Shout! Online :: All about Garbage

TRASH FULL OF LOVE

LOVELY SHIRLEY

Garbage was born in 1995...

Garbage has seen their popularity explode since the release of the eponymous 1995 debut album. Although vocalist Shirley Manson, guitarists Steve Marker and Duke Erikson and drummer Butch Vig may have rocketed to stardom, the band has actually been nearly a decade in the making.

Initially, Garbage was an informal jam session between the three producers held in Marker's basement, but they eventually recruited vocalist Shirley Manson, who had previously sang with Angelfish and Goodbye Mr. MacKenzie.

The three producers experimented endlessly in the basement of Smart Studios, working to extract the strangest noises from their instruments that they could. Things could have continued on this way forever, but one night in 1994 Vig was watching MTV when a video by a band called Angelfish came on. The singer was a stunning redheaded Scottish beauty named Shirley Manson and Vig knew that she was the voice of Garbage. She agreed to interview with Vig, Marker and Erickson. According to the band, the first meeting was awful. «She was nervous and we were nervous,» said Marker, «and it was a disaster.» But they still knew she was the one. «The first meeting wasn't good. We didn't give her any direction, and she didn't respond very well and wasn't very assertive.», said Vig.

But by some strange act of fate, she returned a few weeks later, and the quartet turned on an eight-track in Marker's basement.

«We recorded the bulk of «Queer», «Stupid Girl» and «Vow» down there. That was when we knew that there was a sensibility between us. We liked each other, and we liked the fascination with darkness in songs - the ability to have the dichotomy of a dark lyric, or at least a lyric with a bit of depth, married to a shiny, happy, pop melody.» Hence, Garbage,, the full-blown touring act, was formed. «I think after Shirley joined us, the songs got much more focused and we felt comfortable to the point where we felt like a band. At that point, we wanted to go out and prove to people that we were a band and connect with an audience,» Vig says. Despite technical problems, the first leg of the tour sold out everywhere the band played, including Milwaukee's Shank Hall.

«She had the balls to come back,» said Vig. «The last thing we wanted was somebody we could manipulate. To some of the lyrics she'd go, 'I can't sing this bloody crap!'» The name for the new band came when a friend was visiting them while recording at Smart Studios. He listened to the innumerable loops and noise and said "This sounds like garbage!" Replied Vig, «Exactly, and we're going to turn this garbage into a song.»

Garbage was created around loops, samples, sound effects and everything from techno and hip-hop to punk rock and pop. «When we set out to make the record, we didn't want to record au natural, and there's literally no way we can translate the record live.»

Garbage spent a year preparing their 1995 eponymous debut released on Almo Sounds. Garbage met with enormous critical and commercial success based on the strength of singles like «Vow», «Queer», «Only Happy When it Rains» and «Stupid Girl». The album has sold 4 million copies to date.

After receiving support from radio and MTV, the album began to climb the charts toward the end of 1995, when the second single, «Queer», received heavy airplay. By the summer of 1996, Garbage had gone gold in the United States, and shortly afterward it achieved platinum status, as «Only Happy When It Rains» and «Stupid Girl» became radio hits.

Hot on the heels of the album's success, Garbage appeared on the Romeo and Juliet soundtrack in 1996 with a B-side, «# 1 Crush».

The song topped the alternative charts, and the band earned three Grammy nominations. In April 1997, after two years of touring, Garbage finally started to work on their sophomore album. With three perfectionist producers in the band, it's not surprising that much of the time in the studio was spent recording, re-recording, then recording some more. Songs continued to evolve throughout the recording sessions, often ending far from where they began. «If we didn't have to, we probably would never stop,» said Duke. «It's like a painting, you can put on as many layers as you want and keep changing it. Then people keep reminding us that we have to put a record out. Sooner or later we have to let other people hear it.»

The record, entitled Version 2.0, was released in May the following year, preceded by the single «Push It».

Version 2.0 was described as «More extreme and experimental... blatant pop, total noisefests and a mad bloke from the '60's...»

In the autumn of 1999 Garbage got a taste of mainstream film industry mechanisations when they were invited to co-write the title song to the James Bond flick «The World Is Not Enough» with David Arnold...

Beautifulgarbage. It’s a phrase that suggests ruin and glamour in equal measure: glad rags corseting a broken heart, or mascara running in public.

It’s also the title of the third album from Garbage – thirteen songs written because it would’ve hurt not to. This is the band’s most extreme record to date, more melodic and emotional, dirtier and clearer. If it’s pop, then it’s pop for non-prom queens, dance music for the dysfunctional.

To be continued...

NON-EARTH GIRL