The Scream Trivia

THE SCREAM - TRIVIA


	Musicians: Siouxsie Sioux Steven Severin Marco Pirroni Sid Vicious Dixon PT Fenton Simone John McKay Kenny Morris Siouxsie: Born (Susan Ballion) on 27/05/57. Steven Severin: Born (Steven Bailey) on 25/09/55. Music Lessons: Steven Severin refused to attend Dulwich College when he discovered that music lessons were mandatory. When Siouxsie Met Severin: Siouxsie Sioux first met Steven Severin at a Roxy Music concert at Wembley in October 1975. At the time Steve was best mates with Billy Idol. Source: Uncut 01/05. The Bromley Contingent: Christened 'The Bromley Contingent' by Melody Maker journalist Caroline Coon. Source: Source: Uncut 01/05. Consisted of Siouxsie Sioux, Steven Severin, Sharon Hayman, Simone Thomas, Billy Idol and Berlin. Siouxsie was then known as Candy Sue. Bill Grundy: Siouxsie's involvement in the notorious Bill Grundy Show (02/12/76) resulted in her being fired from her current job in a West End club. In the 'Green Room' immediately after the infamous Bill Grundy Show, Malcolm McLaren claims he found Siouxsie & Steven answering some of the complaints via phone by saying "This is Thames, get off the fucking phone you stupid old prat". Source: The Guardian 14/01/95. First Cover Version: The first song Siouxsie and Steve ever committed to tape was in 1976. It was recorded on an old tape machine with Billy Idol on guitar and was a cover of the Velvet Underground song 'What Goes On'. 100 Club: On September 20 & 21 of 1976, various punk bands played a music festival for about 600 other punks or those who identified with the so-called 'punk movement.' On September 20th, the Sex Pistols, Siouxsie & the Banshees, & The Clash played, each band possessing its own individual set of songs. Siouxsie & the Banshees played a 20 minute anarchistic version of 'The Lord's Prayer' with 'Twist & Shout' & 'Knocking on Heaven's Door' spliced into the main song. Siouxsie & the Banshees were described as "unbearable & pure noise for anyone's ears." The band intended to play longer but Siouxsie said "It was a mistake, we were going to keep playing until we were thrown off (the stage), but we got bored before the audience did!". "I don’t know why I did it, I just knew I wanted to before I was 21, I’ve always gone around being looked at so I thought perhaps I should go on stage and exploit it". First choice of guitarist for the 100 Club gig was friend and 'Bromley Contingent' member William Broad (AKA Billy Idol), who was convinced not to participate by his then mentor Tony James. Source: Record Mirror 04/04/87. Cry Of The Banshee: Cry Of The Banshee is the name of the film from which the band took their name. Captain Scarlet: Rough demo recorded at Track Records 13/03/77. Source: The File, Phase One. Demo recorded at Riverside Studios 12-14/06/77. Source: The File, Phase One. Original is the theme song from the TV Show of the same name. Live debut 24/02/77, Red Deer Pub, Croydon. Source: The File, Phase One. Scrapheap: Rough demo recorded at Track Records 13/03/77. Source: The File, Phase One. Live debut 24/02/77, Red Deer Pub, Croydon. Source: The File, Phase One. Bad Shape: Rough demo recorded at Track Records 13/03/77. Source: The File, Phase One. Live debut 24/02/77, Red Deer Pub, Croydon. Source: The File, Phase One. Psychic: Rough demo recorded at Track Records 13/03/77. Source: The File, Phase One. Demo recorded at Riverside Studios 12-14/06/77. Source: The File, Phase One. Live debut 24/02/77, Red Deer Pub, Croydon. Source: The File, Phase One. Unreleased: Captain Scarlet. Scrapheap. Bad Shape. Psychic. Siouxsie Sue: In 1977 English band 'London' featuring future Culture Club drummer Jon Moss released a 12" EP Summer Of Love which includes a song entitled 'Siouxsie Sue'. The Velvet Underground: It is well known that the Velvet Underground were an influence on the Banshees' early career, but in fact Siouxsie bought her first John Cale record before she had even heard of the Velvet Underground. Swastika: Siouxsie was often photographed in the early days wearing a Swastika, therefore causing much controversy in the music press, but she only appeared on stage once wearing a Swastika and that was during the band's 100 Club debut. "It was a symbol to be used as a crucifix could be. It was an attempt to arouse some nationalism in Britain. It was.... childish. But we wanted to stir something up. And we were certainly not condoning what it represented. I never saw how it could be misconstrued as a political belief. As soon as people thought it had a political significance and the NF started turning up for gigs, we realised we had to do something to make it very clear where we stood". Ice Queen: Siouxsie was first dubbed the Ice Queen on the cover of music paper Sounds issued 3/12/77. Simone: "We had a violinist as well, called Simone, but she left after our second gig." (Siouxsie) Source: The Face 08/80. Pete Fenton: The Banshees' second guitarist was actually fired on stage! Source: Q 11/88. TV Debut: 'Make Up To Break Up' was the song chosen for Siouxsie & The Banshees debut UK TV appearance on So It Goes. The Scream: Inspiration/Influence for sleeve: The film The Swimmer . Pure: Inspiration/Influence/Band Comment: STEVE: "For 'Pure', you can also substitute 'essence'. That song wasn't written - it just happened." It happened during a sound check in France some time ago. "Also it summed up all that we were going through back in those days. It happened on stage and we just called it 'Pure'. That's like what happens when the band lets loose." Source: Melody Maker 21/10/78. Recorded at RAK and mixed at De Lane Lea Studios 31/07-25/09/78. Source: The File, Phase One. Jigsaw Feeling: Inspiration/Influence/Band Comment: SIOUXSIE: "It's the wrong things doing the right things for you. It started out as a self-disgust song and evolved from that. " Source: Unknown 1978 . SIOUXSIE: It's when your limbs won't do what your brain wants them to. You're so confused that you can't co-ordinate your limbs to do something positive, and you just twist yourself in knots." Source: Melody Maker 21/10/78. Record demo at Pathway Studios 06/78. Source: The File, Phase One. Recorded at RAK and mixed at De Lane Lea Studios 31/07-25/09/78. Source: The File, Phase One. Overground: Inspiration/Influence/Band Comment: SEVERIN: "It was written at a time when we were all getting desperate for a contract... and it's really to do with why we wanted a major record deal." Source: Record Mirror 09/12/78. SEVERIN: "it's another one about choice. You can either go along with the way things are or... It's very personal to the band on one level. The whole things about the uncompromising Banshees. It's saying that we can change to go overground but at the same time we know we'd be worse than ourselves." Source: Melody Maker 09/12/78. Recorded at RAK and mixed at De Lane Lea Studios 31/07-25/09/78. Source: The File, Phase One. Covered by Curve. Recorded for a BBC Session 06/02/78 at Maida Vale 4, aired 23/02/78. Live debut 28/01/78, Barton Hill Youth Club, Bristol. Source: The File, Phase One. Live debut with string section 18/11/82, Futurist Theatre, Scarborough. Source: The File, Phase Two, Issue Three. First choice as debut single, but later rejected in favour of Hong Kong Garden. Source: The File, Phase One. Carcass: Inspiration/Influence/Band Comment: SIOUXSIE: "It's a love song really. You read about how love's supposed to be, but in the papers you see all these other things that people do to get their certain kicks. More people seem to have those sort of kicks than meeting the girl next door. It's an angle of looking at things and they are there - it's not purely fictional." Source: Melody Maker 09/12/78. SIOUXSIE: "Yeah Carcass - it's about a butcher's assistant who can't get girls and so he falls in love with a lump of meat on the slab and so that he can be like the object of his affection - he cuts off his own arms and legs." Source: Zigzag 10/77. STEVE: "People always miss out on the humorous aspect of what we do, or rather the facetious aspect..." Source: Sounds 24/06/78. SIOUXSIE: "There's also 'My mother had her son for tea'. But when you think about it, every day can be really cruel yet so laughable." Source: Sounds 24/06/78. Demo recorded at Riverside Studios 12-14/06/77. Source: The File, Phase One. Recorded at RAK and mixed at De Lane Lea Studios 31/07-25/09/78. Source: The File, Phase One. Recorded for a BBC Session 06/02/78 at Maida Vale 4, aired 23/02/78. Helter Skelter: Inspiration/Influence/Band Comment: SEVERIN: "It's more than a song now. We felt there was a need to re-do it after all that happened." Source: Melody Maker 21/10/78. SIOUXSIE: "The Beatles had done it... quite innocently with just the intention of a helter skelter, a child's playground or other insinuations - like sexual ones." Source: Melody Maker 21/10/78. Recorded at RAK and mixed at De Lane Lea Studios 31/07-25/09/78. Source: The File, Phase One. Recorded for a BBC Session 06/02/78 at Maida Vale 4, aired 23/02/78. Original by The Beatles - The White album. The original version by The Beatles is rumoured to have been an inspiration to Charles Manson. Private live debut 09/07/77, Shad Thames, Butler's Wharf, London (Private party hosted by Derek Jarman and Andrew Logan). Source: The File, Phase One. Live debut 11/07/77, The Vortex Club, London. Source: The File, Phase One. Mirage: Inspiration/Influence/Band Comment: MORRIS: "It's more the idea of blindness and screens rather than taking it down to TV. It's about walls, screens, inhibitions, inabilities, expressing oneself in public." Source: Melody Maker 21/10/78. SIOUXSIE: " 'Mirage' is about 'the image is no images, it's not what it seems' It's about people seeing us and taking what we do superficially." Source: Sounds 03/12/77. Demo recorded at Riverside Studios 06/09/77. Source: The File, Phase One. Recorded at RAK and mixed at De Lane Lea Studios 31/07-25/09/78. Source: The File, Phase One. Recorded for a BBC Session 29/11/77 at Maida Vale 4, aired 05/12/77. Recorded for a Capital One Nicky Horne session 02/79. Live debut 25/08/77, Tiverton Hotel, Devon. Source: The File, Phase One. Metal Postcard: Inspiration/Influence/Band Comment: Dedicated to the celebrated photomontage artist of the Twenties/Thirties, John Heartfield, the original title for this song was 'Letter To Heartfield'. The chorus is taken from one of Goerring's speeches during the Second World War. SIOUXSIE: "It's a warning song. The whole propaganda of the Nazis at that time was very dangerous and it could easily creep its way in without there being all the hysteria of killing the Jews. Their whole propaganda could easily fit in today." How does she see this Metal Metropolis? "Not being able to get away from the commands of the day, not being able to escape, the idea of having cameras in your room and having people watching you..." Source: Melody Maker 21/10/78. SIOUXSIE: "What lies around the swastika I hate, but I also don't identify with blind patriotism either. I couldn't write a song based around Heartfield if I had that attitude." Source: Melody Maker 17/02/79. Recorded at RAK and mixed at De Lane Lea Studios 31/07-25/09/78. Source: The File, Phase One. Recorded for a BBC Session 29/11/77 at Maida Vale 4, aired 05/12/77. Covered by Ciril The original title for this song was going to be 'Letter To Heartfield'. The re-recorded German language version was sampled on the Massive Attack song 'Suerpredators (Metal Postcard)' - The Jackal soundtrack . Nicotine Stain: Inspiration/Influence/Band Comment: SIOUXSIE: "That song started off when I had both my hands full and I had a cigarette. I had to hold on to it and I could feel the fumes all around my face. I had to look in the mirror to see that my face hadn't gone brown. I just got to thinking how nicotine could soak up all your body." Source: Melody Maker 21/10/78. KENNY: "It's about everyday things that you really don't need to do, that you don't want to do but you just find yourself doing them. Because you have to." Source: Melody Maker 21/10/78. SIOUXSIE: "It's that habits are very disgusting and you realise how addicted you are to them. You try to find the usefulness of your habits, you try to justify them." Source: Melody Maker 21/10/78. Suburban Relapse: Inspiration/Influence/Band Comment: SIOUXSIE: "It's committing a crime under the stresses of everyday life. Being so confused and... I don't know how anyone can be a judge, an actual one in court". Source: Melody Maker 21/10/78. Recorded at RAK and mixed at De Lane Lea Studios 31/07-25/09/78. Source: The File, Phase One. Recorded for a BBC Session 29/11/77 at Maida Vale 4, aired 05/12/77. Live debut 20/09/77, Gibus Club, Paris. Source: The File, Phase One. Switch: Inspiration/Influence/Band Comment: SIOUXSIE: ""I had in mind that it was going to be very fragmented with three different sections. That's all." Source: Melody Maker 21/10/78. SEVERIN: "The scientist becomes the doctor and applies science to medicine - that kind of thing." Source: Melody Maker 21/10/78. SIOUXSIE: "The vicar becomes the scientist and he applies his religion to science and the doctor becomes the religious person and applies his medicine to religion." Source: Melody Maker 21/10/78. SEVERIN: "It all comes down to the same thing - the hypocrisy of it all." Source: Melody Maker 21/10/78. Recorded demo at Pathway Studios 06/78. Source: The File, Phase One. Recorded at RAK and mixed at De Lane Lea Studios 31/07-25/09/78. Source: The File, Phase One. Live debut 20/07/78, The Factory, Manchester. Source: The File, Phase One. Hong Kong Garden: Inspiration/Influence/Band Comment: SIOUXSIE: "I’ll never forget, there was a Chinese restaurant in Chislehurst called 'The Hong Kong Garden'. Me and my friend were really upset that we used to go there and like, occasionally when the skinheads would turn up it would really turn really ugly. These gits were just go in on mass and just terrorise these Chinese people who were working there. We’d try and say ‘Leave them alone’, you know. It was a kind of tribute." Source: Punk Top Ten Interview 08/06/01. SIOUXSIE: "I remember wishing that I could be like Emma Peel from The Avengers and kick all the skinheads' heads in, because they used to mercilessly torment these people for being foreigners. It made me feel so helpless, hopeless and ill." Source: Uncut 01/05. SEVERIN: "That was freaky. A very strange period. We'd finished it a month before it came out, and we'd pushed it away - and it was just a very strange feeling having people rush up and say how great it was." Source: NME 23/12/78. Record Albertine demo at Olympic Studios 06-07/78. Source: The File, Phase One. Recorded at Island Studios and mixed at RAK 07/78. Source: The File, Phase One. Recorded for a BBC Session 06/02/78 at Maida Vale 4, aired 23/02/78. Filmed promo video 16/08/78. Source: The File, Phase One. Video aired on Top Of The Pops 31/08/78. Voted No. 37 in the October 2001 issue of Mojo magazines' Top 100 Punk Scorchers. Live debut 28/01/78, Barton Hill Youth Club, Bristol. Source: The File, Phase One. Voices: Inspiration/Influence/Band Comment: The Haunted Palace by Edgar Alan Poe & On Wine & Hashish by Baudelaire. Record Albertine demo at Olympic Studios 06-07/78. Source: The File, Phase One. Remixed by Steve Lillywhite at RAK 07/78. Source: The File, Phase One. In the late 70s if a pub needed to empty at closing time the landlord would put Voices on the juke box and watch the customers leave in droves. The only song from the aborted Bruce Albertine sessions for 'Hong Kong Garden'. Live debut 29/12/82, Hammersmith Odeon, London. Source: The File, Phase Two, Issue Three. Make Up To Break Up: Inspiration/Influence/Band Comment: The lyric 'just like the devil's rain' is a reference to the film of the same name. "Devil's Rain was a cheapo cash in movie on the same lines as the Exorcist etc; an actress called Ida Lupino (beautiful name) was in it - Ernest Borgnine was the Devil - William Shatner the guy from Star Trek was the hero. The film was about this rain that melted people - their faces went like putty and if you squeezed their eyeballs all pus came oozing out." Source: Zigzag 10/77. Demo recorded at Riverside Studios 12-14/06/77. Source: The File, Phase One. The Staircase (Mystery): Inspiration/Influence/Band Comment: SIOUXSIE: "There's something about a staircase. It's so unpredictable and exciting at the same time. That feeling of displacement, vertigo when you're at the top looking down or at the bottom looking up." Source: Melody Maker 17/02/79. SIOUXSIE: "That's more a song about curiosity and fear, it's not a great political statement or anything." Source: Sounds 07/04/79. SIOUXSIE: "The song's just taking a very day-to-day thing, and the nature of that thing is very... mysterious." Source: NME 31/03/79. SIOUXSIE: "Yeah it's very much a memory of them. Especially in my house, people were always falling down the stairs in it." Source: Sounds 07/04/79. SEVERIN: "Sioux had written the lyrics and she knew what it was about but they had a different interpretation and they wanted a different sleeve. So me, Nils and Sioux wanted to go one way and they wanted the other... and that was the democracy of it." Source: Sounds 15/09/79. Record demo at Pathway Studios 06/78. Source: The File, Phase One. Recorded at Air Studios 24/11/78. Additional handclaps and a new vocal recorded 01/79 Source: The File, Phase One. Filmed promo video 01/79. Source: The File, Phase One. Video aired on Top Of The Pops 26/04/79. The video was partly inspired by the staircase murder of private eye Arbogast in the film Psycho. Source: Melody Maker 17/02/79. Having discovered an article (via a friend) in the Observer Magazine concerning the case of multiple personality victim Christine Sizemore, Kenny thought a picture of a 10 year old Christine with the eyes and mouth blacked out would make the perfect cover for forthcoming single 'The Staircase (Mystery)'. Upon further discussion it was decided that there really wasn't any connection between Christine Sizemore and the song 'The Staircase (Mystery)' and a still from the video was used for the cover of The Staircase (Mystery) Source: The File, Phase One. Live debut 20/07/78, The Factory, Manchester. Source: The File, Phase One. 20th Century Boy: Recorded at Air Studios 01/79. Source: The File, Phase One. Original by T. Rex - Greatest Hits. Sign The Banshees: Prior to the Banshees signing to Polydor Records in 1978, an over zealous fan started a 'Sign The Banshees Do It Now' graffiti campaign. Most of the major record companies in London were daubed with this slogan. Siouxsie says: 'It was actually a big fan of ours who'd probably be really embarrassed if he knew I told you, no no no! It was actually Les Mills who went on to manage The Psychedelic Furs. He had blonde hair, a leather jacket and studs, with SIOUXSIE on it. For those two years (prior to the Banshees signing) he was pretty obsessive about it, then he got his own band together'. Record Contract: Signed first record contract with Polydor Records on 09/06/78. Radio On: The band were offered a part in the film Radio On (Chris Petter) but declined.