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SIOUXSIE NOW & THEN
THE ICON TALKS TO EMILY MACKAY
ABOUT HER NEW SOLO ALBUM AND, ON FOLLOWING PAGES, WE RECALL THE START OF
HER AMAZING CAREER
Some stars are happy on a pedestal,
frozen into the iconic images of their glory days. Siouxsie Sioux is
not one of those people. While contemporaries like Deborah Harry or
John Lydon grow increasingly embarrassing, hopping on the nearest
bandwagon or celebrity TV gig, the unbelievably youthful-looking Siouxsie
has kept to her own course, stretching and pushing the boundaries of her
beloved trademark sound but never overreaching into the gimmicky or merely
fashionable.
From the start Siouxsie and her
Banshees were the thinking person's punks, rejecting the norms of the era
before they'd even had times to solidify, outraging the outrageous and
later defining post-punk and goth without ever being defined by
them. They went on to refine and develop their initial aggressive
racket, and explore dancier byways in The Creatures, and come to
celebrated, mature elder status with The Rapture.
In all the hoopla surrounding the
30-years anniversary of punk, you won't see Siouxsie hosting many
nostalgia concerts, appearing as a talking head on I Heart Punk or
competing in Celebrity Goth Island. And yet there are more
exciting young bands today drawing on the Banshees dark post-punk template
than there are Sex Pistols or Buzzcocks soundalikes. Her Dreamshow
topped the UK music DVD charts in 2005, the year she was also awarded
the Mojo Icon award.
This is a woman informed by her past
but not in need of it. With the recent release of her debut solo
album, Mantaray, she's proved she can stand alone, without the
bandmates she's worked so closely with over the years.
RC joins Siouxsie looking
resigned to the prospect of a day of interviews in London's Mandeville
Hotel, with, appropriately enough for the doyenne of dark, Dusty
Springfield's Spooky playing softly in the background.
A lot of the imagery in Mantaray
centres around transformation. Is that something you were
feeling?
Yeah, for instance, Into A Swan is
about more of an internal transformation, not transformation like a new
set of clothes or something! The chrysalis to the
butterfly is a metaphor for that sense of change. I think it's about
starting again. This album's the first album I've done not working
with anyone that I've worked with before, and for the first time, the
producers are also playing on the album. It's felt very tight as
well, quite organic, because the core of it was that Charlie (Jones,
Goldfrapp guitarist) and Steve (Jones, producer) played the guitars and
then Clive (Deamer, sticksman for Portishead and Roni Size) was on
drums. It's almost like going back to being a three-piece, working
up on the songs, and then everything else is added to it, to make it the
fabulous shimmerer that it is.
After so long as part of a group,
was it nervewracking to step out on your own?
I was excited by the thought of
"How's this going to work, what's going to happen?". It
came from deciding to do this solo project, which started in 2004, and
culminated in some shows at the Royal Festival Hall, Dreamshow.
I knew I was going to be working with this orchestra, so it kind of freed
up the choice of material. Being able to do songs like Obsession for
the first time live with strings, but also interpreting some classic
Banshee or Creatures songs with percussion section, brass, strings... I
found it really exciting.
But also, I just hate the music
industry, the business side of it. It can really grind you down
sometimes. I seem to be forever fighting against the male way of
doing things. I don't like putting things into boxes and having a
plan and a name. I like to keep the spontaneity and keep it open.
I'm on a rediscovery of self-belief
and feeling fresh about something and really wanting to move forwards and
not be too hung up on what's been and what's expected. That's how I
like it, and I'm forever being asked "What was the theme of
this?", "Why do it?" and I said, "Well, you've got the
record, that's why I've done it" It answers itself. There
wasn't a particular plan or manifesto."
So nothing triggered the solo
album now?
It was just doing Dreamshow,
and then I thought, "I haven't been on a major label for 10 years,
ummm..." and I was thinking maybe I should be behind the scenes
to move forwards. I enjoyed doing the Basement Jaxx track Cish Cash
(from the 2003 album KIsh Kash), which was a one-off.
Initially, the first two songs for this album, Into A Swan and Loveless, I
was writing for a new artist on Polydor, and I thought well, maybe that's
my way of going forwards, because I'm not in my 20s anymore.
But I ended up feeling quite
reluctant about giving these songs away to someone else. And as it
worked out, they loved the songs, but they preferred the demo that I'd
done. Then I got offered a deal with W14 within Universal. I
really liked the production on Robert Plant's The Mighty ReArranger and
I thought, well, I'll try that. So I met Steve Evans. He works
from Bath, and he and Charlie worked their magic, and I knew that it was
the right partnership. Half of teh album, I'd say is about ideas
that were already there, although not fully formed, and half has been
written in the last two years. Swan and Loveless came together last
year and then Drone Zone, About To Happen, Here Comes That Day, If It
Doesn't Kill You, the rest happened very recently.
There is quite a range of styles
on the album.
I was being sent all this music by
different writers, and I picked just the music that I wanted to write
to. It's not been like, "I need rock, it has to be a rock
thing." The way Charlie and Steve work, they transformed If It
Doesn't Kill You from what it was into what I think would be a great James
Bond theme. They should write the next Bond theme. If It
Doesn't Kill You would be a great title.
Lyrically, do you think this
album is more personal than you've been before?
It's taking stock of the different
journeys that I've made over the years. It's almost like they say
painters need a lifetime of experience to draw from, and draw on, and the
same with novelists, who usually start quite late as well, and have a well
to draw from, rather than a little rock pool. Hahahahaha!
You've not tried to link up with
the big production name of the moment or make a new rave album.
Oh god, no. At the time when
Polydor were in the offing for signing me up, and they were like,
"Oh, you've got to collaborate with Marilyn Manson," and I just
kind of despaired and gradually let them fade away. So it was great
when John Williams at W14 was actually really excited about me doing the
solo album and wanting to just do it my way, and thankfully had confidence
in that, because he didn't hear anything when he signed me. It was
just the idea.
Personally, if something's
fashionable or in, I tend to think, "Well, that's a good reason for
not doing it," My favourite artists, I always feel that they're
doing what they do in spite of what's around them, not just reflecting
what's around them. I'm interested in an artist's own viewpoint, not
someone that is looking to please the now and fit in with now.
Because ultimately, what anyone does, I think you'd want it to be around
longer than 15 minutes, to have a certain timelessness to it.
Is it unfortunate timing that Mantaray's
release coincides with the 30th anniversary of punk?
They do it every 20 years, every 25
years, every 25 and a half... any excuse! I'm so, so sick of
it! You know?! It's like... the amount of stuff that I just
turn down. I'm not interested in being dragged back there
again. I think I did the Banshees biog (by Mark Paytress) in 2003
just so that if you've got those questions, all those are answered there.
A lot of the punk nostalgia
industry tends to ignore the female side of the movement in favour of the
big names like the Pistols and The Clash; you'd never see Ari Up on a
magazine cover.
No, and I love The Slits.
Around mid-to-late 70s was a really exciting time for women; there wasn't
a battle of the sexes. Of course that changed very quickly in the
80s and then it became very industry-friendly female frontpeople, which is
probably why Blondie were so successful. Good pop, but definitely
fits easily into that cover girl kind of thing. I've got too much of
Beryl The Peril in me to be totally taken to the heart of the music
industry. The first posters for (The Banshees) were "Your
mother wouldn't like her" (cackles madly)! It was so
funny! The first gigs we did after the 100 Club punk festival, I
think it was somewhere like Tiverton, and they'd taken this big blown-up
shot of me, with the star make up, and "Your mother wouldn't like
her" printed on it. Which is ironic, because she would. I
loved my mum. I got on really well with my mum.
Do you still feel any kinship
with any of your peers from those days?
No. I've noticed that a lot of
people who are involved in those kind of TV nostalgia programs, they
haven't had a kind of continuous involvement in music, it was just around
that kind of era, and then they didn't do it anymore, so it's probably
something that they kind of look back on as the heyday of their
youth. To me it's just part of the many things that happened.
There was no plan when I got onto the stage for 15, 20 minutes, that's all
it was for, for the there and then, and over 20 years later, that's kind
of turned into me being around doing this, but I don't know, that's how
its worked out.
I think also the Banshees were quite
apart at the time, firstly in having a female front person, and also, I
always thought we had this cinematic quality, while what was going on was
very much rock, quite narrow, and direct, of course. I always
thought we brought an exotic kind of mystery that defied being bracketed
into 'this is punk rock' or 'this is new wave' or post-wave or, urgh...
goth, or death or... I don't know.
We've never only done fast songs or
only done slow songs. There's been no rules as to kind of material
we do except that it's go to have a slight disturbing quality there and
it's got to transport you somewhere and it's got to have something that's
beyond black-and-white, beyond the printed word. It's visual.
What do you make of today's rock
frontwomen? Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs is often compared to you.
I don't know them so well. I
love Peaches, though. She played at, I think, The Forum last
November and October, I loved the gig. I hadn't seen any of their
live performances before, but she had a band with her and my friend said,
"Oh, I'm so glad you saw that gig, because it's the best gig I'd seen
her do." She'd never had a band before, she always had tapes,
or, you know, an exotic dancer, or something, and it's always been quite a
small club. But this time she had a great band with her. It
was all female, that was a great gig. I love the titles of her
albums, I mean, Fatherfucker, what a brilliant title. And
what a great song Fuck The Pain Away is.
Where do you hear your influences
today?
To be quite honest, I'm not really
up on a lot of bands. The last time I was over in America, people
were saying about the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, "Oh, it's so Banshees",
and I couldn't hear it. It's more people telling me that there's a
lot of Banshees in it. I try to hear it and I can't hear it.
There's quite a few bands that have
taken their name from songs or material. I've never heard The
Rapture, I don't know what they're like...
They're a dancey, punk-funky sort
of thing.
Well you know, there's that element,
see people tend to think of us as just rock, and if you only know us by
the singles, you might think that, but the album tracks and the B-sides
are different. We do a great version of Supernatural Thing (the flip
of Arabian Knights). The B-sides are all anything goes, really,
there's Drop Dead, El Dia De Los Muertos... a lot of things flying in from
different areas.
What's your favourite cover that
someone's done of one of your songs?
There's one about to come out by
this UK hip-hop artist Akala, who's done Love In A void and it's
fantastic. I loved it. Jeff Buckley did Killing Time, I loved
that, I love his voice.
Not that 90s dance track by
Capella that used the guitar motif from Happy House?
U Got 2 Know? Paid my rent,
that has. But I don't play it. It's a nice little earner!
What is your favourite cover
version that you've done with the Banshees or The Creatures?
I'd say Supernatural Thing.
Do you have much of a record
collection?
Yes, but they're old records.
My vinyl is all the Stooges, all the Bowie albums. The Velvet
Underground, Eno's Music For Airports. Gavin Briars...
there's that amazing record called The Sinking Of The Titanic.
What about your own back
catalogue?
Sadly, yeah, they're stuffed away
somewhere. But I've got a secret; I love the smell of acetate.
When you used to cut a record, you'd get that really heavy-duty, sort of
purply-black colour vinyl and it had that amazing smell. It's a bit
like if you used to open my mum's Ryman typewriter with its box and it had
all that carbon. So I'm a secret carbon sniffer. It's
fantastic. That's better than playing it. Well, they just wear
out after a while. But I just keep it for the smell of it.
Emily Mackay
20 MINUTES TO 20 YEARS
THE BANSHEES' TALE
AS EDITOR OF LEGENDARY FANZINE ZIGZAG,
KRIS NEEDS HAD A FRONT ROW SEAT FOR THE EXPLOSIVE RISE OF SIOUXSIE &
THE BANSHEES
In September 1976, Siouxsie &
The Banshees defined the DIY punk ethic by venturing onstage for the first
time with instruments they'd never touched until the day before.
Siouxsie became one of the faces of British punk, but the Banshees
subsequently developed a sound which left Ramones-imitators in the dust;
fearlessly uncompromising, experimental, always progressing but boasting
uncanny pop sensibility. Their striking, sometimes shocking, visuals
cleverly avoided obvious moves like pushing Siouxsie as a UK Debbie Harry.
From the numbered gatefold of their
first 7" single, Hong Kong Garden, Siouxsie & The Banshees paid
special attention to presentation and marketing. They were at the
forefront of the 12" revolution, including extended mixes and bonus
tracks, while sleeves and videos came with band-hatched concepts.
Even now they stand alone among the bands from that era.
in 1976, you couldn't miss Siouxsie
and her suburban misfit mates, dubbed the Bromley Contingent.
Siouxsie always had a voracious desire to break out of suburban normality
in the loudest, most shocking way possible, getting an early taste of the
night-life by accompanying her go-go dancer sister to work and frequenting
the capital's underground gay clubs. She met a fellow malcontent
called Steve at a Roxy Music gig and, along with others like Billy Broad
(later Idol), glammed up early Pistols gigs. Calling herself Suzi
while causing a stir in her fetish underwear creations, she introduced the
Pistols crowd to the seminal multi-sexual Louise's club on Poland Street.
The scene which developed around
Louise's, McLaren's Sex shop and Pistols gigs galvanised Sioux and Steve,
now calling himself Spunka. When another group was needed for the
Pistols' 20 September show at the 1976 100 Club Festival, Sioux thought up
the name Suzi & The Banshees the night before, while looking for
something that "sounded offensive but would get people
confused". Joined by guitarist Marco Pirroni and Johnny
Rotten's old mate Sid Vicious on drums, Steve picked up a bass.
Their 20-minute caophony revolved around The Lord's Prayer, incorporating
piss-taking snatches of She Loves You, Twist & Shout and Knocking On
Heaven's Door. They planned to play until forced off but got bored
before the audience did.
While Sid sang with infamous bedroom
band Flowers Of Romance and Marco joined Adam & The Ants, Suzi became
Siouxsie Sioux and was thrust into the nation's front rooms after being
leched over by a drunken Bill Grundy on teatime TV, prodding the Pistols
to swear themselves to overnight notoriety. Siouxsie and Steve, now
Severin after the Velvets' Venus In Furs character, continued with the
Banshees, recruiting guitarist PJ Fenton and drummer Kenny Morris, who'd
rehearsed with with the Flowers. Although musically inept, they had
bold ideas and provocative lyrics, bent on abusing rock's traditions and
taboos.
"You don't think about old
forms," said Steve. "You pretend you're the first person
to pick up a guitar."
With an admiration for glam's simplicity,
the primitive Banshees sounded like nobody else. By March, they were
supporting Johnny Thunders & The Heartbreakers, whose record label,
Track, let them rehearse at their Carnaby Street HQ.
The Banshees started playing at The
Roxy, the Covent Garden underground transvestite joint which was about the
only place for punk groups to play, but didn't feel sufficiently developed
to appear on The Roxy London WC2 (Jan-April 1977) album. In
July, the Banshees started appearing at The Vortex, the Wardour Street
club which replaced the floundering Roxy as London's hangout.
Siouxsie and Steve's lyrics were
graphically evocative, dealing with situations not encountered in rock
music. Carcass concerned a butcher who feel in love with his meat to
the extent of cutting his limbs off. "We just like to get
people's backs up," cackled Sioux. "We've got a morbid
sense of humour," adding that lyrics were "just explaining what
is around you."
At first, they used the swastika in
order to debunk a shock image but phased it out as more sinister,
wide-reaching implications loomed. Other early songs included Love
In A Void, Make Up To Break Up and irreverent covers of T.Rex's 20th
Century Boy and the Captain Scarlet theme. Gradually, a
majestic, heavy, monster sound emerged, helped by guitarist John MacKay
replacing Fenton in July.
While entrenched in the front line
of the London punk scene as editor of original fanzine Zigzag, I
witnessed the Banshees' rise up close from earliest gigs to heady success,
the magazine acting like a monitor in the heart of the group as they
continued to claw an ever-deepening weal across the nation's erogenous
zones. The October 1977 issue marked the first of many covers,
placing Siouxsie as the strongest no-nonsense female singer this country
had seen. "I don't want to appear as some kind of Women's
Libber, 'cos I'm not, but neither am I someone who lets herself be pushed
around and manipulated. I've got a mind of my own," she said.
The Banshees continued packing out
the Vortex and venturing further afield, improving all the time.
Siouxsie started appearing on music weekly covers, now crowned the Ice
Queen. Many asked why the Banshees hadn't been signed despite record
labels in a frenzy, snarfing up any punked-up hopefuls. Despite
selling out gigs, the Banshees seemed to baffle or repel A&R
men. Atlantic's Dave Dee, having turned down the Sex Pistols,
proclaimed, "punk's finished". Decca offered a princely
two grand, with other similarly paltry deals dismissed.
In November, the Banshees recorded a
John Peel session (Love In A Void, Mirage, Metal, Suburban Relapse), which
went out on 5 December and became one of the most requested in the show's
history. Peel and his producer John Walters were massive fans and
even talked with Banshees manager Nils Stevenson about releasing them on
the BBC label. Their popularity further escalated in early 1978 as
they sold out the Nashville, Music Machine and 100 Club, even promoting
their own well-attended gig at North London's Alexandra Palace in March.
Another Peel session in February,
with the new Hong Kong Garden, Overground, Carcass and their terrifying
disembowelment of The Beatles' Helter Skelter, stepped up the
pressure. They ran away with Best Unsigned Band in Zigzag's
annual readers' poll. The group got so annoyed at A&R men coming
to gigs, getting drunk on expense accounts then passing out that
mysterious "SIGN THE BANSHEES" graffiti started appearing on
record company buildings. Deciding a Zigzag cover and
four-page feature might help, Severin designed a front page and an
interview was arranged. The feature became a celebration instead of
a protest when news came that the Banshees had signed with Polydor.
The Banshees were happy, especially
with complete control over track selection, packaging and promotion.
Sitting with the group in Soho Square, Siouxsie made no secret that she
wanted to reach the biggest possible audience. "I can't
understand bands that are in love with the idea of being
underground. If they've got something to offer, why don't they make
it on the television or the radio? If we got to No.1 on Top Of
The Pops it'd be a great achievement."
"We've always aimed to get into
one of the big five companies," added Steve. "Everybody
got signed up, but hardly anyone got into those five companies."
Siouxsie did admit, though, "If
everybody starts liking us then we're going to find it very hard!"
The Banshees already saw battles
with the record company coming up, but Siouxsie reasoned, "We don't
exist if we don't have something to fight against." She knew
that with the success of Blondie, Polydor would try and push her as the
UK's Debbie Harry. "Yes, yes, yes! I think every record
company we've come into contact with wanted to do that but we were aware
of it. That's how we could stop it. It's like a barrier.
If it's a girl, 'Oh, she's just flogging an image, she hasn't really got
anything to say.' They like that, whereas if they think she's got as
much there as anyone else and more so, they don't like it. Everyone's
so conditioned to think men say this and girls follow behind or just look
pretty."
August's
Hong Kong Garden was one of the brightest singles to emerge from the Class
of '76, chiming guitars and glorious chorus laced with mystery and exotic embroidery.
Flipped with the spectral Voices initial 7" copies came in numbered
gatefold which, with the clamouring demand, propelled it into the Top
10. Now the Banshees were touring on the back of a hit single and
packing the Hammersmith Odeon.
First album The Scream,
produced by the by the band and Steve Lillywhite, was released in
November, reaching No.12. It stands as one of the great debut albums
from any era. From the primeval scene-setting of Pure through the
fractured psychotic charge of Jigsaw Feeling, it rollercoasters through
coruscating scenarios, including Helter Skelter and the harrowing
breakdown of Suburban Relapse, before closing with the emotional tour de
force of Switch. Unhampered by tradition and virtuosity, the
Banshees arrived at their monolithic sound, redefining the traditional
guitar-bass-drums-voice lineup in the process. Typically, the UK
release didn't feature the hit, although it later appeared on the US
version.
The November tour, supported by
Spizz Oil and some unknowns called The Human League, saw Zigzag travelling
with the group in their black Mercedes. While the previous feature
celebrated the deal, we now set out to debunk the morbid image which had
grown around the Banshees, showing that, although deadly serious about the
music, they were also engagingly human and could even partake in
booze-fuelled stupidity after hours. Whilst belittling lager louts
in a post-gig Indian restaurant, Siouxsie declared that people were
"too serious about the wrong things and not serious enough about
other things... just in you doing this, observing a couple of days, shows
the bad reputation that we've had through interviews".
The live set was now an amazing
beast, mixing the album with new songs like Premature Burial, while The
Lord's Prayer traversed a different irreverent orbit every night.
After starting with nothing two years earlier, Siouxsie & The Banshees
were now ferociously spectacular.
On a roll, they came up with next
single, The Staircase Mystery. "It's a waltz and is about an
unsolved mystery," explained Sioux. It was released the
following March, flipped by a live version of T.Rex's 20th Century Boy,
before they started demoing material for the second album, previewing
tracks in another Peel session. Recording lasted three weeks, the
band producing with Nils. Midway, Sioux guested on Radio 1's Round
Table review show, her honest opinions resulting in a lifetime
band. The Banshees swept the board in the Zigzag poll and
pelted guests at London's Venue with cuddly animal trophies, although
Sioux kept the giraffe.
The Banshees recorded a version of
Metal Postcard for German release in September as Mittageisen. With
Love In A Void on the flip, import demand prodded a hasty UK release as a
double A-side. The cover was adapted from a photo-montage by pre-war
anti-Nazi artist John Heartfield, depicting a German family under the Nazi
regime eating guns and machinery in reference to Göring's World War Two
Hamburg speech ("Would you rather have butter or guns? Guns
make us powerful; butter merely makes us fat.") which also provides
the song's chorus. Polydor obliterated Hitler and swastikas from the
original.
Having discounted Icon as a single,
the bell-driven swirl of Playground Twist was released in June, Flipped
with sinister kiddy-song Pull To Bits. Reviewed on BBC's Juke Box
Jury, the panel of Elaine Page, Joan Collins, Alan Freeman and John
Lydon predicted a Hit before it reached No.28.
Join Hands was
released in August, a worthy follow up with anti-war themes, mixing
juggernaut grandeur (Regal Zone), anthems (Icon) and spine-frosting
skincrawlers (Placebo Effect, Premature Burial).
The World War One mood was set with memorial cover and funereal
scene-setter Poppy Day. Most
startling is the introspective Mother, which features Sioux backed by a
music box playing Oh Mien Papa. The
album closes with The Lord’s Prayer, picked by Sioux and Steve from
various improvisations to represent the group’s original
confrontational manifesto, as another side to the successful singles
band.
A Zigzag interview threw up
disquieting rumblings from Morris and McKay, the guitarist declaring,
“The next step will have to be in a very different direction.
I’m not sure how it will happen.”
Morris railed against this writer for leading the group astray on
the previous tour. Next
time I saw him, at Throbbing Gristle’s YMCA gig, he was pissed and
moaning, “I don’t want to be just a drummer, I’m an artist.”
Before the Join Hands tour,
the Banshees played two warm-ups, at Bournemouth Village Bowl and Friars
Aylesbury. A noticeable
rift had developed between Sioux-Severin and McKay-Morris factions.
While everyone had a laugh getting down to the main task, they
carried an aura of icy disdain. Bournemouth
suffered from poor sound, so McKay and Morris got royally drunk,
loosening up on a midnight stroll along Bournemouth beach and letting
their discontent spill out. McKay
despised fame and adulation while lambasting the version of The Lord’s
Prayer on the album. Then
the Banshees went to Ireland, returning by ferry to start the UK tour.
I wasn’t shocked when Nils phoned
and said that McKay and Morris had stormed off and disappeared after an
argument at a record store signing before the first gig on 7 September.
That night, in front of a packed house at Aberdeen Capitol, The
Cure played a longer set before Sioux and Steve came on to explain what
had happened, then leading the assembled through a suitably fired
Lord’s Prayer. Afterwards,
Nils handed an autograph-seeker McKay’s guitar as a souvenir.
The Banshees camp reckoned it was
pre-planned, as there had been arguments in rehearsals, McKay recently
employing a solicitor to establish his position in the band legally.
Morris berated Sioux on the ferry for being “too silly” and
saying she wanted to have fun on tour.
“They were just pathetic,” Nils
later explained. “The
band were growing apart. John
and Kenny were going off into ga-ga land.
I thought we could resolve things on the tour, but they never
made the effort.”
Sioux and Severin moved swiftly on,
roping in Budgie from The Slits while Robert Smith gallantly offered to
play with both The Banshees and The Cure to fulfil the tour.
The mood in a pub near their Barbican office was relieved and
optimistic, Sioux remarking, “Isn’t it great not to have a pair of
old women moaning away in the corner?”
The new line-up spent a day running
through the set then made its triumphant debut on 18 September at
Leicester’s De Montfort Hall. The
betrayal seemed to make the Banshees bigger than ever, and they got a
heroes’ roar as they walked on. Smith
had the McKay style, spiced with his own, and there was no contest in
the drumming department as the mighty Budgie wielded tribal nuances with
formidable power. The tour
was like a blast of defiant celebration, although Sioux got a warning to
calm down the road frolics in future after she went down with hepatitis.
Announced on Peel’s show, auditions
for a permanent guitarist proved depressing, the replacement being
required to add their own input to new songs as well as regurgitating
the catalogue. After Marco
Pirroni didn’t click, names on the wish-list included Chris Spedding,
Robert Fripp and Magazine’s John McGeoch.
In January 1980, the latter tried out on the embryonic Happy
House and Dessert Kisses, with great success but was still committed to
Magazine. At one point,
they considered covering Pink Floyd’s Arnold Layne with original
producer Norman Smith.
Then Sioux acquired a synthesiser,
while Steve, an enormous fan of Suicide, operated a drum machine while
playing bass. This produced
Eve White: Eve Black and Christine, inspired by a book called The
Three Faces of Eve, about Christine Seisnal, who boasted 22
personalities, each with different names like the Strawberry Girl and
Banana-split Lady. Happy
House, another example of chart-friendly catchiness with the inimitable
Banshees stamp, was released in March and made No 17.
The May 1980 Zigzag carried
another Siouxsie cover to announce their return, “stronger than
ever”. Sioux was
positively bubbling, saying how happy she was:
“We’re really all excited by anything unpredictable… I feel
very jolly lately!” They
continued to record what became the “fragmented but bright, strong and
positive” Kaleidoscope, mixing songs after they’d been
played, including Luna Camel and Red Light, with former Pistols
guitarist Steve Jones coming in for Clockface.
Christine was released at the end of
May while Kaleidoscope appeared in August, a multi-faceted
departure featuring a more reflective, organic Banshees.
Ironically, despite being created under such adversity, it was
the most successful Banshees album to date, rising to No 7.
A storming European tour followed in September with McGeoch on
guitar. Supporting were new
Scottish group Altered Images, who had sent the Banshees a demo.
In November the Banshees recorded
Israel, which had started in a hotel room on tour.
Released at the end of the month, it was their first to come with
a 12”, featuring flip Red Over White plus Into The Light.
That month also saw the Banshees tour the US for the first time,
invoking mixed reactions, ranging from UK-style spitting to hysteria as
they took New York.
Many cite Juju, the first
album from the new line-up, as the Banshees’ best.
It started taking shape in January and was recorded in March,
spawning atmospheric gems like Arabian Knights, Nightshift, Voodoo
Dolly, Halloween and Spellbound, which was released as a single in May.
Juju followed in June, a towering display of dynamics and
imagery shot with dark majesty and cinematic emotions.
In 2005, it appeared as a deluxe double CD with rarities and
curios.
Released in July, the lush Arabian
Knights was joined by the Banshees’ version of soul standard
Supernatural Thing. The
12” also featured the whooping bongo part of Conga Conga, which showed
the Banshees getting funky and predating club trends by several years.
July’s Juju
tour was jaw dropping,
with its custom-built Perspex stage and Eastern music playing, before
drapes parted to reveal moving clouds behind four dark silhouettes,
striking up Israel. There
was a different visual mood for every song:
Sin in My Heart with red flames and Sioux in guitar, exotic
Eastern evening for Arabian Knights and billowing green smoke on the
cataclysmic Voodoo Dolly. Nightshift
was the centrepiece, conjuring a mesmerising atmosphere.
Sioux draped herself over the mic, eyes closed, wailing the
“out of my mind with you” hook before the heart-stopping thunderclap
moment. A stunning show,
leaving punk well behind while also dwarfing the goth movement they were
now credited with starting. The
aftershow saw a first, as the Banshees sat in the auditorium signing
autographs while I helped sell T-shirts.
Sioux
and Budgie had been experimenting together at soundcheck, resulting in
voice-drum excursion But Not Them, which was featured in the live set
and recorded (but not used) for Juju.
This grew into a
spinoff called The Creatures, with a double 7”EP in September
featuring But Not Them, Mad-Eyed Screamer and Thumb plus a unique take
on The Troggs’ Wild Thing derived from The Lord’s Prayer.
Meanwhile, Severin produced the first two singles for Altered
Images (Dead Pop Stars, A Days Wait) plus some of their debut album,
including title track Happy Birthday, which became a No 2 hit.
In November, the Banshees released their Once
Upon A Time hits
compilation.
The
Banshees got more experimental on 1982’s intoxicating A
Kiss In The Dreamhouse, introducing
female string duo The Venomettes. At
s sneak preview in Camden’s Playground studios, Sioux explained, “Juju
was a bit like closing an
era. That’s why we waited
a long time before recording a new LP, so we could work out of that.”
After May’s non-album single Fireworks, the November album was
trailered by disco-humping Slowdive (covered in 2006 by LCD Soundsystem).
The next single was the Japanese tour-influenced spaghetti
western epic Melt.
The
Banshees decided to tour less and pursue more solo projects.
Sioux was suffering throat problems while McGeoch collapsed in
Madrid and suffered a nervous breakdown, resulting in his leaving the
Banshees (he would join PiL until they split in 1992 and sadly died in
his sleep in 2004). Once
again Robert Smith stepped in.
In
1983, Severin played with NYC sleaze-poetess Lydia Lunch, along with
Banshees guitar tech Murray Mitchell and drummer Keith Hoffman.
Their grinding racket playing over an Israeli war tape was
captured on The
Agony Is The Ecstasy, an
album shared with The Birthday Party.
He also collaborated with Robert Smith and singer Jeanette
Landray for a psychedelic club-orientated project called The Glove,
releasing single Like An Angel in August and the Blue
Sunshine album.
Siouxsie and Budgie reactivated the Creatures, releasing Miss The
Girl in May, and Right Now in July before a whole album called Feast.
Based on percussion and loaded with atmosphere courtesy of
marimbas and jungle effects, it was one of the more refreshing releases
in that year of goth and electro-popsters.
The
Banshees returned in September with their soaring version of Beatles’
White Album track Dear Prudence, reaching their highest ever chart
position of No 3. Their gig
at London’s Royal Albert Hall that month was a surreal triumph.
Live album Nocturne
followed in November, with
fan club members getting an exclusive Christmas single featuring Headcut
live. Throughout their
career, Birmingham legend Billy ‘Chainsaw’ Houlston ran the Siouxsie
& The Banshees File fan club with close involvement from the group.
March
1984 saw the Swimming Horses single followed by the brilliant
string-drenched sweep of Dazzle in May.
The keyboards dominated Hyaena
album appeared in June as
Robert Smith’s last contribution before he departed to concentrate on
The Cure. He was replaced
by John Carruthers from Clock DVA who, after his initiation test playing
a Milan lunatic asylum, made his debut on November’s The
Thorn EP, which featured
orchestral versions of songs, including Overground, backed by the
Chandos Players. Cellist/keyboards
player Martin McCarrick was now on the firm.
October
1985’s Cities In The Dust single launched the Banshees’ new US deal
with Geffen. The group
toured the UK, Sioux crocking her knew at the Hammersmith Odeon gig.
At Nottingham’s Royal Concert Hall, she perched on a stool with
her leg in plaster, berating punter-pummelling meathead bouncers while
Severin put down his bass and steamed in.
The energy level rocketed and the set was a classic, the Banshees
still spitting and scratching in luscious, pulsing Technicolor over
dervish rhythms. Prevented
from moving, Sioux concentrated on her singing: “I was trying to break
glass with my voice rather than break heads with my mic-stand!”
The set changed every night, mixing the known with tracks from
the in-progress Tinderbox
album.
Self-produced, the album returned to the dark soul of the
Banshees, with next single Candyman targeting paedophiles.
After
the gig, Sioux was whisked back to her London doctor as her knee
continued to flare. Visiting
the group during recording at Air Studios, she reflected on hoe the
Banshees had been going nearly 10 years.
“All mistakes somehow seem to be swayed in our favour, mishaps
or bad luck in turned to our advantage.
That’s all.” Tinderbox
was released in April
1986.
January
1987 saw the Banshees’ covers album, Through
The Looking Glass, announced
with their version of early Sioux heroine Julie Driscoll’s This
Wheel’s On Fire, which rolled to No 14.
Artists honoured included Sparks, Television, The Doors and the
snake in Disney’s The
Jungle Book. Their
version of Iggy Pop’s The Passenger was released in March.
In 1988, Carruthers was replaced by former Specimen guitarist Jon
Klein, who added flamboyant modern-glam sensibility to their September
Album Peepshow,
which incorporated hip-hop rhythms on single Peek-A-Boo.
The
Creatures returned the following year with Standing There trailering the
Boomerang
album (from which Jeff
Buckley later covered Killing Time).
After scoring their first US hit in May 1991 with the Stephen
Hague-produced Jayne Mansfield tribute Kiss Them For Me reaching No 23,
the Banshees released Superstition
in June.
The following year sae a second singles compilation, Twice
Upon A Time, while Face To
Face featured in Batman
Returns. In
August 1994, Siouxsie duetted with Morrissey on Interlude, and old Timi
Yuro song, but the pair fell out and didn’t promote it, so it only
reached N0 25. In 1995 John
Cale produced The Rapture and
its attendant singles O Baby and Stargazer.
In
early 1984, Zigzag’s
Paul O’Reilly had asked Severin if he would know when it was time to
finish the Banshees. “I
hope so and I believe we would know.
The understanding between Sioux and I wouldn’t allow us to
carry on if that feeling wasn’t there.
It’s instinctive and I’d trust it.”
The Banshees decided to stop in 1996 as nostalgia gained steam
for punk’s 20th anniversary with a Sex Pistols reunion.
Siouxsie issued the statement, “I just think it’s the most
dignified thing to do for the idea of the band and the spirit in which
it started… We’ve had a fantastic journey.”
Twenty minutes onstage had turned into a 20-year career.
Both
continue to follow their chosen paths (although they reformed in 2002 for
the Seven Year Itch tour and live album/DVD).
Severin composes film soundtracks and internet music, while
Siouxsie is releasing her first solo album – in the middle of relentless
1977 nostalgia! But there are
few left from that time making music so personal and forward-thinking,
while not trying to recreate past glories.
But that was always the way with Siouxsie & The Banshees, and
the whole point.
Kris
Needs
10/07
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