It’s an off-the-cuff observation, you understand, but Siouxsie and I spent our childhood living about a mile from each other, on opposite sides of a large wood on the border between Kent and London (my claim to fame!).

A 94 bus, if I’m correct, took her into the legendary Bromley contingent, and some hacks have tried to ascribe historical importance to her suburb of origin, Chiselhurst.

I can now reveal the place is only noted for it’s caves, ponds and a wood named after William Pett, who invented British Summer Time for the benefit of the working classes. Still, it’s a start, and en route to her PR’s North London office I envisioned some sort of reunion; she looks the type who’d have joined a particular gang of infant school Amazons who made Gill Junior’s life an absolute misery.

But we even fail to connect on that. Having read her talkative interview with Pomeranian courtier, Herr Veene, I dismissed the ‘difficult’ tag - and walked straight into a brick wall. She croaks hello and sits in a forties armchair across from Steve Severin. A rowdy chorus of PRs bellows and gibbers from a neighbouring room. When he talks, Severin is so quiet it’s barely audible. Siouxsie speaks in single sentences as though they were Famous Last Words. Maybe she was away from school the day they did photographs.

The press release for their upcoming tour says it’ll be the "last Siouxsie and the Banshees tour". Are they giving up completely?

Severin: "No, we want to re-think how we tour. Every time we tour, we try to think of a new place to play. Like just London, we don’t particularly like to play the Odeon all the time."

So have they thought of any new ways to play live?

Siouxsie: "Yes! No guitars!" They both giggle.

Severin: "Last year, with John McGeoch's situation it was difficult. But now we’re a real band again, everything’s sorted out. Now we’re a band again, we thought we’d tour as much as we could until the end of the year and then just think it out."

So you won’t disappear after this tour?

Siouxsie: "No, we’ve all been doing other things on our own, as well as what we do together. Steve’s been producing Altered Images, I think their album’s out in June, and Budgie and me have put together some songs. Just drums and voice."

For release?

Siouxsie: "Oh yeah, we’ll treat it as a very viable, commercial product!"

The current single, ‘Spellbound’, isn’t indicative of the material on the new album, ‘Ju Ju’, they say. Is the album more inshore or mainstream than the last two?

Miming incomprehension, Siouxsie deigns, "I think it’s more direct. Much straighter." And smiles, as if to say who let this klutz in here.

At this point there are a number of optional explanations for their attitude: they’re cautious, or tired, or lazy, or suspicious, or snide, or wilful, or they don’t have an original thought in their heads. Which is it to be, viewers?

We listen to the album on a battered stereo, and Siouxsie seems to warm when it becomes obvious I like it (perhaps I should have worn a badge). Its strength and soul burn through the murk and fuzz of the hi-fi, and it seems a heavier/darker album than ‘Kaleidoscope’.

Siouxsie: "Well, I, um, I mean, we didn’t think of ‘Kaleidoscope’ as being, ‘this is the direction we’re going in'. It’s just ‘Kaleidoscope’, full stop."

Something like, say, ‘Voodoo Dolly’ (the album’s finale and possibly their ‘Horse Latitudes’) sounds very sexual.

Siouxsie: "Sexual? Hah!"

Well it seemed so to me.

Siouxsie: "Each to his own."

You disagree?

"Yeah."

Severin: "I disagree, but I disagree with the ‘Ice Queen of Punk’. I’ve disagreed with that for the last five years."

Siouxsie repeats that she just thinks it’s more direct. Let’s try another track.

From ‘Hong Kong Garden’ onwards, it seems as though they’ve been able to get away with much more than their peers, taking singles with experimental touches up to the top of the charts. Few, if any, other bands have swung that.

Severin: "That was always the intention. We didn’t want a cult following, we didn’t want ‘here we are on Factory Records...’"

Siouxsie: "We didn’t want to be a shallow pop group, either."

Would they agree that their music has an avant-garde edge to it?

Siouxsie demurs, but Severin says, "Well, nearly all our influences come from that."

Any names? Such ghosts as the Velvets and Doors?

Siouxsie: "Yeah, but I don’t think - I think most groups who are talked about in comparison with the Velvets or the Doors, they lack somewhat in imagination, or are just being totally derivative of those groups. Which I despise, to be quite honest. I dunno, all those people are influences plus, I dunno, James Brown or Aretha Franklin, the Jackson Five!"

Do they consider they walk a thin line between the grim and the populist?

Severin: "I don’t think it’s something that you think about, consciously."

Siouxsie: "I dunno, I just like it."

What I managed to catch of the lyrics on ‘Ju Ju’ seem to be more similar to the unwholesome psychology of ‘Join Hands’ than ‘Kaleidoscope’.

Siouxsie: "I just think... the way things come across can affect you, very much on one hearing. Like ‘Kaleidoscope’, I think that was very light and airy, a lot of the subjects were light and airy."

Yet dark at the same time?

"Yeah."

Is that controversial aspect intentional - zooming in on religion, madness, dangerous role games?

Siouxsie: "Well, I’ve never thought that, as a rule, you should talk about something odd and come across that way (odd)."

Why?

Siouxsie: "It’s too obvious. It sensationalises, it’s overdramatic. Very theatrical."

Yet something like ‘Mother’ is like that.

Siouxsie: "Yeah..."

Is any of this material autobiographical, or just received information?

Severin: "I think a lot of it’s autobiographical."

Siouxsie: "Whether it’s things that strike you or things that happen to you, a personal account, it still affects you."

How does their audience react to such subjects as destructive relationships, incest etc.?

Severin: "On a one-to-one basis, backstage, it’s just one of those things that don’t come up when you talk with fans."

Yet there must be some point being put across in those songs - do you get any feedback that says it’s being received?

Siouxsie: "Yeah, but also it’s just as good that people can hear something they can enjoy and dance to as well."

Are there any personal betes noir on ‘Ju Ju’?

Siouxsie: "That makes it sound very much like, ‘What are we talking about this year?’ Y’know, what politics or what’s in the news that’s topical to talk about. It’s not as flippant as that."

What about ‘Voodoo Dolly’, its intensity sounds almost personal. What’s it about?

Siouxsie: "I suppose everyone has their own personal voodoo dolly which is capable of destroying them. A bad habit, or something they like but shouldn’t. A vice, most vices; one that’s hard to control, hard to kick. It’s the same for men with certain girls, they’re like voodoo dollies, always winding them up, and they destroy them."

You seem to have a borderline obsession with the darker aspects of humanity. Have you ever written a song with a ‘happy ending’?

After a minute or two, she profers, "I suppose ‘Playground Twist', is quite happy at the end, because the baddies are swinging in the gallows."

Couldn’t it be seen as depressive, that you only have that side on view?

Siouxsie: "Well, did you get depressed listening to that album?"

No, but I couldn’t hear all the lyrics.

"Oh, well."

Severin: "I don’t like people using the word depressing. It’s demanding, if anything at all. You have to sit down and get involved with it."

(Diplomatically) Do you think it’s a case that people don’t want to deal with certain subjects?

Siouxsie: "It depends on what depresses you. A superficial gaiety... or an interest in the wicked things that are done to people."

And you’d line up alongside the latter?

Siouxsie: "That makes it sound like a message!"

It doesn’t have to be. You can still be concerned.

Siouxsie: "I like to know if countries are being wiped off the face of the earth and it’s being kept hush, like Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I want to know about those things."

Would you say, then, that you’re a concerned person whose concern is reflected in your work?

Siouxsie: "But not as do-gooders. I ain't no do-gooder!"

Just like Julie Christie in McCabe and Mrs Miller - and perhaps intentionally so.

Don’t you think you’re taking a risk, taking that stand in a business devoid of any principles?

Siouxsie: "I don’t care... I mean, how do you mean a risk? A risk to myself or a risk to our gaining a bigger record-buying audience?"

The latter.

Siouxsie: "I’m aware that it’s probably a risk to our being successful." She doesn’t qualify this further.

Can you define where you stand? You don’t want to produce pop, you don’t want to go grim. You want your lyrics to have depth yet not be intellectual. How do you draw the line?

Siouxsie: "I think if you’re convinced in what you’re doing, I think you’re convincing to others. it’s the strongest thing anyone has."

Have you always been convinced, or did you gradually acquire it?

Siouxsie: "I’ve always been convinced... not about how things turn out, but convinced about what I’m doing."

Do you think the band’s present image is ideal for you?

Severin: "Our image has altered. Our idea of our image has altered quite a bit over the last five years. The media just can’t see beyond this, or don’t want to see beyond this stereotyped bracket they’ve put us into."

Which is?

Severin: "The ice queen of punk thing. Depression. Bleak outlook. Punk, as well. The spirit of 1977."

Some chicken-and-the-egg banter ensues over whether it's the band, media or audience who most contribute to the construction of an image.

Siouxsie: "I can see a lot of people getting confused about us."

And how do you get rid of that confusion?

"It’s amusing," is all she says.

Would they line up with all the other conceptualists who intentionally keep their audience in suspense?

"Yeah!" she laughs. "Keep ‘em in suspenders!"

Oh dear.

Listening back to their earlier albums, it seems to me as though they predate a number of current fashionable avant-totems (no names, although one of the ‘died for you’). Contact!

Severin: "WHOOOH! I’ve been waiting for a journalist to say that for years!"

Fab! I grin voraciously at him, hands cupped to catch the verbal torrent.

Severin: "I’ve been hearing ‘The Scream’ in different people’s music for the past two years. Now they’re getting into ‘Join Hands’. But it’s not something we want to come out and say..."

That’s it?

Have the others had to go through anything strange, like being considered as your backing band?

Siouxsie: "I suppose so, more than with most groups. With other groups it’s more apparent that they’re a band."

"It’s just the little things that are most annoying," she adds.

Like her picture being used all the time, her name being tagged onto quotes (especially when they’ve come from someone else). So does her persona unbalance people’s perception of the band?

Siouxsie: "We sound very strong together, live, so I don’t think the fact that they’re watching me will affect the rest of the group. They’re taking it all in through their ears."

She cracks another bad one-liner when asked about band ‘growth’. But Severin takes the cue.

"That’s one of the reasons we’re going to take time off after the tour and sit down and think."

"This album feels like the first one with a new band, so we don’t want to rush into another one. We’d just like a rest, go off to Jamaica... or Surrey."

Is this an aversion to touring?

Siouxsie: "No, I like touring. It’s rather we want to assess it before we start regretting anything, if you know what I mean."

I dunno. You’re going to re-assess the future of the band?

Siouxsie: "Yes. It’d be terrible if next year we thought we should never tour again, or that we shouldn’t be doing this. Nothing’s happened, we still want to tour, but we’re just saying it before it happens."

You’ve spotted some blackspot up ahead?

Siouxsie: "Yeah, and we want to re-assess it before that happens. It’d be a disaster if it did happen."

Banshees Split Shock Horror Gurgle?

Siouxsie: "We’re not splitting up. It’s just that if we carried on blindly, possibly it might happen."

Severin: "I’d like to think we’ve done things in a very unusual way, but it could get to the point where it stops being unusual. And we don’t want it to end up like Genesis."

They haven’t found an alternative as yet, but feel a growing distrust for the rock’n’roll touring circuit/circus. Maybe, just maybe, the likes of Cabaret Futura point the way. They and we will find out late this year or next.

They’ve obviously thawed a little (if he didn’t speak so quietly, Severin would be more in evidence here) but by now my brain is wheezing towards a seizure. Any pearls of wisdom they’d like to impart?

Siouxsie: "I hate talking about what we will be doing, because we just don’t know."

Severin: "...I hate all this jive... what sort of books you should read with our music..."

Kafka!?

Steve thinks Janet and John would be more apt. But why this fear or dislike of intellectuals?

Severin: "When they want to slag us off, that’s when they start intellectualising it. The good reviews are usually emotional."

Siouxsie: "I don’t like people who go through the ritual of being intellectual. They really show up their stupidity. I like clever people but the people who have a reputation for being intellectual are just very boring." And fixes me with a ‘Watch It’ stare.

But don’t you think you’ve given people enough ammo to start writing theses on the Banshees?

Siouxsie: "Well, they can go and do their homework."

Severin: "You could also write a 10,000 word thesis on the effect of Marc Bolan on the popular consciousness. We don’t want to steer it into that, neither do we want to steer people away from it."

Perhaps they’re in two minds about it or, more likely, don’t like talking about it for fear it might go pop! in their faces.

I’ve no fear the Banshees will go pop!, but I am in two minds. I came away still admiring their music and respecting them as individuals, but angry to the extent of wanting to slag them off for putting me through this preposterous ritual of put-ons, petulance and deity/supplicant role playing.

You can only allow The Artist so much leeway before you might as well give up and ask what they eat for breakfast.

Their PR says they’re extremely shy, unsure of the media and - quite probably - modest. But in my book you get as good as you give. I’m prepared to put myself on the line, Siouxsie.

Are you?

John Gill 20/06/81

BACK TO INTERVIEWS/ARTICLES INDEX

Everyone's rubbing shoulders with pop stars and they're getting pretty pissed off with it.

The pre-recorded tape of Iggy/Bolan/Glitter draws to a close.  The house lights dim and the Banshees intro number rings out, a crescendo of tubular bells...

The crowd greets them and the band dive unceremoniously into New Material.

Everybody is 'spellbound' (so to speak - Ed), both literally and lyrically.  It becomes crystal clear, in no time at all, that it has at last gelled.  The Banshees are no longer in limbo, but are back with a vengeance.  My clouds of depression are launched thru the Palais ceiling.

I don't think John McGeoch has transformed the band though - more like him and Budgie have become an essential part.  Budgie has now taken over from Dave Barbe as my fave drummer.

Après gig, we follow the harsh and chilling group of ghouls into their hotel bar... I think Budgie's pissed already and talks for most of the night about the Red Admiral at Hammersmith.  After a short while, the absolutely wrecked-looking Steve makes his way to bed.  As the tour proceeded, we began to realise that Steve always looks wrecked (in an elegant sort of way).

As the Banshees troupe take over one corner of the bar.  John gets the drinks in and were quite taken aback by Sioux's almost instantaneous friendliness.  Sioux:  "Would you like to sing or do nursery rhymes?"  John:  "Yes, I'd like to sing... if you conduct, I'll sing".

This sort of dialogue continues until with true journalistic rapport I totally change the subject. 

What sort of audiences would you sooner play for (did I say that?)

Sioux:  "Transvestites.  We did a great gig in San Francisco, when we were playing to transvestites.  They're so hot-blooded!"

John:  "I'll say".

Sioux:  "Is there any transvestism in Poole?"

Club:  "I think Tom's the only one".

John:  "He's pretty fucking tasty" (I had this same problem with Ian Tolhurst of the Cure).

Some order now comes into the proceedings.  Conversation gets round to charity gigs.

Sioux:  "I don't give a damn about community things.  It's got to be more... personal, closer to your heart.  It's too undefined.  The most personal thing we've ever done was the gig for the mentally handicapped, for people who couldn't help themselves.  Like, there was a big trend to do RAR, but we found that patronising - an insult to the blacks.  It was saying that they couldn't do anything for themselves."

Tom:  Do you actually like doing tours?

Sioux:  "Yeah, we do, but we don't enjoy touring when it's over a few months and you can't tell one town from the next.  You don't enjoy it, you're just doing a job.  I'd sooner do a short series of dates over a year, rather than waiting for a whole year then...farting all over two months!"

John:  "If you lose the ability to be discretionary between gigs then it just becomes like mashed potato!"

It comes to light they can tour whenever they want, they don't have much association with Polydor.

Sioux:  "As far as r 'n' r's concerned, I hate what it's become but I think the people that made it are great.  People like Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Little Richard and the Rolling Stones.  Now a lot of their imitators are corpses as well!"

I have some difficulty getting thru to Budgie with my next question, but what I'm trying to get at is how much his style's changed since the Slits.

Budgie:  "On the "Join Hands" tour it was very weird - it was like a challenge.  There was a very vacant drumkit.  That was the time when I decided I was gonna be a...

Sioux:  "Baby Banshee!

Budgie:  "...baby... banshee.  On that "Join Hands" tour I had to adopt those beats from Kenny, like with Palmolive with the Slits.  I had to adapt and change and eventually re-arrange and re-write!"

Sioux:  "Kenny Morris had to adapt to Sid Vicious.  His favourite drummers were Sid Vicious and Mo Tucker.  He's a general influence of us all.  Sid was very impressed by Mo Tucker.  He was a much better drummer than bass player!"

Budgie:  "I had to step into what Kenny was doing and then adapt.  Like Palmolive I knew, the same as Kenny knew Sid.  It was a very weird time."

Sioux:  "Kenny was going to be in Sid's band "The Flowers Of Romance" - more searching for where Budgie's at... I think he's found himself now.  I think what he's trying to say is whatever's happened has fitted into how the songs should sound.  When we had the auditions, they all wanted to make it a career.  That's what we didn't want".

Budgie:  "After the arguments in Ireland, they arrived in Aberdeen and that was it.  I got a phone call before they left".

Sioux:  "There was a record shop incident but that wasn't the reason for the split.  I don't know what it was, they haven't been strong enough to confront me."

Budgie:  The thing that everybody misses out is the way the tour DID NOT STOP.  It just kind of picked up.  When we're touring we build up a momentum that cannot stop anywhere.  To me the instigation was Sioux and Steve who did not want to stop.  Also the dogmatism of the Cure to carry on.  Robert had to play two parts every night cos he was the only guy we could find who fitted it.  What everybody misses is the dogmatism of the band.  That's a good word that is".

Sioux:  "We tried Marco again.  I really like Marco.  It was really weird.  We did this one rehearsal with Budgie, Marco, me and Steve.  Budgie fitted in really well but Marco just wasn't right.  He just wasn't a Banshee".  (is he an Ant?)  There's a bit more on this subject but its drowned by hysterical roadcrew (not literally).

TOM:  "A lot of people - like Adam - get a kick out of kids copying them.  Do you like to see girls going around dressed like you?

SIOUX:  "I'm not gonna start wearing purple dresses and yellow polo neck jumpers.  I'm vain.  It's flattering but it's not what I want."

Budgie:  "It was a weird situation with the Slits, where they would not do interviews and they would not sign autographs and they would not even meet anybody, because they were saying "we're not special".  It's quite a valid point and then again, it's not.  If somebody wants your name on a bit of paper it's OK.  You can explain this until the cows come home and we'd still disagree."

Sioux:   "It's such a petty business.  It's not a hard thing to do.  I've never asked anyone for an autograph, I've never wanted to."

Budgie:  "I got Alan Balls once."

Sioux:  "It's not important, that's why I don't take a stance against it, but it is for the person who comes up to you.  But getting back to the point I'd rather they tried to look like me than Angela Rippon!  IF IT MEANS THAT MUCH TO SOMEONE TO HAVE SOME INK ON A BIT OF PAPER, I'LL DO IT - THEY SHOULDN'T NEED IT BUT THEY DO."

Talk moves on to the live material.

Sioux:  "It's really shitty to know that people have walked out then walk back into the auditorium when they hear a single they recognise.  I hope that's not the majority but I've got a feeling that it is".

As the argument rages, Sioux can be heard to sing "Is That All There Is?"  She continues "I think it probably is a losing battle but I'm gonna accommodate for them.  It's the same with the music press, there's a set amount of journalists who hate us - and there's a set amount of people who go along to hear the singles, but sometimes don't hear the singles".

Sioux goes on to say that listening booths ought to be brought back in record shops so that people don't buy what journalists say is hip to like.  Also "it's a misconception that there's got to be good timing, you've got to be snapped up quick.  It doesn't work like that.  I don't want to time when we're gonna have a hit single.  I think it'll just happen cos it'll be right without us knowing it, cos I think if we ever got a No. 1 single in the future, it will be really unfair that none of the other singles were No.1". 

Tom:  "Can you see that happening?"

Sioux:  "I could but I don't really care.  I'm afraid I didn't do the Banshees much good when I appeared on Radio 1 live once.  They banned me (ref:  Sioux's appearance on 'Roundtable' reviewing Blondie single - "have they got to release every fucking single off the album, oops, sorry!")

We nearly lost order then back to my (t)rusty questionnaire.

Are you disillusioned with what's going on at the moment?

Sioux:  "NO! I'm not, I think Suicide are fucking great and I think the Cramps are fucking great and Altered Images are very good as well.  What I'm saying is Suicide and the Cramps aren't big in England or America and they should be.  They should be bigger than Blondie, they should be bigger than the Police.  They are really important".

Argument develops about whether or not music is becoming retrogressive, how much influence the Velvets and Bolan really had and so on.

Sioux:  "Take Malcolm McLaren.  He's a wanker.  He's taken from Andy Warhol completely.  For example the 'tit' t-shirts, that was Andy Warhol.  All these people that have become mentors in the 70s have taken from the 60s."

Budgie:  "I think it's very superficial, its very shallow.  That's good in a way, in that it doesn't lie within groups but within individuals like yourself.  The new thing doesn't lie in bands.  Bands are extinct!"

Sioux:  "Everything's getting quicker though.  It's not necessarily healthier, its just circling much quicker.  I'll tell you about the future, whether its synthesisers or what, so long as its convincing it'll be strong".

Sioux was talking so naturally though, unlike some "pop stars" that with the mere mention of an interview reel off nothing but bullshit.  How wrong the media-created image of an austere ice goddess is.  It would be cruel except things like that don't bother young Sioux.  No songs of "press darlings" here, but the press have deliberately created their own image of her to compensate for their own journalistic inadequacies.  In actual fact they are the friendliest, most charming people I have ever met that are in a band.  To sum her up, the next morning, Sioux, personally recommended Charlie the hotel porter to the manager.  He had been bringing us bottles of wine all thru the night.

The Banshees still create a reaction.  They make people feel uncomfortable, uneasy, it's a gut reaction, some hate it, some love it, but none can ignore it - that is what punk was all about.  So long as somebody is doing this to us, we wont sink into the oblivion of pop drivel.

Tom Vague 05/81

BACK TO INTERVIEWS/ARTICLES INDEX

Incest...and other obsessions

SOMETIMES I DON’T enjoy the music of the Banshees.  It upsets, breaks up and intrudes on my lifestyle.  It subtly says, listen.  Any Banshees record distracts, and in the right circumstances induces feelings to the point of pain.  The ‘ritual’ implodes, shattering mirrors of rock introversion.  A new feeling.  The unashamed baring of imperfect youth - the way we are but daren’t admit.  That’s why there’s pain.  Ritual - an interview.

If you don’t feel the Banshees there’s no point in reading this.  I didn’t interview.  Before I held a party/wake.  Invited were friends who loved the music.  Love as in the awareness of innocence, love in the sharing of sorrows - not the blasé voyeurism of ‘The Journalist’.  We listened to the records and I asked my friends - ‘If you met Siouxsie, what would you say?’  With their questions nestling in neat order on my notepad, we went to Sioux and talked.

The conversation developed in a back-room somewhere in Kilburn.  I’d been warned of ‘ice’, ‘no reaction’, ‘the usual answers’ and (of course) ‘they hate the Press’.  Instead - warmth, fun, joy and honesty from Siouxsie.  Steve Severin merely mouthed into my microphone, leaving me to guess intuitive answers.  His sneer said ’go home and work it out.’  He talks quietly and leads you up cul-de-sacs.  This reticence conceals the ’grandeur’ of a collection of individuals who market pure emotion.  This is what we talked about a few nights after my party...

What don’t you want to talk about?

"Boyfriends and girlfriends.  I heard nobody from Sounds wanted to talk to me"

Well, you’ve got this reputation of being the ’Ice Goddess Of Punk’.

"People who write things like that...should be just..." soft growls and hisses to convey the point.  So, the icy one breathes fire?  I change to another topic, like what have you been up to for the last few months?

"Just writing and rehearsing."

Now there must be more to being a Banshee than that?

"Steve has some wonderful parties.  Last week we had a Robbie Burns night at the flat - I’d like to be rich enough to collect masks, head masks - Japanese and African busts and heads.  My brother and sister were born on the Congo and they’ve these fantastic ebony tribal masks collected by my mother."

Writing, and most Rock Persons treat that very seriously.  They evolve a particular lifestyle where the germs of inspirations can be entombed on tape immediately, or they ring up their band and ’get it together’.

It doesn’t work like that with Sioux - "My time clock’s screwed up.  I don’t get to sleep much before four or five, don’t get up before two - so all my ‘inspirations’ happen when there’s no one around.  Sometimes a whole song can be sparked off by just one word (’Icon’) - or it comes just out of the blue, or from a specific thing I’ve seen or felt.  I never toil over lyrics.  I write in a kind of disorganised dribble.  If it stops I don’t force it ’cause there are usually several other things I want to get down into different songs."

‘ICON’ AND ’The Lord’s Prayer’.  Listening to the records, a pervasive ’religious’ intonation, in sound and words, could be interpreted as an attempt at pre-Christian Pagan ritualism, perhaps an attempt to exorcise the memory of religious conservatism as shown in the paradoxes of the Catholic and Protestant Church?  So many people had commented on the monk/trancelike quality of the Banshees sound.  Was there perhaps a dominant religious background for Sioux to rebel against?

"I remember my sister was sent to a Convent, remember how cruelly they treated her, how cruel and cold they were.  Religion’s fine if it brings people together, if it can stop them feeling alone.  The warmth in people should be brought out.  When dogma’s included that’s when I’ve no use for admiring anything religious."

Dogma in my vocabulary means Laws instead of Love.  I think of possible the most obscene display of paraphernalia for torture and sexual debasement on view in this country.  It’s in the Christian section of the Victoria and Albert Museum.  It’s sickening.  Steve and Sioux tell me of ideas for their first gig.

We wanted to take a lectern on stage for Siouxsie to preach from.  The decision to do ’The Lord’s Prayer’ was impulsive - we decided it within 24 hours."

"I would have got up there and read the thing - don’t know the words anyway - see, it’s serious but at the same time humorous (we hope).  Of course we don’t want to be treated like a religion or idolised.  What we’d like is for people to come to the concerts and feel they’ve something in common.  There shouldn’t be fights or sections in the audience which split up and divide everyone.  We’ve come across it quite a bit - so it’s unnecessary."

And the split, a subject I didn’t want to raise - but what of the emotions behind that professional facade (mask)?

Steve..."There’s so many quotes on that particular subject I just don’t want to talk about it."

Agreed, but you’re looking at it with the benefit of a few months to soften the blow.  You must see it with a new objectivity surely - now it’s in the past?

"It was just a time of very mixed emotions.  On one side a physical, aggressive feeling towards them, there was sadness, confusion, indignation.  ‘Drop Dead’ (condemned by one of my mates as ‘a puerile, childish attack’) wasn’t directed solely at them (McKay and Kenny Morris).  They were just inspiration.

"We could talk more on this subject if we’d allowed ourselves time to think about it.  We stifled or channelled everything into the rest of that tour.  Physically and emotionally it was all very extreme - I turned yellow.  "Yellow???

"As in hepatitis, you know - dramatic things - vomiting before a gig and not having the strength to get up in the morning.  But (jokingly) we soldiered on in true Showbiz tradition - wonderful film it could’ve made!"

"Because of all that, we built up a relationship with Robert (Cure guitarist), John and budgie which wouldn’t otherwise have happened.  It sounds like a cliché, at times like that you find who your friends are."

IT COULD be said the whole thing was staged, a manufactured split, all the publicity as a result (looks of incredulity from Steve and Sioux!)

"If that had been the case we’d have had them dead!  We hardly made any money from it.  If that was a publicity stunt, they should’ve died - everyone buys a corpse these days!"

I start to ask about their feelings now they’re ‘registered’ as being a group.  When it started the outlook was slightly different and much less conventionally professional.  If it all finished tomorrow what would be the things to remember?

Steve - "You make it sound like an obituary!"

Overseas’ touring is a big commitment, you’re a group..."The things we enjoyed most aren’t necessarily what’s been best for the Banshees.  I could tell you the best gig, best LP track..."

"That’s breaking things up," sez Sioux.  "I couldn’t say that.

"It’s odd you’re talking about your party, ’cause I did that, all alone.  I played all our records in succession.  When I heard ’Hong Kong Garden’ and ’The Scream’ I’d forgotten how good it was.  I thought the energy and excitement would get lower as the sequence progressed - when I reached ’Israel’ I just didn’t expect it to have escalated like that.  There I was with a complete Banshees history, and I shocked myself stupid.  Four in the morning and I felt so happy.  I’m not on the ’phone so I couldn’t dash out and tell anybody.  I live alone."

We slide into a subject I’d never heard of before, but which goes a long way to explain some of her lyrics and ’soul’.

I was affected by death, my fathers death - doesn’t hit you at first.  Later in life it can lead to an obsession for a while.  The Deceased One.  He died in an armchair he always used in the living room.  I went though a stage of sitting in it, after it had happened, hoping something would occur - just sitting in the dark.  Psychic?  I don’t know how to answer that.  I’ve no delusions about any feelings I have - so yes, I am to an extent."

I remark on the ’nursery rhyme’ sing-a-long melodies in some of the Banshees material.  Sort of clouded childhood memories with a taste of adult bitterness.

"Experts would say (BBC reporter’s voice and laughter) much of it stems from my early childhood - infancy - the first 18 months when things are so much clearer.  Childhood is a very black and white world.  You get shocks when you’re young, finding out things."

So what especially affected you?

"Sex.  Finding out what it involved.  I was about eight when I heard graphically what went on!  First impression was - fuckin’ hell - me mum and dad have done that three times, and I was comparing them with people with no children who must, by my reasoning, have never done it!"

Sioux has an actress’s gift of placing the listener in her own world for a few minutes.  A marvellous capability to explain her childhood with the wide-eyed incredulity of a toddler seeing the World for the first time.

Back to pain... "Death’s a shock as well.  When I saw my dad he was in the mortuary with a purple sheet over him."

I only write these intensely personal pieces of conversation to illustrate the power and emotion lurking behind the Banshees.  A power strong enough for them to hold their credibility for four years, and enough guts to hang emotional dirty washing on the line for public scrutiny.  I confess my admiration grew the more we talked.

I REMEMBER reading you saying you liked ’most good pop songs’.  The Ants have several ’pop songs’ in the charts, and you released what could be called a Christmas single’.  Neither the Banshees or the Ants could’ve done that three years ago.  Public reaction might’ve been a little different then?

"Adam’s always done that.  Obviously Peter Powell wasn’t enticed into liking them when it first started (!)  Journalists can write wonderful or sneering pieces about a band.  The real test is getting heard on the radio enough times.  I really enjoy the fact that after all the put-downs, papers like the NME have to put Adam on their front page.  With a group like The Jam it’s different.  They never stirred up anything controversial, aggressive or extreme."

Steve - "We seem to have whittled our audience down in England. Now it’s just people who’re genuinely into the band.  People take a pre and post ’Kaleidoscope’ view of things.  They don’t realise things have to change.  People who can’t accept changes would never have seen anything in the Siouxsie And The Banshees in the first place."

What other acts do the Banshees regard as ’having strength’? (A favourite expression of Sioux’s.)

"I’m still impressed by the Cramps.  Saw them recently and they were great even though the sound was dreadful.  Band’s should be able to shine through despite shitty PA’s - they did.  So many male singers and front people are just uninteresting to watch, they’re not strong."

Although I’ve never regarded the Banshees as being ’a punk act’ in the accepted sense, how about the ’punk groups’ still going - a retrogressive movement?

"Punk’s just institutionalised now.  I don’t respect people who feel forced to carry on in the same musical brackets they made for themselves in the past.  There’s no development in that area now.  See, music’ll always be exciting as long as it’s convincing and...well, not exactly animal raw? - I’ve been quoted as saying I don’t like synth bands.  It’s true with most of them, they’re not emotive enough.  Suicide are an example of something good - their presence and rhythm’s so tough you don’t think of it as being synths."

Remember the ’Bromley or Beckenham myth’?  You know, when suddenly anyone of any importance magically sprang from a certain area at a certain time - an idea much loved by journalists.  Sioux was one of the pioneers of the ’Bromley contingent’, or so the story went...

"Steve went to the same school as Bowie, he went round the place looking for Bowie’s desk, found it and used to sit there hoping to get inspired!  That myth, false pride over coming from a certain area - it’s just like telling people what your name is - it just doesn’t matter."

"You might just as well say I’m from the Watford Gap - never ‘eard of anyone from there - probably a thriving arts movement in the Service area!" Severin injects a burst of cynicism.

"For most of the conversation he’s been disturbingly quiet, his voice when he does speak, a barely audible murmur, but his eyes dart everywhere.  I detect a reptilian cunning and well concealed strength.  Sioux always talks of ‘we’ and again the impression, theirs is a lucky meeting of opposites, a platonic mutually supportive relationship.

THE BANSHEES’ rather pompous press release states ’Severin’s surname comes from a character in Sacher Masoch’s Venus in Furs’.  Confessing my ignorance I ask what that’s all about.

"The word Sadism comes from the Marquis de Sade.  Masochism’s derived from Masoch, but I relate more to the Velvets track, ’Venus in Furs’ - anyway, that doesn’t matter - it’s only a name like we were talking about..."

But if you consider it important enough to put in your information sheet and people don’t understand...

"Tell ’em to go and get the book - all become Masochists!"

Now none of my dictionaries mention this, but it’s a good line!

Various instruments have crept onto Banshees records apart from the saxes on the first albums, there are now sitars, of all things, on ’Kaleidoscope’.  Wasn’t the inclusion of that instrument a return to ’hippydom’ and the early ’70s?

"With the saxes and synths we just used what was available at the time.  We’re lazy in that we don’t want to become musical virtuosos!  The sitars really an orthodox instrument and as John (McGeoch) played it we used it.  It was a standing joke about ’going psychedelic’ (rolls eyes and pulls a dumb expression) but some good things came from that period.  The word didn’t just mean droppin’ acid.  Listen to some of the music from that time.  We used ’Arnold Layne’ (an early Floyd track) and the Stones’ ’Satanic Majesties’ as influences."

"The last LP was a very relaxed period, produced over six months.  When John was away, Sioux and I would be writing songs which we’d eventually play to him - and then we got it all down on tape."

Perhaps that’s one of the reasons for the dramatic difference in texture between the first two and the third album.

I wondered how Siouxsie regarded other woman singers who’ve capitalised by treading on ground, perhaps initially paved by the Banshees?  Lene Lovich, Toyah and so on.

"There was a review somewhere which accused us of spawning all these terrible bands!  I can’t be held as being responsible for Sheena Easton - surely?!"  A barely stifled look of absolute shock crosses her face.  There’s always gonna be people around willing to make arseholes of themselves for money.  Not much around being sung by women that’s really powerful - apart from all those ’nice little tunes’.  I rate Aretha Franklin, Nico, really like Yoko Ono’s voice...I have to hark back.  Still think Jim Morrison’s got the best ’singing corpse’ voice.

"I want our gigs, records or whatever - to stand out as an event, to be remembered, talked about - or affect somebody after they’ve heard or seen us.  I met a girl from France yesterday who told me how listening to our records released her from the negative trap she was in.  She’d been a cartoonist, gave up, but hearing our sound got her back into being proud of what she was doing.  She said she could now work with greater conviction.  That’s not meant to sound boastful.  You can’t listen to it as background music...it needs involvement from the listener to work properly, and that involvement sometimes brings out good things in people."

Banshees music is a glowing, creative force, life energies flowing from cold veins, and it seems to have a similar effect on many people.  What effect did such mind/body music have on the musicians performing it?

"It has the same effect on us, otherwise we wouldn’t do it.  This doesn’t feel like a career, just something we want and have to do. ‘Specially live, when you can anticipate a song - feel the excitement building.  I can open up without making a fool of myself, don’t have to worry about being misunderstood or care about how others react.  The band’s become a very...not lifesaving, but a very necessary function, an outlet.  It’s probably one of the most honest things we do."

ALTHOUGH SIOUX seemed quite happy and was getting more expansive by the minute, Steve appeared a little uneasy.  The explanation was simple.  Our conversation had dwelt on past recorded material, and Steve found it hard to concentrate on questions concerning the old when his mind was full of new songs for the forthcoming tour.

"All these new songs, ‘Voodoo Dolly’, ‘Into The Light’, ‘Conga Conga’ and so on are another departure from ‘Kaleidoscope’.  The albums tentatively called ‘JuJu’.  One of the things we wanted was to bring more of ‘the animal’ out of John - not let him be lazy.  ‘Magazine’ tends to carry him musically.  One of the things which attracted him to the Banshees was that he’s placed in a greater position of responsibility."

‘Israel’, the last single, didn’t have a religious or political theme did it?

"No, it’s more general.  A disillusioned person, or whole race who’ve ceased to understand or believe in what they held to be the truth.  It tries to put across, you shouldn’t cover what you feel inside by teaching or attitudes imposed on you.  It emphasises the strength of the individual."  And I’d say the strength of the spirit - an emotion captured in the music Siouxsie listens to outside the ‘pop’ area.

"Classics, love them!  Don’t know the names of most of the stuff."

We run through our mutually limited knowledge of classical music to dredge up a few names..."You know, the heavy classics - Beethoven, Stravinsky, choral music like the soundtrack on the film ‘The Omen’.  Grand and discordant - the atmospheric, mystical and strong..."

Bands tend to bury their heads in musical sand, and it’s always interesting, if not revealing, to discover other burning topics the artist’s worried by.  The answer to ‘what do you feel strongly about’ was quite a surprise and even had the photographer dropping lens caps over the floor!  One word, after a long pause for though...

"Incest.  There was a programme about it recently.  Seems there’s many cases which are never reported.  It’s just such a weird family violation.  Parents inflict their own standards of authority, their own egos onto their kids.  Incest is taking that to its most extreme.  I find it amazing how childish some adults can be - so personally protective - the aggression of ego, and inflicting it on a kid - I just find it so strange.

"Part of that oppression comes over in our number ‘Christine’.  She became a textbook case ‘cause of the traumas she’d been through as a child.  She witnessed many violent acts.  There was an incident where she witnessed a man gets sliced in half at a local sawmill.  Her mother lost a finger, it happened in front of the girl, and she was there when police pulled a drowned body from a lake.  That’s when her (22) other personalities took over.  She couldn’t cope with seeing all these things...

"In a minor way it’s all part of what I said about the family.  When those sort of things occur - the frustrating fact about it is it always creates a vicious circle.  Imagine being in a position like that, knowing the same things are just going to keep on repeating themselves."

Valac Van der Veene 28/02/81

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At school Siouxsie Sioux's nickname was The Witch.  But her interest in the occult has always been academic - until FLEXIPOP took her down to The World's End (the one in Chelsea that is) to meet one of London's top clairvoyants.  When the session was over Siouxsie was convinced shed had a fascinating glimpse into the future.  

It looked more like a council flat sitting room than a mysterious portal into the deepest recesses of the human mind.

Mind you, that was probably something to do with the fact that it was a council flat sitting room.

Mrs. Josephine Day is definitely not from the gypsy caravans, black cats and broomsticks school of fortune.

She looks more like Meg Richardson than Gypsy Rose Lee.  And her second floor flat in Chelsea is about as eerie as Notting Hill Tube Station.

Nevertheless, Josephine Day has the girt.

"The first time I realised it was when I was a child and I saw a neighbour who seemed to have flames all around him.  I went and told them that their house was going to burn down.  Four days later, it did.  They thought I started it."

CONVINCED

On a seat facing Mrs. Day sat Siouxsie Sioux, with the mildly amused expression of a skeptic.  She'd never been to a clairvoyant before, and it seemed faintly absurd;  but she hand an open mind.

Within an hour she would be convinced that Josephine Day was anything but a fake.

The first sign that Siouxsie was in for a surprise came almost instantly...

"Right.  Give me something of yours that no-one else has ever worn.  Now your date of birth."

Mrs. Day rubbed the tiny object Siouxsie had passed across the table.  She deduced from this that Siouxsie had toothache.  On the right side of her mouth.

"Yes, that's right!"  Siouxsie smiled, taken aback! "On the right side of my mouth."

FRICTION

From that moment on, Mrs. Day didn't hesitate.  Speaking low and soft, and at a velocity that gave my pencil friction burns, Mrs. Day mapped out Siouxsie's future.

Although she barked up the wrong tree a number of times, some of the details, says Siouxsie, that she pointed out could never have sprung from coincidence or guesswork.

Mrs. Day never seemed to enter into a trance, but she spoke with a hypnotic quality, flying from one subject to another without pause.

And so it goes on, through handwriting analysis, crystal ball gazing and more Tarot.  A forest of facts and predictions.  Siouxsie will be very prosperous and own a large amount of property... next year one of the band will end up in prison on a drugs offence... a theft soon... a death in the middle of next year.

These of course are predictions and only the passage of time will reveal just how accurate Mrs. Day's projections were.

But she was rarely completely wrong about anything.  And she was surprisingly successful when summing up Siouxsie... "wary... good sense of humour... not a good businessman...easily hurt... prone to weight loss... restless..."  All  these descriptions brought nods of agreement from Siouxsie, but things started getting really interesting when Mrs. Day started describing Siouxsie's late father, who died when she was a child.

Her utterances were erratic and sometimes inconsistent - but overall they made an uncanny sense.

"What is your full name?"

Susan Janet Dallion.

"Don't ever use the Janet.  It will be bad if you do.  Someone around you criticises you a lot..."  Siouxsie nodded.  Mrs. Day took her by the hand and started reading her palm.

"... You are independent and dominant... but you must try and make yourself practical - you're not that wonderful a businessman... and you have a double lifeline which is good.

HEARTBREAK

"You have a spirit guide... an 11th century Abbot... this means that if you have a car crash or a plane crash you will be the sole survivor... two big heartbreaks on your heart line... you suffer from black depressions sometimes... you are going to make a big business mistake when you are 30 years old... I see two children... no three, one daughter and two sons, but you are in control of that destiny."

So far, so vague.  Mrs. Day stops momentarily and points to the Tarot cards next to her crystal ball.  Siouxsie begins picking them... the third card is the death card.

This, it goes without saying is not what you might call a good sign.

"It's a death of a relationship.  You will end one next March."

More cards, Several times she chooses from the pack - the cards always seem to come out more or less the same.

FATHER

"I have got a symbol for you.  Your father's given me this.  A symbol, a logo, I will get it ready for you and send it to you."

At regular intervals during the sitting Mrs. Day complained that she couldn't work properly with myself and the photographer in the same room.  Siouxsie sympathised - she felt inhibited about asking things that were too personal.  So we left for fifteen minutes to see if it would make a difference.

Sure enough when we returned, both clairvoyant and client asserted that the session had gone better.  But I saved my questions for Siouxsie until we were away from Mrs. Day.

So - was she convinced?

"I think I am... yes I am.  It got much heavier when you had gone.  She described my dead father with amazing accuracy.  And there were other personal things that I don't want to tell you.

"But she was telling me things about members of the band that were perfect - she described Budgie, the drummer to a T.  She knew that I had bought something electrical recently (A T.V.)

"She wasn't a fake.  I don't know if I'd go back again though - there are still things I don't want to know.  She was maybe too good."

Genuine?  Or a clever con.  Frankly I'm a skeptic, but Mrs. Day is not the sort of woman to run a racket.

And I can't still work out how she knew about the toothache.  Maybe that object Siouxsie gave her to hold was a dental card...

1981

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As one of the original Bromley Contingent punks she formed the Banshees with Sid Vicious and Steve Severin in summer '76.  Their first public performance was a ritualised dismemberment of "The Lord's Prayer".  Their first single "Hong Kong Garden", went Top Ten and their latest "Israel", treats another religious subject but with less venom.

Just back from their first American tour, and soon to record the Banshees' fourth album, Siouxsie and guitarist John McGeoch seem tired, reserved and on edge.  Their first British tour of the eighties is approaching.  Could this band have outlived its time?

Let us pray

OUR FATHER

Your early music was born out of boredom with the early seventies...

SIOUXSIE:  I don't agree.  A lot of things from then affected a lot of the new bands.  Roxy, Bowie, Bolan.  A lot of people hadn't heard of the Velvet Underground until Bowie started talking about it.  All that West Coast crap didn't affect any good young people.

What about the mid-seventies economic depression?

SIOUXSIE:  I dunno.  I think what happened was a reaction to the way business was going.  People giving money for arms and all that.  I know it's naive not to expect a record company to want to make a profit out of you but now groups can get a contract giving them more say in how they're exposed to the media.

When John became your new guitarist, Steve said it was "impossible to have a new, young guitarist in the group.  We needed someone who was around in '76 and '77."  Does that mean the band now sees itself as an establishment?

SIOUXSIE:  It's just a result of things that have always happened around the band.  If someone came in cold, purely ambitiously, like 'I wanna be a Banshee.'  it would be too joblike.  It would defeat the whole thing about the Banshees.

So has the band changed with the times?

SIOUXSIE:  No.  It's just changed.  We've changed as people, not in what we believe, but in the ways we react to different situations.  We have totally new ways of looking at things.

WHICH ART IN HEAVEN,

In a curious interview last year, Siouxsie was quoted as saying that her father died an alcoholic, hallucinating spiders on the walls.  She always disliked boys, finding them alien.  She tried to commit suicide at six and kids at school called her 'The Witch'.  She later claimed that much of the interview was untrue.

Bizarre?  It certainly was, but then so are many of Siouxsie's lyrics.

SIOUXSIE:  The dark side of things is more emotive to put across.

Are you interested in magic?

SIOUXSIE:  I'd like to believe that there is magic.  I think a lot of real things seem unreal.  It's real but dull to read about stocks and shares in the papers.  But it seems unreal to learn that someone has a personality split 22 ways.

I hear the new album is called Ju Ju?

SIOUXSIE:  Tentatively, yes.  There was a TV show recently about people becoming disillusioned with the state of the world and joining cults.  Black magic has had a strong underground push.  One Christian sect has exorcisms of people wanting to be purified.  They want to go through a ritual to be cleansed.  When things get too real and too predictable, people revert back.  Maybe there's a lot of guilt going around.

Isn't it naive to think in terms of sin and forgiveness?

SIOUXSIE:  I'm not talking about right and wrong.  I'm talking about the involvement of people, and how life means nothing but doing your job.  They want to belong to something that has nothing to do with financial gain or the boring things they read in the papers.

HALLOWED BE THY NAME,

The Lord's Prayer seemed to say something about religion and Israel seems to say something different.

SIOUXSIE:  They're different sides of the same coin.  The Lord's Prayer was an aggressive thing about religion and tradition, whereas Israel says that religion is good if it brings disillusioned people together, but without the dogma that usually goes with religion.

Are you religious?

SIOUXSIE:  No, I wouldn't say I was.  Saying 'There is a God' is too specific.  I think it's a feeling of something rather than a description of something.

Is the feeling of your music more important than specific lyrics?

SIOUXSIE:  You don't necessarily have to delve into every lyric line by line.  A lot of it is understood.

Is The Banshees like a religion for you?

SIOUXSIE:  It's where I open up.  I uninhibitedly open up on stage.  Everything today is geared to keeping your lid on.  There's more mental strain now.  When the lids been on for a long time it results in explosions.  I get annoyed if people treat the band as a religion because we're dead against any sort of dogma.  We don't won't fights at concerts, or culture clashes.  A lot of people won't go to gigs because of the violence underneath.  I wish that what we do could break that down.

THY KINGDOM COME,

After almost five years of hard work and critical approval, it seems incredible that the Banshees have not reached the same mass audience as the Police, the Boomtown Rats or even Adam and the Ants.

SIOUXSIE:  A lot of people try to find a hit formula.  Sometimes they find it, but things become predictable and boring.  We're always changing.

JOHN:  It's very exciting onstage with the Banshees because you never know what will happen next.  At the Christmas gig we did three songs were unrehearsed, virtually unwritten.  We had a starting point and then wed' just see what happened next.

Are you a permanent Banshees now?

JOHN:  As permanent as I can ever be.

Are all the songs written for the new album?

SIOUXSIE:  No.  About six of them are done.  We start in the studio in March but it won't come out until August.

THY WILL BE DONE,

Possibly more than any other band, the Banshees proved it was not necessary to court favours from record companies.  Despite sneers from A & R men they followed their own course and succeeded with it.

Are you happy with the way things went after you signed with Polygram?

SIOUXSIE:  You have to work hard to be ahead of them, so they won't start telling you what to do.  We have good control at Polygram.  We just do it and present them with it.  At first we shied away from what was being offered and in the end we got a bad reputation.  People stopped offering us anything.  I hated the whole attitude that you had to be grateful for being given a break.

Did Polygram try to mould you into a sex symbol?

SIOUXSIE:  No.  They only try that with people who'll play along.  I helps if you've got something better to offer.  I don't like talking about the music business...

Can you keep in touch with old friends still?

SIOUXSIE:  I see Marco Perroni now and again, but much less since his success in Adam and the Ants.  Most of the old Bromley Contingent have gone their separate ways or... when things part, I usually accept it.  I like bumping into people I haven't seen in ages.

How do you visualise yourself in thirty years time?  Still a punk?

SIOUXSIE:  Well, I never wore any bondage trousers anyway.  If it feels good I'll continue to do it.  If not, I'll stop.  I don't want us just to peter out.  If we can't go forwards I'd rather it just stopped.

The Bob Harris Question.  How  was America?

SIOUXSIE:  We were shocked by how well it went.

JOHN:  They were very receptive, especially if you remember that Polygram have only released one single and one album of ours in America.  A lot of the kids haven't heard much of our material.

Were you expecting a good reaction?

SIOUXSIE:  We damn well were.  When we played the Palladium in New York it was a straight punk audience, into stuff like 999.  Put-Your-Hands-Together-Punk.  We surprised them.  A lot of them go along because they bought the Knack's record and think it's punk.  Some of them get pulled in and some of them don't.

ON EARTH AS IT IS IN HEAVEN,

Their early image was negative and destructive but for the countless disenchanted and displaced souls they heralded a new age.  "We'd rather be decadent than responsible." said Severin.  It was an image of heaven on earth.

Outside of music, what made you the way you are?

SIOUXSIE:  A lot of films.  Media.  Comedians like Lenny Bruce.  Even Alf Garnett, because 'Til Death Do Us Part' showed a typical with its prejudices.  It offended people, as Lenny Bruce did, but it breaks down barriers to laugh at something like that.  I loved Bette Davis in Whatever Happened To Baby Jane?  I enjoy frightening films.  They're quite safe, like fairy stories.  Tension is important.  I like the humour in Psycho, the way the bloke talked to his dead mother.  Eraserhead was very funny.  I hate cynical people who shout out and make jokes at the scary bits.  There's a great Japanese film, Onibaba, about a woman who kills a Samurai warrior and steals his mask.  In the end the mask sticks to her face and when they rip it off, it tears away her flesh so that her own face is a mask.

I've got a real passion for masks.  Everything from Japanese masks to voodoo masks and New Year's Eve Party masks.

FOR THINE IS THE GLORY,

The band starts a three week tour of the United Kingdom on February 16, after which they have no plans for live appearances in 1981 except the recently announced matinee gigs in April for under-16s and a special fan club event at the time of the new album.

I hear you'll be doing some shows for under-16s?

SIOUXSIE:  Oh.  Will we?  I hadn't heard that.

JOHN:  What?

THE POWER AND THE GLORY,

The Banshees may have power over Polygram, but there's a communication breakdown somewhere, when they haven't heard of gigs the papers say they're playing.  But that's the story of, that's the glory of... art.  John McGeoch used to be an artist.

JOHN:  Circumstances doesn't allow it now.  I live in one tiny room.  When I get a decent sized place, I'll start painting again.  I still take a lot of photographs.

A lot of people come out of Art School scarred, but I enjoyed it.  Being the only punk in college.  I wasn't liked at first, but I don't think it did me any real harm.

SIOUXSIE:  I wanted to go to Art School but I didn't have enough 'O' levels.  At school I skived off academic things and went to the art room.  I tried to con myself into Art School, but when I didn't get in I reacted against it.  I had about twenty jobs in two years.  In the end I'm glad I didn't go.  I might have got sucked into that pseud, arty way of living.  Talking about Dada all the time.

FOR EVER AND EVER

Thank God I hadn't mentioned Dada.

The cassette ended, the machine clicked off.  I picked up my little Sony, said my goodbyes and climbed the stairs up to Kilburn street level.

Outside, I started to relax.  Siouxsie had spend the entire interview on the edge of her seat, hands thrust protectively between her legs, like a child in strange company.  Had I scared her?

I wondered if maybe everything scares Siouxsie until she gets to know it.

The last word belongs to Lou Reed.

"I know where the razors edge is,
Inside your heart."

or even,

"You don't look like Martha and the Vandellas."

AMEN

Johnny Black 17/02/81

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Mark Cooper 07/03/81

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1981

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Lynn Hanna 15/08/81

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Dave McCullough 26/12/81

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