In his latest ‘At Home With’ conversation on Apple Music 1, Zane Lowe is joined by Garbage’s Shirley Manson who discusses the band’s new album ’No Gods No Masters’, being outsiders in the music industry, never selling out, what she loves about the 90s, the group’s longevity, embracing sadness in music, and meeting her influences. She also shares what she loves about Arlo Parks, Rapsody, Little Simz, and more.
Shirley Manson Tells Apple Music About Garbage’s New Album ’No Gods No Masters’…
It’s just that sort of moment. I’m older, I’ve been around a long time and I’ve had a long career. I think as an artist, just your preoccupations change. Now, I’m 54 and I’m looking at the world and I’m like, “I’m going to be leaving it soon. I’m not going to be around here forever.” I’m halfway through my life, if not more, so what do I want to see change? There’s that older adage, if you want to change, be the change you want to see. I just want the unfairness to stop. Literally, I can’t handle it anymore. Seeing everyone suffer so much makes me feel really freaked out and upset. There’s a lot of that in that record.
…it’s funny because it does seem like I had all these sort of lyrical kind of intentions. I really didn’t. It was just what spilled out of me when I got together with the band and we started writing. They were presenting these musical ideas to me and I just came up with what I came up with from that stimulus. It wasn’t a sort of like, “Hmm, I’m going to write a really socially angsty record,” I didn’t have that plan. It was I brought my private self at the dinner table with friends to the record, basically.
Shirley Manson Tells Apple Music What She Loves About The 90s…
What I loved about the 90s the most was just this idea that you could make music and be the polar opposite of one of your peers and you both got played on the radio, and you both were given a chance in the culture to show your peacock tail. I love that about the 90s. I mean, you’d have Missy Elliott on the same stage as Rage Against the Machine. You know? That kind of juxtaposition, I love that about the 90s. I feel like everything right now seems fairly similar. You know. Everything seems on the same page. It wasn’t like that in the 90s, and that is what I loved the most, but where there problems in the 90s? A hundred percent. Was it as amazing as everybody said it was? No.
Shirley Manson Tells Apple Music About Garbage’s Song “Wolves”…
Well, it was kind of inspired by my nephew, of all people, who’s really like me. His emotional makeup’s really like me, I recognize myself in him all the time. I’d stumbled upon this fairytale, this Eastern European fairytale, which I don’t know how I found it. I’ve never been able to find it again, but it was from Eastern Europe and it was about how, as human beings, we have these two sides inside ourselves always, always in play, always clashing against each other. It’s just about that idea of who can I be in the world? Can I be a good person or can I be an absolute sh-t? I am often not the best version of myself. It’s that constant struggle of trying to just reach and it’s portrayed as two wolves, which I thought was really powerful. Literally, it’s like the good and evil, right?
