This elongated, hearty laugh, in which your voice always seems to scratch along any edges – this is one of the special features that make up an interview with Shirley Manson. The 58-year-old Scottish proves to be a full professional at Zoom-Talk, who is noted the more than 30 years of creating and now eight studio albums with her band Garbage, but also as one that does not vie the industrial plucking as cynicism. The musician, who has been living in Los Angeles since 2006, lets look deeper than absolutely necessary. No wonder that Butch Vig, Steve Marker and Duke Erikson will be happy to push their front woman in conversations. Each sentence of the singer is ready for printing, brings us closer to us and takes us in for her. And so it is probably with their new album let all that we imagine be the light, in which the lyrics would work on demo posters as well as on merchandise articles and as tattoos. The lightness with which Shirley Manson puts the socially critical messages on the ten tracks comprehensive is already an art in itself. Although she insists on the old Beuys quote: Every person is an artist.
ME: You once said that you absolutely want to trigger a reaction to your counterpart – whether positive or negative. For you as an artist, this seems obvious. But in everyday life I experience people who are afraid of reactions – for various reasons.
Shirley Manson: For me, all people are artists. I don’t want to sound particularly cute with that – I mean that very seriously. I made the same observation as you and she makes me sad. Many people seem to forget that they are the artists, the engineers: inside and designers: inside of their lives. You don’t have to be a damn talented opera singer or painter, but you should see how beautiful, poetic and excitingly such an everyday life can be designed. The inhibition and fear may be due to the fact that too many people think about what others could think of their efforts. But with the restriction, a self -fulfilling prophecy is accompanied by: If you take back, you cannot become creative in your own life. Unfortunately, our society demands that we are good, always go to work, hold the flap, have one or two children and then die at the end of 60 or early 70s because the system does not want us to burden the country’s economic well -being. But what is that good for? I am of the opinion: spread you, take up space, be brave, make mistakes!
Your eighth studio album should also convey this “easy” vibe. Shirley Manson says that she is still mentally in the “honeymoon phase” in which the “endorphins buzz”. After such a long time in a band (in 1994 she joined Garbage) a special feeling. But the musician with the now hydrogen blonde hair does not want to be satisfied with less. She wants the very best – and: softness.
You sound so euphoric, that doesn’t fit the song title of the album opener “There’s no future in Optimism”. How is it?
I just notice that I am an idealist. I just have to want more than what I am currently experiencing around me. I have to have hope. The older I get, the more friends I lose. The watch also ticks for me. Therefore I have to dig deeper to get a sense of everyone. I don’t experience that much for the first time – this excitement of the first time accompanies you up to the age of 40 and makes everything a big adventure. The age, the experiences and findings from it today stand up to these quick joys – I work for the hope of activating them with all their might. And that’s a necessary work. Having no hope is a privilege. I think it would be a lazy attitude to assume that everything has to stay as it is. I owe it to everyone who suffers that I practice hope every day and refuse to give myself a system in which we should all fight each other. My new thing is called softness.
“My new thing is called softness”
As a child of parents who witnessed the Second World War, Shirley Ann Manson, born on August 26, 1966 in Edinburgh, is also a fan of resilience. Simply because it was the experience of her parents and necessary for survival. Manson himself internalized this attitude. In the school yard she was bullied because of her appearance, which turned into auto aggression and resulted in the fact that at the age of 16 she left school to do her own thing. First she was on the road as a background singer at a band called Goodbye Mr. Mackenzie, then she founded the band Angelfish, who in turn was targeted by the Nirvana producer and drummer Butch Vig and led to a call to her and finally to get started with Garbage. Your credo for things that are difficult and can then have a good outcome: “We humans are much more resilient than we trust ourselves. We should think about that.” So continue, further breathing-this type of motivating words can also be found in addition to the activist in the Instagram story of Garbage. One reason for this could be that after all the highlights that Garbage experienced (seven Grammy nominations! MTV EMA and VMA win!), Most recently with the health problems of Manson-who came back from tours like a “wreck in a wheelchair”, suffered a “violent laryngitis” and had to undergo hip surgery-a real down on the band.
Do you feel really at the moment at the moment?
I’m completely fit again, but there were two long years with blatant pain. It was a very difficult time for me and the band. But at the same time we also made the album during this time, so there is something nice to show in the end. And I learned a lot – for example being patient. Because if you wake up after an operation and can no longer run, it is violent. Especially for someone like me – I was really physically blessed until then, was never in the hospital, had never had to do with broken bones.
Despite the struggle you had health, you sound warm and confidently on the album. Your voice has something easy.
I’ve never felt as soft myself as now. Inside and outside. If you are physically averted, you have to learn to deal with yourself more loving and lenient. And once you accept this tender feeling towards yourself, it also goes into view and the behavior outside. After my operation, I started to see people only as skin and bones that could be wiped out in a nanosecond. When I walk along the street, I see so many limping people, people with a walking stick, with a walker and in a wheelchair.
To put it provocatively: do we have to suffer to help you?
The fact is that we all suffer. You can’t get around it. But when I wonder if artists have to be in a constant state of suffering in order to be creative, I have to deny it. I just think that you have to understand suffering to be good in what you do. To be able to touch. And in order to develop this understanding, you have to experience it yourself. Otherwise I don’t think it can lead to really interesting art. And the weaknesses in life really make it really. Moments of joy and triumph are the intermediate symptoms.
Manson’s sentences that act like Ibiza sun follows drastic statements. So she then tells of the fun that goes hand in hand with the album release, the renewed tours and the musician end. That you would feel as a part of a community and take your position very seriously.
“I was told that women over 30 would be too old”
Is there a big dream that is still open to you?
I really want to enjoy this new phase of life. At my age there are not many musicians with whom I can compare myself. There are Chrissie Hynde, Patti Smith, Debbie Harry, Stevie Nicks, who were able to put healthy careers in the music scene. But it is difficult to find more. Only today does the role of women change significantly. It is of course exciting to watch that. I grew up in the 1960s when my mother didn’t even have my own checkbook, a credit card or a source of income. In addition, we were told that women aged 30 and over were already too old.
This reminds me of Lady Gaga, who recently replied that she had been in the music business for a long time at the end of 30 at the end of 30.
I am around 20 years older than Lady Gaga, I have my warm -up phase behind me. (laughs) But yes, when I heard that, I wanted to hug her and say to her: “Bravo, babe! Bravo, that you can afford that you can achieve so much more!” I love Lady Gaga, I love how brave and clever she is. But as someone who is a lot older, I also know how much more difficult it will be for women in the entertainment industry. That is a fact. I see how men in the music industry are treated with a different kind of respect than women and it frustrates me. But I comfort myself: I do something that was long considered impossible. The fact that I publish a new record on a major label at my age is impossible. At least that was told me often enough. And I do it anyway.
The album is also about love – but not just that in a partnership. Does that mean you discovered love yourself?
I have found that self -love is very difficult to achieve in my life. I never had much left of it. With age, however, I learn what it means to take care of yourself. It is not easy for me, but I realized that it is also a necessary part of charity. And what I say now sounds very cheesy and I almost feel silly, but I think that we can only counter a massive wall of combined love for the destruction and hatred of the world. Oh yes, I turn into a huge hippie in old age! (laughs)