By Andrea Beattie

Garbage frontwoman Shirley Manson has never been one for pleasantries.
The Scottish-born singer has written about golden showers and self harming, admits her temper could hold back tides and is afraid of happy people, saying they’re ‘‘chemically unbalanced’’.
And then there’s the incident involving a pissed-off Manson, her boyfriend’s cornflakes
and a poo.
But all that’s old news now the flame-haired vixen has another axe to grind — hanging the band’s ex-record label out to dry as the main reason behind their seven-year hiatus.
Garbage called it quits in October 2005, cutting short the mammoth Bleed Like Me world tour in Australia after seven months on the road.
‘‘I don’t think we were even that tired, we were depressed — there’s a big difference, ’’ Manson laughs. ‘‘We’d found ourselves on a major label having been shafted to aforementioned label by our indie label.
‘‘They didn’t give a f…. They wanted to mould us into something that we just weren’t and I wasn’t going to let them do that.’’
So after 11 years together and 13 million record sales, Manson, Steve Marker, Duke Erikson and Butch Vig went their separate ways.

‘‘I don’t want to be a pop star. I don’t want anything to do to with it.’’

The guys worked on various other projects with Vig producing albums for Green Day and Foo Fighters, while Manson worked on a doomed solo album.
‘‘When I came off the road with Garbage, I wanted to be free of that record label and how they expected Garbage to be,’’ the 45-year-old says.
‘‘So I went to create something new that wouldn’t ever be construed as a pop record.
‘‘I took it to the label and said ‘OK I’m ready, I want to make this record’ and they were like: ‘No, the material’s too dark, you’ll never get this played on pop radio. You’re not doing yourself a service by wanting to put this music out’. I thought ‘f… y’all. It’s none of your business to decide how I want to present myself as an artist.
‘‘I don’t want to be a pop star. I don’t want anything to do to with it.’’
What she did want was her band back, and no prizes for guessing who made the first move in reforming Garbage.
‘‘Who do you think? Of course, it was me,’’ she laughs.
‘‘Those boys made me work, man. They made me beg for it. No, really, our agent in the US, Jenna Adler at CAA, took me out to dinner and gave me an absolute bollocking — ‘What the f… are you doing, sitting on your couch at home when we need girls like you? We need mouthy upstarts, provocateurs. We need women who front cool bands with screeching guitars, we need some temper’. And I was just laughing my head off, but she was like; ‘Seriously, Shirley, get your finger out of your arse’.’’
So Manson did — she called up the boys, they started their own label and got into the studio to record fifth album, Not Your Kind of People.
‘‘I think we were all a little nervous preceding seeing each other,’’ Manson says.
‘‘The second, and I mean the second we saw each other’s faces, we were pissing ourselves laughing. You know, the boys are really funny.
‘‘We get on each other’s nerves and that irritation will always be there for us. But we love each other passionately — we’re like brothers and sister.’’

“We were definitely one of the first bands to break down a lot of the boundaries and make it acceptable for rocks bands to sample some electronica and some hip-hop.”

And it’s that volatile chemistry that has seen Garbage create an album that Manson says is arguably the ‘‘best record of our career’’.
It’s a strong collection of tracks by a band finally comfortable in their own skin, and at last Shirley Manson, Duke Erikson, Steve Marker and Butch Vig confident enough to accept kudos for their role in the development of modern alt-rock.
‘‘We don’t believe music should be measured or quantified by chart positions or that nonsense, you know?,’’ Manson says.
‘‘And I think we do realise now we did create a sonic template for the modern rock band. We were definitely one of the first bands to break down a lot of the boundaries and make it acceptable for rocks bands to sample some electronica and some hip-hop. We knew what we were doing was modern but we didn’t have any idea that big a deal it really ended up being.’’
So when are they going to pick up where they left off and come back to Australia?
‘‘We have nothing but love and adoration for our Australian fans. We’ve been treated so very well by our Australian label over the years, we have no gripes with them whatsoever,’’ she says.
‘‘We have a wonderful relationship with (music promoter) Michael Gudinski — he is like a father figure to us. Our career started in Australia, and conversations are already happening.
‘‘So f… yeah, we’re coming.’’

Original article appeared in mX Newspaper