Garbage’s Shirley Manson on her mentor Michael Gudinski: ‘He lived a f----ng great life’

Shirley Manson says she is that “comforted” her mentor Michael Gudinski listened to the new Garbage album on the day he passed away.

Shirley Manson is on the sales trail for her band Garbage’s seventh album No Gods No Masters.

It’s an easy sell: the Scottish-born, LA-based singer is beaming with pride.

“This is the record I was born to make,” Manson, 54, says. “This is the record I bled out for and I love it.”

Manson is especially happy Garbage’s long-time music industry champion, the late Michael Gudinski, got to hear a pre-release copy of the record before his passing in March.

“I’m told by the staff at his record label that he listened to our new album the day that he died,” Manson says.

“That gives me great comfort, that this will be the last record Michael ever heard from us. He’d listened to every single one. I don’t say this cheaply – there is no one who gave us more encouragement and positivity in the entire universe than Michael Gudinski.”

Scottish/American band Garbage were championed by Michael Gudinski. Pic: Supplied

Gudinski signed an unknown Garbage to his Mushroom label in the UK and Australia in 1995, as well as touring the band down under many times. Manson “got up in the middle of the night” to watch Gudinski’s memorial online – as well as sending her own video tribute.

“He was an extraordinary person. We were absolutely messed up by his death, we still are. He was our leader. But he lived a f---king great life, what an incredible spirit. Watching that memorial, I was so moved by how much everyone loved him. What an amazing legacy to leave behind, where everyone loves you, what a f---ing glorious way to go. He’ll be with me forever, and I hardly like anyone!”

PEOPLE V ANIMALS

While Manson admits to being a misanthrope (“I’d rather hang out with animals but that doesn’t mean I can’t tolerate humans”) she spent her lockdown finishing No Gods No Masters in LA and hosting interview podcast The Jump, where she spoke to the likes of Courtney Love, DJ Shadow and Juliette Lewis.

“I was in an incredible position to sit down with some of the world’s greatest artists and pick their brains and absorb their energies. I was like a vampire.”

An interview with funk icon George Clinton led to the inspiration for the album’s take-no-prisoners lead single The Men Who Rule the World.

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“It shook me in ways I can’t fully articulate,” she says, uncharacteristically lost for words.

“I had 20 police helicopters buzzing around my house 24 hours a day for three months. That creates a sense of tension and fear.

“(The song) is my perspective on something absolutely horrendous that is of utmost urgency. I’m amazed by the apathy of white people towards this problem, it saddens me and frightens me.”

Manson began This City Will Kill You as her love song to her adopted home of LA, but “it became darker and darker, an elegy to loss and the past”. She believes the song is the “most sophisticated piece of writing” she’s ever released.

“When you’ve been in a band for 25 years you get into habits. We were keen to remove those habits and surprise ourselves. I was convinced if we could surprise ourselves we could surprise the listener. People have their sense of you cast in stone.”

Manson reveals she has only recently gained confidence in herself as “a human and a creative entity” despite the band’s success.

“It’s so perverse. I won’t bore you with the details, but about 10 years ago I was frustrated about the way things were playing out and the way I was perceived and in my own reluctance to embrace my own creativity. I was a victim of my own thinking as influenced by patriarchal sexist misogynistic power.

“It was taken me a long, long, long time as a woman to get to the point where I am willing to bet on myself and my own abilities and my own creativity and my own opinion. It’s been a complex and complicated ride, there’s many components to my mental fu---dupness, ha! And I’m still mentally f----d up but I’m a much freer artist than I ever was, that has been glorious, a great gift as I move into middle age.”

Shirley Manson with Michael Gudinski. Pic: Shirley Manson/Facebook

INTO THE VAULTS

As well as their new album, the band is also working on the 20th anniversary reissue of Beautiful Garbage complete with unheard material from the vaults – they were due to fly to England to start the promotion of the album on September 11, 2001. “The record got kicked in the teeth and it remained bruised and battered and forgotten about, despite us making this really great record,” Manson says.

Beautiful Garbage did reach No. 1 in Australia, spawning the hits Androgyny and Cherry Lips (Go Baby Go). “I’m really proud of Cherry Lips, it touched on a lot of themes that are now absolutely current – the breaking down of the binary gender, trans lives matter – it’s all in that song. Androgyny, same thing. Way ahead of our time, baby!”

“It was such a troubled record for us,” Manson continues. “We are so blessed that we have been around long enough the fans have gone back and listened to the record. We get so many messages from our fans on social media saying we misunderstood what the band were trying to do, we love this record, it was really forward thinking. Something like Cherry Lips is a song we play almost every night, the fans demand it. Cup of Coffee is our greatest love song. There’s a lot on that record people have come to appreciate over time. For want of a better

It’s now 27 years since Manson met Garbage bandmates Duke Erikson, Steve Marker and Butch Vig; later that day, April 8 1994, Vig would learn of the suicide of Kurt Cobain – he produced Nirvana’s Nevermind album.

Garbage will release one new and one reissued album in 2021. Pic: Supplied

Crucial lessons from Manson’s pre-Garbage music career mean all songwriting credits are shared between all members.

“If you’re in a band whether you’re writing that song or not you’re f---ing pulling that wagon for the same amount of hours with the same energy and effort as everybody else. Everybody deserves the same treatment.”

Manson knows very few bands are coming up to 30 years with the same line-up and no major fallouts. “It’s not easy. We’ve been blessed with the chemistry and the personalities. I’m a maniac, really forceful, I don’t take no for an answer, I don’t sit down when I’m told to, I don’t shut my legs when I’m told to and I don’t shut my mouth. I am a f---ing full-on force.

“Luckily I work with three men who are pretty laid back, they are a great ballast for me. And vice versa, I’m a great rocket up them. If everybody was like me, Garbage would have literally exploded. If everyone was like the dudes in the band we’d never get past the starting gate. It’s a spectacular combination. We share everything four ways … a dysfunctional but successful democracy.”

ON THE ROAD

There are Garbage tour dates overseas for later this year, including dates with Alanis Morissette and Liz Phair.

Manson is hoping a return down under will happen next year (“it’s hard to imagine going to Australia and Michael Gudinski not being there, that his huge energy can just be gone”).

“I am like the racehorse in the box before the race. Like the crazy racehorse everyone is a bit suspect of, because they think it has emotional problems. This is what I was born to do, I was born to race. I wasn’t born to be pit pony.

“The horrible thing about being 54 as a woman, my card is marked. I feel like by the time we can get back on the road I will have lost two years. There is a certain melancholy about it but also a hum of excitement. I do have a beautiful life, if I never got to tour again I’d find ways of exiting being creative, but I do know I was born to play live because I really do miss it.”

No Gods No Masters is out Friday

Garbage (in 2002) are readying to return to the road post pandemic. Pic: Supplied

BONUS SHIRLEY

WHILE Shirley Manson may prefer animals to humans, she admits the Covid-19 vaccines have demonstrated what mankind is capable of under pressure.

“People have sat in their laboratories using their brains, it moves me so profoundly, but we so rarely exercise the greatness we are all capable of. Humans are all too willing to go down the toilet and serve their most base instinct and they don’t necessarily want to be their best.”

She witnessed the start of the anti-vax and anti-mask movement in the US.

“I don’t even feel anger, I feel heartbroken for them. How do you get to the a point in your life where you believe wearing a mask is just too much to be asked of you? That’s a lot. That to me speaks of a lot of pain and suffering and frustration. I really try to understand that perspective … otherwise I would just get so cross!”

SHIRLEY Manson admits This City Will Kill You was originally inspired by Scottish band The Blue Nile. In the mid 2000s, when Garbage were on hiatus, Manson started a solo record that was never released. She reveals one track was written with the Blue Nile’s Paul Buchanan. “I wrote the most extraordinary song with him I’ve ever written in my life, I love it so much. It’s never ever seen the light of day. Maybe one day Paul will agree to finish it with me. When we wrote the song we took it to the record label and it wasn’t a hit single so they weren’t interested but it is extraordinary. It’s classic Paul Buchanan with an added twist of Shirley Ann Manson’s depressing twisted lyric!”

Garbage in 2001 promoting their Beautiful Garbage album. Pic: Supplied

GARBAGE are set to tour with Blondie internationally; Manson says at 71 Debbie Harry is writing the blueprint for ongoing careers.

“Someone like Debbie Harry, and there’s a few others like her including Chrissie Hynde and Patti Smith, Stevie Nicks … They are showing everybody that you can be a vigorous, vital member of society, you can hold down a job, you can have agency, you can continue to be adventurous, you can continue to explore and be creative and that’s an extraordinary message that we don’t see enough currently in society as yet.

“Growing up in Scotland in the 70s you were told as a woman you should basically become a secretary, get married, settle down and have children, that was basically all you could hope for. That’s changed enormously, thanks in part to my generation. Whether it’s Courtney Love, me, Fiona Apple, Missy Elliott, Lil’ Kim, everyone was coming out going ‘No’. We can totally redesign how women can operate in this world. That is enormous.

Debbie Harry in 2017. Picture: Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images

“So someone like Debbie Harry is a beacon in the dark. Same goes for someone like Patti Smith who continues to be a really exciting artist doing vital work in society to teach us all that we have value beyond being young and beautiful. There’s so much messaging out there about being young and hot, there’s nothing to instruct us on what we’re supposed to do when we’re not young and hot. What are we supposed to be and hope for? Artists like these pioneers I speak of teach us all how we can move through our lives and still have adventure and excitement. I think that’s the most incredible message for everyone, including young people. There’s a lot of hopelessness with young people right now, f--- that, you’ve got your whole life, it’s going to be amazing and life gets better as you get older because it’s more fun and you’ve got more freedom.”

Originally published as Garbage’s Shirley Manson on her mentor Michael Gudinski: ‘He lived a f----ng great life’