" View From a Broad "

Alternative Press July 2001
Article : Randee Dawn
Transcribed/ formatted : Garbage2.com

Garbage`s Shirley Manson defends Eminem, discusses her " paltry bosom " and wonders what the hell she`s doing on the cover of A.P., while Randee Dawn takes notes and insists that the drugs don`t hurt.

"Musicians are treated with absolute contempt in the [music] industry. But women are disrespected across the board, are not treated seriously in general. One incident off the top of my head: Record executives asking me when do " they " think they`re going to have the record finished- meaning the three men in Garbage. ` When are they going to finish it for you, honey?` It rapes me. I feel like I`m being raped of something that`s precious. I can`t even articulate how deeply it cuts when your dismissed like that, as if you don`t exist."

  So says Shirley Manson, lead singer of Garbage, who insists she`s not in top form this blustery March afternoon. She`s sipping the broth of her onion soup in a booth at the Plaza Hotel`s Oak Room in New York City, frustrated beyond measure at the way the antibiotics and steroids she`s ingested to whip a cold are instead whipping her. " I can`t articulate today," she sputters, although in the opinion of her interviewer she`s acquitting herself nicely. " I must have mad cow disease."
The topic? Not Garbage, who are in the midst of recording their third album and battling it out with their record label; not her five-year marriage to Eddie Farrell ( " I just don`t want to talk about my poor husband" ) and not, specifically, Shirley Manson herself.
The real topic is Gender issues And The Modern Pop Star. Or, rather, this women-music-survival-inequality-sex-thugs-and-rock-and-roll thingy upon which Alternative Press has chosen to base its latest issue. Shirley Manson`s the cover star. And don`t think that hasn`t made her wonder....
Why are you on the cover ?
I have no idea. I`m very uncomfortable with it, to be honest. I`m sure it`ll offend millions of girls the world over- though somebody`s got to be in the front.
Fair enough. This is the first-ever issue of A.P. fueled by estrogen. How does that strike you, having an issue specifically devoted to female musicians ?
Well, I`m of the school that believes it`s still necessary to draw people`s attention to the creative output of women in society in general. I think women are still operating at a mild disadvantage. I would prefer it wasn`t an issue, an opportunity like this is a wonderful thing. Equality would be nice. But sometimes it`s great to hit people over the head with a hammer.
Sometimes, until it happens, they don`t get the message. Even so far back as the suffragette movement; if women hadn`t banded together and chained themselves to the Houses Of Parliament- in my country, anyway- women probably would not have gotten the right to vote.
Do you find that your often considered just the vapid, pretty frontperson disguising the real brainy men behind you in Garbage ?
In one article, I was described as the " clock face. " I could name a million different instances where that has occurred. I`ll put a call regarding our business to someone, and they`ll call Butch [ Vig, drummer, programmer, producer ] back. He`ll say, " Well, she asked you the question; you should speak to her."  I feel diminished before I begin even trying to have a level playing field in which to discuss my business.
Are the others in the band shocked by this treatment ?
I have no bones to pick with them. In a way they are, but because it doesn't impact them directly as individuals, a lot of the time they don`t see it. Or I have to draw their attention to it, or sometimes to my dismay, they say, " You`re being paranoid or crazy. " They`re a way more conscious bunch than a lot of men I know. But you hope they will pick up on certain subtleties of undermining that goes on, and they don`t see it because they don`t have to.
Men can be a little slow on the uptake sometimes.
That`s true. You have to become aggressive. You have to act a lot of the time in the business end of it as the patriarchal system dictates. I`m lucky ; if pushed down, I will come back up twofold. I will rage until I get my point across.So I don`t ever feel I`m disadvantaged in terms of the end result, but it`s the exhausting process to get there that I object to.
Would it be different if, say , the music industry was run by women ?
Oh God, yes.
Common parlance has it that women are more difficult to work for because they`re backstabbers, whereas men stab you right up front.
See, I hate it when people talk about " Women- they`re worse than men to work for." I don`t think the problem is that simple. The problem women are faced with in this time is that it is still a very male - dominated system that`s in place. The women who have managed to get in under the radar are women who are willing to fight like dogs today to be heard. And so they are generally very aggressive, and perhaps in comparison with the majority of women, one would describe them as having more masculine traits - in terms of their psyche - than the average woman. These are sweeping statements. Now, were the system to be switched into a more matriarchal approach and attitude, there would still be problems, but very different problems. Women are like witches in the workplace ; they have all of their great intuitive powers that men don`t have, but they`ve also learned to fight like a man in terms of business. So they freak people out. Also, women are way more emotional than men. So, in business that can be distressing to people, because the system has worked along these lines for so long, and women have come in and kind of fucked the lines a bit, and it`s all gone a bit freaky.
But isn`t there something to being a good - looking " clock face "? That is, would Garbage have been as successful as it is today if someone unattractive had been the lead singer ?
I don`t  think Garbage would have been as successful without my personality. It`s all about personality ; it has nothing to do really with how I look. There are a lot of prettier girls who could have stepped into my shoes, and I don`t think it would have worked. That sounds arrogant, but it is the force of my personality rather than my supposedly being attractive. Of course, if I had horns coming out of my head and warts all over my face, I don`t think we would have gotten very far.
Do you get the sense that in the music industry, what`s perceived as important  is the record company`s ability to turn you into a sex object ?
I think a lot of women themselves are directing that path. There`s a lot of girls who want to be seen like that, who deliberately welcome it and encourage that, because they think rightly or wrongly that it`s going to give them an advantage. Our record company have had nothing to do with the way I present myself. In terms of pop marketing - where girls are 14 years old, dressed up like 21- year- olds --that`s the record company, and it`s obscene and close to pedophilia. That Pepsi ad with Britney Spears and Bob Dole? That makes me physically sick. And that`s sanctioned by the majority and mainstream taste.
Ten years ago, riot grrrl-ism was in full swing ; you had the whole notion of women musicians in the alternative music industry having their own kind of DIY, punk revolution. Did that affect you ?
I always thought of the riot-grrrl movement as American, not British at all. British girls are much more diverse and isolated in a way ; they don`t work in a pack. But  it has had an effect, and continues to have an effect. It`s easier for women at the moment - maybe more so than males - to hop from genre to genre convincingly. Nelly Furtado, for instance, is convincingly a musical mutant in a way that perhaps a man couldn`t be at this juncture.
Why do you suppose that is ?
The music industry doesn't really know what to make of their female artists. It`s a great position for women to be in. They`re not quite sure - can we exploit this girl ? Let`s give her a deal anyway, and see where she goes. Men have long been constricted in their role in music, in rock music in particular. But women have managed to keep themselves out of that. They`ve been kept out of the boys club, and consequently are at an advantage because they`re not boxed in. My fear is that because more women are becoming more prevalent on the airwaves, people are then saying, " We have to rein those gals in." I can feel the box starting to close. And that worries me. We need to be sure women musicians don`t allow themselves to be boxed in the way their male counterparts have been.
Do you see a second wave of riot grrrls coming down the road anytime soon ?
I doubt it. A lot of women right now want to be pop stars, wear midriff - showing  outfits with a little bra top. They want to be Christina Aguilera ; they want to be Britney . It doesn't seem to me that there`s a lot of women who want to play in a rock band, who want to be Patti Smith.
Anyone specifically who represented the voice you wanted to be ?
Siouxsie Sioux. Absolutely. I would listen to her and feel I was channeling her spirit, and therefore I became her momentarily and escaped my spotty teenage self and become this siren who was, in my mind, a really smart, powerful, articulate force.
Were there any records done by men or women from the past year that got you excited like that ?
The Eminem record. I listened to it in my hotel room, and I came into the studio and was grinning from ear to ear. I said, " You have to check this out." I could feel this energy, and it was so pure and strong, it gave me the chills. It was funny and cheeky and irreverent.
Did all the furor surrounding it strike you as ridiculous ?
I can understand how people may be ruffled by it, in the same way they were ruffled by the Sex Pistols. I`ve  had a lucky life - I`m not a gay male who has been viciously attacked for my sexuality. Had I been, I might be freaked out by what I heard on that record. But coming from a lucky female perspective, it didn`t threaten me in that way. I saw it as being a reflection of our times. I can only judge a piece of work on my own terms. I can`t take into account everybody else`s lot in life and their stances. Bono put it perfectly  [when he said ] that when Johnny Cash sang about shooting a guy in Reno just to watch him die - nobody went out and arrested Johnny Cash. There are millions of paintings hanging around the galleries of the world that show murdered women or men and raped boys or mutilated animals, and nobody wants to pull those paintings off the walls of the National Gallery just because they portray something people find distasteful.
Clearly , Eminem made an impression on you. Who else, in the past, has inspired you musically ?
The most cherished male artists to me are the ones I feel have been able to call up a female sensibility, like David Bowie or Iggy Pop or Jeff Buckley or Kurt Cobain ; they`re all able to tap into that emotional writing that comes to women very easily. That`s what exalted these men in my eyes, that they have the masculine traits in their music, but a very specific female energy that is lacking in their peers.
And that`s also true for women, in reverse ?
Of course. The women I love and admire are able to tap into their masculine traits- it`s a counterbalance. Bjork, Patti Smith- they`re absolute powerhouses ; you feel they could stand up and fight in your corner. That`s what attracts me to an artist, when the yin and yang are balanced.That`s how I idealize society ; I would love it if thats how things were in real life. When you find that quality in art, it`s transcendent.
Is there anyone there these days who may not exactly be transcendent, but who is trying to keep the walls of that box from pigeonholing on women ? Is there hope ?
Sure. Le Tigre, Kathleen Hanna`s new band. They`re fairly mouthy, so people talk about the politics of their music ; and since they`re viewed that way, it stops them from being easily classified and controlled and pigeonholed.
If that`s what you admire, are you ever disappointed that it would be virtually impossible to turn Garbage into a mouthy, political band ?
No,  I personally don`t feel that that`s what I`d like to do with my life - cloud my politics with my music. Music, to me , is still such a pure experiment that I wouldn`t   want to bring reality into what I consider to be a liberating escape. I admire it, it`s not for me. It brings too much real life into the magic that is making music.
So, when are " they " going to have the new Garbage record finished ?
[ chuckling ] That`s very good.

" I was on tour, and I found a lump on my breast," says Manson, explaining how that one discovery came to taint all her on - and - off - the - road experiences in Garbage. As they kicked off their European tour in Dublin, in support of the Garbage 2.0 album, Manson had to face something most women have to spend much time worrying about. Suddenly, there it was.
" That  night was wonderful. It was like a movie of a Scottish girl who turns into a rock star, and there`s hazy lights and a superstar encounter with Bono. I went back to my great posh hotel, fell asleep, woke up feeling wonderful, and I stretched. " In the course of that stretch Manson discovered the lump.    " I was completely freaked. A doctor said I was going to have to have it checked out, and from Ireland we went [ on tour ] to the U.K., and [ doctors there ] tried to give me a biopsy, and they couldn`t get a needle in, and I had to see a specialist. "
In  the end, a benign tumor called a nerve fibroma was removed. She put it out of her mind for the tour, brushing off compliments from fans that her arm looked " cool " in a sling. But when the tour ended, everything feel apart.
" I got home from tour, and I`d had no counseling, I`d had a huge lump taken out of my breast, had a huge keloid scar, and I had to face it then," she recalls. " And it was really scary. I was a wreck. I`ve signed into therapy, and I`m working on it. On the road, you become so insular. I decided I needed to re -learn the skills I`d forgotten after all that time on the road. And it was great. I love getting my head shrunk. "
But her brush with danger didn`t entirely miss the mark : Manson`s mother was diagnosed with breast cancer earlier this year. Muses the singer, " It really gives one cause for thought."