
Do you ever regret shooting your mouth off? I’m thinking about when you mentioned shitting in your boyfriend’s bowl of Cornflakes…
No, I don’t regret anything. [Laughs] Not at all. You can spend your whole life worrying about that sort of thing, but what are you going to do about it anyway? I said it, didn’t I? There’s nothing I can do about it. If somebody then punches me out because of something I’ve said, it’ll probably serve me right.
Your friend Gwen Stefani has turned her hand to acting (in Martin Scorsese’s The Aviator). Is that something you’d fancy?
I have been asked and have representation (In Hollywood) but I haven’t been offered anything I like. I don’t want to do it for the sake of doing it.
What roles are you usually offered?
Just stuff that I’m not interested in doing. It’s either a drug addict, a rock star, a ball-busting chick with a gun. I find it stupid, they’re just silly…
…Tomb Raider types?
Yes, very much that kind of thing. Not that I wouldn’t want to do something like that if it was done really well, but that wasn’t the calibre of stuff I was being offered. I’ve got a really good career and I can be picky. But I’d still really like to do it. Gwen got really lucky with Scorsese… it doesn’t come much better than that. [Mock sneers] First role! Good for her, though.
Anything else you’d like to do?
I’d really like to go on a safari. I’m a massive animal fan. I love tigers, in fact I’m generally fascinated by anything cat-like. We went out once in South Africa and saw some of the animals, and it was just an amazing experience. The rhinoceroses look like dinosaurs and the giraffes freaked me out. Honestly! Seeing them in the wild, it’s the freakiest thing I have ever seen – you feel like you’re in Jurassic Park. It seems so weird, a zoo just doesn’t have the same effect on you. [Laughs]It’s not very rock’n’roll, I know. Ha, ha!
[source: garbagedisco.com/forum – thanks to Breakinguptheguy]