Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome to this week's edition of The Bad
Speaker 1: Left Sex Podcast. My guest this week is vocalist extraordinaire
Speaker 1: lead singer of Garbage, Shirley Manson. Shirley, Okay, you're from Scotland.
Speaker 1: We are really Scotland ignorant here. Okay, what's it like
Speaker 1: growing up in Scotland. Well, you know, at the time,
Speaker 1: it didn't feel so fantastic, but looking back on it
Speaker 1: now I realized what a privilege it was, you know,
Speaker 1: because it's a small island and it was a time
Speaker 1: I was. I was born in sixty six, so I
Speaker 1: grew up in the seventies and it was at a
Speaker 1: time when the British government actually paid for education. They
Speaker 1: put money into it and we all had government run
Speaker 1: schools and they were and they were well funded. So
Speaker 1: I had a great education I had. I came from
Speaker 1: a family, three children. My mom and dad loved each
Speaker 1: other until death did they part. And I think, now, no,
Speaker 1: what I know, that's really unusual to certainly with the
Speaker 1: younger generations. I mean, the only thing I I haven't
Speaker 1: been to Scotland, but there was that movie and I
Speaker 1: can't remember there was a famous movie maker talking about
Speaker 1: the ice cream war in do you know that? Was
Speaker 1: that Donny Boyle thing? God, I can't remember. But in
Speaker 1: any event, where did you actually grow up in Scotland?
Speaker 1: But how do you how do you pronounce that? Edinburgh? Edinburgh? Okay?
Speaker 1: Ed okay? And what did your father do for a living?
Speaker 1: My father was a university professor, really, and what did
Speaker 1: he teach? He taught animal breeding in sort of genetics
Speaker 1: and animal breeding, poultry breeding as well. He would come
Speaker 1: home for dinner. Would he talk about that? Very rarely?
Speaker 1: I mean he he as we got older, he would
Speaker 1: talk about the genetic program because they were his sort
Speaker 1: of university cloned Dolly the Sheep. I don't know if
Speaker 1: you remember that, but Dolly the Sheep. So that was
Speaker 1: his faculty that really. Yeah. So he started to talk
Speaker 1: up to us about genetics and we are so bored,
Speaker 1: we can you know? Okay, So if I take you
Speaker 1: out on the ranch with the animals, you're as clueless
Speaker 1: as I am. Well, maybe not quite as clueless as you, Bob.
Speaker 1: We got the Huber going at this point in time, okay.
Speaker 1: And did your mother work outside of the house. My
Speaker 1: mother sort of eventually as we were growing up when
Speaker 1: we were teenagers. She's she became a medical reception as
Speaker 1: she looked after a bunch of doctors. But she really
Speaker 1: was pretty much a housewife, which is a terminology that's
Speaker 1: thankfully becoming, you know, obsolete, but she she was. She
Speaker 1: called herself a housewife, right, I guess you know now
Speaker 1: they say, you know she works, but she works in
Speaker 1: the home. But okay, so where are you in the
Speaker 1: hierarchy of the middle child? The real messed up one
Speaker 1: the middle of three? And who else is a boy
Speaker 1: or a girl? All three girls? All three girls. I'm
Speaker 1: a middle child too, so sorry, Okay, my older sister
Speaker 1: she believes you can conquer the world, and my younger
Speaker 1: sister is the baby could always trying to get out
Speaker 1: of this, and I was kind of lost in the middle. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I had exactly the same experience. It's really I was
Speaker 1: married to one who was also a middle kid. I
Speaker 1: wonder whether that was part of the connection. Because you're
Speaker 1: kind of overlooked. You feel you you're overlooked. I don't
Speaker 1: think you actually are, but that's how I think I
Speaker 1: perceived it. And I also got hand me done clothes
Speaker 1: all the time. I never got new clothes. When I
Speaker 1: was growing up, I was always my sister's clothes, and
Speaker 1: by the time I had worn through the set of clothes,
Speaker 1: my little sister got brand new clothes. So I mean
Speaker 1: I was twisted, you know, yeah, yeah, the level of resentment.
Speaker 1: I didn't have that problem because by older and younger
Speaker 1: siblings were sisters. But I know, I know exactly what
Speaker 1: you're talking about. And Okay, what kind of kid are
Speaker 1: you growing up? Are you a rebellious kid? Are you
Speaker 1: kind of you know, obey's orders. For the first sort
Speaker 1: of twelve years of my life, I obeyed orders. I
Speaker 1: was an incredibly devout a student, and I, you know,
Speaker 1: had a great faith in Jesus, and I was interested
Speaker 1: in religion and all kinds of things. I was very sweet,
Speaker 1: pretty h sort of conventional kid, and then the hormones
Speaker 1: kicked in and I went mental. Okay, did you go
Speaker 1: to public school or did you go to Catholic school?
Speaker 1: Well it's a good question because we call public schools
Speaker 1: private school. We went to government funded You went to
Speaker 1: government funded schools, but you had a strict Catholic family.
Speaker 1: I did not. I came up in a Protestant family.
Speaker 1: My dad was my Sunday school teacher, which also didn't
Speaker 1: help my No, no, no, no, you can imagine. I
Speaker 1: can't imagine. That kind of messed me up good too.
Speaker 1: So yeah, okay, but you were a big believer. I
Speaker 1: was a huge believer. How about today you believe today?
Speaker 1: I'm a nonbeliever now. And what was the transition? How
Speaker 1: did you decide that there wasn't a little man in
Speaker 1: this guy who was deciding whether you've been naughty or nice? Well,
Speaker 1: it started off with just a sort of sudden observation
Speaker 1: of the people in our church that we went that
Speaker 1: we went to. I noticed that they did not adhere
Speaker 1: to the principles that were, you know, ceremonized, and I
Speaker 1: started to smell hypocrisy. And I then would meet people
Speaker 1: who were nonbelievers who actually did seem to practice some
Speaker 1: kind spiritual practice. We have that in government today. All
Speaker 1: the people seemingly were anti abortion have had an abortion
Speaker 1: themselves or their partners had an abortion. It's just crazy.
Speaker 1: So in any event, you turned age twelve, the hormones
Speaker 1: kicking and you freak out. What does that look like? Well, I,
Speaker 1: having been a pretty good student, I just stopped paying
Speaker 1: attention in school. I stopped going to school. I started smoking,
Speaker 1: I started flirting with you know self, drugs. I became
Speaker 1: interested in boys. I got involved in a youth theater
Speaker 1: in a band A little bit slower in America, it's
Speaker 1: kind of like the Little Rascals, if you know those
Speaker 1: Saturday Morning Carly, there's a Truman officer and if you
Speaker 1: skip school, they're gonna track you down. So you're skipping
Speaker 1: school and your father was in the educational system. Was
Speaker 1: anybody aware of the fact you were skipping school? Well
Speaker 1: not at first, and actually it was my dad who
Speaker 1: busted me in the end. Um. But no, the teachers
Speaker 1: didn't really notice because of the way that our system
Speaker 1: worked at that time. UM. So I'd always appear for registrations,
Speaker 1: so you were there when they called the roll call,
Speaker 1: and then I would just go home. But my my
Speaker 1: my house was like jammed up against the playground of
Speaker 1: the school, so I could just get home to my
Speaker 1: bedroom in about five seconds. So it's very convenient for
Speaker 1: skipping school until you had your father find out. He
Speaker 1: came home one day unexpectedly and find me in my
Speaker 1: bedroom with a bunch of pals smoking. I don't know
Speaker 1: why else we were up to you went absolutely mental,
Speaker 1: and he called the head master and he dubbed me in.
Speaker 1: He was like, my child is here, she should be
Speaker 1: at school. I'm sending her in to see you right now.
Speaker 1: And he sent me to the head master and I got.
Speaker 1: I can't remember what happened, but I got well royally punished.
Speaker 1: I had to do like after school punishment and all
Speaker 1: that stuff. Well did it set you on a straight
Speaker 1: course or did you continue to diverge from the straight
Speaker 1: and arrow. I continue, even at fifty one, to diverge
Speaker 1: from the straight and now. Well, it's kind of funny.
Speaker 1: It's hard to diverge from the straight and arrow. We
Speaker 1: live in it. I'm older than you are, but certainly
Speaker 1: lived through the sixties. It was the opposite of group think,
Speaker 1: and now there's total group think. And if you feel otherwise,
Speaker 1: you're really scorned by society. You end up feeling like
Speaker 1: a party of one. That's my experience. You know, I'm
Speaker 1: really lucky, and that I don't have that experience. I
Speaker 1: know exactly what you're talking about, and I think that
Speaker 1: does exist, and it's becoming more and more prevalent. But
Speaker 1: I was really lucky and that I had a very
Speaker 1: strong minded father who had very definitive ideas, and I
Speaker 1: would fight against him over and over and over again
Speaker 1: for years, to the point where I learned to hold
Speaker 1: my owner in an argument. If he didn't, you know,
Speaker 1: agree with me, that was cool. If I didn't agree
Speaker 1: with him, it was cool. He so he was really
Speaker 1: fair that way, and so I just learned to have
Speaker 1: to develop my own system of ideas and beliefs. Do
Speaker 1: you think he was doing that to inculcate that behavior
Speaker 1: in yourself or do you think he was really rigid
Speaker 1: and you were just a rebel? Neither of the bob.
Speaker 1: I think he is quite rebellious my dad. Is he
Speaker 1: still with us, Yes, he's still with us. He's eighty one,
Speaker 1: and he's very full of vigor and as a rigorous thinker.
Speaker 1: And I think he enjoyed being challenged by me, because
Speaker 1: he often, of course when you have young children, he
Speaker 1: would browbeat me easily for years and years and years,
Speaker 1: and then eventually, as I became a little more skilled
Speaker 1: at arguing in my late teens, he I think he enjoyed.
Speaker 1: It was like it was like a sport for him,
Speaker 1: And it actually is a little bit of a sport
Speaker 1: for me now like I can argue with anyone. I
Speaker 1: don't take it personally. I don't get upset when people
Speaker 1: don't agree with me. I find it really interesting. I
Speaker 1: love to argue, and no one wants to argue anymore.
Speaker 1: Like it's really when you when you give a contrary opinion,
Speaker 1: it's like spinal tap person. No, my amp goes to eleven.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't want to do it for my
Speaker 1: own personal aggrandization, whatever aggrandization, whatever the word might be.
Speaker 1: It's it's fun to wrestle and tease out the issues
Speaker 1: and makes me think afterward. But today everyone thinks they
Speaker 1: have the answer. They can't see two different sides of
Speaker 1: the coin, and they're very you. You look like the
Speaker 1: curmudgeon when you go out there and you disagree with people. Well,
Speaker 1: I think there's a couple of factors at play. I
Speaker 1: think some people feel that they are not they don't
Speaker 1: have conviction necessarily and what they believe like no matter,
Speaker 1: I am wrong all the time, but I do have conviction.
Speaker 1: I believe really strongly and what I believe, and um,
Speaker 1: I think some people get shaken when you disagree with them,
Speaker 1: and or they feel like they're losing an argument if
Speaker 1: you even challenge the argument, and they've got this some
Speaker 1: weird idea about how they must win. They must win.
Speaker 1: Society's put all this pressure and must to be winners.
Speaker 1: You can't be a loser. I don't mind being a loser.
Speaker 1: I mean that's really well described. But will you change
Speaker 1: your opinion all the time? It makes me crazy if
Speaker 1: you change your opinion because I'm writing my opinions down
Speaker 1: and I say, hey, life evolved, It's like only in Washington,
Speaker 1: d C. You can't change your opinion. So let's go back.
Speaker 1: Your two sisters. Where are they today? My little sister,
Speaker 1: it was how much younger? Is two years younger than me.
Speaker 1: She's done in London doing what she works for a
Speaker 1: photographic agent, so they support photographers in the fashion industry primarily. Um,
Speaker 1: my big sister is two years older than me. It's
Speaker 1: exactly like my favorite. We've got common here around. I
Speaker 1: feel your pain, brother. But my big sister she works
Speaker 1: in She was an intensive care nurse practically our whole
Speaker 1: career and now has has sort of semi moved into
Speaker 1: health education. She teaches nurses. Now are they reader in relationships?
Speaker 1: My oldest sister is in a relationship. My youngest sister
Speaker 1: is married with two kids. Okay, but you've never been married, right,
Speaker 1: I am married? You are married. I guess I was unaware.
Speaker 1: How long have you been married? Eight years? Eight years?
Speaker 1: And is this your only marriage? No, this is my
Speaker 1: second marriage. Okay, we'll save this for later. Okay, so
Speaker 1: you're rebelling. Do you finish school? Not exactly. That's kind
Speaker 1: of a black and white you know, yes or no question. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I didn't get past high school. I started flunked out
Speaker 1: in my last I should have stayed on for another
Speaker 1: year and I didn't have flunked out and I got
Speaker 1: really bad examination results, and my parents were really disappointed
Speaker 1: in me, and there was a lot of silence over
Speaker 1: the dinner table at home. Okay, well, here the crisis
Speaker 1: would be, if you drop out of high school, you
Speaker 1: have to go to work. That is correct. My dad
Speaker 1: said that to me, said, okay, you're you know you've
Speaker 1: crapped out of high school. You need to go get
Speaker 1: yourself a job. And did you? I did? And what
Speaker 1: was that job? I worked in a female fashion shop,
Speaker 1: a little like Forever twenty one. It was called miss Selfridge.
Speaker 1: And how long did that last? Five? Years, five years
Speaker 1: and any upwards, any any upward mobility, or you're just
Speaker 1: the sales clerk in the shop for five years. I
Speaker 1: don't say this for comic relief. I was actually demoted.
Speaker 1: I started off. I started off as a sales clerk
Speaker 1: what we call the shop assistant, and then I was
Speaker 1: demoted to the stock room because I was unpleasant, quote unquote,
Speaker 1: I was unpleasant to the customers. I love that. I
Speaker 1: love that. So you're unpleasant. But they didn't fire you.
Speaker 1: They didn't fire me. Okay. And at the time, okay,
Speaker 1: you're smoking dope, drinking what are you doing. I was
Speaker 1: doing a lot of speed. That was my drug of choice,
Speaker 1: and I like the feeling of being fast. Okay and
Speaker 1: okay going. Was there music in your house growing up? Yeah,
Speaker 1: there was a lot of music in my house. My
Speaker 1: mom was a sort of semi amateur singer, um semi
Speaker 1: professional should I say. She sang with us a swing
Speaker 1: band called the Squadron Ears before I was born, and
Speaker 1: then she used to sing for like weddings and concert
Speaker 1: parties at the church. And hey, you're playing footsie with me, Bob,
Speaker 1: you have very long I can't believe. I like to
Speaker 1: reach that far the first time this has ever happened
Speaker 1: here on the podcast. But I noticed I touched before.
Speaker 1: I didn't even notice that time. But when she was professional,
Speaker 1: before you were born, how serious was that? Not particularly serious?
Speaker 1: I mean, my mom got bless her. She didn't have
Speaker 1: a lot of confidence in herself, so nothing she did
Speaker 1: she considered very serious. But she was a good singer,
Speaker 1: and she loved music, and she introduced me to music,
Speaker 1: and my love of music comes from her. Okay, so
Speaker 1: would she play records in the house? Yes, what kind
Speaker 1: of records? She introduced me to a lot of like Elephants, Gerald,
Speaker 1: Nina Simon, sat von Um. She loved Barbara Streisan, she
Speaker 1: of Barry Manilo, and she loved show tunes. The show
Speaker 1: too was a similar thing growing up. My mother played
Speaker 1: them all the time. But and she is deceased. My
Speaker 1: my mom too, right now, My mother's alive. My father's dead,
Speaker 1: been dead for twenty five years. My mother's ninety one.
Speaker 1: But your mother, based on what you said earlier, your
Speaker 1: mother is no longer with no longer with How long
Speaker 1: ago did she pass? About nine years ago? Okay, your
Speaker 1: father ever got involved in another relationship, Yes he has,
Speaker 1: He has not. Is he a serial data or is
Speaker 1: that one specific woman. There's been a couple of women
Speaker 1: he's been interested in and has pursued with great passion
Speaker 1: and vigor and has gotten his own way a couple
Speaker 1: of times. And so what do you what does that
Speaker 1: feel like being his daughter? Well, it was funny. I
Speaker 1: was cool with it because I knew my dad loved
Speaker 1: my mom and I knew that, you know, there was
Speaker 1: nothing going to bring my mom back, So I wanted
Speaker 1: my dad to have happiness. So it didn't bother me.
Speaker 1: It creaked me out a wee bit, you know. I
Speaker 1: thinking about my dad having an erection was just too
Speaker 1: much to care. But I was cool with him having
Speaker 1: fun in his life. I wanted that for him. But
Speaker 1: my younger sister had She wrestled with it the hardest.
Speaker 1: She she she found it difficult to accept. Well, how
Speaker 1: long after the passing of your mother did he get
Speaker 1: started very quickly? And was your mother's sick or was
Speaker 1: it a sudden death? Yeah, my mom was sick. She
Speaker 1: had a very rare form of dementia, which is called
Speaker 1: Picks disease um and it was very aggressive and sort
Speaker 1: of took her out the game. In about eighteen months.
Speaker 1: My mother's you know, is on is on that excursion.
Speaker 1: So I speak speak with her, and she'll go on
Speaker 1: and on. But whatever I tell her today, the next day,
Speaker 1: it'd be like we didn't even discuss. I See, my
Speaker 1: mom's disease wasn't like that. It was a different kind
Speaker 1: of it was. She sort of became just physically difficult
Speaker 1: to operate in the world. She always knew who I was.
Speaker 1: She never didn't know who we were. No. Like I said,
Speaker 1: it was very aggressive, an unusual form of Picks disease,
Speaker 1: and that the doctor in our hometown nobody had ever
Speaker 1: had an incident of this particular type of disease. So
Speaker 1: she was young. She was sixty nine, which she was
Speaker 1: diag very young. And so how long did she go undiagnosed. Well,
Speaker 1: here's the other su in our families. I knew there
Speaker 1: was something wrong with my mom. My family told me
Speaker 1: I was crazy, But I have the same thing with
Speaker 1: my father. Got canceled. We were having to be in
Speaker 1: Mammoth Lakes, which is a ski area about four hours
Speaker 1: from Los Angeles, and I went out with my father
Speaker 1: to pick up a pizza, and my father for the
Speaker 1: whole half hour waiting for the pizza, just had his
Speaker 1: head in his hand and he was going. And I
Speaker 1: came back and I told my mother, oh, you know
Speaker 1: something wrong with our flashes. Oh, he just had a physical.
Speaker 1: He's fine, he's fine. And a week later they found
Speaker 1: out the cancer. I'm so sorry. Well, it was a
Speaker 1: long time ago. At this point, it doesn't it's always
Speaker 1: painful to lose your love. Well, my father died at
Speaker 1: seventy and when he died, I was not quite forty,
Speaker 1: and I thought, oh, that's a pretty good run. But
Speaker 1: now I say, wow, that's really young. So there's music
Speaker 1: in the household. At what point do you start to
Speaker 1: sing or play yourself. I was playing really young because
Speaker 1: my mom and dad got me into piano lessons on
Speaker 1: singing in an a choir, So that was around about
Speaker 1: seven years old. Did you practice, did I? No? No, no.
Speaker 1: I don't think the piano lessons too. But the practicing
Speaker 1: was the weakly. I found it very hard to practice anything,
Speaker 1: and that has continued throughout my entire life. I'm very
Speaker 1: lax about rehearsing and practicing and and actually being a
Speaker 1: good student in that regard. But yeah, I was singing
Speaker 1: and playing by about seven, and that just continued through
Speaker 1: my life. My school picked me out to like learn
Speaker 1: the violin, the clarinet, playing the school orchestra. Can you
Speaker 1: read music even at this late day, you haven't forgotten it? Now,
Speaker 1: you don't forget that people claim to forgotten that Billy
Speaker 1: Joel whatever. But as someone who could read music basically,
Speaker 1: then you occasionally sit down at the piano and then
Speaker 1: I look at the bass cliff and I go, there's
Speaker 1: no way. See, it's funny you should say that because
Speaker 1: it's always the bass cleff cliff. That is the hardest
Speaker 1: want to remember, but if you just play for a
Speaker 1: wee bit, it comes back. So you're playing it at
Speaker 1: this point. Do you ever have an light bulb go
Speaker 1: off and say this is what I'd like to do
Speaker 1: from my life? No? Ever, So what changes you know? This?
Speaker 1: This is a bit of a long on Boing story.
Speaker 1: I've told it a million times, but nothing ever changed,
Speaker 1: Nothing ever changed. No, I stumbled from pillar to post
Speaker 1: literally as my entire That is certainly a Scottish expression.
Speaker 1: No one in America is going to say pillar to post. Well,
Speaker 1: but you get the express, the idea. I know what
Speaker 1: you said. The expression. But nothing in my life has
Speaker 1: ever been planned. I have my My entire career has
Speaker 1: been made up of stumbling from one place to the
Speaker 1: next and no plan, no real solid ambition. Although my
Speaker 1: dad claims that that's not true, but I don't remember
Speaker 1: having any major ambition to do much except be a ballerina.
Speaker 1: That's what I really burned to do. Then I couldn't
Speaker 1: do that because I got too tall and I hurt
Speaker 1: my ankle. So then I wanted to be an actress.
Speaker 1: This is it? What age? What age do you hurt
Speaker 1: your ankle? I was It's a good question. Then you
Speaker 1: want to be an actor? Do you act on that?
Speaker 1: Do you actually act in school plays? I had a
Speaker 1: drama teacher that took great interest in me and got
Speaker 1: me out into Edinburgh Youth Theater. Outside of the school
Speaker 1: as well, she encouraged me to like audition for drama
Speaker 1: school and so and so forth. I didn't get into
Speaker 1: drama school. And that's suwhere that I didn't get into
Speaker 1: drama school. I got approached by this guy that I
Speaker 1: had met at Edinburgh Theater who needed a keyboard player
Speaker 1: in his band. And because you know, I've been living
Speaker 1: in l along doesn't just happen. So how was he
Speaker 1: aware that you played the keyboard? Well, I think he
Speaker 1: maybe asked me. He was very interested in me sexually. Okay,
Speaker 1: that's straightforward. He was more interested in me, I think,
Speaker 1: sexually than he was my my musical skills. But he
Speaker 1: knew I played pianos so and he knew he could
Speaker 1: lure me into his band to play keyboards. But you
Speaker 1: had to say yes. I didn't have to see yes.
Speaker 1: Say yes. I did see it. So what was your
Speaker 1: inspiration for saying yes? Because I've just been rejected from
Speaker 1: drama college, so I had nothing else to do, and
Speaker 1: so for want of some entertainment in my life, I
Speaker 1: joined the band. And this was at what age fifteen
Speaker 1: or sixteen? Okay, So you go and you have this band.
Speaker 1: What kind of music you play? Well, you would call
Speaker 1: it alternative pop rock. Okay, we're the originals were playing
Speaker 1: was on the hip Parade? They were originals. I can't
Speaker 1: ask me if they were on the hip three. That
Speaker 1: is the cutest thing I've ever been asked. I think.
Speaker 1: So they were originals. And in the United States, which
Speaker 1: is my frame of reference, it's very hard to get
Speaker 1: work being an upstart band playing originals. So did you
Speaker 1: get gigs with this band? We did get gigs. You know.
Speaker 1: We were lucky that we marriage from Scotland, which had
Speaker 1: a small music scene, and so we'd be pretty fast.
Speaker 1: Became quite large fish in a very small poet. Well
Speaker 1: that would you know, seem to say that you were good?
Speaker 1: We were good? So why were you good? We were
Speaker 1: really unique, really original, like we were like no other
Speaker 1: band I have ever seen in my life. I mean,
Speaker 1: we were a right bunch of Motley three. Um, we
Speaker 1: were quite rebellious and we we're just very committed to
Speaker 1: putting on good shoes. So I have to ask, did
Speaker 1: you have a romantic partnership with that guy who asked you? Yes?
Speaker 1: I did. Okay, how long did that last? I don't know,
Speaker 1: about six months, I think. Okay, when that ended? Did
Speaker 1: the band break up? Okay? The band survived. The band survived,
Speaker 1: So how long did the band go on for? And
Speaker 1: the name of that band was Goodbye Mr Mackenzie. Okay.
Speaker 1: We'll return to this conversation with Chirley Manson of Garbage
Speaker 1: in a moment. You're listening to the Bob Left Sets
Speaker 1: podcast recorded at the tune in Studios in Venice, California.
Speaker 1: Each week I interview a new guest and dive into
Speaker 1: their lives and careers. If you enjoy listening to the podcast, subscribe,
Speaker 1: rate and review the show. Please also check out some
Speaker 1: of the earlier episodes, like my conversation with Nancy Wilson
Speaker 1: of the band Hard and famous gate boarder Tony Hawk.
Speaker 1: You can hear them all on tune in the Apple
Speaker 1: podcast or your podcast player of choice. And now more
Speaker 1: with Shirley Manson. So when you're in Goodbye, Mr mackenzie,
Speaker 1: are you for five years you still working in the shop?
Speaker 1: You are correct? Okay? At what point when you stopped
Speaker 1: working in the shop? Are you living off the money
Speaker 1: from the band? Or are you have to get another
Speaker 1: day job? I'm living off my day job, okay, but
Speaker 1: after the after working in the shop, excuse me, then
Speaker 1: I barely existed off money from the band, barely okay.
Speaker 1: Still living at your parents? Are still living at my parents?
Speaker 1: You know, in America things have changed. But in my era,
Speaker 1: once you got out of high school, parents said you
Speaker 1: gotta get out of the house, and of course you
Speaker 1: could afford to live somewhere on minimum wage. Now it's
Speaker 1: just the opposite. Can't afford to living where I'm miimum
Speaker 1: wage and people want their kids, and people do move back.
Speaker 1: So what did your parents think, You're getting older and older,
Speaker 1: you still living in their house. My mom wanted me
Speaker 1: so there was It was never even discussed, really so
Speaker 1: she did made all your meals, clean your clothes. Not
Speaker 1: at that point. I mean I was an adult by
Speaker 1: that point, but no, she she wanted her children amongst
Speaker 1: her for as long as she could possibly have them,
Speaker 1: and my dad didn't dare question that. Okay, so you're
Speaker 1: in the band for ten years. That's a long period
Speaker 1: of time and it takes a long time to make it.
Speaker 1: But at that time, do you have a fantasy of
Speaker 1: this being a gig in stardom or you just doing it.
Speaker 1: I'm doing it because I really loved it. I mean,
Speaker 1: in retrospect, I really did love it, and I wasn't
Speaker 1: looking to be rich. I knew it sort of deep down.
Speaker 1: I was like, we're never going to be rich, We're
Speaker 1: never going to be hugely successful. But I really love
Speaker 1: doing what I get to do. And we traveled a lot,
Speaker 1: so it was the first time I got to go
Speaker 1: to mainland Europe, go to France, go to Germany, go
Speaker 1: to Holland. I mean, I went all over the place
Speaker 1: with this band, So that was exciting to me. And
Speaker 1: it was enough that of course begs the question, which
Speaker 1: you maybe get into later. You're you're touring at a
Speaker 1: relatively low level, and what's it like being a woman
Speaker 1: on the road. You know. I didn't really think about
Speaker 1: it too much because in my very first band it
Speaker 1: was very iglitarian and the Scots in general are pretty like,
Speaker 1: even in a funny way, in a different way, that
Speaker 1: men and women are much more sort of equal in
Speaker 1: Scottish society in some ways, and I'm not entirely sure why,
Speaker 1: and this is the first time that's ever come out
Speaker 1: of my mouth. I'm just sort of speaking of but
Speaker 1: it never was an issue. Sexism was never, in my
Speaker 1: mind an issue. However, looking back on it too, I
Speaker 1: wasn't one of the writers in the band. It was
Speaker 1: two male members who kept all the writing to themselves
Speaker 1: and never invited anybody else into the writing dynamics. So
Speaker 1: they were the power seat. And I just didn't care
Speaker 1: about money back then, and I didn't care about power
Speaker 1: back then, or I didn't even speak in those terms.
Speaker 1: I just was having fun and that was enough really,
Speaker 1: so there were no ultimate goals down the road. None.
Speaker 1: It's kind of funny that a loser, I'm telling you
Speaker 1: fascinating thing because there's a book called You Just Don't Understand,
Speaker 1: and it sounds like a self help book written by
Speaker 1: this PhD. Deborah Tannin, who studies language, and she says,
Speaker 1: men are all about the pecking order, okay, and I'm
Speaker 1: trying to rise to the top where women are about
Speaker 1: the community. Like if a guy loses his job, he
Speaker 1: loses his identity where she would say a woman. And
Speaker 1: of course there exceptions to all this. Well, this is
Speaker 1: where I am now, this is where I'll be tomorrow,
Speaker 1: and I'm just enjoying what I'm doing now. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean again, like you say, there's there's they're sweeping generalizations
Speaker 1: right in this exceptions to all the rules. But in
Speaker 1: this case, yeah, I think I had been taught from
Speaker 1: a very early age basically just to be in the
Speaker 1: clan system, and whatever your seat was in that system
Speaker 1: was your seat. I just accepted my seat. Now that's
Speaker 1: changed as I've gotten older, I start to fight from
Speaker 1: my own seat and the seat that I won't but
Speaker 1: back then I was very sort of submissive. I guess.
Speaker 1: So the band goes on for ten years, what to
Speaker 1: what degree is it successful by worldwide standers? Well, we
Speaker 1: got signed by a large label. We got signed by
Speaker 1: My Records and Capitol Records, and we started bounced between
Speaker 1: those two labels, and we got a big advance, but
Speaker 1: that all went to the writing partners. I didn't see
Speaker 1: any of that. But we did get a big advance,
Speaker 1: and there was a great buzz on the band, and
Speaker 1: we charted very briefly, um, which was enough to sustain
Speaker 1: us to keep trying and trying and trying for years.
Speaker 1: How many records did you make in that under that moniker? Well,
Speaker 1: I think I did four, but after you left they
Speaker 1: did more. They did another two. I think. Okay, so
Speaker 1: you did those four and then you made a solo
Speaker 1: record under not your own name, correct, Although the soul
Speaker 1: so called solo record was really just a recalibration of
Speaker 1: Goodbye Mr. Mackenzie, which was my first band. I e
Speaker 1: the lead singer of Goodby Ms Mackenzie stepped back and
Speaker 1: I took over lead vocals because we had gone to
Speaker 1: Berlin to make a record. Are Lynn. That's funny. I
Speaker 1: know what you're talking about, but my brain had a percolate. Person, sorry,
Speaker 1: excuse me. Why Berlin? What is this? I don't know
Speaker 1: what year this was? What is it with the UK?
Speaker 1: I mean, you know acton Baby? You two went to
Speaker 1: uh Berlin, to Berlin? Why Berlin? Well, David Boye went
Speaker 1: to Berlin, and therefore everybody else wanted to go there.
Speaker 1: And interestingly enough, Acting Baby was being recorded in hans
Speaker 1: of studios at the same time that we were there,
Speaker 1: and so we were all there when the wall came down,
Speaker 1: and it was you were literally there when the wall
Speaker 1: we were literally was that like crazy? Literally? Somebody just
Speaker 1: called us something, went where are you right now? We're like,
Speaker 1: we're in the studio. It's like you need to get
Speaker 1: to the wall. They're pulling it down right now. It
Speaker 1: was that quick. I have a piece of the wall
Speaker 1: in my home in Scotland. And so was there any
Speaker 1: once you went out to the wall? Was there any fear? No?
Speaker 1: Was it just excitement? Everybody was really excited and it
Speaker 1: was crazy. Well, when I went to Berlin, as you say,
Speaker 1: and you're there in the wall that still remains on
Speaker 1: one side as a bunker on the west side is
Speaker 1: where you know, underground where Hitler was. On the other side,
Speaker 1: you see where they're the buildings where they wouldn't let
Speaker 1: people live because they were afraid. At first, they were
Speaker 1: using ropes to go over the wall. I mean, you
Speaker 1: get this really heavy feeling. It's really scary. I mean
Speaker 1: when I first went to Berlin, you know, Checkpoint Charlie
Speaker 1: was still operating and we still had to cross through
Speaker 1: it to get to East Berlin, you know, and East
Speaker 1: Berlin had nothing. You know, you go to eat Berlin
Speaker 1: now and it's like any affluent part of Europe, but
Speaker 1: back then it was. It was grim and there wasn't
Speaker 1: much there and people were really struggling. So when you
Speaker 1: in Berlin record you would go to East Berlin and
Speaker 1: with just to see what's going on. And we went
Speaker 1: there to see what's going on there, and because it
Speaker 1: was an incredibly hip kind of scene there, you know,
Speaker 1: because it was forbidden and anything bidden people won't right,
Speaker 1: So you make the record in Berlin because the lead
Speaker 1: singer was whacked or burned out or kicked out, not
Speaker 1: none the above. Good by Ms. Mackenzie went to Hansa
Speaker 1: to to record a record and we just got lost.
Speaker 1: Been a frenzy of partying, and we spent our entire
Speaker 1: recording advance on having fun. And then when we came
Speaker 1: back we had nothing to show for it. We hadn't
Speaker 1: we had no finished music or anything. I can't remember
Speaker 1: a good idea. So you blow all the money. Record
Speaker 1: company stone like that. They hated that, so they dropped
Speaker 1: the band, but they held up like the head of
Speaker 1: the record label said, I love you. I think you're amazing,
Speaker 1: and you could do something on your own call me
Speaker 1: when you get your ship together. Okay, but you were
Speaker 1: not the lead vocalist. A good bye, Mr mackenzie. So
Speaker 1: why did this person? It was just your overall charisma
Speaker 1: that he felt. I don't know, I've never stopped to
Speaker 1: think about it other than he liked me. You know,
Speaker 1: he was a really amazing person at say, his name
Speaker 1: is Gary car First, and he was well, I know
Speaker 1: Gary unfortunately is not with us, unfortunately, but he was.
Speaker 1: Uh he had his own label, radio Active for m
Speaker 1: c A. And he was a big manager of the
Speaker 1: Talking Heads and exactly, but he was in New York.
Speaker 1: How did he find you in London? Oh? God? We
Speaker 1: had opened Obama's McKenzie had opened for for Debbie Harry's
Speaker 1: solo tour in the UK during the eighties, and he
Speaker 1: had met me there and just liked me. He's like,
Speaker 1: you're funny, You've got charisma, your star. He kept on,
Speaker 1: so he was always like, you're a star, so and
Speaker 1: and he just as a result, he then fell in
Speaker 1: love with Obamais ckenzie signed Obamas mackenzie and then when
Speaker 1: he dropped Obamas Ckenzie, he was like, I want you
Speaker 1: let me know what you're gonna do. Okay, So how
Speaker 1: long did you go home before you say I'm ready
Speaker 1: to call Gary again? I can't remember. I do know
Speaker 1: that eventually everyone in the band, having been dropped, realized
Speaker 1: this was our only only solution, which was and and
Speaker 1: there's no thought in your brain, Hey, this wasn't work.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna leave the band behind. No, because I wasn't
Speaker 1: fit for anything. I didn't I didn't have any calls.
Speaker 1: But I mean, you didn't say, okay, this Gary thinks
Speaker 1: I'm a star. I'm gonna make a deal and leave
Speaker 1: the rest of the band members behind. No, that's not
Speaker 1: my style. I'm quite loyal, okay, And I didn't want
Speaker 1: to leave my band in the shitter. Okay, but all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, do you become the singer? I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's so smudgy now and trying to
Speaker 1: remember our hazy memories. But I think just the whole
Speaker 1: band were like, let's put Shirley and lead vocals and
Speaker 1: we'll recalibrate and we'll survive as a different entity. And
Speaker 1: we all thought in practice we could do that. As
Speaker 1: it turns out, the male members of the band couldn't
Speaker 1: really hack the fact that I became the sort of
Speaker 1: focal point of the band, and and all the business
Speaker 1: started like Gary would drawn all business through me, having
Speaker 1: been burned by good Bram's, Mackenzie and Berlin. He was like,
Speaker 1: you're now in charge, You're responsible. I will only communicate
Speaker 1: with you. So that's kind of how it how it happened.
Speaker 1: And I made a record with Chris Franz and Tina
Speaker 1: Weymouth of the Talking Heads because they were Gary's clients.
Speaker 1: And okay, a little bit slower you made her. I
Speaker 1: thought you made a record with the remnants of Goodbye.
Speaker 1: I did, but Chris and Tina were producing Chris now
Speaker 1: lives in my hometown. I hear from an irregular basis,
Speaker 1: And yes, so fear Field, Connecticut. So how how do
Speaker 1: you are you? Were you happy with what transpired when
Speaker 1: those sessions? I was freaked out. But it was such
Speaker 1: an honor for me to work with Christentina. I mean,
Speaker 1: I can't even put that into words. It was so
Speaker 1: extraordinary for me, and I was I was proud of
Speaker 1: what we've accomplished, you know. And uh, at that point
Speaker 1: you were the singer, were you also the writer? Nope?
Speaker 1: And so the two guys from Goodbye also continue to
Speaker 1: write the songs. They continued to write the songs. Like
Speaker 1: I said, it was just a recalibration of good by
Speaker 1: Mr Mackenzie. Just in order to survive, we had me
Speaker 1: do the the take over the vocals, but the writing
Speaker 1: partnership remained the same. And the record comes out and
Speaker 1: then one and then we go on tour with Vic
Speaker 1: Chestna and Life Chestnut. That's quite a bill. That's amazing
Speaker 1: bill actually, and I fell in love with Vic and
Speaker 1: he fell in love with me, and we had a
Speaker 1: love fest. But well, Vic chest And it was in
Speaker 1: a wheel chair, he was he was apparently. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: I have to ask that you said we had a
Speaker 1: love fest. Was this a physical love fest? No, just admiration? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: we just got we hit it off, you know, admitted
Speaker 1: suicide very strange. Yeah, okay, So you go on tour
Speaker 1: that that bill. We go on tour, and um, the
Speaker 1: band is sort of falling apart already because the boys
Speaker 1: are just are not happy with the Paris structure at
Speaker 1: this point, which I totally understand. Why should you understand, Well,
Speaker 1: I don't know, but I did, And but I was
Speaker 1: having fun. You know, I was going on to in
Speaker 1: America the first time. I've never been to American shore.
Speaker 1: So to like travel all over America in a van
Speaker 1: was one of the most extraordinary experiences of my life.
Speaker 1: You know, it's across the desert in a van. Well,
Speaker 1: the funny things. I grew up in the seventies, that
Speaker 1: was the dream to drive across country, and now everybody flies.
Speaker 1: People don't even do that, which is sad because it
Speaker 1: really is an extraordinary way to So we did that,
Speaker 1: and then Rule in Stone picked up on us and
Speaker 1: sort of lauded us as like what one to watch
Speaker 1: And that was the final straw for my band. They
Speaker 1: were like, we're going home. We can't hack this anymore,
Speaker 1: And I kid you not. That very day I had
Speaker 1: gotten a phone call from my future band saying, would
Speaker 1: you be interested in meeting up with Butch vig Um
Speaker 1: about singing on a possibly singing on one of like
Speaker 1: a project that he's working on. Literally the same day
Speaker 1: the bands as were calling it quits. Yes, okay, are
Speaker 1: you still friends with the band members of Goodbye Mr Mackenzie? Now?
Speaker 1: I am, yeah, but we have it was it was
Speaker 1: very difficult. It became very complex, and it was difficult
Speaker 1: for Martin and the lead singer in particular, to like,
Speaker 1: I think process what had happened not only to him
Speaker 1: but to me too. But yeah, and now we're friends,
Speaker 1: and what do they do? There is still in a
Speaker 1: band that are called the Filthy Tongues. They're actually really
Speaker 1: great and they can make a living being the Filthy Tongues.
Speaker 1: I don't know if they make a living, but there
Speaker 1: are song writers. They also worked with Um the Skids.
Speaker 1: They just helped co write that last Skids record, the
Speaker 1: fourth anniversary of The Skids, Um Richard Jobson's band. And
Speaker 1: you know they do okay, and they're they're they're there.
Speaker 1: I'm proud of them but they were resentful for a
Speaker 1: long Yeah, just like ten or twenty years worth. Okay,
Speaker 1: So you get this call from Butch Vig and you think, what, Well,
Speaker 1: now you already know you're being as a band into you,
Speaker 1: so you're up for anything. Your loyalty has been canned. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I didn't have to question my own loyalty, thank god,
Speaker 1: because that would have been very difficult because I've already
Speaker 1: met Butoch and the Garbage in London for a quick
Speaker 1: meeting where they had wanted, you know, so convoluted a story.
Speaker 1: But I had met them in London a few months
Speaker 1: to going on tour in America, and we had liked
Speaker 1: each other and that and then the day that my
Speaker 1: band quit was the day Duke Errickson called me. I
Speaker 1: was in Astbury Park in a hotel room, crying and
Speaker 1: I get the phone call from Duke Karrickson saying, Hey,
Speaker 1: are you interested in coming up for an addition? I
Speaker 1: was like, as a matter of fact, yes I am. Okay,
Speaker 1: But when you meet them in London, is it just
Speaker 1: social or are they checking you out? There? Checking me out?
Speaker 1: And did you know that at that time? Okay? But
Speaker 1: I the way they had approached me was would you
Speaker 1: send one song on Booch BIG's project. I was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: of course I didn't feel that question my loyalty or
Speaker 1: anything like that. Okay, so you go for the audition
Speaker 1: and you don't have anything else going on, nothing, so
Speaker 1: you must have been pretty anxious. I was very anxious.
Speaker 1: I was so anxious that I completely messed up the addition.
Speaker 1: It was a disaster. But then we all went out
Speaker 1: to drink afterwards, and of course we got on like
Speaker 1: a house on fire and we had such a laugh
Speaker 1: that I went home to Scotland having had a disastrous edition,
Speaker 1: and something about I guess the way we had all
Speaker 1: gotten along sort of pushed us to have a second edition.
Speaker 1: And okay, so did they agreed the your audition sucked
Speaker 1: to they did? What was bad about it? Have you
Speaker 1: ever seen shreds? Do you know what I mean by shreds? Okay? Well,
Speaker 1: shreds is a thing that you can go on YouTube
Speaker 1: and like, let's say it's Radiohead singing one of their
Speaker 1: fame of songs. Somebody like you. You watch a video
Speaker 1: radio Head singing one of the most famous songs, but
Speaker 1: then they've re recorded a different audio over the top
Speaker 1: of it. And it's like that, Well that's what my
Speaker 1: audition was like. It was like shreds. So you couldn't
Speaker 1: I wasn't even articulating any words because I was so
Speaker 1: nervous and so embarrassed that it was just awful. How
Speaker 1: long was it between the first and second auditions, I
Speaker 1: don't know, maybe three months, a long time. And during
Speaker 1: that period you got nothing. I got nothing. Okay, so
Speaker 1: you go back in the second audition it is okay,
Speaker 1: Now these are guys you know, butch Vig had a
Speaker 1: huge studio career. But did you believe this was an opportunity?
Speaker 1: But did any It ended up becoming an instant success,
Speaker 1: But did you have any idea that's what would happen? No, none, whatsoever.
Speaker 1: In fact, I was convinced it was going to burn
Speaker 1: badly because I was like, nobody wants to hear from
Speaker 1: a producer, nobody ever has, So why will this work?
Speaker 1: Especially with me and that's the lead singer. It's going
Speaker 1: to be a disaster. I was so wrong. Stare right there.
Speaker 1: We'll be back with more. Shirley Manson of the band
Speaker 1: Garbage right here on the Bob Left Sense podcast. Hi,
Speaker 1: this is Bob Left Sense my guest come to the
Speaker 1: tune In studios in Venice, California to have these conversations
Speaker 1: with me. And if you ever want to see what
Speaker 1: they look like or where we take the show, check
Speaker 1: out the photos and videos search at tune In on Twitter,
Speaker 1: Facebook and Instagram. Let's dive right back in with my guest,
Speaker 1: Shirley Manson of the band Garbage. So you have the
Speaker 1: audition three months later, how long after that do you
Speaker 1: go in the studio? No idea, no idea, No, I'm useless,
Speaker 1: I'm a terrible witness. Okay, how about the record comes
Speaker 1: out on Almo in America. Why is that? Well, we'd
Speaker 1: signed to the young management, that to Kato Boots at
Speaker 1: the time. We're very smart and they were young, go
Speaker 1: getting women who had an idea. So the Butcher's manager
Speaker 1: were women, young women, that's certainly you know. And were
Speaker 1: they also managers of Garbage? Yes, okay, that's my default. Okay,
Speaker 1: but that's that's certainly out of the ordinary, especially notable
Speaker 1: on today's ME two world. Correct. And then they struck
Speaker 1: two deals, one in the UK for the rest of
Speaker 1: the world and one for North America. And they were
Speaker 1: both independent record labels. And that was what we were
Speaker 1: very keen on pursuing because what was the record label
Speaker 1: in the UK? Mushroom Records were Australian based. And so
Speaker 1: you're making the the record which takes how long? Oh god,
Speaker 1: about eighteen months with a break for Boot to make
Speaker 1: a Soul Asylum record of all things? Is it? It's
Speaker 1: that slow? Because well, I think there was a lot
Speaker 1: of feet involved. Booch had a lot to lose, and
Speaker 1: so he was very, very meticulous, and I would say
Speaker 1: all of all of us were fearful of taking the
Speaker 1: wrong step. We knew this was a great opportunity, I think,
Speaker 1: and so just took a ridiculously long time. And when
Speaker 1: the record is and you're living where when that time,
Speaker 1: I'm living in a weird hotel, Okay, and the record
Speaker 1: is done. Now do you think we have something? This
Speaker 1: is gonna work? Not really, But it's a hit. From
Speaker 1: Los Angeles perspective, it is literally immediately a hit. And
Speaker 1: the only other thing I could think like this from
Speaker 1: a couple of years later was Lanti's more a set,
Speaker 1: also immediately a hit. And was that your sensation? Yes?
Speaker 1: And no, I mean we were aware that it was
Speaker 1: taking off in a major way really fast. But there
Speaker 1: were always artists that were doing so much better than
Speaker 1: us on our record labels because they were small, really
Speaker 1: relied on us to make money for them. We became
Speaker 1: this sort of like little machine that they sent out
Speaker 1: into the world to fund all their other artists who
Speaker 1: weren't selling. And so they were constantly telling us, you know,
Speaker 1: no doubt or selling more records than you, Atlantis more
Speaker 1: set is selling more than you. You know, We's are
Speaker 1: selling more than you. You're losing. It was constantly telling
Speaker 1: us how much we were losing. So as frustrating and
Speaker 1: awful as that process was, I'm actually quite grateful for
Speaker 1: it because it made us really like be humble. We
Speaker 1: were forced to be humble. Okay, but it's the MTV era.
Speaker 1: You're all over television, you have a unique look. You
Speaker 1: probably can't go anywhere without being recognized almost immediately. There
Speaker 1: was a lot of pressure. Okay, but that also made
Speaker 1: must you know, after years of relative obscurity, must have
Speaker 1: made you feel very good on the inside. No, it
Speaker 1: made me feel rotten on the inside. Why. I don't
Speaker 1: know why. I mean, I I didn't have a lot
Speaker 1: of self esteem to begin with, and and having attention
Speaker 1: made me feel really self conscious, and I felt the
Speaker 1: whole time I was being judged and that I was
Speaker 1: failing to be a Gwen Stefani or be an Atlantis.
Speaker 1: More set, I was just me, surely, Anne, you know,
Speaker 1: I was just my own, small, little Scottish self. That's
Speaker 1: how I viewed it at the time. I mean that changed, obviously,
Speaker 1: you know, my confidence grew and I got better at
Speaker 1: what I did as an artist. But right at the beginning,
Speaker 1: I just felt rotten. And so ultimately you tour and
Speaker 1: there's and garbage continues. So what can you say about
Speaker 1: that experience of the late nineties and early twenty one century.
Speaker 1: I could sit here for hours and hours and hours
Speaker 1: and talk about it. I mean, it was extraordinary. It
Speaker 1: was an extraordinary time where alternative music ruled the roost
Speaker 1: and that has never happened before. It's certainly never happened since.
Speaker 1: So I was. I am an alternative music lover. I'm
Speaker 1: not particularly turned on by pop or conformity of any sort.
Speaker 1: Like I love music that's sort of a little off kilter,
Speaker 1: you know, And that's just been my personal taste since
Speaker 1: I was young. And so it was a moment where
Speaker 1: we were enjoying this insane success, global success as where
Speaker 1: a lot of bands that I loved and joid and
Speaker 1: we were a community in some ways. You know, we
Speaker 1: all played these massive summer festivals and we all got
Speaker 1: to know one another. We played winter you know, on
Speaker 1: radio festivals all together, and so there was a lot
Speaker 1: of camaraderie, and so it was a very exciting time
Speaker 1: for nonconforming alternative artists. And what were the other artists?
Speaker 1: You became friends with everybody, you know, whether it was Beck,
Speaker 1: whether it was you know, food Fighters, whether it was
Speaker 1: No Doubt, whether it was Fiona Apple. I mean that
Speaker 1: the list was, you know, and we we all everyone
Speaker 1: was friendly to one another, as Missy Elliott, I mean,
Speaker 1: it was it was really wonderful. So why do you
Speaker 1: think that scene was eclipsed by hip hop and pop?
Speaker 1: That's a good question. I mean, I know why it
Speaker 1: became eclipsed by pop because I think that I think
Speaker 1: the times became very conservative. I think hip hop really
Speaker 1: exploded because it was a new it was still new.
Speaker 1: I mean, I've been around for twenty years, but it
Speaker 1: really was one of the the most courageous and creative
Speaker 1: in terms of modern production. You know, they really they
Speaker 1: sort of messed around with sounds and beats that we
Speaker 1: hadn't heard before, and it was the sound of the street,
Speaker 1: was the sound of rebellion. So hip hop, I think
Speaker 1: became the most authentic version of rebellion and questioning of
Speaker 1: authority and and and our society. Anyway, But is there
Speaker 1: any hope for so called alternative music? There's always hope,
Speaker 1: of course. Okay, Well they're always hope. It's blind, you know,
Speaker 1: blind optimism. Now I don't think that is blind optimism,
Speaker 1: and I think it's actually sensible and pragmatic because I
Speaker 1: think history continues to repeat itself. Well, the irony is
Speaker 1: in the century really hasn't If you go back prior
Speaker 1: to the napstre era, meaning last century, every two or
Speaker 1: three years there was a whole new sound. Okay, we
Speaker 1: had the hair bands which were clipped by seattle, which
Speaker 1: were eclipped by eclips by hip pop. It was then
Speaker 1: then it pop came after that. Now for the twenty
Speaker 1: one century, we've had pop up pop and hip hop.
Speaker 1: Hip hop happens to be dominant now, but it's been
Speaker 1: almost twenty years. No, it's true, But I mean, one
Speaker 1: could say though that hip hop has been the dominant
Speaker 1: sound of the last twenty years, and it's really progressive
Speaker 1: and really exciting, and really I do. I mean it's not. Again,
Speaker 1: it's not my preferred choice. But there's always artists that
Speaker 1: come along that catch my ear and excite me. Whether
Speaker 1: it's Drake, whether it's Logic or whether you know, there's
Speaker 1: always someone um that I'm excited by. Okay, But you're
Speaker 1: making a point about, you know, why alternative music has
Speaker 1: been eclipsed by hip hop and what the future of
Speaker 1: alternative music might be. I don't know. I mean, if
Speaker 1: I had the answer to that, I would be you know,
Speaker 1: I would be investing in it. Well, you are investing here,
Speaker 1: you're still making it. I'm invested in it. Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 1: I mean it's very different it used to be. And
Speaker 1: under the old paradigm, you made the record, okay, then
Speaker 1: your label went to video sources, MTV, whatever, went to radio.
Speaker 1: They may or may not play it. They may or
Speaker 1: may not be a reaction. But you were either on
Speaker 1: the train or you're off the train. You said, hey,
Speaker 1: this worked or it doesn't work. Today, a band of
Speaker 1: the Statue of Garbage could put out a record, and
Speaker 1: it can have almost zero cultural impact other than amongst
Speaker 1: its fans. What is that like being the maker of
Speaker 1: that music? You know, it's interesting because obviously as an
Speaker 1: artist who you know, I've had to wrestle with that.
Speaker 1: That's not an easy pill to swallow. It's difficult and upsetting.
Speaker 1: I'd be a liar if I said otherwise. But I've
Speaker 1: also managed to process, and I'm very grateful for this,
Speaker 1: as has my bands. By the way, is get back
Speaker 1: into what I call a beginner's headspace, a sort of
Speaker 1: a place where you don't expect anything, And we've all
Speaker 1: been able to somehow get back to that space where
Speaker 1: we were before any of the success. So we now
Speaker 1: make music solely because we love each other. We have
Speaker 1: a good creative working relationship. We enjoy making music and
Speaker 1: we enjoy touring it, and our ambitions are not much
Speaker 1: bigger than that. And as a result, we've been able
Speaker 1: to still find joy in the process of doing what
Speaker 1: we do. And we've been very lucky in that we've
Speaker 1: built upon that slowly and we have a very loyal
Speaker 1: fan base. And yeah, we're still able to be in
Speaker 1: the music scene. You know, Okay, but there's a lot
Speaker 1: these especially now more than ever. It's a business, and
Speaker 1: when you go on the road, you have to feed
Speaker 1: everybody in the crew. Everybody in the band has to
Speaker 1: be in the black at the end of the day.
Speaker 1: There's an agent, there's a manager, so there's a pressure
Speaker 1: to sell as many tickets as part possible. You must
Speaker 1: feel that pressure, right, So then it becomes an issue.
Speaker 1: You go out, you say, well, they want to hear
Speaker 1: the hits. How much new music do you play. It's
Speaker 1: one thing to be in the studio saying, hey, we're
Speaker 1: gonna do whatever we want to do. What pressure do
Speaker 1: you feel on stage and how do you deal with that?
Speaker 1: I don't feel any pressure on stage at all. I
Speaker 1: feel comfortable enough to to own our expression when we're
Speaker 1: on stage, and if people don't like that, then so
Speaker 1: be it. That's not for me to say, but I
Speaker 1: feel in general at this point, anyone who's coming to
Speaker 1: a garbage shoe is willing to go on that ride
Speaker 1: with us. They're not going to sit there and go, well,
Speaker 1: you didn't play stupid girl, you didn't play only happy
Speaker 1: when it rains. Everybody seems to be content to come
Speaker 1: with us in whatever. So if you have new music
Speaker 1: and you go on the road. How much of the
Speaker 1: new album will you play the last record that we released,
Speaker 1: We played half of it, Okay, And you're on stage
Speaker 1: and you're watching Do you visit of lea see people
Speaker 1: get up and go to the bathroom? Of course, I
Speaker 1: mean we were on We were on tour last year
Speaker 1: and we it was summertime. You know, you're playing these
Speaker 1: summer festivals. And I looked out and there was a
Speaker 1: man on a sun lounges. You're fast asleep throughout our
Speaker 1: entire set. So what you're on stage, what goes through
Speaker 1: your mind or through your heart? Well, when I was younger,
Speaker 1: that would have devastated me. Now I find it funny,
Speaker 1: and I realized, I'm like, I am here to do
Speaker 1: a job and connect with someone. It doesn't have to
Speaker 1: be everyone. You know, I'm not failing if I don't
Speaker 1: touch every heart in this audience. But my job is
Speaker 1: to get out there and tell my truth and hope
Speaker 1: that somehow I connect with one or more people. And
Speaker 1: that's all I think about. I don't worry about being famous,
Speaker 1: I don't worry about being important. I don't worry about
Speaker 1: being a start. I really do not give a ship,
Speaker 1: I'd want to be a working musician because that's what
Speaker 1: I value. I value working musicians more than anything in
Speaker 1: the world. That's my jam. Two Things one two thousand
Speaker 1: five definitely and Brian Adams went on a tour where
Speaker 1: they played ballparks and they would alternate headlining, and I
Speaker 1: happen to see them in a there were minor league
Speaker 1: ballparks in Minnesota, and at that time, the opening act
Speaker 1: on that date was Brian Adams. He had had a
Speaker 1: set list and he's playing, but also he could bring
Speaker 1: children in for free whatever, and he was having this
Speaker 1: experience of the audience not being with him, and he literally,
Speaker 1: I was standing on stage literally, you know, looked at
Speaker 1: the band, literally took out the set list and ripped
Speaker 1: it in half and slowly brought the audience into the
Speaker 1: palm of this hand and worked them into a frenzy.
Speaker 1: It was a magical thing, you know, something that only
Speaker 1: someone was very experienced doing it. Do you ever feel
Speaker 1: challenged in that way that, Okay, I'm gonna win him
Speaker 1: over all the time I go out feeling like it's
Speaker 1: like we are coming from a place of lack. We
Speaker 1: are going to try and change in mind. I always
Speaker 1: feel like that. Yeah, okay, so now how often does
Speaker 1: garbage works? It's that's doesn't even apply to us because
Speaker 1: we have such a bizarre set up. Well, the reason
Speaker 1: I'm asking what do you do with the rest of
Speaker 1: your time? That's a good question. I have absolutely no idea.
Speaker 1: I set a home feeling like of work tiger. Okay,
Speaker 1: you're an out of work tiger. Are you the type
Speaker 1: pacing the cage saying, hey, I want my band members
Speaker 1: to record or go on the road or okay, but
Speaker 1: how about independent things that are fulfilling, whether it be music,
Speaker 1: aren't anything? Everything is fulfilling to me. At this point,
Speaker 1: I feel it's up to me to find joy in
Speaker 1: my life. It's not nobody else is going to come
Speaker 1: and serve it to me. You know. But you're painting
Speaker 1: a picture of you're very happy when you're working, okay,
Speaker 1: and when you're not working, you're frustrated. You would like
Speaker 1: to be working with the band. I am frustrated, but
Speaker 1: I think life isn't that simple, you know. Human beings
Speaker 1: are complex. So yeah, I can be frustrated and also
Speaker 1: go out to an art gality and see something that
Speaker 1: will blow my mind and make me feel excited, and
Speaker 1: I have like all these ideas and it excites me
Speaker 1: and I feel joyful, and and then I'll come home
Speaker 1: and fall into a slump again. I mean, I'm cute,
Speaker 1: like most human beings are. Okay, but okay, this is
Speaker 1: another thing I've noticed, because you know, when I'm right,
Speaker 1: I'm writing in the house, and a lot of times
Speaker 1: I'll be in a bad mood and you literally walk
Speaker 1: out the front door in your mood changes. Yes, it's
Speaker 1: just astounding. You just have to frost the threshold. But
Speaker 1: assuming it's just you're not on the road. An average day,
Speaker 1: you wake up when seven is Oh, so you're living
Speaker 1: regular human being that me. I'm up late. I'm I'm
Speaker 1: more creative at night. I have a dog and the
Speaker 1: dog has to get out. I'm not a dog person.
Speaker 1: I'm in service to my dog and the dog. You
Speaker 1: have to get up at seven, seventh thirty, you know,
Speaker 1: And are you the type person who will go out
Speaker 1: to breakfast with friends or you are not going to
Speaker 1: breakfast with friends? Okay, but do you do it? Yes?
Speaker 1: Of course, So you're not You're You're a people person.
Speaker 1: You're not a loner. I am very much a people person.
Speaker 1: I love people and I'm fascinated by them, but I'm
Speaker 1: also a missanthrope. So again, here you've got this duality
Speaker 1: that exists in most human beings, like I am really
Speaker 1: fascinated and genuinely interested in anyone I meet, and I'm
Speaker 1: open to engaging with them. Okay, you can meet them once.
Speaker 1: Do you want to see them again? It depends how
Speaker 1: great they are, right exactly, or do you find I
Speaker 1: have no interest in seeing them. There are a lot
Speaker 1: of people I find. You know, everybody's got a fascinating story.
Speaker 1: You can hear it once, but there are other people.
Speaker 1: Every time you hang with them, they tell the same story.
Speaker 1: And it's like, you know, I have no I have.
Speaker 1: I bump him, and it's one thing. But I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna make plans with them. No, of course not. I
Speaker 1: mean that's how you select the people in your life. No,
Speaker 1: but it also makes me feel I mean, uh, I
Speaker 1: don't view myself as you know, the average person. I
Speaker 1: don't know what you can even say this. Maybe it's
Speaker 1: out a date. Average person is getting up in the
Speaker 1: morning and going to a job. They're seeing people all
Speaker 1: the time at the job. It is wearing them out
Speaker 1: and they come home and they want to relax. They
Speaker 1: maybe have a drink, have a smoke, watch TV, and
Speaker 1: get up and do it again. And on the weekends
Speaker 1: they'll go out to dinner, We'll go out to a show.
Speaker 1: They'll cut loose. Okay, where this someone once made a
Speaker 1: great line? You know, the people who party hardest on
Speaker 1: these entrance are not the music business people because these
Speaker 1: other people it's one time of years. You got a Vegas.
Speaker 1: These people out of control. We're in the music you
Speaker 1: can you can party every night, So why shouldn't be
Speaker 1: out of control tonight? So my question is are you
Speaker 1: since you don't have when you're not on the road,
Speaker 1: you're not recording? Uh are you in the house sort
Speaker 1: of bouncing off the walls? So how are you occupying
Speaker 1: your time? That's a good question. I mean, I walk
Speaker 1: my dog alt I go to galleries, I read a lot,
Speaker 1: I love going to movies, I love dinner with friends.
Speaker 1: I mean there's a million and one thing. So in
Speaker 1: the average, in the average week, how many times in
Speaker 1: a week would you go to breakfast with friends, go
Speaker 1: to dinner with friends? It's no idea. I'm trying, you know,
Speaker 1: trying to say it. You know, you sound very social,
Speaker 1: So therefore, when I hear that you about your frustration,
Speaker 1: I'm just trying to figure it out, you know. And
Speaker 1: you say you're a missing thrope? Are you the type
Speaker 1: of person who really you know, you go when you
Speaker 1: have a good time. But are you mostly alone or
Speaker 1: you're mostly hanging? I don't even know how to answer
Speaker 1: this question. This is amazing. I have absolutely no idea.
Speaker 1: This is so peculiar to me that I'm not sure
Speaker 1: to be honest. I mean, I'm both shy and I'm
Speaker 1: both gregarious. I both love people and I hate them.
Speaker 1: If I had my brothers, I'd spend my whole life
Speaker 1: with my dog. Okay. So if you're home alone, I'm
Speaker 1: you're a happy pig and ship. Okay. And you're married
Speaker 1: at this point, they've been married for eight years. What
Speaker 1: did your husband do for a living? He's a music producer,
Speaker 1: music producer. We could look this up online, so what
Speaker 1: what what does he actually do? Well? He also works
Speaker 1: with my bands, he's like our engineer, right, and he
Speaker 1: also produces bands on his own. So if he's producing
Speaker 1: bands on his own, is he tend to be in
Speaker 1: town with you? In Los Angeles or out of town.
Speaker 1: And if you go on the road, does he go
Speaker 1: with you on the road? Yes, and he does the
Speaker 1: sound on the road. So you're together. We're together. And
Speaker 1: how did you meet him? We hired him? You hired him?
Speaker 1: And how he was our guitar? Roadif how old is
Speaker 1: he relative to you? He's a year younger than me? Okay,
Speaker 1: so basically the same age. How long did it became
Speaker 1: a romance? Oh? Years and years and year, years and
Speaker 1: years and years. He loved me from the day that
Speaker 1: he met me, he said, In fact, he said that
Speaker 1: he loved me before he met me because he'd heard
Speaker 1: me sing. And he used to listen to a garbage
Speaker 1: c D every night to go to sleep. Milk would
Speaker 1: send him to sleep every night. This was before we met.
Speaker 1: Then we met, and I couldn't have been less interested
Speaker 1: in him. And but then over the years he became
Speaker 1: a really good friend. And then I started to notice
Speaker 1: that when he wasn't around, I didn't feel good. Really Yeah,
Speaker 1: but he was, you know, carrying a torch this whole
Speaker 1: and was devoted to me. Okay, So what what was
Speaker 1: the transition? What made it happen? I mean, I tell
Speaker 1: this story all the time, and people don't believe me,
Speaker 1: But this is how superficial and cheap I am. So
Speaker 1: my makeup artist at the time, unbeknownst to me, had
Speaker 1: shaved his head because he had terrible hair, like thinning,
Speaker 1: long rocker hair, and she shaved it off so he
Speaker 1: had a little buzz cut. And I came down. We
Speaker 1: were supporting I think Alanis Morisset, and we came down
Speaker 1: in a bus down the ramp towards the stadium, and
Speaker 1: there was a super hot guy standing by the side
Speaker 1: of the bus and I was like, he's hot. Oh ship,
Speaker 1: that's Billy Bush there and began the romance. Okay, and
Speaker 1: I actually married how long eight years? How long has
Speaker 1: the romance going on? M sixteen years? Maybe long time? Yeah?
Speaker 1: And now, uh, you were married once before I was.
Speaker 1: And what was that about. Well, it was about a
Speaker 1: gorgeous person who I still miss and love very much,
Speaker 1: but we were pulled apart by exchaneous circumstances. I started
Speaker 1: touring the world, and also I think I had rushed
Speaker 1: to his side because he was a paternal figure and
Speaker 1: I had been in a very destructive, sexually dangerous, abusive
Speaker 1: relationship until I met my first husband, so we kind
Speaker 1: of rescued you, Yes, he rescued And how did that end?
Speaker 1: It just ended it sadly in me becoming successful and
Speaker 1: going on tour and we've never seen each other, and
Speaker 1: then the relationship just kind of deteriorated. And am I great,
Speaker 1: you don't have any children? Right? Oh? God? No? Okay,
Speaker 1: so that's a conscious thought. Yes, you always knew that
Speaker 1: you were never gonna have children. No. I never knew
Speaker 1: that I wouldn't have children, But I never ached for them.
Speaker 1: Like women talk a lot about aching in their wombs,
Speaker 1: and I would always be like, kind of like a
Speaker 1: dude looking at them blankly, like what does that even mean?
Speaker 1: I don't even know where that is. I had no
Speaker 1: aching in my womb and no longing for a child. Really,
Speaker 1: how about your husband? None either? Well I felt the
Speaker 1: same way. I felt that I was living my own
Speaker 1: life and I didn't want to subjugate myself. But once
Speaker 1: I hit forty, I realized life was meaningless. And I
Speaker 1: saw my sisters with their kids whatever, and I understood
Speaker 1: it at that point in time. But it's very much
Speaker 1: a different life when you don't have kids. I'm not
Speaker 1: complaining but it's different. People say, oh, I'm turned onto
Speaker 1: this and that by kids. I'm not turned on. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, it doesn't happen to me. No, But I
Speaker 1: also don't believe one should live vicariously through your kids.
Speaker 1: I don't mean, like I couldn't agree more trying to say,
Speaker 1: especially when it comes to musical trends. They'll be in
Speaker 1: the car and the kid will say, hey, put this
Speaker 1: on the radio here something you would normally not listen to.
Speaker 1: My Yeah, I mean, there's billions of children in my life, thankfully,
Speaker 1: so it's not like I'm out of contact with any
Speaker 1: kids or any new music or whatever. But for me personally,
Speaker 1: I think my mother was so devoted to me as
Speaker 1: a mom, like she was an orphan like my mom
Speaker 1: was had a crazy story. She was like an orphan
Speaker 1: child of a governess and a butler in a stately
Speaker 1: home in Scotland, and the idea of her the mom
Speaker 1: having a child out of wedlock would have lost she
Speaker 1: would have lost her job and been you know, castigated.
Speaker 1: So they took the baby in a basket literally and
Speaker 1: dropped her off in an phonage and she was reared
Speaker 1: in the in the institution of you know, or orphanages.
Speaker 1: Until she was five years old. Family was really important
Speaker 1: to her and she dedicated herself slavishly. One would say
Speaker 1: to her children, and I think I just grew up thinking,
Speaker 1: no way am I doing that. That is not I'm
Speaker 1: not doing that. We're going to pause for a moment.
Speaker 1: We joined this conversation with truly mamson of the band Garbage.
Speaker 1: This is Bob left Sets. I love talking to people
Speaker 1: getting their stories, much like I do on this podcast.
Speaker 1: For tune in, I'll be talking to some of the
Speaker 1: most important people in the music and tech industries that
Speaker 1: my Music Media Summit in Santa Barbara the last week
Speaker 1: in of April. I'd love to have you joined the event.
Speaker 1: It's going to be a great way to connect in
Speaker 1: person with these high profile individuals learned how they made
Speaker 1: it in the future direction of their industries. Go to
Speaker 1: Music Media Summit dot com for tickets and more information.
Speaker 1: Let's continue the converse nation with the lead singer of
Speaker 1: the band Garbage, Shirley Manson. So for the last six
Speaker 1: months we've been living through this me too moment. First
Speaker 1: question would be, you know we talked about with your
Speaker 1: first band, but have you experienced any of this sexism
Speaker 1: or sexual harassment. Yeah, of course, every woman that you
Speaker 1: talk to will, unless she's incredibly privileged, you'll have a story. Now,
Speaker 1: on some level, you're very dynamic and very quick, but
Speaker 1: on some level, one level, some level, I'm gonna get
Speaker 1: to the other level. So on some level you're very
Speaker 1: dynamic and you're quick, okay, but you also tell stories
Speaker 1: of being shy and subservient. So where does this leave
Speaker 1: you in these situations? Well, that's a really good question.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's peculiar. I don't think anyone who hasn't
Speaker 1: been physically touched unwanted in an unwanted fashion really can
Speaker 1: understand why it's difficult sometimes to use your voice in
Speaker 1: that situation. Um I I consider myself a very dominant, aggressive,
Speaker 1: articulate person, and I've had my body touched and have
Speaker 1: frozen as recently as last year. Uh, when you were
Speaker 1: to the degree you're comfortable. What happened last year? I
Speaker 1: was at a radio festival and we were meeting competition
Speaker 1: winners and we had there was a long line of
Speaker 1: people that we were just standing in front of a
Speaker 1: backdrop and having our photographs taken, and some dude moves in,
Speaker 1: stands beside me, puts his hand on my breast. He's
Speaker 1: got his arm around me, and then puts his hand
Speaker 1: on my breast and I think, oh wow, he's he's
Speaker 1: so nervous and uncomfortable his hand on my breast. This
Speaker 1: is embarrassing, that's all right. And I tried to like shift,
Speaker 1: and he just kept on grabbing me. And then eventually
Speaker 1: I put my own hand on his hand and pushed
Speaker 1: his hand to try and get him off my breast,
Speaker 1: and he would not let go, And eventually I managed
Speaker 1: to push his hand down to my waist and we
Speaker 1: took the photograph and I was frozen like deer in
Speaker 1: the headlights, and he wandered off and I couldn't even
Speaker 1: look where he went, what direction he had gone, and
Speaker 1: I was just so my mind was so full of
Speaker 1: like wow, that dude just grab my tip in front
Speaker 1: of everybody. Now I'm not saying that's comparable to what
Speaker 1: a lot of women have experienced or some men, by
Speaker 1: the way, but it was unpleasant and I found it
Speaker 1: really upsetting. And I was angry at myself for not
Speaker 1: going dude and shouting, you know, calling him out, like
Speaker 1: what are you doing? But I didn't, and so it
Speaker 1: gave me some insight into the process that occurs for
Speaker 1: so many women in situations where they just freeze and
Speaker 1: they can't push back, they can't shout, they can't fight back,
Speaker 1: they can't say anything. It's mad. So let's just say,
Speaker 1: in the same thing would have happened this summer, do
Speaker 1: you think you would freeze again? I don't know, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't know. That's something I don't think men understand.
Speaker 1: You See, It's like when you're a woman your entire life,
Speaker 1: when you walk out the house, you're aware that you
Speaker 1: could be hurt in some way and then never have
Speaker 1: that experience, not really, unless that're warfare. You know, generally speaking,
Speaker 1: a man doesn't have to think about his physical safety.
Speaker 1: Women think about all the time, and it's something that
Speaker 1: men go bless them, just cannot quite connect to the
Speaker 1: idea of Like, you know, you're walking down the street,
Speaker 1: you're nervous. Is some somebody whistles out your says something
Speaker 1: sexual to you. It's intimidating, it's frightening because you don't
Speaker 1: know where it can lead. You know, I was married
Speaker 1: to someone who did not have them as a guy.
Speaker 1: We've all been in places. We've hit on somebody that's
Speaker 1: kind a weird kind of tation. We've even talked to
Speaker 1: a woman okay, and they very specifically send a signal
Speaker 1: it's a brush off. I don't want to talk to you, okay,
Speaker 1: And if you're a man, unfortunately, if someone doesn't give
Speaker 1: that signal, a lot of people but then see that
Speaker 1: as a green light unfortunately. So you fear as a woman,
Speaker 1: you feel you might get hurt to what degree? What
Speaker 1: behaviors doing you employ to make sure you don't get hurt? Well,
Speaker 1: I mean you're careful, you know. I've always been very careful.
Speaker 1: I don't walk down dark streets alone at night if
Speaker 1: I can possibly help it. If I am down in
Speaker 1: dark street at night by myself, I'm walking down the
Speaker 1: middle of the middle of the road because it was
Speaker 1: going to take a further distance to drag me from
Speaker 1: one side to the other. I mean silly things like that,
Speaker 1: you know. Um, I make it very clear, and I'm
Speaker 1: very lucky in that I am not scared to say, dude,
Speaker 1: I'm not interested, you know, please go go back and
Speaker 1: join your friends or you know. I'm pretty clear, but not,
Speaker 1: But not all women are like that, And a lot
Speaker 1: of women have been conditioned to please men and up
Speaker 1: ease men, and they don't. They don't want to upset
Speaker 1: them or hurt their egos or or incite them, you know,
Speaker 1: to be aggressive. So there's a whole thing at play.
Speaker 1: I mean, I know we've all talked about this for
Speaker 1: some months now, and my only feeling about it all
Speaker 1: is we need to educate our children, our boys, and
Speaker 1: our girls. And what would that look like, Well, you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's for men. I think it's really confusing. You know,
Speaker 1: there's a lot there's there's a lot of of depicting
Speaker 1: men in movies, in TV, in literature, you know, where
Speaker 1: the pursuit is romanticized, where they're encouraged to push even
Speaker 1: when a woman says no, that you know that they
Speaker 1: learned that maybe if they push a little harder, they'll
Speaker 1: finally get what they want. She'll relent, you know. Blah
Speaker 1: blah blah. There's all this misscons like misguiding stuff out
Speaker 1: there about what it means to be a dude. And
Speaker 1: I just think we need to to change a little
Speaker 1: just I just think a few tweaks and the way
Speaker 1: we raise our children will will help men and women
Speaker 1: co exist a little more comfortably with those tweaks look like.
Speaker 1: I think the great thing that I welcome the most
Speaker 1: right now is the breakdown of binary gender. I think
Speaker 1: that is a great start right there, where men are
Speaker 1: not expected to be you know, the the the one
Speaker 1: who the alpha, yeah, or they're not expected to be
Speaker 1: the predator and or the chaser or the one who
Speaker 1: always asked a woman out in a day where it
Speaker 1: becomes a little more eglitarian where men and women are.
Speaker 1: You know, a lot of the time when I was
Speaker 1: growing up in the seventies, women were just expected to wait,
Speaker 1: literally wait until a man asked her to dance, you know.
Speaker 1: So it all starts off at primary school for us,
Speaker 1: you know, like when you're five, you're you're lined up
Speaker 1: against the wall. This was in the seventies in Scotland,
Speaker 1: were all the women were lined up against the wall
Speaker 1: and then the men or the boys were sent now,
Speaker 1: go choose your partner, and the man would the boy
Speaker 1: would choose whoever they wanted to dance with. And that's
Speaker 1: really crazy. You know. I'm not healthy and not good
Speaker 1: and it starts right that early, you know. And I
Speaker 1: think boys are praised for being you know, good at
Speaker 1: sports and aggressive and and even violent, you know, and
Speaker 1: women are praised for being pretty and cute and small
Speaker 1: and just a little tweaks like that. You know, I
Speaker 1: think it could help change the Well, let's go back
Speaker 1: to your husband. You pull up in the bus, You
Speaker 1: see him with a buzz cut. You said that dude
Speaker 1: looks hot. You really recognize him very slowly. How do
Speaker 1: you change the signal you're sending to him? Well, these
Speaker 1: are my trade secrets. I don't serve them. You've already
Speaker 1: used them. You're getting you know, you're very happily married.
Speaker 1: Help the audience. No, no, no, that's that's my own game.
Speaker 1: That's my private game for sure. I mean, how how
Speaker 1: you you let someone know? I mean, I knew he
Speaker 1: would loved me. Of course, we've established I loved you
Speaker 1: so well before he met you, So eventually I was
Speaker 1: just a bit more welcoming. You know, we'd spend time together,
Speaker 1: we'd looking you know, we just become really good friends. Okay,
Speaker 1: what advice would you give to someone where the other
Speaker 1: person's uh as ires are not as clear? I have
Speaker 1: no advice to give, because I think it's different for
Speaker 1: every single person. That's the thing where there's no blanket
Speaker 1: rulest there because each man and each woman and each
Speaker 1: any any person of any gender, we're all made up
Speaker 1: so differently, and so what what is seen as a
Speaker 1: as um a dance between the two is is so
Speaker 1: unique to each relationship. I think you know, there's no
Speaker 1: blanket advice i'd give anyone for fear of that biting
Speaker 1: me in the ass. You sound like more of the
Speaker 1: type person would give advice and then when they came
Speaker 1: back to it and said it did work, so well,
Speaker 1: you know, what the hell do I know that's true?
Speaker 1: I mean, I mean I I the older I get,
Speaker 1: the less advice I want to get. And I feel
Speaker 1: the exact same way. Twenty years ago, I'd tell everybody
Speaker 1: how to live their lives. Now I'm not sure that
Speaker 1: I know what I'm talking about, and I know I
Speaker 1: have no idea what I'm talking and they say and
Speaker 1: they're not gonna listen to me exactly. It's like, why
Speaker 1: why ruin the relationship? But why waste the bread? Right now?
Speaker 1: The fantasy, the rock star fantasy, which aligns very much
Speaker 1: with the truth, is we have a guy who shy
Speaker 1: and he speaks to his guitar, and he feels, if
Speaker 1: I become successful musician, I will be able to have
Speaker 1: a girlfriend, of sex life, etcetera. That's men on the road.
Speaker 1: It is very different today in light of cell phone cameras, etcetera.
Speaker 1: But prior to that, the legend was relatively true. The
Speaker 1: men went on the road. There were groupies. As David
Speaker 1: lee Ros said, I know on the road and I
Speaker 1: can get laid every night of the week, not necessarily
Speaker 1: by whom I want to get laid by, but every
Speaker 1: night of the week. As a woman being on the road,
Speaker 1: what were your desires and your feelings in your own
Speaker 1: experience in this situation. I can remember, like you know,
Speaker 1: being like number one all over the world. I was
Speaker 1: all over like the coolest fashion magazines in the country.
Speaker 1: I was being lauded and applauded and and everything was
Speaker 1: tick tiboo from a professional standpoint. But I would go
Speaker 1: back to my hotel tell room by myself. Let's stop
Speaker 1: with what is tixie boo? Ticken tyboo just means you
Speaker 1: know what ticken e boo? Right, Okay, you can just
Speaker 1: hear from from hearing it. But did you go back
Speaker 1: to your hotel room happy or did you say, God,
Speaker 1: I'm on the cover every magazine. Here, I am alone.
Speaker 1: I probably went home back to my hotel room. How
Speaker 1: to wank? There is nobody around, you know, But I
Speaker 1: have to believe being that famous, invisible, men would try
Speaker 1: to make themselves available. No, No, men were terrified of me. Absolutely.
Speaker 1: You're a band on the road, which means you're going
Speaker 1: to concert halls, you're going to radio stations. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of men there. None of those men starts not
Speaker 1: what not once? I never got hit home once. Wow. Again,
Speaker 1: that's what I mean about the conditioning of the man too,
Speaker 1: how because men want to be the powerful alpha, and
Speaker 1: if you're the powerful alpha, that changes the dynamic. And
Speaker 1: no man really has been so I had to deal
Speaker 1: with that. Not many men, I should say, again sweeping generalizations,
Speaker 1: but the majority of men don't know how to deal
Speaker 1: with a woman who's more successful than they are, and
Speaker 1: you know, has has has a credit card and can
Speaker 1: get herself out of any situation. She doesn't need the
Speaker 1: night in shining Armor to come save her. They don't
Speaker 1: know what to do with that. In your marriage, are
Speaker 1: you the one? Do you wear the pants and the family,
Speaker 1: so to speak. No, I actually we have a pretty
Speaker 1: balanced So you decide you're going to go to dinner,
Speaker 1: who chooses the restaurant changes every day? Okay, So I
Speaker 1: mean I'm not being funny, I'm not being flippant. I
Speaker 1: was interressed with you. So it's balanced in the relationship.
Speaker 1: So once you get over the threshold, you're willing to
Speaker 1: be equal to the man as opposed to be dominant
Speaker 1: with the man. Well, I'll be dominant if I feel
Speaker 1: like this situation is not being taken care, of course,
Speaker 1: that's that's something different. So if we go back to
Speaker 1: this situation, you're on top of the world, you're and
Speaker 1: there are no um boyfriends at the time, do you
Speaker 1: start to hit on them? Well, that's a good question.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Some people say you're you you're flirting
Speaker 1: outrageously with him, and I'm like, no, I wasn't. Well,
Speaker 1: there's one thing to flirt outrageously and say I'm having fun,
Speaker 1: but I would never left this guy in my hotel room. Correct,
Speaker 1: there's another thing to say, I'm having fun if the
Speaker 1: guy is fun and it might go somewhere. To be honest,
Speaker 1: I'm not I can't I don't really have any memories
Speaker 1: of meeting somebody that was really interested in so because
Speaker 1: the pickens were slim or damn slim, and my standards
Speaker 1: were high, I mean to be honest, And again I'm
Speaker 1: signing like a sort of a sort of old maid
Speaker 1: in that I have never wanted to just have sex
Speaker 1: with someone just to have sex, because I just think,
Speaker 1: statistically wise, there's very few people that are going to
Speaker 1: make my experience worth it. So in general, I'm attracted
Speaker 1: to the brain first, and then then then I'm like, Okay,
Speaker 1: sex could be interesting, Let's see where this goes. But
Speaker 1: it's usually brain first. I'm never like, oh he's hot,
Speaker 1: I'm going to like go back to my you know.
Speaker 1: That's you know, in my limited experience. That's women feel
Speaker 1: the same way. They have millions of women that I
Speaker 1: know who are who will fux somebody for just sex.
Speaker 1: Millions of them, I think so. But isn't that they're
Speaker 1: the lower percentage? I don't know. Actually I would challenge
Speaker 1: the idea. I think that's what we've been led to believe.
Speaker 1: It's like affairs, you know, supposedly, you know, more women
Speaker 1: are having an affairs than men. What does that tell you.
Speaker 1: I think you know what it tells you. I know,
Speaker 1: I'm only put myself in the ground a little bit more.
Speaker 1: I think it'll do a great degree. That's men who
Speaker 1: are not servicing is a terrible world. I don't mean
Speaker 1: in terms of sexual stuff, but they're not paying attention
Speaker 1: to the woman. And the woman has opportunities. Well, women
Speaker 1: are finding opportunities for themselves and and and as they
Speaker 1: get older, they get better at doing that, and then
Speaker 1: it seems lose their confidence. It's it's a sort of
Speaker 1: flip of the way we are that we developed that
Speaker 1: the way we educate. I think women as they get older,
Speaker 1: get smarter, and they're like, oh, wait a minute, what
Speaker 1: a con this has been, you know, And men suddenly realize, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm not quite the dominant, gorgeous stud I thought I was.
Speaker 1: If their confidence drops, women's confidence rises. And so there
Speaker 1: you have men break up and they go hang with
Speaker 1: their budge and they watch ESPN and they drink beer
Speaker 1: and they don't even talk about it. Women women don't.
Speaker 1: Women rally around each other and can live without a man.
Speaker 1: It's the men who are That's right, motherfucker's exactly. But
Speaker 1: that's the men who are weak, they don't want to
Speaker 1: admit it. No, it's not that they're weak. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think again, they're just not given the tools. They're
Speaker 1: not educated. They're not sow on how to age, they're
Speaker 1: not sown how to live and have bigger women are
Speaker 1: taught how to survive in ways that men are, and
Speaker 1: vice versa. You know. So this is what I'm talking
Speaker 1: about goes back to what I'm saying earlier. We need
Speaker 1: to change the way we educated. We can all have
Speaker 1: happy health. I agree with better taught to go. I'll
Speaker 1: be hunters, but that's about it. It was funny you
Speaker 1: should say that because I suddenly had this sort of
Speaker 1: realization very recently. I was watching a TV show and
Speaker 1: it was about the Vikings and and men were getting
Speaker 1: sent off to you know, to fight, and it was brutal,
Speaker 1: and I was like, God, I think those those times,
Speaker 1: it must have been horrendous. And then it made me
Speaker 1: think of all the men that get sent off to
Speaker 1: this day into war. And men are sort of like
Speaker 1: they are educated to to shut something off in themselves
Speaker 1: so that they will be willing to go and fight
Speaker 1: for their countries, you know, and get into these terrifying
Speaker 1: situations that never really happens to women. Not really again,
Speaker 1: sweeping generalizations. There's plenty of women in the services and
Speaker 1: and so on, But you know, sort of over the
Speaker 1: last few centuries, men have been taught a certain way
Speaker 1: so that they mindlessly going and and fight to their deaths.
Speaker 1: And and we that that society has changed slightly since then.
Speaker 1: And I think it's also changed because I grew up
Speaker 1: in aror of a draft where it kind of cross classes,
Speaker 1: where now it's an all volunteer army where the educating
Speaker 1: which tend not to go. Okay, But you've traveled around
Speaker 1: the world, where's the best or most exciting place, her
Speaker 1: favorite place you've been? Well, again, I don't believe in best,
Speaker 1: to be honest, I don't. I really really fight that
Speaker 1: idea of all every fiber of my being, because like
Speaker 1: I come from a family where my dad marks everything
Speaker 1: out of tain It drives me insane. To me, I
Speaker 1: feel like life is always surprising. You can go like
Speaker 1: you can go to Paris and have a dreadful experience
Speaker 1: hard to imagine, of course, So when you say what's
Speaker 1: the best, it's just what I guess is the most
Speaker 1: enjoyable on any given day. Yeah, and everywhere I go
Speaker 1: as a musician, and I've traveled almost everywhere at this point,
Speaker 1: I always managed to have an extraordinary, unique experience, And
Speaker 1: even if sometimes it's fraught with difficulty or there's an unpleasantry, overall,
Speaker 1: I just find everywhere I go fascinating. It's and travel
Speaker 1: has been the greatest privilege of my entire life. To
Speaker 1: go to the cities, to countries and see how other
Speaker 1: people live, how they think, is really really fascinating, endlessly
Speaker 1: fascinating to me. Well, I have a friend who was
Speaker 1: the photographer for Led Zeppelin, and he says, I've been
Speaker 1: around the world and I've seen nothing. So are you
Speaker 1: the type then that he's a fool? Of course, my
Speaker 1: question is he also was staying up all night developing
Speaker 1: film in the film era, so the band could wake
Speaker 1: up and see the photos from the night before, so
Speaker 1: it wasn't totally his fault. But there a lot of
Speaker 1: people they go, they go from the bus to the
Speaker 1: hotel to the gig, and they don't really see anything.
Speaker 1: Are you the type of person who takes advantage in
Speaker 1: these very I try? I try always to get up early,
Speaker 1: like you know will have traveled over you know, from
Speaker 1: I don't know, New York to to South after Cape
Speaker 1: Town for a random example, and we've had no but
Speaker 1: I'll still get up after two hours to go on
Speaker 1: SAFARTI because I know this will never happen to me again.
Speaker 1: You know. We get to Istanbul, same thing, We've been
Speaker 1: traveling all night, but you get the opportunity to go
Speaker 1: to the Blue mosque, you know, and have your mind blown.
Speaker 1: It's just I feel it's really important, you know too,
Speaker 1: to take advantage of those moments where you really get
Speaker 1: shown so much and it does shift your perspective so much. Absolutely.
Speaker 1: One of the problems you know with America is people
Speaker 1: haven't been anywhere, and I think it's the greatest I mean,
Speaker 1: tuck very minor things. You go to a European or
Speaker 1: you know, UK, it's finally coming to America. They have
Speaker 1: the dual flush toilet. I mean, that's a good idea. Okay,
Speaker 1: they just recently come to America where they can change
Speaker 1: the price of the gas electronically. These are not major things,
Speaker 1: but everybody in the United States to give it's oh
Speaker 1: where we are, it couldn't be any better. Where It's
Speaker 1: much better in many other places, of course, but then
Speaker 1: there's also incredibly beautiful, precious things about at the US,
Speaker 1: which you know, for me as an immigrant, you know,
Speaker 1: coming here, my entire career is down to America. Like
Speaker 1: I will never forget that. I have deep, deep love
Speaker 1: for this country. And a lot of people in the
Speaker 1: rest of the world take swings of America for a
Speaker 1: lot of different reasons, you know, But I always describe
Speaker 1: America as being in a really innocent like everybody's like, no,
Speaker 1: it's just vulgar. No, it's not vulgar. It's innocent because
Speaker 1: what of the population has never traversed outside the national boundaries.
Speaker 1: And like you say, everyone believes that they're the best
Speaker 1: in America, that they've got the best country, and and
Speaker 1: you know, one would argue that's not the case anymore,
Speaker 1: you know, And and that is a great sadness. But also, hey,
Speaker 1: welcome to the rest of the world. Were exactly, we're
Speaker 1: all the same, We're just all trying to figure everything out.
Speaker 1: And um, I think that what's what is both awful
Speaker 1: about the Internet, but what's also so great about it
Speaker 1: is it will and it is slowly impacting America and
Speaker 1: changing the way people think and everyone is becoming a
Speaker 1: bit more educated about other ways of life. It doesn't
Speaker 1: feel like that right now for obvious reasons. But I
Speaker 1: think ultimately, over the next thirty forty fifty years whatever,
Speaker 1: that America is going to change all for the better.
Speaker 1: Now the thirty years you have left, what would you
Speaker 1: like to accomplish or do? I want to continue to
Speaker 1: travel as much as possible. That is my biggest desire.
Speaker 1: And not to lose my curiosity. I want to remain
Speaker 1: curious if I and to keep and to try and
Speaker 1: nurture courage. I think that looks like that. I will
Speaker 1: continue to try new things that I will try and
Speaker 1: and meet people and without judgment, you know, and try
Speaker 1: and listen, try, and I want to be a better listener.
Speaker 1: That's that's a big thing for me. I like, I
Speaker 1: want to be in service rather than serving myself, you know.
Speaker 1: And I'm in an industry. What I've done nothing but
Speaker 1: served myself for twenty old years, you know. And I
Speaker 1: want to change that as much as possible as my
Speaker 1: life progresses. I want to be in service. Okay, I
Speaker 1: call you up or I text you and I say
Speaker 1: let's go to I need to write to there. No, no, no, uh,
Speaker 1: we're gonna go. I want to take you to this
Speaker 1: restaurant where you know they serve bird eggs and all that.
Speaker 1: Are you say, I'm into it as a new experience.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, and I've eaten some terrible things. But I
Speaker 1: always want to try. I don't want to be that
Speaker 1: person who's scared to try because I've discovered incredible things
Speaker 1: that I didn't think I would like. Forgetting food, but
Speaker 1: just looking at the situation in general, have you ever
Speaker 1: said yes to something and said, oh, that was a
Speaker 1: big mistake. Yes? Do you remember anything? Yes, Space Mountain
Speaker 1: and Disneyland. I said yes, and I went on it,
Speaker 1: and I wished I hadn't said yes. I really hated it. Well,
Speaker 1: the funny thing about it is I didn't go on
Speaker 1: Space Mountain. That's horrible. Until you know, sometime like then
Speaker 1: in this century, okay, you know, they'd say Disneyland is
Speaker 1: the happiest place on Earth, and no, it's the most
Speaker 1: miserable place there. It's a place where I would never
Speaker 1: need go. I like to do everything in life once
Speaker 1: just so I could talk about it. And so I
Speaker 1: wrent there. It was greater or it sucked whatever. But
Speaker 1: I was not a Disneyland person. But I went with
Speaker 1: my nephews and we went on Space Mountain. I'm not
Speaker 1: a big roller coaster person. Whatever, But the fact that
Speaker 1: the roller coaster was underground, you know, because most of
Speaker 1: the rides at Disneyland are disappointing as rides, I thought
Speaker 1: it was pretty good. Yeah, I wouldn't say, see, I
Speaker 1: didn't find Disney Disneyland Rights disappointing. Far from it. I
Speaker 1: really enjoyed myself. However, my I did not find it
Speaker 1: the happiest place on Earth. I found it one of
Speaker 1: the most miserable places on Earth. I was engulfed in
Speaker 1: children's farts the entire time I was there. I hated
Speaker 1: standing for an hour and a half for a two minute, right,
Speaker 1: you know. But when I go into Space Mountain, I
Speaker 1: knew that it was like the pre move Right. Everyone
Speaker 1: was like, this is going to blow your mind, and
Speaker 1: I I honestly thought I was gonna have a heart attack. Really, yes,
Speaker 1: it was awful. That's one thing. I remember. They had
Speaker 1: a they're still there. They have something called the Revolution.
Speaker 1: Maybe they're gonna tear it downs. Original roller coaster at
Speaker 1: Magic Mountain and the seventies. It was the first roller
Speaker 1: cuature that went upside down. So I remember getting on.
Speaker 1: It would go up a little hill, gonna curve and
Speaker 1: then you and your theorical then you were You're there.
Speaker 1: I am so freaked up. You can't get off. It's
Speaker 1: like you're there. It's like there's nothing I can do.
Speaker 1: But I like being on the little teacups. I feel safe.
Speaker 1: Vomit cups really, oh man, those are really That was
Speaker 1: one of the original rides. But m music drove the
Speaker 1: culture in the era that you grew up in an iron,
Speaker 1: I do not believe music drives the culture at this
Speaker 1: particularly do I just think there's no common music driving
Speaker 1: the entire culture, if that makes any sense. I think
Speaker 1: music has got a big an influence now than it
Speaker 1: arguably ever. But it's all, you know, fractionalized or what's
Speaker 1: the word I'm looking. You know, I get what you're saying.
Speaker 1: You know, they're all these different niches. Why do you
Speaker 1: think it has as much. I mean, if I go
Speaker 1: back to the sixties, a rock star would say something
Speaker 1: and be on the radio and it would change thinking
Speaker 1: in the role to general. I don't think that happens. No,
Speaker 1: it doesn't have the same cultural impact because everyone's not
Speaker 1: listening to the same one artist. You know, when Elvis
Speaker 1: was singing, we were all listening to Elvis. You know,
Speaker 1: not you you were too well, I was too young.
Speaker 1: But I'm I'm trying to talk talk to It's okay,
Speaker 1: but I gotta bust you every chance I have. I
Speaker 1: gotta wake up. I gotta take some of that speed
Speaker 1: to get here. So I take my chances with the
Speaker 1: alpha female whenever I can get up. Feel respect. Okay.
Speaker 1: So in any event, you're you're saying that it's not
Speaker 1: driving the culture like it used in the days of Elvis. Well,
Speaker 1: single artists and bands are not. They don't have the
Speaker 1: same cultural impact. But music has never been more listened
Speaker 1: to ever historically speaking. I agree. But do you play
Speaker 1: at home? Do you play music? Yes? And what do
Speaker 1: you play? I listened to all kinds of music. I
Speaker 1: mean that sounds like such a copipe. I really do.
Speaker 1: And I've just taken very recently too. Instead of like
Speaker 1: sort of of curating my listening habits recently, I've just
Speaker 1: put my I've just turned my phone on and put
Speaker 1: it through this system and just listen to anything from
Speaker 1: my playlist that the phone dictates, and it's been extraordinary.
Speaker 1: I've loved it. But these are songs that you originally picked. Well,
Speaker 1: there's certainly albums that I've picked. Yeah, But like I said,
Speaker 1: I listened to classical, I listened to j azz, I
Speaker 1: listened to blues, I listen to Paula, I listen to rock,
Speaker 1: I listen to heavy metal. I mean, I will listen
Speaker 1: to anything, but I get overwhelmed. I mean it's like
Speaker 1: if you go on Spotify or any of the services
Speaker 1: and you listen to the new music and they break
Speaker 1: it down by genre, and you say, okay, there's fifty
Speaker 1: country tracks, fifty damce tracks, and if you listen to fifty,
Speaker 1: you'll find one or two good ones, and you start
Speaker 1: to get overwhelmed. Yeah, it's overwhelming, you know, and a
Speaker 1: lot of times you'll find something go, you'll reach it.
Speaker 1: Is anybody else I like this as anybody else like
Speaker 1: the there's no coherence to the culture. That's true. But
Speaker 1: is that about then? I'm not that's about I think
Speaker 1: to do. No. I hate being told what to do.
Speaker 1: But it goes back to what we're talking about earlier
Speaker 1: in terms of argument. We live in an era where
Speaker 1: everyone has their own facts in their own lives, which
Speaker 1: is almost a tower of Babel society. And even with
Speaker 1: television where in the golden age of television and is
Speaker 1: there are a lot fewer television shows than there are
Speaker 1: music shows. But even then we'll find well, we can't
Speaker 1: talk because we didn't see the same shows, we didn't
Speaker 1: see the same movies. Okay, so there's no community fiber No,
Speaker 1: that's true. But we don't know yet where that's going
Speaker 1: to go. That might go somewhere fantastic, we just don't
Speaker 1: know yet. Well, I think I believe it's going to
Speaker 1: go along the lines of Americ at large, which is
Speaker 1: winners and losers. I believe we have an inherent desire
Speaker 1: to be with other people, like you talk about going
Speaker 1: out to breakfast or dinner whatever, or to be able
Speaker 1: to say, oh I saw that show. It sucked, okay.
Speaker 1: And therefore there's a lot of rabble rousing from people
Speaker 1: who are not successful. But the reasons if you look
Speaker 1: at the movie business, like and I don't go to
Speaker 1: the movies. First of they don't start when you want
Speaker 1: them to start. And I have so much I don't
Speaker 1: have any time, and I have so many options at
Speaker 1: home on the flat screen. But if you look at
Speaker 1: the weekly grossers, you know, Black Panther well far eclips
Speaker 1: all the other movies combined. And I think part of
Speaker 1: the people say, oh, yeah, I saw that good bad. Otherwise,
Speaker 1: I think there's a desire for community. There is a
Speaker 1: desire for community. But at the same time, I do
Speaker 1: believe in the principle of evolution. I have faith in
Speaker 1: evolution that evolution will sort this out sooner or later.
Speaker 1: I mean, every generation moans about the new generation that's
Speaker 1: in place, you know, And I feel that we always
Speaker 1: harp on about how things once were, forgetting the evolution
Speaker 1: has always like I have better life than my mom did,
Speaker 1: and my mom has better life than my granny did.
Speaker 1: And I have to assume that my all my friends
Speaker 1: kids will have a better life than and than we did.
Speaker 1: And I think that's a great thing. And I think
Speaker 1: we can all sort of like pick over the carcass
Speaker 1: of what once was, or we can embrace what is.
Speaker 1: And I want to be and what is I'm going
Speaker 1: to embrace what is. Well, I'm gonna argue with you, Okay,
Speaker 1: in my generation, I know a lot of people are
Speaker 1: not doing as well as their parents. Okay, the baby boomers,
Speaker 1: their parents had a lot. But you're you're talking about
Speaker 1: economics though, right, you're talking about house and money, okay,
Speaker 1: and you're talking about rights, freedoms, well, knowledge, I would
Speaker 1: argue me, gay people can get married in America, which
Speaker 1: is wonderful. I gret a lot of that to MTV.
Speaker 1: People saw a rainbow of colors there and therefore they were,
Speaker 1: you know, there's less racism, etcetera. But we live in
Speaker 1: a country. By the way, there isn't less racism. But
Speaker 1: that's a whole lot of I would look back to that.
Speaker 1: I believe in America there is less racism, but you
Speaker 1: have a very vocal mind party who was afraid of losing.
Speaker 1: I have to disagree. You're talking from a very white,
Speaker 1: privileged position. Now I'm saying that if you go back
Speaker 1: decades and you saw an interracial couple walking down the street,
Speaker 1: chances are there to be sneers or comments. I believe
Speaker 1: there are less and now we're all victims of our
Speaker 1: own experience. And I'm not saying there's not racism, there's
Speaker 1: not anti semitism, there's not sexism. But I believe, but
Speaker 1: I believe as a result of media, there's a certain
Speaker 1: level of enlightenment. I view as a result of the
Speaker 1: economic disparity. Okay, the people who have been left out,
Speaker 1: whether through their own faults or not through room fault,
Speaker 1: have started to rebel around the world Brexit, Trump, etcetera.
Speaker 1: And it's focused on those people. Unfortunately, with that has
Speaker 1: come racism. And I don't want to comment on the
Speaker 1: rest of the rule because I'm not as much of
Speaker 1: an expert, but in America, I would believe pound for
Speaker 1: pound there's less racism and less homophobia than there was.
Speaker 1: Not that there isn't very vocal racism and homophobia, but
Speaker 1: I think we're you know, it's like Jerry Springer, who
Speaker 1: used to be the mayor of Cleveland, Okay, before he
Speaker 1: had his insane show, And he's not a stupid guy.
Speaker 1: He says, the liberals always win in the end, Okay,
Speaker 1: all the things that were unthinkable, you know, abortion, gay marriage, etcetera, etcetera,
Speaker 1: they're happening. Eventually the rest of the world wakes up. Well,
Speaker 1: I don't even notice where to start without to be honest,
Speaker 1: we'll start anywhere, but I'll start with have you I
Speaker 1: don't know what that is. It's a documentary about the
Speaker 1: penal system here in America. No have you seen back.
Speaker 1: But you're making the point that a whole generation of
Speaker 1: African Americans were wiping up by putting them in gails.
Speaker 1: It's not what you're making. I agree totally. You know
Speaker 1: that there's a lot of endemic problems. I'm not apologizing
Speaker 1: for them. But what I'm saying is that I believe
Speaker 1: that generally it's gone. Maybe I'm wrong. I don't know. Well, again,
Speaker 1: it's complex, isn't it. There are some people who get
Speaker 1: left behind this, but generally speaking, our generation has it
Speaker 1: better than the previous generation. And then there are parts
Speaker 1: of our society who are being left behind, and that's
Speaker 1: blacks and and people of color aggressively so, but it's
Speaker 1: also white. I don't want to make this, as you know,
Speaker 1: white apologists, but just to illuminate the point, this is
Speaker 1: how Trump got elected. There are people as a result
Speaker 1: of the economic changes they in globalization, they don't have
Speaker 1: if you're left behind. And and then the crazy thing,
Speaker 1: same thing with Brexit. Their solution is let's chet back
Speaker 1: to the past, and the past is never coming back.
Speaker 1: But that's Trump's approach to It's it's very like I
Speaker 1: just did never believe you can look back. I think
Speaker 1: you must always look forward to you know. Well, the
Speaker 1: scary thing is I mean I certainly lived through the
Speaker 1: sixties with the Vietnam War and the draft, but since
Speaker 1: then in America, this is the first time where every
Speaker 1: you're addicted to the news and it's uh, it's just
Speaker 1: like when the wall fell, When the wall fell in
Speaker 1: Berlin and you were there, we were of the illusion
Speaker 1: in America the other doctor, democracy will reign. And now
Speaker 1: you have booting, you know, assassinating spies in a different country,
Speaker 1: and we have you know, you know, we have the
Speaker 1: head of the country for life in China. It's you know,
Speaker 1: the world is going to it. You know, it's going
Speaker 1: to exactly as my dad says. And I actually feel
Speaker 1: like I have to cling onto this analogy, which is,
Speaker 1: you know, evolution happens whether we like it or not.
Speaker 1: It's just what occurs when you leave humans on a
Speaker 1: planet for long enough, they will evolve. And there's always
Speaker 1: moments he said, it's just like it's like tight, it's
Speaker 1: like title shifts, you know, you it's the type gets
Speaker 1: sucked back for a moment, and then it searches forward,
Speaker 1: and it searches for further forward than it did before.
Speaker 1: And that's that's always what my dad says to try
Speaker 1: and calm me down when I'm getting his terrecal and
Speaker 1: full of desperate depression about the way the world is turning.
Speaker 1: He's like, it's will turn back, generally speaking, as I
Speaker 1: used to be a terrible pessimist, and then something turned
Speaker 1: around when my mom died for me, like I was
Speaker 1: like a bolt from the blue I had. I was
Speaker 1: forced to change my thinking because if I hadn't changed
Speaker 1: my thinking, I would have died of grief. And and
Speaker 1: I I just decided me. I made a decision that
Speaker 1: the light because my mom had a lot of light
Speaker 1: in her. She was a real people pleaser, my mom,
Speaker 1: because she'd been a norphan and she wants people to
Speaker 1: love her and like her, and so she brought light
Speaker 1: into every situation. And I used to annoy me, you know,
Speaker 1: as a moody teenager. It just fucking and irritated me.
Speaker 1: And then when she died, I realized that light is gone.
Speaker 1: You know, people would say to me at my mom's funeral,
Speaker 1: you know your mom always you never left your mom
Speaker 1: feeling worse. You always left your mom feeling better than
Speaker 1: you did before you bumped into her. And I just
Speaker 1: made this decision that I had to do something with
Speaker 1: my mom's light. I couldn't let it go and dissipate
Speaker 1: into nothing. That's I had to hold a bit of
Speaker 1: her light in me, and I used that to change
Speaker 1: the way I approached my life. It sounds really okay,
Speaker 1: but it's really true, and it was quite that conscious.
Speaker 1: It was conscious. Yeah. I was just like, I need
Speaker 1: to change the way I I don't want people to
Speaker 1: leave me feeling worse. I don't want to be a
Speaker 1: vibe crush. I don't want people to feel yucky around me.
Speaker 1: And you know, we're all aware of what that's like
Speaker 1: to bump into somebody who makes us feel disgusting. You know,
Speaker 1: whether they're irritable, whether they're depressed, whether they moan, whether
Speaker 1: they only talk about themselves. I don't know, there's a
Speaker 1: million one reasons why we don't like being around people. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I was just like, I want to be a
Speaker 1: person in the world that makes people feel good again.
Speaker 1: I go back this word of being in service, Like
Speaker 1: I just I want to take my Mom's light and
Speaker 1: give it to someone else so we can spread these
Speaker 1: particles of my amazing mother. When you talk about service,
Speaker 1: that's twelve step language. Is that where you got it? Oh? God, no, no?
Speaker 1: And you never had a problem with alcohol problem? Okay,
Speaker 1: that's not to say I won't develop one. I love alcohol.
Speaker 1: I had to stop drinking alcohol because I was definitely
Speaker 1: the type person who couldn't have only one. If you
Speaker 1: want to have one or two drinks, didn't you didn't
Speaker 1: call me you want to have the night of your
Speaker 1: life or attempt? You know. Oh boy, I can tell
Speaker 1: story after story, and then then there's you know how I,
Speaker 1: and then how I finally stopped and I did not
Speaker 1: stop saying, Oh I'm never gonna I'm never gonna have
Speaker 1: another drink. It's just my life got way too crazy,
Speaker 1: and uh, excuse me. I want to know more. This
Speaker 1: is a much longer story, but I'll give you just
Speaker 1: the tip of it. Yeah, give me the crucial. So
Speaker 1: this was nineteen This is a long time ago, one
Speaker 1: going into two, and I had been stopped for drunk
Speaker 1: driving on the night that John Lennon got died. John
Speaker 1: and Jack shot and died. That's an amazing story unto itself.
Speaker 1: But I ultimately got a reckless driving as opposed to
Speaker 1: d u Y and there's a condition with that where
Speaker 1: you can't drive within eight hours of having a drink.
Speaker 1: And in the time it took for that case to
Speaker 1: come to court, I've been stopped once again on the
Speaker 1: four oh five in that point. Welcome, Welcome, Welcome to
Speaker 1: this week's edition of the Bob Left Sets podcast. My
Speaker 1: guest this week is vocalist extraordinaire lead singer of Garbage,
Speaker 1: Shirley Manson. Shirley, back out here. Okay, you're from Scotland.
Speaker 1: We are really Scotland ignorant here. Okay, what's it like
Speaker 1: growing up in Scotland. Well, you know, at the time,
Speaker 1: it didn't feel so fantastic, but looking back on it
Speaker 1: now I realized what a privilege it was, you know,
Speaker 1: because it's a small island and it was a time
Speaker 1: I was I was born in sixty six, so I
Speaker 1: grew up in the seventies and it was at a
Speaker 1: time when the British government actually paid for education, They
Speaker 1: put money into it. We all had government run schools
Speaker 1: and they were and they were well funded, so had
Speaker 1: a great education. I had. I came from a family,
Speaker 1: three children. My mom and dad loved each other until
Speaker 1: death did they part? And I think, now knowing what
Speaker 1: I know, that's really unusual to certainly with the younger generations.
Speaker 1: I mean, the only thing I haven't been to Scotland,
Speaker 1: but there was that movie and I can't remember there
Speaker 1: was a famous movie maker talking about the ice cream
Speaker 1: War in do you know that? Was that Danny Boyle?
Speaker 1: I thing? God, I can't remember. But in any event,
Speaker 1: where did you actually grow up in Scotland? How do you?
Speaker 1: How do you pronounce that? Edinburgh? Edinburgh? Okay? Ed okay?
Speaker 1: And what did your father do for a living? My
Speaker 1: father was a university professor, really and what did he teach?
Speaker 1: He taught animal breeding in sort of genetics and animal breeding,
Speaker 1: poultry breeding as well. He would come home for dinner.
Speaker 1: Would he talk about that? Very rarely? I mean he
Speaker 1: he as we got older, he would talk about the
Speaker 1: genetic program because they were his sort of university cloned
Speaker 1: Dolly the Sheep. I don't know if you remember that,
Speaker 1: but so that was his faculty that really. Yeah, So
Speaker 1: he started to talk up to us about genetics and
Speaker 1: we were so bored. We can you know? Okay, so
Speaker 1: if I take you out on the ranch with the animals,
Speaker 1: you're as clueless as I am. Well, maybe not quite
Speaker 1: as clueless as you, Bob. We got the humor going
Speaker 1: at this point in time. Okay. And did your mother
Speaker 1: work outside the house? My mother sort of eventually as
Speaker 1: we were growing up, when we were teenagers. She's she
Speaker 1: became a medical reception as she looked after a bunch
Speaker 1: of doctors. But she really was pretty much a housewife,
Speaker 1: which is a terminology that's thankfully becoming, you know, obsolete.
Speaker 1: But she she was clear. She called herself a housewife, right,
Speaker 1: I guess you know now they say, you know she works,
Speaker 1: but she works in the home. But okay, so where
Speaker 1: are you in the hierarchy of the middle child? The
Speaker 1: real messed up one the middle of three? And who
Speaker 1: else is a boy or a girl? All three girls?
Speaker 1: All three girls. I'm a middle child too, so sorry, Okay.
Speaker 1: My older sister she believes you can conquer the world,
Speaker 1: and my younger sister is the baby could always cry
Speaker 1: to get out of this, and I was kind of
Speaker 1: lost in the middle. I had exactly the same experience.
Speaker 1: It's really I was married to one who was also
Speaker 1: a middle kid. I wonder whether that was part of
Speaker 1: the connection, because you're kind of overlooked. You feel you're overlooked.
Speaker 1: I don't think you actually are, but that's how I
Speaker 1: think I perceived it. And I also got hamly done
Speaker 1: clothes all the time. I never got new clothes when
Speaker 1: I was growing up. I was always my sister's clothes,
Speaker 1: and by the time I had worn through the set clothes,
Speaker 1: my little sister got brand new clothes. So I mean
Speaker 1: I was twisted, you know, yeah, yeah, the level of resentment.
Speaker 1: I didn't have that problem because my older and younger
Speaker 1: siblings were sisters. But I know, I know exactly what
Speaker 1: you're talking about. And Okay, what kind of kid are
Speaker 1: you growing up? Are you a rebellious kid? Are you
Speaker 1: kid of you know obeys orders? For the first sort
Speaker 1: of twelve years of my life, I obeyed orders. I
Speaker 1: was an incredibly devout student, and I, you know, had
Speaker 1: a great faith in Jesus, and I was interested in
Speaker 1: religion and all kinds of things. I was very sweet,
Speaker 1: pretty uh, sort of conventional kid, and then the hormones
Speaker 1: kicked in and I went mental. Okay, did you go
Speaker 1: to public school? Or did you go to Catholic school. Well,
Speaker 1: it's a good question, because we call public public schools
Speaker 1: private school. We went to government funded had the government
Speaker 1: funded schools. But you had a strict Catholic family. I
Speaker 1: did not. I came up in a Protestant family. My
Speaker 1: dad was my Sunday school teacher, which also didn't help
Speaker 1: my No. No, no, no, you can imagine. I can't imagine.
Speaker 1: That kind of messed me up good too. So yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: but you were a big believer. I was a huge
Speaker 1: believer about today you believe her today. I'm a nonbeliever now.
Speaker 1: And what was the transition? How did you decide that
Speaker 1: there wasn't a little man in this guy who was
Speaker 1: deciding whether you've been noaughty or nice? Well, it started
Speaker 1: off with just a sort of sudden observation of the
Speaker 1: people in in our church that we went that we
Speaker 1: went to. I noticed that they did not adhere to
Speaker 1: the principles that were being, you know, sermonized, And I
Speaker 1: started to smell hypocrisy. And I then would meet people
Speaker 1: who were nonbelievers who actually did seem to practice some
Speaker 1: kind spiritual practice. We have that in government today. All
Speaker 1: the people seemingly were anti abortion, have had an abortion
Speaker 1: themselves or their partners had an abortion. It's just crazy.
Speaker 1: So in any event, you turned age twelve, the hormones
Speaker 1: kicking and you freak out. What does that look like? Well, I,
Speaker 1: having been a pretty good student, I just stopped paying
Speaker 1: attention in school. I stopped going to school. I started smoking,
Speaker 1: I started flirting with you know, seft drugs. I became
Speaker 1: interested in boys. I got involved in a youth theater
Speaker 1: and a band. A little bit slower in America, it's
Speaker 1: kind of like the Little Rascals if you know those
Speaker 1: Saturday morning car There's a truan officer and if you
Speaker 1: skip school, they're going to track you down. So you're
Speaker 1: skipping school and your father's in the educational system. Was
Speaker 1: anybody aware of the fact you were skipping school? Well
Speaker 1: not at first, and actually it was my dad who
Speaker 1: busted me in the end. Um. But no, the teachers
Speaker 1: didn't really notice because of the way that our system
Speaker 1: worked at that time. UM. So I'd always appear for registrations,
Speaker 1: so you were there when they called the roll call,
Speaker 1: and then I would just go home. But my my,
Speaker 1: my house was like jammed up against the playground of
Speaker 1: the school, so I could just get home to my
Speaker 1: bedroom in about five seconds. So it's very convenient for
Speaker 1: skipping school until you had your father find out. He
Speaker 1: came home one day unexpectedly and find me in my
Speaker 1: bedroom with a bunch of pals smoking. I don't know
Speaker 1: why else we were up to. You went absolutely mental,
Speaker 1: and he called the head master and he doped me in.
Speaker 1: He was like, my child this year, she should be
Speaker 1: at school. I'm sending it in to see you right now.
Speaker 1: And he sent me to the head master and I
Speaker 1: got I can't remember what happened, but I got well
Speaker 1: royally punished. I had to do like after school punishment
Speaker 1: and all that. Well, did it set you on a
Speaker 1: straight course or did you continue to diverge from the
Speaker 1: straight and earra I continue, even at fifty one, to
Speaker 1: diverge from the straight and now, Well, it's kind of funny.
Speaker 1: It's hard to diverge from the straight and narrow. We
Speaker 1: live in it. I'm older than you are, but certainly
Speaker 1: lived through the sixties. It was the opposite of group think,
Speaker 1: and now there's total group thinking, and if you feel otherwise,
Speaker 1: you're really scorned by society. You end up feeling like
Speaker 1: a party of one. That's my experience. You know, I'm
Speaker 1: really lucky, and that I don't have that experience. I
Speaker 1: know exactly what you're talking about, and I think that
Speaker 1: does exist, and it's becoming more and more prevalent. But
Speaker 1: I was really lucky and that I a very strong
Speaker 1: minded father who had very definitive ideas, and I would
Speaker 1: fight against him over and over and over again for years,
Speaker 1: to the point where I learned to hold my own
Speaker 1: in an argument. If he didn't, you know, agree with me,
Speaker 1: that was cool. If I didn't agree with him, it
Speaker 1: was cool. He was He was really fair that way,
Speaker 1: and so I just learned to have to develop my
Speaker 1: own system of ideas and beliefs. Do you think he
Speaker 1: was doing that to inculcate that behavior in yourself or
Speaker 1: do you think he was really rigid and you were
Speaker 1: just a rebel? Neither of the bob. I think he
Speaker 1: is quite rebellious my dad. Is he still with us, Yes,
Speaker 1: he's still with us, and he's eighty one, and he's
Speaker 1: very full of vigor and as a rigorous thinker, and
Speaker 1: I think he enjoyed being challenged by me because he
Speaker 1: often of course, when you have young children. He would
Speaker 1: browbeat me easily for years and years and years, and
Speaker 1: then event chually as I became a little more skilled
Speaker 1: at arguing in my late teens. He I think he
Speaker 1: enjoyed it was like it was a sport for him,
Speaker 1: and it actually is a little bit of a sport
Speaker 1: for me now, like I can argue with anyone. I
Speaker 1: don't take it personally. I don't get upset when people
Speaker 1: don't agree with me. I find it really interesting. I
Speaker 1: love to argue, and no one wants to argue anymore.
Speaker 1: It's really when you when you give a contrary opinion,
Speaker 1: it's like spinal tap person. Look, no, my amp goes
Speaker 1: to eleven. I mean, I don't want to do it
Speaker 1: for my own personal aggrandization, whatever aggrandization, whatever the word
Speaker 1: might be. It's it's fun to wrestle and tease out
Speaker 1: the issues and makes me think afterward. But today everyone
Speaker 1: thinks they have the answer. They can't see two different
Speaker 1: sides of the coin, and they're very you. You look
Speaker 1: like the curmudgeon when you go out there and you
Speaker 1: disagree with people. Well, I think there's a couple of
Speaker 1: factors at play. I think some people feel that they
Speaker 1: are not they don't have conviction necessarily and what they believe. Like, no,
Speaker 1: I am wrong all the time, but I do have conviction.
Speaker 1: I believe really strongly and what I believe. And um,
Speaker 1: I think some people get shaken when you disagree with
Speaker 1: them and or they feel like they're losing an argument
Speaker 1: if you even challenge the argument. And they've got this
Speaker 1: some weird idea about how they must win. They must win.
Speaker 1: Society's put all this pressure and must be winners. You
Speaker 1: can't be a loser. I don't mind being a loser.
Speaker 1: I mean that's really well described. But will you change
Speaker 1: your opinion all the time? It makes me crazy if
Speaker 1: you change your opinion because I'm writing my opinions down
Speaker 1: and I say, hey, life evolved. It's like only in Washington,
Speaker 1: d C. You can't change your opinion. So let's go back.
Speaker 1: Your two sisters. Where are they today? My little sister,
Speaker 1: it was how much younger. It's two years younger than me.
Speaker 1: She's down in London doing what she works for a
Speaker 1: photographic agent, so they support photographers in the fashion industry primarily. Um,
Speaker 1: and my big sister is two years older than me.
Speaker 1: It's exact, and like my favor we've got a common here, man,
Speaker 1: I feel your pain. Brother. But my big sister, she
Speaker 1: works in She was an intensive care nurse practically our
Speaker 1: whole career, and now has has sort of semi moved
Speaker 1: into health education. She teaches nurses. Now, are they married
Speaker 1: or in relationships? My oldest sister is in a relationship.
Speaker 1: My youngest sister is married with two kids. Okay, but
Speaker 1: you've never been married, right? I am married? You are married.
Speaker 1: I guess I was unaware. How long have you been married?
Speaker 1: Eight years? Eight years? And is this your only marriage? No,
Speaker 1: this is my second marriage. Okay, we'll save this for later. Okay,
Speaker 1: so you're rebelling. Do you finish school? Not exactly. That's
Speaker 1: kind of a black and white you know, yes or
Speaker 1: no question. Yeah, I didn't get past high school. I
Speaker 1: sort of flunked out in my last I should have
Speaker 1: stayed on for another year and I didn't have flunked
Speaker 1: out and I got really bad examination results, and my
Speaker 1: parents were really disappointed in me, and there was a
Speaker 1: silence over the dinner table at home. Okay, well, here
Speaker 1: the crisis would be, if you drop out of high school,
Speaker 1: you have to go to work. That is correct, My
Speaker 1: dad said that to me, said, okay, you're you know,
Speaker 1: you've crapped out of high school. You need to go
Speaker 1: get yourself a job. And did you did? And what
Speaker 1: was that job? I worked in a female fashion shop,
Speaker 1: a little like Forever twenty one. It was called miss Selfridge.
Speaker 1: And how long did that last? Five years? Five years?
Speaker 1: And any upward any any upward mobility or you're just
Speaker 1: the sales clerk in the shop for five years. I
Speaker 1: don't say this for comic relief. I was actually demoted.
Speaker 1: I started off. I started off as a sales clerk
Speaker 1: what we call the shop assistant, and then I was
Speaker 1: demoted to the stock room because I was unpleasant, quote unquote,
Speaker 1: I was unpleasant to the customers. I love that. I
Speaker 1: love that. So you're unpleasant. But they didn't are they
Speaker 1: didn't fire me. Okay. And at the time, okay, you're
Speaker 1: smoking dope, drinking what are you doing? I was doing
Speaker 1: a lot of speed. That was my drug of choice,
Speaker 1: and I like the feeling of being fast. Okay and okay,
Speaker 1: going back. Was their music in your house growing up? Yeah,
Speaker 1: there was a lot of music in my house. My
Speaker 1: mom was a sort of semi amateur singer. Um semi professional.
Speaker 1: Should I see? She sang with us a swing band
Speaker 1: called the Squadron Ears before I was born, and then
Speaker 1: she used to sing for like weddings and concert parties
Speaker 1: at the church. And hey, you're playing footsie with me, Bob,
Speaker 1: you have a very long I can't believe my legs
Speaker 1: reach that far. The first time this has ever happened
Speaker 1: here on the podcast. But um, I noticed I touched before.
Speaker 1: I didn't even notice that time. But when she was
Speaker 1: professional before you were born, how serious was that? Not
Speaker 1: particularly serious? I mean, my mom got bless her. She
Speaker 1: didn't have a lot of confidence in herself, so nothing
Speaker 1: she did she considered very serious. But she was a
Speaker 1: good singer, and she loved music, and she introduced me
Speaker 1: to music, and my love of music comes from her. Okay,
Speaker 1: so would she play records in the house? What kind
Speaker 1: of records? She introduced me to a lot of like Elephants, Gerald,
Speaker 1: Nina Simon st von Um. She loved Barbara Streisan, she
Speaker 1: loved Barry Manilo, and she loved show tunes. The show
Speaker 1: Too was a similar thing. Growing up. My mother played
Speaker 1: them all the time. But and she is deceased, My
Speaker 1: my mom too, right now, my mother is alive. My
Speaker 1: father's dead, been dead for twenty five years. My mother's
Speaker 1: ninety one. But your mother, based on what you said earlier,
Speaker 1: your mother is no longer with, no longer with How
Speaker 1: long ago did she pass? About nine years ago? Okay?
Speaker 1: Is your father ever got involved in another relationship? Yes,
Speaker 1: he has not. Is he a serial data or is
Speaker 1: that one specific woman. There's been a couple of women
Speaker 1: who's been interested in and is pursued with great passion
Speaker 1: and vigor and has gotten his own way a couple
Speaker 1: of times. And so what do you What does it
Speaker 1: feel like being his daughter? Well, it was funny. I
Speaker 1: was cool with it because I knew my dad loved
Speaker 1: my mom and I knew that, you know, there was
Speaker 1: nothing going to bring my mom back, So I wanted
Speaker 1: my dad to have happiness, so it didn't bother me.
Speaker 1: It creeped me out a wee bit, you know, thinking
Speaker 1: about my dad having an erection was just too much there.
Speaker 1: But I was cool with him having fun in his life.
Speaker 1: I wanted that for him. But my younger sister had
Speaker 1: she wrestled with it the hardest. She she she found
Speaker 1: it difficult to accept. Well, how long after the passing
Speaker 1: of your mother. Did he get started very quickly? And
Speaker 1: was your mother sick or was it a sudden death? Yeah,
Speaker 1: my mom was sick. She had a very rare form
Speaker 1: of dementia, which is called Picks disease um and it
Speaker 1: was very aggressive and sort of took her out the
Speaker 1: game in about eighteen months. My mother's you know, is
Speaker 1: on is on that excursion. So I speak speak with her,
Speaker 1: and she'll go on and on. But whatever I tell
Speaker 1: her today, the next day, it'd be like we didn't
Speaker 1: even discuss. You See, my mom's disease wasn't like that.
Speaker 1: It was a a different kind of it was. She
Speaker 1: sort of became just physically difficult to operate in the world.
Speaker 1: She always knew who I was. She never didn't know
Speaker 1: we were. No. Like I said, it was very aggressive,
Speaker 1: an unusual form of Picks disease, and that the doctor
Speaker 1: in our hometown nobody had ever had an incident of
Speaker 1: this particular type of disease. So she was young. She
Speaker 1: was sixty nine when she was diagnosed, very young. And
Speaker 1: so how long did she go undiagnosed? Well, here's the
Speaker 1: other issue in our families. I knew there was something
Speaker 1: wrong with my mom. My family told me I was crazy. Well,
Speaker 1: I have the same thing with my father got canceled.
Speaker 1: We were having to be in Mammoth Lakes, which is
Speaker 1: a ski area about four hours from Los Angeles, and
Speaker 1: I went out with my father to pick up a pizza,
Speaker 1: and my father's for the whole half hour waiting for
Speaker 1: the pizza, just had his head in his hand, and
Speaker 1: he was coming And I came back and I told
Speaker 1: my mother, oh, you know something wrong with our flashes. Oh,
Speaker 1: he just had a physical. He's fine, he's fine. And
Speaker 1: a week later they found out the cancer. I'm so sorry.
Speaker 1: Well it was a long time ago. At this point,
Speaker 1: it doesn't it's always painful to lose your loved ones. Well,
Speaker 1: my father I had at seventy and when he died,
Speaker 1: I was not quite forty, and I thought, oh, that's
Speaker 1: a pretty good run. But now I say, wow, that's
Speaker 1: really young. Really, so there's music in the household. At
Speaker 1: what point do you start to sing or play yourself.
Speaker 1: I was playing really young because my mom and dad
Speaker 1: got me into piano lessons on singing in an ac choir.
Speaker 1: So that was around about seven years old. Did you practice,
Speaker 1: did I? No? No, no, I don't think the piano
Speaker 1: lessons too, But the practicing was the weakling. I found
Speaker 1: it very hard to practice anything, and that has continued
Speaker 1: throughout my entire life. I'm very lax about rehearsing and
Speaker 1: practicing and and actually being a good student in that regard.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I was singing and playing by about seven,
Speaker 1: and that just continued through my life. My school picked
Speaker 1: me out to like learn the violin, the clarinet, playing
Speaker 1: the school orchestra. Can you read music even at this
Speaker 1: late day, you haven't forgotten it? Now, you don't forget
Speaker 1: that people claim to forgotten that, Billy Joel whatever. But
Speaker 1: as someone who could read music basically, then occasion I'll
Speaker 1: sit down at the piano and then I look at
Speaker 1: the bass cliff and I go, there's no way. See,
Speaker 1: it's funny you should say that because it's always the
Speaker 1: bass cliff cliff that is the hardest one to remember.
Speaker 1: But if you just play for a wee bit, it
Speaker 1: comes back. So you're playing it at this point, do
Speaker 1: you ever have an light bulb go off and say
Speaker 1: this is what I'd like to do from my life? Never?
Speaker 1: So what changes you know? This? This is a bit
Speaker 1: of a long on boding story I've told a million times,
Speaker 1: but nothing ever changed, Nothing ever changed. No, I stumbled
Speaker 1: from pillar to post literally as my entire That is
Speaker 1: certainly a Scottish expression. No one in America is going
Speaker 1: to say pillar to post. Okay, well, but you get
Speaker 1: the express, the idea. I know what you said, but
Speaker 1: you know, I just haven't heard the expression. But nothing
Speaker 1: in my life has ever been planned. I have my
Speaker 1: My entire career has been made up of stumbling from
Speaker 1: one place to the next and no plan, no real
Speaker 1: solid ambition. Although my dad claims that that's not true.
Speaker 1: But I don't remember having any major ambition to do
Speaker 1: much except be a ballerina. That's what I really burned
Speaker 1: to do. Then I couldn't do that because I got
Speaker 1: too tall and I hurt my ankle. So then I
Speaker 1: wanted to be an actress. This is it? What age?
Speaker 1: What age? Do you hurt your ankle? I was. It's
Speaker 1: a good question. Eleven. Then you want to be an actor?
Speaker 1: Do you act on that? Do you actually act? In
Speaker 1: school places? I had a drama teacher that took great
Speaker 1: interest in me and got me out into Edinburgh. You
Speaker 1: theater outside of the school as well. She encouraged me
Speaker 1: to like audition for drama school, and so and so forth.
Speaker 1: I didn't get into drama school. And that's summer that
Speaker 1: I didn't get into drama school. I got approached by
Speaker 1: this guy that I had met at Edinburgh Theater who
Speaker 1: needed a keyboard player in his band. And because you know,
Speaker 1: I've been living in l a long enough, doesn't just happen.
Speaker 1: So how was he aware that you played the keyboard? Well,
Speaker 1: I think he maybe asked me. He was very interested
Speaker 1: in me sexually. Okay, that's straightforward. He was more interested
Speaker 1: in me, I think, sexually than he was by musical skills.
Speaker 1: But he knew I played pianos so and he knew
Speaker 1: he could lure me into his band to play keyboards.
Speaker 1: But you have to say yes. I didn't have to
Speaker 1: see yes. You did say yes. I did. So what
Speaker 1: was your inspiration for saying yes? Because I've just been
Speaker 1: rejected from drama college, so I had nothing else to do,
Speaker 1: and so for want of some entertainment in my life,
Speaker 1: I joined the band. And this was at what age
Speaker 1: fifteen or sixteen? Okay, so you go and you have
Speaker 1: this band, what kind of music you play? Well? You
Speaker 1: would call it alternative pop rock. Okay, we're the originals
Speaker 1: were playing? Was on the hip parade? They were originals.
Speaker 1: I can't ask me if they were on the hip three.
Speaker 1: That is the cutest thing I've ever been asked. I
Speaker 1: think so they were originals. And in the United States,
Speaker 1: which is my frame of reference, it's very hard to
Speaker 1: get work being an upstart band playing originals. So did
Speaker 1: you get gigs with this band? We did get gigs.
Speaker 1: You know. We were lucky that we marriage from Scotland,
Speaker 1: which had all music scene, and so we'd be pretty fast.
Speaker 1: Became quite large fish in a very small poem. Well
Speaker 1: that would you know, seem to say that you were good?
Speaker 1: We were good? So why were you good? We were
Speaker 1: really unique, really original, Like we were like no other
Speaker 1: band I have ever seen in my life. I mean,
Speaker 1: we were a right bunch of Motley crew. Um. We
Speaker 1: were quite rebellious and we we're just very committed to
Speaker 1: putting on good shoes. So I have to ask, did
Speaker 1: you ear a romantic partnership with that guy who asked you? Yes?
Speaker 1: I did. Okay. How long did that last? I don't know,
Speaker 1: about six months, I think. Okay, when that ended did
Speaker 1: the band break up? The band? The band survived, So
Speaker 1: how long did the band go on? For? Ten years?
Speaker 1: And the name of that band was Goodbye, Mr Mackenzie. Okay,
Speaker 1: Well return to this conversation with Trulie Manson of Garbage
Speaker 1: in a moment. You're listening to the Bomb Left Sets podcast,
Speaker 1: recorded at the tune In Studios in Venice, California. Each week,
Speaker 1: I interview a new guest and dive into their lives
Speaker 1: and careers. If you enjoy listening to the podcast, subscribe,
Speaker 1: rate and review the show. Please also check out some
Speaker 1: of the earlier episodes, like my conversation with Nancy Wilson
Speaker 1: of the band Heart and famous skateboarder Tony Hawk. You
Speaker 1: can hear them all on tune in the Apple podcast
Speaker 1: or your podcast player of choice. And now more with
Speaker 1: Shirley Manson. So when you're in Goodbye, Mr Mackenzie, are
Speaker 1: you for five years you still working in the shop?
Speaker 1: You are correct? Okay? At what point when you stop
Speaker 1: working in the shop, are you living off the money
Speaker 1: from the band or are you have to get another
Speaker 1: day job. I'm living off my day job. Okay, but
Speaker 1: after they after working in the shop, excuse me, then
Speaker 1: I barely existed off money from the band, barely. Okay,
Speaker 1: still living at your parents? Hum, still living at my parents.
Speaker 1: You know, in America things have changed. But in my era,
Speaker 1: once you got out of high school, parents said you
Speaker 1: gotta get out of the house, and of course you
Speaker 1: could afford to live somewhere on a minimum wage. Now
Speaker 1: it's just the opposite. I can't afford to living where
Speaker 1: I'm minimum wage, and people want their kids, and people
Speaker 1: do move back. So what did your parents think, You're
Speaker 1: getting older and older still living in their house. My
Speaker 1: mom wanted me so there was It was never even discussed. Really,
Speaker 1: so she did made all your meals, clean your clothes.
Speaker 1: No at that point, I mean I was an adult
Speaker 1: by that point, but no, she she wanted her children
Speaker 1: amongst her for as long as she could possibly have them,
Speaker 1: and my dad didn't dare question that. Okay, so you're
Speaker 1: in the band for ten years. That's a long period
Speaker 1: of time and it takes a long time to make it.
Speaker 1: But at that time, do you have a fantasy of
Speaker 1: this being a gig in stardom or you just doing it.
Speaker 1: I'm doing it because I really loved it. I mean
Speaker 1: in retrospect. I really did love it, and I wasn't
Speaker 1: looking to be rich. I knew it sort of deep down,
Speaker 1: and I was like, we're never going to be rich,
Speaker 1: We're never going to be hugely successful. But I really
Speaker 1: love doing what I get to do. And we traveled
Speaker 1: a lot, so it was the first time I got
Speaker 1: to go to mainland Europe, go to France, go to Germany,
Speaker 1: go to Holland. I mean, I went all over the
Speaker 1: place with this band. So that was exciting to me.
Speaker 1: And it was enough that of course begs the question
Speaker 1: which you maybe get into later. You're you're touring at
Speaker 1: a relatively low level, and what's it like being a
Speaker 1: woman on the road. You know. I didn't really think
Speaker 1: about it too much because in my very first band
Speaker 1: it was very eglitarian, and the Scots in general are
Speaker 1: pretty like, even in a funny way, in a different
Speaker 1: way that men and women are much more sort of
Speaker 1: equal in Scottish society in some ways, and I'm not
Speaker 1: entirely sure why, and this is the first time that's
Speaker 1: ever come out of my mouth. I'm just sort of speaking.
Speaker 1: But it never was an issue. Sexism was never in
Speaker 1: my mind an issue. However, looking back on it too,
Speaker 1: I wasn't one of the writers in the band. It
Speaker 1: was two male members who kept all the writing to
Speaker 1: themselves and never invited anybody else into the right dynamics.
Speaker 1: So they were the pirate seat. And I just didn't
Speaker 1: care about money back then, and I didn't care about
Speaker 1: power back then, or I didn't even speak in those terms.
Speaker 1: I just was having fun and that was enough really,
Speaker 1: So there were no ultimate goals down the road. None.
Speaker 1: It's kind of funny there. It's a fascinating thing because
Speaker 1: there's a book called You Just Don't Understand, and it
Speaker 1: sounds like a self help book written by this PhD.
Speaker 1: Deborah Tannin, who studies language, and she says, men are
Speaker 1: all about the pecking order, okay, and I'm trying to
Speaker 1: rise to the top where women are about the community.
Speaker 1: Like if a guy loses his job, he loses his
Speaker 1: identity where she would say a woman. And of course
Speaker 1: there're exceptions to all this. Well, this is where I
Speaker 1: am now, this is where I'll be tomorrow, and I'm
Speaker 1: just enjoying what I'm doing now. Yeah, I mean again,
Speaker 1: like you say, there's there's they're sweeping generalizations right in
Speaker 1: this exceptions to all the rules, but in this case, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think I had been taught from a very early
Speaker 1: age basically just to be in the clan system, and
Speaker 1: wherever your seat was in that system was your seat.
Speaker 1: I just accepted my seat. Now that's changed as I've
Speaker 1: gotten older, I started to fight for my own seat
Speaker 1: and the seat that I want. But back then I
Speaker 1: was very sort of submissive, I guess. So the band
Speaker 1: goes on for ten years, what to what degree is
Speaker 1: it successful by worldwide standards? Well, we got signed by
Speaker 1: a large label. We got signed by My Records and
Speaker 1: Capital Records, and we started bounced between those two labels,
Speaker 1: and we've got a big advance, but that all went
Speaker 1: to the writing partners. I didn't see any of that.
Speaker 1: But we did get a big advance, and there was
Speaker 1: a great buzz on the band, and we charted very briefly, um,
Speaker 1: which was enough to sustain us to keep trying and
Speaker 1: trying and trying for years. How many records did you
Speaker 1: make in that under that moniker? Well, I think I
Speaker 1: did four, but after you left they did more. They
Speaker 1: did another two. I think. Okay, so you did those
Speaker 1: four and then you made a solo record under not
Speaker 1: your own name. Correct, Although the so so called solo
Speaker 1: record was really just a recalibration of Goodbye Mr. Mackenzie,
Speaker 1: which was my first band. I E, the lead singer
Speaker 1: of Goodbye Ms. Mackenzie, stepped back and I took over
Speaker 1: lead vocals because we had gone to Berlin to make
Speaker 1: a record Berlin. That's funny. I know what you're talking about,
Speaker 1: but my brain had a percolade Verson sorry, excuse me,
Speaker 1: why Berlin this? I don't know what year this was in?
Speaker 1: What is it with the UK? I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: Actung Baby? You two went to uh Berlin, went to Berlin?
Speaker 1: Why Berlin? Well, David Boye went to Berlin, and therefore
Speaker 1: everybody else wanted to go there, And interestingly enough, Acting
Speaker 1: Baby was being recorded enhance the studios at the same
Speaker 1: time that we were there, and so we were all
Speaker 1: there when the wall came down, and it was we
Speaker 1: were literally there when the wall We were literally was
Speaker 1: that like crazy? Literally somebody just called us something went
Speaker 1: where are you right now? We're like, we're in the studio.
Speaker 1: It's like you need to get to the wall there
Speaker 1: going it down right now? There was that quick. I
Speaker 1: have a piece of the wall in my home in Scotland,
Speaker 1: and so was there any once you went out to
Speaker 1: the wall. Was there any fear? No? Was it just excitement.
Speaker 1: Everybody was really excited and it was crazy. Well, when
Speaker 1: I went to Berlin, as you say, and you're there
Speaker 1: in the wall that still remains. On one side is
Speaker 1: the bunker. On the west side is where you know,
Speaker 1: underground where Hitler was. On the other side you see
Speaker 1: where they're the buildings where they wouldn't let people live
Speaker 1: because they were afraid. The first they were using ropes
Speaker 1: to go over the wall. I mean, you get this
Speaker 1: really heavy feeling. It's really scary. I mean, when I
Speaker 1: first went to Berlin, you know, Checkpoint Charlie was still
Speaker 1: operating and we still had to cross through it to
Speaker 1: get to East Berlin, you know, and East Berlin had nothing.
Speaker 1: You know, you go to East Berlin now and it's
Speaker 1: like any affluent part of Europe, but back then it
Speaker 1: was it was grim and there wasn't much there and
Speaker 1: people were really struggling. So when you're in Berlin record
Speaker 1: you would go to East Berlin with just to see
Speaker 1: what's going on. But we went there to see what's
Speaker 1: going on there, and because of an incredibly hip kind
Speaker 1: of scene there, you know, because it was forbidden, and
Speaker 1: anything forbidden people won't right, So you make the record
Speaker 1: in Berlin because the lead singer was whacked or burned
Speaker 1: out or kicked out, not none of the above. Good
Speaker 1: Bye Ms. Mackenzie went to Hansa to to record a record,
Speaker 1: and we just got lost in a frenzy of partying.
Speaker 1: And we spent our entire recording advance on having fun.
Speaker 1: And then when we came back we had nothing to
Speaker 1: show for it. We hadn't we had no finished music
Speaker 1: or anything. I can't remember a good idea. So you
Speaker 1: blow all the money. Record companies don't like that. They
Speaker 1: hated that, so they dropped the band. But they held
Speaker 1: up like the head of the record label said, I
Speaker 1: love you. I think you're amazing, and you could do
Speaker 1: something on your own. Call me when you get your
Speaker 1: ship together. Okay, but you were not the lead vocalist
Speaker 1: at good Bye, Mr Mackenzie. So why did this person?
Speaker 1: It was just your overall charisma that he felt. I
Speaker 1: don't know, I've never stopped to think about it other
Speaker 1: than he to me. You know, he was a really
Speaker 1: amazing person. Actually, his name is Gary Carr first, and
Speaker 1: he was I know, Gary unfortunately is not with us, unfortunately,
Speaker 1: but he was. Uh. He had his own label, radio
Speaker 1: Active for m c A. And he was a big
Speaker 1: manager of the Talking Heads and exactly, but he was
Speaker 1: in New York. How did he find you in London? Oh? Gods.
Speaker 1: We had opened Gobamis mackenzie had opened for for Debbie
Speaker 1: Harry's solo tour in the UK during the eighties, and
Speaker 1: he had met me there and just liked me. He's like,
Speaker 1: you're funny, You've got charisma, your star. He kept on.
Speaker 1: So he was always like, you're a star. So and
Speaker 1: and he just as a result, he then fell in
Speaker 1: love with Obamis Ckenzie signed Obamas Mackenzie and then when
Speaker 1: he dropped Obamers Ckenzie, he was like, I want you
Speaker 1: let me know what you're gonna do. Okay, So how
Speaker 1: long did you go home before you say I'm ready
Speaker 1: to call Gary again? I can't remember. I do know
Speaker 1: that eventually everyone in the band, having been dropped, realized
Speaker 1: this was our only only solution, which was and and
Speaker 1: there's no thought in your brain, Hey, this doesn't work,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna leave the band behind. No, because I wasn't
Speaker 1: fit for anything. I didn't. I didn't have any calls.
Speaker 1: But I mean, you didn't say, Okay, this Gary thinks
Speaker 1: I'm a star. I'm gonna make a deal and leave
Speaker 1: the rest of the band members behind. No, that's not
Speaker 1: my style. I'm kitde loyal, okay, And I didn't want
Speaker 1: to leave my band in the shitter, okay. But all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, how do you become the singer? I
Speaker 1: don't know. I mean, it's it's so smudgy now and
Speaker 1: trying to remember our hazy memories. But I think just
Speaker 1: the whole band were like, let's put Shirley and lead
Speaker 1: vocals and will recalibrate and we'll survive as a different entity.
Speaker 1: And we all thought in practice we could do that.
Speaker 1: As it turns out, the male members of the band
Speaker 1: couldn't really hack the fact that I became the sort
Speaker 1: of focal point of the band, and and all the
Speaker 1: business started like Gary would run all business through me.
Speaker 1: Having been burned by good Mackenzie in Berlin, he was like,
Speaker 1: you're now in charge, you're responsible. I will only communicate
Speaker 1: with you. So that's kind of how it how it happened.
Speaker 1: And I made a record with Chris Franz and Tina
Speaker 1: Weymouth of the Talking Heads, because they were got his clients.
Speaker 1: And okay, a little bit slower you made her. I
Speaker 1: thought you made a record with the remnants of Goodbye.
Speaker 1: I did, but Chris and Tina were producing. Chris now
Speaker 1: lives in my hometown. I hear from an irregular basis. Yes,
Speaker 1: so fair Field, Connecticut. So how how do you are you?
Speaker 1: Were you happy with what transpired when those sessions? I
Speaker 1: was freaked out. But it was such an honor for
Speaker 1: me to work with Christ and Tina. I mean, I
Speaker 1: can't even put that into words. It was so extraordinary
Speaker 1: for me, and I was I was proud of what
Speaker 1: we've accomplished, you know. And uh, at that point, you
Speaker 1: were the singer, were you also the writer? Nope? And
Speaker 1: so the two guys from Goodbye also continue to write
Speaker 1: the songs. They continued to write the songs. Like I said,
Speaker 1: it was just a recalibration of goodby Ms mackenzie. Just
Speaker 1: in order to survive, we had me do the the
Speaker 1: take over the book, but the writing partnership remained the same.
Speaker 1: And the record comes out and then one and then
Speaker 1: we go on tour with Vic Chestnut and Life Chestnut. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's quite a bill. That's an amazing bill. Actually, I
Speaker 1: fell in love with Vic and he fell in love
Speaker 1: with me, and we had a love fest. But well,
Speaker 1: Vic Chestnut was in a wheelchair, he was he was apparent. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I have to ask that you said we had
Speaker 1: a love fest. Was this a physical love fest? No,
Speaker 1: just admiration. Yeah, yeah, we just got we hit it off,
Speaker 1: you know. Okay, he committed suicide, very strange. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: so you go on tour that that bill. We go
Speaker 1: on to her and, um, the band is sort of
Speaker 1: falling apart already because the boys are just are not
Speaker 1: happy with the Paris structure at this point, which I
Speaker 1: totally understand. Why should you understand? Well, I don't know,
Speaker 1: but I did, And but I was having fun. You know,
Speaker 1: I was going on to in America for the first time.
Speaker 1: I've never been to Americans sure, so to like travel
Speaker 1: all over America in a van was one of the
Speaker 1: most extraordinary experiences of my life. You know, it's across
Speaker 1: the desert in a band. Well, the funny things I
Speaker 1: grew up in the seventies, that was the dream to
Speaker 1: drive across country and now everybody flies. People don't even
Speaker 1: do that, which is sad because it really is an
Speaker 1: extraordinary way to see. So we did that, and then
Speaker 1: Rolling Stone picked up on us and sort of lauded
Speaker 1: us as like what one to watch And that was
Speaker 1: the final straw for my band. They were like, we're
Speaker 1: going home. We can't hack this anymore. And I kid
Speaker 1: you not. That very day I had gotten a phone
Speaker 1: call from my future band saying, would you be interested
Speaker 1: in meeting up with Butch vig Um about singing on
Speaker 1: a possibly singing on one of like a project that
Speaker 1: he's working on. Literally the same day the bands were
Speaker 1: calling it quits. Yes, okay, are you still friends with
Speaker 1: the band members of Goodbye Mr Mackenzie? Now? I am, yeah,
Speaker 1: but we have it was it was very difficult. It
Speaker 1: became very complex, and it was different called for Martin
Speaker 1: and the lead singer in particular, to like, I think
Speaker 1: process what had happened not only to him but to
Speaker 1: me too. But yeah, and now we're friends, and what
Speaker 1: do they do? There is still in a band that
Speaker 1: are called the Filthy Tongues. They are actually really great
Speaker 1: and they can make a living being the Filthy Tongues.
Speaker 1: I don't know if they make a living, but there
Speaker 1: are songwriters. They also work with Um the Skids. They
Speaker 1: just helped co write that last Skids record, the fourth
Speaker 1: anniversary of The Skids, Um Richard Jobson's band. And you
Speaker 1: know they do okay, and they're they're they're there. I'm
Speaker 1: proud of them. But they were resentful for a long yeah,
Speaker 1: just like ten or twenty years worth. Okay. So you
Speaker 1: get this call from Butch Vig and you think, what, Well,
Speaker 1: now you already know you're being as a band into you,
Speaker 1: so you're up for anything. Your loyalty has been canned. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I didn't have to question my own loyalty, thank god,
Speaker 1: because that would have been very difficult because I've already
Speaker 1: met Booch And and Garbage in London for a quick
Speaker 1: meeting where they had wanted, you know, so convoluted a story,
Speaker 1: but I had met them in Don a few months
Speaker 1: to going on tour in America and we had liked
Speaker 1: each other and that and then the day that my
Speaker 1: band quit was the day Duke Errickson called me. I
Speaker 1: was in Asbury Park in a hotel room, crying and
Speaker 1: I get the phone call from Duke Krickson saying, hey,
Speaker 1: are you interested in coming up for an addition? I
Speaker 1: was like, as a matter of fact, yes I am. Okay,
Speaker 1: but when you meet them in London, is it just
Speaker 1: social or are they checking you out? There? Checking me out?
Speaker 1: And did you know that at that time? Okay? But
Speaker 1: I the way they had approached me was would you
Speaker 1: send one song on booch Figs project. I was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: of course, I didn't feel that question my loyalty or
Speaker 1: anything like that. Okay, so you go for the audition
Speaker 1: and you don't have anything else going on, nothing, so
Speaker 1: you must have been pretty anxious. I was very anxious.
Speaker 1: I was so anxious that I completely messed up the addition.
Speaker 1: It was a disaster. But then we all went out
Speaker 1: to drink afterwards, and of course we got on like
Speaker 1: a house on fire, and we had such a laugh
Speaker 1: that I went home to Scotland having had a disastrous edition.
Speaker 1: Um and something about I guess the way we had
Speaker 1: all gotten along sort of pushed us to have a
Speaker 1: second edition. And okay, so did they agree the audition sucked?
Speaker 1: They did? What was bad about it? Have you ever
Speaker 1: seen shreds? Do you know what I mean by shreds? Okay, well,
Speaker 1: shreds is a thing that you can go on YouTube
Speaker 1: and like, let's say it's Radiohead singing one of their
Speaker 1: famous songs. Somebody like you. You watch a video radio
Speaker 1: Head singing one of their most famous songs, but then
Speaker 1: they've re recorded a different audio over the top of it,
Speaker 1: and it's like that, Well, that's what my audition was like.
Speaker 1: It was like shreds. So you couldn't I wasn't even
Speaker 1: articulating any words because I was so nervous and so
Speaker 1: embarrassed that it was just awful. How long was it
Speaker 1: between the first and second auditions, I don't know, maybe
Speaker 1: three months, a long time. And during that period you've
Speaker 1: got nothing. I got nothing, Okay, so you go back
Speaker 1: in the second audition is great, It is okay. Now
Speaker 1: these are guys you know. Butch Vig had a huge
Speaker 1: stud vidio career. But did you believe this was an opportunity?
Speaker 1: But did any it ended up becoming an instant success.
Speaker 1: But did you have any idea that's what would happen? No, none, whatsoever.
Speaker 1: In fact, I was convinced it was gonna burn badly
Speaker 1: because I was like, nobody wants to hear from a
Speaker 1: producer nobody ever has, So why will this work? Especially
Speaker 1: with me and that's the lead singer. It's going to
Speaker 1: be a disaster. I was so wrong. Stare right there.
Speaker 1: We'll be back with more Shirley Manson of the band
Speaker 1: Garbage right here on the Bob Left Sense podcast. Hi,
Speaker 1: this is Bob Left Sense. My guest come to the
Speaker 1: tune In studios in Venice, California to have these conversations
Speaker 1: with me. And if you ever want to see what
Speaker 1: they look like or where we take the show, check
Speaker 1: out the photos and videos search at tune In on Twitter, Facebook,
Speaker 1: and Instagram. Let's dive right back in with my guest,
Speaker 1: Shirley Manson of the band Garbage. So you have the
Speaker 1: audition three months later? How long after that do you
Speaker 1: go in the studio? No idea, no idea, No, I'm useless.
Speaker 1: I'm a terrible witness. Okay, how about the record comes
Speaker 1: out on Almo in America? Why is that? Well, we'd
Speaker 1: signed up to the young management that took care of
Speaker 1: Boots at the time were very smart and they were young,
Speaker 1: go getting women who had an idea that the Butcher's
Speaker 1: managers were women. Young women that's certainly you know, were
Speaker 1: they also managers of garbage. Yes, okay, that's my default. Okay,
Speaker 1: but that's that's certainly out of the ordinary, especially notable
Speaker 1: on today's ME two world. Correct. And then they struck
Speaker 1: two deals, one in the UK for the rest of
Speaker 1: the world and one for North America. And they were
Speaker 1: both independent record labels, and that was what we were
Speaker 1: very keen on pursuing because what was the record label
Speaker 1: in the UK. Mushroom Records were Australian based. And so
Speaker 1: you're making the the record which takes how long? Oh god,
Speaker 1: about eighteen months with a break for Booch to make
Speaker 1: a Soul Asylum record of all things. So is it
Speaker 1: it's that slow? Because well, I think there was a
Speaker 1: lot of feet involved and Booch had a lot to lose,
Speaker 1: and so he was very, very meticulous, and I would
Speaker 1: say all of all of us were fearful of taking
Speaker 1: the wrong step. We knew this was a great opportunity,
Speaker 1: I think, and so just took a ridiculously long time.
Speaker 1: And when the record is and you're living where when
Speaker 1: that time, I'm living in a weird hotel, okay, and
Speaker 1: the record is done, Now do you think we have something?
Speaker 1: This is gonna work? Not really, but it's a hit.
Speaker 1: From the Los Angeles perspective, it is literally immediately a hit.
Speaker 1: And the only other thing I could think like this
Speaker 1: from a couple of years later was Lantis more as
Speaker 1: Set also immediately a hit, and was that your sensation?
Speaker 1: Yes and no. I mean we were aware that it
Speaker 1: was taking off in a major way really fast, but
Speaker 1: there were always artists that were doing so much better
Speaker 1: than us, and our record labels, because they were small,
Speaker 1: really relied on us to make money for them. We
Speaker 1: became this sort of like little machine that they sent
Speaker 1: out into the world to fund all their other artists
Speaker 1: who weren't selling. And so they were constantly telling us,
Speaker 1: you know, no doubt or selling more records than you.
Speaker 1: Atlantis more Set is selling more than you. You know,
Speaker 1: we'se are selling more than you. You're losing. It was
Speaker 1: constantly telling us how much we were losing. So as
Speaker 1: frustrating and awful as that process was, I'm actually quite
Speaker 1: grateful for it because it made us really like be humble.
Speaker 1: We were forced to be humble. Okay, but it's the
Speaker 1: MTV era. You're all over television, you have a unique look.
Speaker 1: You probably can't go anywhere without being recognized almost immediately.
Speaker 1: There was a lot of pressure. Okay, but that also
Speaker 1: made much you know, after years of relative obscurity, must
Speaker 1: have made you feel very good on the inside. No,
Speaker 1: it made me feel rotten on the inside. I don't
Speaker 1: know why. I mean I I didn't have a lot
Speaker 1: of self esteem to begin with, and and having attention
Speaker 1: made me feel really self conscious. And I felt the
Speaker 1: whole time I was being judged and that I was
Speaker 1: failing to be a Gwen Stefani or be an Atlantis
Speaker 1: Moore set. I was just me, surely, Anne, you know,
Speaker 1: I was just my own, small, little Scottish self. That's
Speaker 1: how I viewed it at the time. I mean that
Speaker 1: changed obviously, you know, my confidence grew and I got
Speaker 1: better at what I did as an artist. But right
Speaker 1: at the beginning, yeah, I just felt rotten. And so
Speaker 1: ultimately you tour and there's and the garbage continues. So
Speaker 1: what can you say about that experience of the late
Speaker 1: nineties and early twenty one century. I could sit here
Speaker 1: for hours and hours and hours and talk about it.
Speaker 1: I mean it was extraordinary. It was an extraordinary time
Speaker 1: where alternative music ruled the roost, and that has never
Speaker 1: happened before. It's certainly never happened since. So I was.
Speaker 1: I am an alternative music lover. I'm not particularly turned
Speaker 1: on by pop or comeform tea of any sort. Like
Speaker 1: I love music that's sort of a little off kilter,
Speaker 1: you know, and that's just been my personal taste since
Speaker 1: I was young. And so it was a moment where
Speaker 1: we were enjoying this insane success, global success, as were
Speaker 1: a lot of bands that I loved and enjoyed, and
Speaker 1: we were a community in some ways, you know. We
Speaker 1: all played these massive summer festivals and we all got
Speaker 1: to know one another. We played winter you know, in
Speaker 1: radio festivals all together, and so there was a lot
Speaker 1: of camaraderie and so it was a very exciting time
Speaker 1: for nonconforming alternative artists. And what were the other artists?
Speaker 1: You became friends with everybody, you know, whether it was Beck,
Speaker 1: whether it was you know, food Fighters, whether it was
Speaker 1: no doubt, whether it was Fiona Apple. I mean that
Speaker 1: the list was, you know, and we we all everyone
Speaker 1: was friendly to one another, as Missy Elliott, I mean,
Speaker 1: it was. It was really wonderful. So why do you
Speaker 1: think that's scene was eclipsed by hip hop and pop.
Speaker 1: That's a good question. I mean, I know why it
Speaker 1: became eclipsed by pop because I think that I think
Speaker 1: the times became very conservative. I think hip hop really
Speaker 1: exploded because it was a new It was still new.
Speaker 1: I mean, I've been around for twenty years, but it
Speaker 1: really was one of the the most courageous and creative
Speaker 1: in terms of modern production. You know, they really they
Speaker 1: sort of messed around with sounds and beats that we
Speaker 1: hadn't heard before, and it was the sound of the street,
Speaker 1: was the sound of rebellion. So hip hop, I think
Speaker 1: became the most authentic version of rebellion and questioning of
Speaker 1: authority and and and our society in a way. But
Speaker 1: is there any hope for so called alternative music. There's
Speaker 1: always hope, of course, Okay, well there's always hope. It's blind,
Speaker 1: you know, blind optimism. No, I don't think that is
Speaker 1: blind optimism, and I think it's actually sensible and pragmatic
Speaker 1: because I think history continues to repeat itself. Well, the
Speaker 1: irony is in the century really hasn't If you go
Speaker 1: back prior to the napstri era, meaning last century, every
Speaker 1: two or three years there was a whole new sound Okay,
Speaker 1: we had the hair bands which were clipped by seattle,
Speaker 1: which were eclipped by eclips by hip hop. It was
Speaker 1: then then it pop came after that. Now for the
Speaker 1: twenty one century, we've had popp pop and hip hop.
Speaker 1: Hip hop happens to be dominant now, but it's been
Speaker 1: almost twenty years. No, it's true. But I mean one
Speaker 1: could say though that hip hop has been the dominant
Speaker 1: sound of the last twenty years, and it's really progressive
Speaker 1: and really exciting, and really I do. I mean it's not. Again,
Speaker 1: it's not my preferred choice, but there's always artists that
Speaker 1: come along that catch my ear and excite me, whether
Speaker 1: it's Drake, whether it's Logic or whether you know, there's
Speaker 1: always someone um that I'm excited by. Okay, But you're
Speaker 1: making a point about, you know, why alternative music has
Speaker 1: been eclipsed by hip hop and what the future of
Speaker 1: alternative music might be. I don't know. I mean, if
Speaker 1: I had the answer to that, I would be you know,
Speaker 1: I would be investing in it. Well, you are investing here,
Speaker 1: You're still making it. I'm invested in it. Yeah, that's true,
Speaker 1: but I mean it's very different. It used to be
Speaker 1: and under the old paradigm, you made the record okay,
Speaker 1: Then your label went to video sources, MTV, whatever, went
Speaker 1: to radio. They may or may not play it. They
Speaker 1: may or may not be a reaction. But you were
Speaker 1: either on the train or you're off the train. You said, hey,
Speaker 1: this works or it doesn't work. Today, a band of
Speaker 1: the Statue of Garbage can put out a record and
Speaker 1: it can have almost zero cultural impact other than amongst
Speaker 1: its fans. What is that like being the maker of
Speaker 1: that music? You know, it's interesting because it obviously as
Speaker 1: an artist who you know, I've had to wrestle with that.
Speaker 1: That's not an easy pill to swallow. It's difficult and upsetting.
Speaker 1: I'd be a liar if I said otherwise. But I've
Speaker 1: also managed to process, and I'm very grateful for this,
Speaker 1: as has my bands. By the way, is get back
Speaker 1: into what I call a beginner's head space, a sort
Speaker 1: of a place where you don't expect anything. And we've
Speaker 1: all been able to somehow get back to that space
Speaker 1: where we were before any of the success. So we
Speaker 1: now make music solely because we love each other. We
Speaker 1: have a good creative working relationship, We enjoy making music,
Speaker 1: and we enjoy touring it and our ambitions are not
Speaker 1: much bigger than that. And as a result, we've been
Speaker 1: able to still find joy in the process of doing
Speaker 1: what we do. And we've been very lucky and that
Speaker 1: we've built upon that slowly and we have a very
Speaker 1: loyal fan base. And yeah, we were still able to
Speaker 1: be in the music scene, you know, Okay, but there's
Speaker 1: a lot these especially now more than ever. It's a
Speaker 1: business and when you go on the road, you have
Speaker 1: to feed everybody in the crew, everybody in the band
Speaker 1: has to be in the black at the end of
Speaker 1: the day. There's an agent, there's a manager, so there's
Speaker 1: a pressure to sell as many tickets as possible. You
Speaker 1: must feel that pressure, right, So then it becomes an issue.
Speaker 1: You go out, you say, well, they want to hear
Speaker 1: the hits? How much new music do you play? It's
Speaker 1: one thing to be in the studio saying, hey, we're
Speaker 1: gonna do whatever we want to do. What pressure do
Speaker 1: you feel on stage and how do you deal with that?
Speaker 1: I don't feel any pressure on stage at all. I
Speaker 1: feel comfortable enough to to own our expression when we're
Speaker 1: on stage, and if people don't like that, then so
Speaker 1: be it. That's not for me to say, but I
Speaker 1: feel in general at this point, anyone who's coming to
Speaker 1: a garbage shoe is willing to go on that ride
Speaker 1: with us. They're not going to sit there and go, well,
Speaker 1: you didn't play stupid girl, you didn't play only happy
Speaker 1: when it rains. Everybody seems to be content to come
Speaker 1: with us in whatever. So if you have new music
Speaker 1: and you go on the road, how much of the
Speaker 1: new album will you play? The last record that we released,
Speaker 1: we played half of it, Okay, And you're on stage
Speaker 1: and you're watching, do you visibly see people get up
Speaker 1: and go to the bathroom? Of course? Now, we were
Speaker 1: on we were on tour last year and we it
Speaker 1: was summertime, you know, you're playing these festivals. And I
Speaker 1: looked out and there was a man on a sun lounger,
Speaker 1: fast asleep throughout our entire set. So what you're on stage,
Speaker 1: what goes through your mind or through your heart? Well,
Speaker 1: when I was younger, that would have devastated me. Now
Speaker 1: I find it funny, and I realized, I'm like, I
Speaker 1: am here to do a job and connect with someone.
Speaker 1: It doesn't have to be everyone. You know, I'm not
Speaker 1: failing if I don't touch every heart in this audience.
Speaker 1: But my job is to get out there and tell
Speaker 1: my truth and hope that somehow I connect with one
Speaker 1: or more people. And that's all I think about. I
Speaker 1: don't worry about being famous, I don't worry about being important.
Speaker 1: I don't worry about being a start. I really did
Speaker 1: not give a ship. I'd want to be a working
Speaker 1: musician because that's well I value. I value working musicians
Speaker 1: more than anything in the world. That's my gam Okay,
Speaker 1: Two things. One two thousand five, Deaf Leopard and Brian
Speaker 1: Adams went on a tour where they played ballparks and
Speaker 1: they would alternate headlining, and I happen to see them
Speaker 1: in they were minor league ballparks in Minnesota, and at
Speaker 1: that time, the opening act on that date was Brian Adams.
Speaker 1: He had had a set list and he's playing, but
Speaker 1: also he could bring children in for free whatever, and
Speaker 1: he was having this experience of the audience not being
Speaker 1: with him, and he literally, I was standing on stage literally,
Speaker 1: you know, looked at the band, literally took out the
Speaker 1: set list and ripped it in half and slowly brought
Speaker 1: the audience into the palm of his hand and worked
Speaker 1: them into a frenzy. It was a magical thing, you know,
Speaker 1: something that only someone was very experienced doing it. Do
Speaker 1: you ever feel challenged in that way that, Okay, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna win them over All the time I go out
Speaker 1: feeling like it's like we are coming from a place
Speaker 1: of lack we are going to try and change in mind.
Speaker 1: I always feel like that, Yeah, okay, so now, how
Speaker 1: often does garbage works? It's that's doesn't even apply to
Speaker 1: us because we have such a bizarre set up. Well,
Speaker 1: the reason I'm asking what do you do with the
Speaker 1: rest of your time? That's a good question. I have
Speaker 1: absolutely no idea set a home feeling like of work tiger. Okay,
Speaker 1: you're an out of out of work tiger. Are you
Speaker 1: the type pacing the cage saying, hey, I want my
Speaker 1: bad members to record or go on the road or okay,
Speaker 1: but how about independent things that are fulfilling, whether it
Speaker 1: be music, aren't anything? Everything is fulfilling to me At
Speaker 1: this point, I feel it's up to me to find
Speaker 1: joy in my life. It's not nobody else is going
Speaker 1: to come and serve it to me. You know, you're
Speaker 1: painting a picture of you're very happy when you're working, okay,
Speaker 1: and when you're not working, you're frust rated. You would
Speaker 1: like to be working with the band. I am frustrated,
Speaker 1: but I think life isn't that simple. You know, human
Speaker 1: beings are complex. So yeah, I can be frustrated and
Speaker 1: also go out to an art gallity and see something
Speaker 1: that will blow my mind and make me feel excited.
Speaker 1: And I have like all these ideas and it excites
Speaker 1: me and I feel joyful, and and then I'll come
Speaker 1: home and fall into a slump again. I mean, I'm cute,
Speaker 1: like most human beings are. Okay, But okay, this is
Speaker 1: another thing I've noticed, because you know, when I'm right,
Speaker 1: I'm writing in the house, and a lot of times
Speaker 1: I'll be in a bad mood and you literally walk
Speaker 1: out the front door in your mood changes. It's just astounding.
Speaker 1: You just have to the threshold. But assuming it's just
Speaker 1: you're not on the road. An average day, you wake
Speaker 1: up when seven is oh, so you're living regular human
Speaker 1: being that me. I'm up late. I'm I'm more creative
Speaker 1: at night. I have a dog and the dog has
Speaker 1: to get out, and I'm not a dog person. I'm
Speaker 1: in service to my dog and the dog you have
Speaker 1: to get up at seven are seventh? Their t is?
Speaker 1: You know? And are you the type person who will
Speaker 1: go out to breakfast with friends or you are not
Speaker 1: going to write first friends? Okay, but do you do it? Yes?
Speaker 1: Of course, So you're not You're You're a people person.
Speaker 1: You're not a loner. I am very much a people person.
Speaker 1: I love people and I'm fascinated by them. But I'm
Speaker 1: also a misanthrope. So again, here you've got this duality
Speaker 1: that exists in most human beings, Like I am really
Speaker 1: fascinated and genuinely interested in anyone I meet, and I'm
Speaker 1: open to engaging with them. Okay, you can meet them once.
Speaker 1: Do you want to see them again? It depends how
Speaker 1: great they are right exactly? Or do you find bore bob?
Speaker 1: But I have no interest in seeing them. There are
Speaker 1: a lot of people I find. You know, everybody's got
Speaker 1: a fascinating story. You can hear it once, but there
Speaker 1: are other people. Every time you hang with them, they
Speaker 1: tell the same story, and it's like, you know, I
Speaker 1: have no I I bump them and into one thing,
Speaker 1: but I'm not going to make plans with them. No,
Speaker 1: of course, not I mean, that's how you select the
Speaker 1: people in your life. But it also makes me feel
Speaker 1: I mean, uh, I don't view myself as the average person.
Speaker 1: I don't know what they can even say this, Maybe
Speaker 1: it's out of date. Average person is getting up in
Speaker 1: the morning and going to a job. They're seeing people
Speaker 1: all the time at the job. It is wearing them out,
Speaker 1: and they come home and they want to relax. They
Speaker 1: maybe have a drink, have a smoke, watch TV, and
Speaker 1: get up and do it again. And on the weekends
Speaker 1: they'll go out to dinner, I'll go out to a show.
Speaker 1: They'll cut loose. Okay where this someone once made a
Speaker 1: great line? You know, the people who party hardest on
Speaker 1: these conventions are not the music business people because these
Speaker 1: other people it's one time of year. You got a Vegas.
Speaker 1: These people out of control where the music. But you
Speaker 1: can think you can party every night, So why shouldn't
Speaker 1: be out of control tonight? So my question is are
Speaker 1: you since you don't have when you're not on the road,
Speaker 1: you're not recording. Uh, are you in the house sort
Speaker 1: of bouncing off the walls? So how are you occupying
Speaker 1: your time? That's a good question. I mean, I walk
Speaker 1: my dog alt, I go to galleries, I read a lot,
Speaker 1: I love going to movies, I love dinner with friends.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's a million and one thing. So in
Speaker 1: the average, in the average week, how many times in
Speaker 1: a week do you go to breakfast with friends? Go
Speaker 1: to dinner with friends? You don't no idea. I'm you know,
Speaker 1: trying to say, is you know you sound very social,
Speaker 1: So therefore when I hear that you about your frustration,
Speaker 1: I'm just trying to figure it out, you know, And
Speaker 1: you say you're a missing thrope? Are you the type
Speaker 1: of person who really you know, you go when you
Speaker 1: have a good time. But are you mostly alone or
Speaker 1: you're mostly hanging? I don't even know how to answer
Speaker 1: this question. This is amazing. I have absolutely no idea.
Speaker 1: This is so peculiar to me that I'm not sure
Speaker 1: to be honest. I mean, I'm both shy and I'm
Speaker 1: both gregadious. I both love people and I hate them.
Speaker 1: If I had my brothers, I'd spend my whole life
Speaker 1: with my talk. Okay, So if you're home alone, I'm happy.
Speaker 1: You're a happy pig and ship Okay, and you're married
Speaker 1: At this point, they've been married for eight years. What
Speaker 1: did your husband do for a living. He's a music producer,
Speaker 1: music producer. We could look this up online. So what
Speaker 1: what what does he actually do? Well? He also works
Speaker 1: with my bands, he's like our engineer, right, And he
Speaker 1: also produces bands on his own. So if he's producing
Speaker 1: bands on his own, is he tend to be in
Speaker 1: town with you? In Los Angeles or out of town?
Speaker 1: All of the above? And if you go on the road,
Speaker 1: does he go with you on the road? Yes, he does,
Speaker 1: and he does the sound on the road. So you're together.
Speaker 1: We're together. And how did you meet him? We hired him?
Speaker 1: You hired him? And how he was our guitar? Roadif?
Speaker 1: How old is he relative to you? He's a year
Speaker 1: younger than okay, so basically the same age. How long
Speaker 1: did it became a romance? Oh? Years and years and years,
Speaker 1: years and years and years. He loved me from the
Speaker 1: day that he met me, he said. In fact, he
Speaker 1: said that he loved me before he met me because
Speaker 1: he'd heard me sing. And he used to listen to
Speaker 1: a garbage c D every night to go to sleep.
Speaker 1: Milk would send him to sleep every night. This was
Speaker 1: before we met. Then we met and I couldn't have
Speaker 1: been less interested in him. And but then over the
Speaker 1: years he became a really good friend. And then I
Speaker 1: started to notice that when he wasn't around, I didn't
Speaker 1: feel good. Really yeah, but he was, you know, carrying
Speaker 1: a was devoted to me. Okay, So what what was
Speaker 1: the transition? What made it happen? I mean I tell
Speaker 1: the story all the time and people don't believe me,
Speaker 1: but this is how superficial and cheap I am. So
Speaker 1: my makeup artist at the time, unbeknownst to me, had
Speaker 1: shaved his head because he had terrible hair, like thinning,
Speaker 1: long rocker hair, and she shaved it off. So we
Speaker 1: had a little buzz cut. And I came down. We
Speaker 1: were supporting I think Alanis Morissett, and we came down
Speaker 1: in a bus down the ramp towards the stadium, and
Speaker 1: there was a super hot guy standing by the side
Speaker 1: of the bus and I was like, he's hot. Oh ship,
Speaker 1: that's Billy Bush there. And began the romance. Okay, and
Speaker 1: so actually married how long eight years? How long was
Speaker 1: the romance going on? M sixteen years? Maybe a long time? Yeah,
Speaker 1: And now, uh, you were married once before I was,
Speaker 1: And what was that about Well, it was about a
Speaker 1: gorgeous person who I still miss and love very much,
Speaker 1: but we were pulled apart by extraneous circumstances. I start
Speaker 1: touring the world. And also I think I had rushed
Speaker 1: to his side because he was a paternal figure and
Speaker 1: I had been in a very destructive, sexually dangerous, abusive
Speaker 1: relationship until I met my first husband. So he kind
Speaker 1: of rescued you, Yes, he rescued And how did that end?
Speaker 1: It just ended in sadly, in me becoming successful and
Speaker 1: going on tour and we've never seen each other, and
Speaker 1: then the relationship just kind of deteriorated and in my
Speaker 1: great you don't have any children? Right? Oh god? No, okay,
Speaker 1: so that's a conscious thought. Yes, you always knew that
Speaker 1: you were never going to have children. No, I never
Speaker 1: knew that I wouldn't have children. But I never ached
Speaker 1: for them, like women talk a lot about aching in
Speaker 1: their wombs, and I would always be like, kind of
Speaker 1: like a dude looking at them blankly, like what does
Speaker 1: that mean? I don't even know where that is. I
Speaker 1: had no aching in my womb and no a longing
Speaker 1: for a child. Really, how about your husband? None? Either? Well,
Speaker 1: I felt the same way. I felt that I was
Speaker 1: living my own life and I didn't want to subjugate myself.
Speaker 1: But once I hit forty, I realized life was meaningless
Speaker 1: and I saw my sisters with their kids whatever, and
Speaker 1: I understood it at that point in time. But it's
Speaker 1: very much a different life when you don't have kids.
Speaker 1: I'm not complaining, but it's different. People say, oh, I'm
Speaker 1: turned onto this and that by kids. I'm not turned on.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know it doesn't happen to me. No,
Speaker 1: But I also don't believe one should live vicariously through
Speaker 1: your kids. I don't mean like I couldn't agree more.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to say, especially when it comes to musical trends.
Speaker 1: They'll be in the car and the kid will say, hey,
Speaker 1: put this on the radio something you would normally not
Speaker 1: listen to. My Yeah. I mean, there's billions of children
Speaker 1: in my life, thankfully, so it's not like I'm of
Speaker 1: contact with any kids or any new music or whatever.
Speaker 1: But for me personally, I think my mother was so
Speaker 1: devoted to me as a mom, like she was an orphan.
Speaker 1: Like my mom was had a crazy story. She was
Speaker 1: like an orphan child of a governess. And a butler
Speaker 1: in a stately home in Scotland, and the idea of
Speaker 1: her the mom having a child out of wedlock would
Speaker 1: have lost she would have lost her job and been
Speaker 1: you know, castigated. So they took the baby in a
Speaker 1: basket literally and dropped her off in an orphanage. And
Speaker 1: she was reared in the in the institution of you
Speaker 1: know or orphanages until she was five years old. So
Speaker 1: family was really important to her, and she dedicated herself slavishly.
Speaker 1: One would say to her children, and I think I
Speaker 1: just grew up thinking, no way am I doing that.
Speaker 1: That is not I'm not doing that. We're going to
Speaker 1: pause for a moment. We joined this conversation with truly
Speaker 1: more of the band Garbage. This is Bob. I love
Speaker 1: talking to people getting their stories, much like I do
Speaker 1: on this podcast. For two name, I'll be talking to
Speaker 1: some of the most important people in the music in
Speaker 1: tech industries that my music media summit in Santa Barbara
Speaker 1: the last week in of April. I'd love to have
Speaker 1: you joined the event. It's going to be a great
Speaker 1: way to connect in person with these high profile individuals,
Speaker 1: learned how they made it in the future, direction of
Speaker 1: their industries. Go to Music Media Summit dot com for
Speaker 1: tickets and more information. Let's continue the conversation with the
Speaker 1: lead singer of the band Garbage, Shirley Manson. So for
Speaker 1: the last six months we've been living through this me
Speaker 1: too moment. First question would be, you know we talked
Speaker 1: about with your first band, but have you experienced any
Speaker 1: of this sexism or sexual harassment? Yeah? Every woman that
Speaker 1: unless she's incredibly privileged. Now, on some level, you're very
Speaker 1: dynamic and very quick, but on some level, one level,
Speaker 1: some level, no, I'm gonna get to the other level.
Speaker 1: So on some level you're very dynamic and you're quick, okay,
Speaker 1: but you also tell stories of being shy and subservient.
Speaker 1: So where does this leave in these situations? Well, that's
Speaker 1: a really good question. I mean, it's peculiar. I don't
Speaker 1: think anyone who hasn't been physically touched unwanted in an
Speaker 1: adwanted fashion really can understand why it's difficult sometimes to
Speaker 1: use your voice in that situation. Um, I consider myself
Speaker 1: a very dominant, aggressive, articulate person, and I've had my
Speaker 1: body touched and have frozen as recently as last year. Uh,
Speaker 1: when you were to the degree you're comfortable. What happened
Speaker 1: last year? I was at a radio festival and we
Speaker 1: were meeting competition winners and we had there was a
Speaker 1: long line of people that we were just standing in
Speaker 1: front of a backdrop and having our photographs taken, and
Speaker 1: some dude moves in, stands beside me, puts his hand
Speaker 1: on my breast. He's got his arm around me and
Speaker 1: then puts his hand on my breast and I think, oh, wow,
Speaker 1: he's he's so nervous and I comfortable he has had
Speaker 1: on my breast. This is embarrassing, that's all right. And
Speaker 1: I tried to like shift and he just kept on
Speaker 1: grabbing me. And then eventually I put my own hand
Speaker 1: on his hand and pushed his hand to try and
Speaker 1: get him off my breast, and he would not let go,
Speaker 1: and eventually I managed to push his hand down to
Speaker 1: my waist and we took the photograph and I was
Speaker 1: frozen like a deer in the headlights, and he wandered
Speaker 1: off and I couldn't even look where he'd went, what
Speaker 1: direction he had gone, and I was just so my
Speaker 1: mind was so full of like wow, that dude just
Speaker 1: grab my tit in front of everybody. Now I'm not
Speaker 1: saying that's comparable to what a lot of women have
Speaker 1: experienced or some men, by the way, but it was
Speaker 1: unpleasant and I found it really upsetting, and I was
Speaker 1: angry at myself for not going dude and shout, you know,
Speaker 1: calling him out, like what are you doing? But I didn't,
Speaker 1: And so it gave me some insight into the process
Speaker 1: that occurs for so many women in situations where they
Speaker 1: just freeze and they can't push back, they can't shout,
Speaker 1: they can't fight back, they can't say anything. It's mad.
Speaker 1: So let's assume the same thing were to happen this summer.
Speaker 1: Do you think you would freeze again? I don't know,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't know. That's something I don't think
Speaker 1: men understand. You See, It's like when you're a woman
Speaker 1: your entire life, when you walk out the house, you're
Speaker 1: aware that you could be hurt in some way, and
Speaker 1: men never have that experience, not really unless they're in warfare.
Speaker 1: You know, generally speaking, a man doesn't have to think
Speaker 1: about his physical safety. Women think about it all the time,
Speaker 1: and it's something that men, God bless them, just cannot
Speaker 1: quite connect to that idea of like that you know,
Speaker 1: you're walking down the street, you're nervous, there's some somebody
Speaker 1: whistles out your says something sexual to you. It's intimidating,
Speaker 1: it's frightening because you don't know where it can lead.
Speaker 1: You know, I was married to someone who did not
Speaker 1: have them as a guy. We've all been in places,
Speaker 1: we've hit on somebody that's kind of weird, kind of tache.
Speaker 1: We've even talked to a woman okay, and they very
Speaker 1: specifically send a signal it's a brush off. I don't
Speaker 1: want to talk to you, okay, And if you're a man, unfortunately,
Speaker 1: if someone doesn't give that signal, a lot of people
Speaker 1: but then see that as a green light unfortunately. So
Speaker 1: you fear as a woman, you feel you might get
Speaker 1: hurt to what degree? What behaviors doing you employ to
Speaker 1: make sure you don't get hurt? Well, I mean you're careful,
Speaker 1: you know, I've always been very careful. I don't walk
Speaker 1: down dark streets alone at night if I can possibly
Speaker 1: help it. If I am down in dark street at
Speaker 1: night by myself, I'm walking down the middle of the
Speaker 1: middle of the road, because it was going to take
Speaker 1: a further distance to drag me from one side to
Speaker 1: the other. I mean silly things like that. You know, um,
Speaker 1: I make it very clear and I'm very lucky and
Speaker 1: that I am not scared to say, dude, I'm not interested.
Speaker 1: You know, please go go back and join your friends
Speaker 1: or you know, I'm pretty clear. But not. But not
Speaker 1: all women are like that. And a lot of women
Speaker 1: have been conditioned to please men and a peace men
Speaker 1: and they don't They don't want to upset them or
Speaker 1: hurt their egos or or incite them, you know, to
Speaker 1: be aggressive. So there's a whole thing at play. I mean,
Speaker 1: I know we've all talked about this for some months now,
Speaker 1: and my only feeling about it all is we need
Speaker 1: to re educate our children, are boys and our girls.
Speaker 1: And what would that look like? Well, you know, it's
Speaker 1: it's for men. I think it's really confusing. You know,
Speaker 1: there's a lot there's there's a lot of of depicting
Speaker 1: men in movies, in TV, in literature, you know, where
Speaker 1: the pursuit is romanticized, where they're encouraged to push even
Speaker 1: when a woman says no, that you know that they
Speaker 1: learned that maybe if they push a little harder, they'll
Speaker 1: finally get what they want, she'll relent, you know. Blah
Speaker 1: blah blah. There's all this misconst like misguiding stuff out
Speaker 1: there about what it means to be a dude. And
Speaker 1: I just think we need to to change a little
Speaker 1: just I just think a few tweaks and the way
Speaker 1: we raise our children will will help men and women
Speaker 1: co exist a little more comfortably those look like. I
Speaker 1: think the great thing that I welcome the most right
Speaker 1: now is the breakdown of binary gender. I think that
Speaker 1: is a great start right there, where men are not
Speaker 1: expected to be you know, the the the one who
Speaker 1: they alpha yea, or they're not expected to be the
Speaker 1: predator and or the chaser or the one who always
Speaker 1: asked a woman out in a day where it becomes
Speaker 1: a little more iglitarian where men and women are. You know,
Speaker 1: a lot of the time when I was growing up
Speaker 1: in the seventies, women were just expected to wait, literally
Speaker 1: wait until a man asked her to dance, you know.
Speaker 1: So it all starts off at in primary school for us,
Speaker 1: you know, like when you're five, you're you're lined up
Speaker 1: against the wall. This was in the seventies in Scotland,
Speaker 1: were all the women were lined up against the wall
Speaker 1: and then the men or the boys were sent and
Speaker 1: I go choose your partner, and the man would the
Speaker 1: boy would choose whoever they wanted to dance with. And
Speaker 1: are you bringing back memories? Wow, that's really crazy. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm not healthy and not good and it starts right
Speaker 1: that early, you know. And I think boys are praised
Speaker 1: for being you know, good at sports and aggressive and
Speaker 1: and even violent, you know, and women are praised for
Speaker 1: being pretty and cute and small and just a little
Speaker 1: tweaks like that. You know, I think it could help
Speaker 1: change the Well, let's go back to your husband. You
Speaker 1: pull up in the bus. You see him with a
Speaker 1: buzz cut. You said that dude looks hot. You really
Speaker 1: recognize them very slowly. How do you change the signal
Speaker 1: you're sending to him? Well, these are my trade secrets.
Speaker 1: I don't serve them. You've already used them. You're getting
Speaker 1: you know, you're very happily married, healthy audience. No, no, no,
Speaker 1: that's that's my own game. That's my private game, for sure.
Speaker 1: I mean, how how you you let someone know? I
Speaker 1: mean I knew he would love me, of course, we've
Speaker 1: established I love you, bet you, so eventually I was
Speaker 1: just a bit more welcoming. You know, we'd spend time together,
Speaker 1: we'd looking you know, we just become really good friends. Okay,
Speaker 1: what advice would you give to someone where the other
Speaker 1: person's uh desires are not as clear? I have no
Speaker 1: advice to give, because I think it's different for every
Speaker 1: single person. That's the thing where there's no blanket rules there,
Speaker 1: because each man and each woman and each any any
Speaker 1: person of any gender, we're all made up so differently,
Speaker 1: and so what what is seen as a as um
Speaker 1: a dance between the two is so unique to each relationship.
Speaker 1: I think, you know, there's no blanket advice i'd give
Speaker 1: anyone for fear of that biting me in the ass.
Speaker 1: You sound like more of the type of person would
Speaker 1: give advice and then when they came back to it
Speaker 1: said it didn't work to well, you know, what the
Speaker 1: hell do I know that's true? I was? I mean,
Speaker 1: I I the older I get, the less advice. I
Speaker 1: want to get all the exact same way. Twenty years ago,
Speaker 1: I tell everybody how to live their lives. Now I'm
Speaker 1: not sure that I know what I'm talking about, and
Speaker 1: I know I have no idea what I'm telling. And
Speaker 1: they say, and they're not gonna listen to me. It's
Speaker 1: like why why ruined the relationship? But waste right now.
Speaker 1: The fantasy, the rock star fantasy, which aligns very much
Speaker 1: with the truth, is we have a guy who shy
Speaker 1: and he speaks to his guitar and he feels if
Speaker 1: I become successful musician, I will be able to have
Speaker 1: a girlfriend of sex, life, etcetera. That's men on the road.
Speaker 1: It is very different today in light of cell phone cameras, etcetera.
Speaker 1: But prior to that, the legend was relatively true. The
Speaker 1: men went on the road. There were groupies. As David
Speaker 1: Lee Roth said, I know on the road, and I
Speaker 1: can get laid every night of the week, not necessarily
Speaker 1: by whom I want to get laid by, but every
Speaker 1: night of the week. As a woman being on the road,
Speaker 1: What were your desires and your feelings in your own
Speaker 1: experience in this situation. I can remember, like you know,
Speaker 1: being like number one all over the world. I was
Speaker 1: all over like the coolest fashion magazines in the country.
Speaker 1: I was being lauded and applauded, and everything was tick
Speaker 1: tiboo from a professional standpoint. But I would go back
Speaker 1: to my hotel tell room by myself. Let's stop with
Speaker 1: what is tixie boo? Tick ty boo just means you
Speaker 1: know what tickt boo? Right, Okay, you can just hear
Speaker 1: from from hearing it. But did you go back to
Speaker 1: your hotel room happy? Or did you say, god, I'm
Speaker 1: on the cover every magazine here I am alone. I
Speaker 1: probably went home back to my hotel room. How to work?
Speaker 1: There is nobody around, you know, but I have to
Speaker 1: believe being that famous, invisible men would try to make
Speaker 1: themselves available. No, no, men were terrified of me. Absolutely.
Speaker 1: You're a band on the road, which means you're going
Speaker 1: to concert halls, you're going to radio stations. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of men there. One of those men starts not
Speaker 1: what not once? I never got hit home once. Wow. Again,
Speaker 1: that's what I mean about the conditioning of the man too,
Speaker 1: how because men want to be the powerful alpha, and
Speaker 1: if you're the powerful alpha, that changes the dynamic. And
Speaker 1: no man really has been taught to deal with that.
Speaker 1: Not many men, I should say, again sweeping generalizations, but
Speaker 1: the majority of men don't know how to deal with
Speaker 1: a woman who's more successful than they are, and you know,
Speaker 1: has has has a credit card, and can get herself
Speaker 1: out of any situation. She doesn't need the night in
Speaker 1: Shining Armor to come save her. They don't know what
Speaker 1: to do with that. In your marriage, are you the one?
Speaker 1: Do you wear the pants and the family so to speak? No,
Speaker 1: I actually we have a pretty balanced So you decide
Speaker 1: you're going to go to dinner, who chooses the restaurant
Speaker 1: changes every day? Okay, So I mean I'm not being funny,
Speaker 1: I'm not being flippant. I was interress with you. So
Speaker 1: it's balanced in the relationship balance. So once you get
Speaker 1: over the thre shold, you're willing to be equal to
Speaker 1: the man as opposed to be dominant with the man. Well,
Speaker 1: I'll be dominant if I feel like this situation is
Speaker 1: not being taken care of, of course, that's that's something different.
Speaker 1: So if we go back to this situation, you're on
Speaker 1: top of the world, you're and there are no um
Speaker 1: boyfriends at the time, do you start to hit on men? Well,
Speaker 1: that's a good question. I don't know. Some people say
Speaker 1: you're you're flirting out rageously with him, and I'm like, no,
Speaker 1: I wasn't. Well, there's one thing to flirt outrageously and
Speaker 1: say I'm having fun, but I would never left this
Speaker 1: guy in my hotel room. There's another thing to say,
Speaker 1: I'm having fun if the guy is fun, and it
Speaker 1: might go somewhere. To be honest, I'm no, I can't.
Speaker 1: I don't really have any memories of meeting somebody that
Speaker 1: was really interested in so because the pickens were slim
Speaker 1: or your standards, I'm slim and my standards were high.
Speaker 1: To be honest, and again, I'm signing like a sort
Speaker 1: of a sort of old maid in that I have
Speaker 1: never wanted to just have sex with someone just to
Speaker 1: have sex, because I just think, statistically wise, there's very
Speaker 1: few people that are going to make my experience worth it.
Speaker 1: So in general, I'm attracted to the brain first, and
Speaker 1: then then then I'm like, okay, sex could be interesting,
Speaker 1: let's see where this goes. But it's usually brain first.
Speaker 1: I'm never like, oh he's hot, I'm going to like
Speaker 1: go go back to my own you know. That's you know,
Speaker 1: in my limited experience. That's women feel the same way.
Speaker 1: There there's millions of women that I know who are
Speaker 1: who will fox somebody for just sex. Millions of them,
Speaker 1: I think so, But isn't that they're the lower percentage.
Speaker 1: I don't know, Actually, I would challenge that idea. I
Speaker 1: think that's what we've been led to believe. I feel
Speaker 1: like that's necessarily reality. It's like affairs, you know, supposedly,
Speaker 1: you know, more women are having an affairs than men.
Speaker 1: So what does that tell you? I think you know
Speaker 1: what it tells you. I know I'm only do me
Speaker 1: I'm wrong. Put myself on the ground a little bit more.
Speaker 1: I think it'll do a great degree. That to men
Speaker 1: who are not u servicing is a terrible world. I
Speaker 1: don't mean in terms of sexual stuff, but they're not
Speaker 1: paying attention to the woman, and the woman has opportunities. Well,
Speaker 1: women are finding opportunities for themselves and and and as
Speaker 1: they get older, they get better at doing that, and
Speaker 1: then it seems lose their confidence. It's a sort of
Speaker 1: flip of the way we are that we developed that,
Speaker 1: the way we educate. I think women as they get older,
Speaker 1: get smarter, and they're like, oh wait a minute, what
Speaker 1: a call? And this has been you know, and men
Speaker 1: suddenly realize, oh, I'm not quite the dominant gorgeous stud
Speaker 1: I thought I was. Well, if their confidence drops, women's
Speaker 1: confidence rises, and so there you have men break up
Speaker 1: and they go hang with their budge and they watch
Speaker 1: ESPN and they drink beer and they don't even talk
Speaker 1: about it. Women women don't. Women rally around each other
Speaker 1: and can live without a man. It's the men who
Speaker 1: are That's right, motherfucker's exactly. But that's the men who
Speaker 1: were weak. They don't want to admit it. No, it's
Speaker 1: not that they're weak. I mean, I think again, they're
Speaker 1: just not given the tools. They're not educated, they're not
Speaker 1: shown how to age, they're not shown how to live
Speaker 1: and have bigger women are taught how to survive in
Speaker 1: ways that men aren't, and vice versa. You know. So
Speaker 1: this is what I'm talking about goes back to what
Speaker 1: I'm saying earlier. We need to change the way we educated.
Speaker 1: We can all have happy health. I agree with you,
Speaker 1: better taught to go, I'll be hunters. But that's about it.
Speaker 1: You know. It's funny you should say that because I
Speaker 1: suddenly had this sort of realization very recently. I was
Speaker 1: watching a TV show and it was about the Vikings,
Speaker 1: and and men were getting sent off to you know,
Speaker 1: to fight, and it was brutal, and I was like, God,
Speaker 1: I think those those times, it must have been horrendous.
Speaker 1: And then it made me think of all the men
Speaker 1: that get sent off to this day into war. And
Speaker 1: men are sort of like they are educated to to
Speaker 1: shut something off from themselves so that they will be
Speaker 1: willing to go and fight for their countries, you know,
Speaker 1: and get into these terrifying situations that never really happens
Speaker 1: to women. Not really again sweeping generalizations. There's plenty of
Speaker 1: women in the services and and so on, but you know,
Speaker 1: sort of over the last few centuries, men have been
Speaker 1: taught a certain way so that they will mindlessly go
Speaker 1: in and and and fight to their deaths. And and
Speaker 1: we that that society has changed slightly since then. And
Speaker 1: think it's also changed because I grew up in an
Speaker 1: era of a draft where it kind of crossed classes,
Speaker 1: where now it's an all volunteer army where the educating
Speaker 1: which tend not to go. Okay, But you've traveled around
Speaker 1: the world, where's the best or most exciting place, her
Speaker 1: favorite place you've been? Well, again, I don't believe in best.
Speaker 1: To be honest, I don't I really really fight that
Speaker 1: idea of all every fiber of my being, because like
Speaker 1: I come from a family where my dad marks everything
Speaker 1: out of ten. It drives me insane. To me, I
Speaker 1: feel like life is always surprising. You can go like
Speaker 1: you could go to Paris and have a dreadful experience.
Speaker 1: Hard to imagine, of course, So when you say what's
Speaker 1: the best, it's just what I guess is the most
Speaker 1: enjoyable on any given day. Yeah, and everywhere I go
Speaker 1: as a musician, and I've traveled almost everywhere at this point,
Speaker 1: I always managed to have an extraordinary, unique experience. And
Speaker 1: even if sometimes it's fraught with difficulty or there's an unpleasantry, overall,
Speaker 1: I just find everywhere I go fascinating. It's and travel
Speaker 1: has been the greatest privilege of my entire life. To
Speaker 1: go to the cities, to countries and see how other
Speaker 1: people live, how they think, is really really fascinating, endlessly
Speaker 1: fascinating to me. Well, I have a friend who was
Speaker 1: the photographer for Led Zeppelin, and he says, I've been
Speaker 1: around the world and I've seen nothing. So are you
Speaker 1: the type then that he's a fool. Of course, my
Speaker 1: question is he also was staying up all night developing
Speaker 1: film in the film era, so the band could wake
Speaker 1: up and see the photos from the night before, so
Speaker 1: it wasn't totally his fault. But there are a lot
Speaker 1: of people they go, they go from the bus to
Speaker 1: the hotel to the gig, and they don't really see anything.
Speaker 1: Are you the type of person who takes advantage in
Speaker 1: these very I try. I try always to get up early,
Speaker 1: like you know, We'll have traveled over you know, from
Speaker 1: I don't know New York to to South after Cape
Speaker 1: Town for a random example, and we've had no sleep,
Speaker 1: but I'll still get up after two hours to go
Speaker 1: on safari because I know this will never happen to
Speaker 1: me again. You know. We get to Istanbul, same thing,
Speaker 1: We've been traveling all night, but you get the opportunity
Speaker 1: to go to the Blue Mosque, you know, and have
Speaker 1: your mind blown. It's just I feel it's really important,
Speaker 1: you know too, to take advantage of those moments where
Speaker 1: you really get shown so much and it does shift
Speaker 1: your perspective so much. Absolutely. One of the problems you
Speaker 1: know with America is people haven't been anywhere and they
Speaker 1: think it's the greatest. I mean talk very minor things.
Speaker 1: You go to a European or you know, UK, it's
Speaker 1: finally coming to America. They have the dual flush toilet.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's a good idea. Okay, they just recently
Speaker 1: come to America where they can change the price of
Speaker 1: the gas electronically. These are not major things, but everybody
Speaker 1: in the United States give its Oh where we are,
Speaker 1: it couldn't be any better where. It's much better in
Speaker 1: many other places, of course. But then there's also incredibly beautiful,
Speaker 1: precious things about the US, which you know, for me
Speaker 1: as an immigrant, you know, coming here, my entire career
Speaker 1: is down to America. Like I will never forget that.
Speaker 1: I have deep, deep love for this country. And a
Speaker 1: lot of people in the rest of the world take
Speaker 1: swings of America for a lot of different reasons, you know.
Speaker 1: But I always describe America as being in a really
Speaker 1: innocent like everybody's like, no, it's just vulgar. No, it's
Speaker 1: not vulgar. It's innocent because what of the population has
Speaker 1: never traversed outside the national boundaries. And like you say,
Speaker 1: everyone believes that they're the best in America, that they've
Speaker 1: got the best country, and and you know, one would
Speaker 1: argue that's not the anymore, you know, and and that
Speaker 1: is a great sadness. But also hey, welcome to the
Speaker 1: rest of the world. We're exactly We're all the same,
Speaker 1: We're just all trying to figure everything out. And um,
Speaker 1: I think that what's what is both awful about the Internet,
Speaker 1: but what's also so great about it is it will
Speaker 1: and it is slowly impacting America and changing the way
Speaker 1: people think, and everyone's becoming a bit more educated about
Speaker 1: other ways of life. It doesn't feel like that right
Speaker 1: now for obvious reasons, but I think ultimately over the
Speaker 1: next thirty, forty, fifty years whatever, that America is going
Speaker 1: to change all for the better. Now, in the thirty
Speaker 1: years you have left, what would you like to accomplish
Speaker 1: your do I want to continue to travel as much
Speaker 1: as possible, That is my biggest desire. And not to
Speaker 1: lose my curiosity. I want to remain curious if and
Speaker 1: to keep and to try and nurture courage. I think
Speaker 1: that what looks like that I will continue to try
Speaker 1: new things that I will try and and meet people
Speaker 1: and without judgment, you know, and try and listen, try,
Speaker 1: and I want to be a better listener. That's that's
Speaker 1: a big thing for me. I like, I want to
Speaker 1: be in service rather than serving myself. You know what.
Speaker 1: I'm in a in distribart. I've done nothing but served
Speaker 1: myself for twenty odd years, you know, and I want
Speaker 1: to change that as much as possible as my life progresses.
Speaker 1: I want to be in service. Okay, I call you
Speaker 1: up or I text you, and I say, let's go
Speaker 1: to I need to write to there. No, no, no, uh,
Speaker 1: we're gonna go. I want to take you to this
Speaker 1: restaurant where you know they serve bird eggs and all that.
Speaker 1: Are you say, I'm into it a new experience. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: and I've eaten some terrible things, but I always want
Speaker 1: to try. I don't want to be that person who's
Speaker 1: scared to try because I've discovered incredible things that I
Speaker 1: didn't think I would like. Forgetting food, but just looking
Speaker 1: at the situation in general. Have you ever said yes
Speaker 1: to something and said, oh that was a big mistake. Yes?
Speaker 1: Do you remember anything? Yes? Space Mountain and Disneyland. I
Speaker 1: said yes, and I went on it and I wished
Speaker 1: to hudn't said yes. I really hated it. Well, the
Speaker 1: funny thing about it is I didn't go on Space
Speaker 1: Mountain until about you know, sometimes like then in this century. Okay,
Speaker 1: you know, they'd say Disneyland's a happiest place on Earth,
Speaker 1: and no, it's the most miserable place there. It's a
Speaker 1: place where I would never need go. I like to
Speaker 1: do everything in life once just so I can talk
Speaker 1: about it. So I rent there. It was great or
Speaker 1: it sucked whatever. But I was not a Disneyland person.
Speaker 1: But I went with my nephews and we went on
Speaker 1: Space Mountain. I'm not a big roller coaster person. Whatever.
Speaker 1: But the fact that the roller coaster was underground, you know,
Speaker 1: because most of the rides at Disneyland are disappointing as rides,
Speaker 1: I thought it was pretty good. Yeah, I wouldn't say. See,
Speaker 1: I didn't find disney Disneyland rights disappointing. Far from it.
Speaker 1: I really enjoyed myself. However, my I did not find
Speaker 1: it the happiest place on Earth. I found it one
Speaker 1: of the most miserable places on Earth. I was engulfed
Speaker 1: in children's farts the entire time I was there. I
Speaker 1: hated standing for an hour and a half for a
Speaker 1: two minute, right, you know. But when I go into
Speaker 1: Space Mountain, I knew that it was like the prim right.
Speaker 1: Everyone was like, this is going to blow your mind.
Speaker 1: And I I honestly thought I was gonna have a
Speaker 1: heart attack. Really, yes, that was awful. That's one thing
Speaker 1: I remember. They had a they're still there. They have
Speaker 1: something called the Revolution. Maybe they're going to tear it
Speaker 1: Down's original roller coaster at Magic Mountain and the seventies.
Speaker 1: It was the first roller coaster that went upside down.
Speaker 1: So I remember getting on. It would go up a
Speaker 1: little hill, gonna curve and then and you're there. Then
Speaker 1: you were You're there. I am so freaked up. You
Speaker 1: can't get off. It's like there, It's like there's nothing
Speaker 1: I can do. But I like being on the little teacups.
Speaker 1: I feel safe vomit cups. Really, oh man, it was
Speaker 1: a really that was one of the original rides. But um,
Speaker 1: music drove the culture in the era that you grew
Speaker 1: up in, an I do not believe music drives the
Speaker 1: culture at this particularly do. I just think there's no
Speaker 1: common music driving the entire culture, if that makes any sense.
Speaker 1: I think music has a big an influence now than
Speaker 1: it arguably ever has. But it's all, you know, fractionalized
Speaker 1: or what's the word. I'm looking you know, I get
Speaker 1: what you're saying, you know, they're all these different niches.
Speaker 1: Why do you think it has as much. I mean,
Speaker 1: if I go back to the sixties, a rock star
Speaker 1: would say something and beyond the radio and it would
Speaker 1: change thinking in the role in general. I don't think
Speaker 1: that happens. No, it doesn't have the same cultural impact
Speaker 1: because everyone's not listening to the same one artist. You know,
Speaker 1: when Elvis was singing, we were all listening to Elvis.
Speaker 1: You know, not you were too well, I was too young.
Speaker 1: But I'm I'm trying to talk talk to It's okay,
Speaker 1: but I gotta bust you every chance I have. I
Speaker 1: gotta wake up. I gotta take some of that speed
Speaker 1: to get in here. So I take my chances from
Speaker 1: female whenever I can get up full respect. Okay. So
Speaker 1: in any event, you're you're saying that it's not driving
Speaker 1: the culture like it used in the days of Elvis. Well,
Speaker 1: single artists and bands are not. They don't have the
Speaker 1: same cultural impact. But music has never been more listened
Speaker 1: to ever historically speaking. I agree. But do you play
Speaker 1: at home? Do you play music? Yes? And what do
Speaker 1: you play? I listened to all kinds of music. I
Speaker 1: mean that sounds like such a copype I really do.
Speaker 1: And I've just taken very recently too. Instead of like
Speaker 1: sort of of creating my listening habits recently, I've just
Speaker 1: put my I've just turned my phone on and put
Speaker 1: it through this system and just listen to anything from
Speaker 1: my playlist that the phone dictates, and it's been extraordinary.
Speaker 1: I've loved it. But these are songs that you originally picked. Well,
Speaker 1: there's certainly albums that I've picked. Yeah, But like I said,
Speaker 1: I listened to classical, I listened to you Azz, I
Speaker 1: listened to blues, I listened to POPA listen to rock,
Speaker 1: I listen to heavy metal. I mean, I will listen
Speaker 1: to anything, but I get overwhelmed. I mean it's like
Speaker 1: if you go on Spotify or any of the services
Speaker 1: and you listen to the new music and they break
Speaker 1: it down by genre, and you say, okay, there's fifty
Speaker 1: country tracks, fifty dance tracks, and if you listen to fifty,
Speaker 1: you'll find one or two good ones, and you start
Speaker 1: to get overwhelmed, you know, and a lot of times
Speaker 1: you'll find something go you know, recently, well, is anybody
Speaker 1: else I like this? As anybody else like that? There's
Speaker 1: no coherence to the culture. That's true, but is that
Speaker 1: about them? I'm not sure that's about that. I think
Speaker 1: I hate being told what to do. But it goes
Speaker 1: back to what we're talking about earlier in terms of argument.
Speaker 1: We live in an era where everyone has their own
Speaker 1: facts in their own lives, which is almost a tower
Speaker 1: of Babel society. And even with television, we're in the
Speaker 1: golden age of television and is there are a lot
Speaker 1: fewer television shows than there are music shows. But even
Speaker 1: then we'll find well, we can't talk because we didn't
Speaker 1: see the same shows, we didn't see the same movies. Okay,
Speaker 1: so there's no community fiber. No, that's true, But we
Speaker 1: don't know yet where that's going to go. That might
Speaker 1: go somewhere fantastic, We just don't know yet. Well, I
Speaker 1: think I believe it's going to go along the lines
Speaker 1: of americ at large, which is winners and losers. I
Speaker 1: believe we have an inherent desire to be with other
Speaker 1: people like you talk about going out to breakfast or
Speaker 1: dinner or whatever, or it' to be able to say,
Speaker 1: oh I saw that show. It sucked, Okay, And therefore
Speaker 1: there's a lot of rabble rousing from people who are
Speaker 1: not successful. But the reasons if you look at the
Speaker 1: movie business, like and I don't go to the movies.
Speaker 1: First of they don't start when you want them to start.
Speaker 1: And I have so much I don't have any time,
Speaker 1: and I have so many options at home on the
Speaker 1: flat screen. But if you look at the weekly grosses,
Speaker 1: you know, Black Panther well far eclips all the other
Speaker 1: movies combined. And I think part of the people say, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I saw that good bad. Otherwise, I think there's a
Speaker 1: desire for community. There is a desire for community. But
Speaker 1: at the same time, I do believe in the principle
Speaker 1: of evolution. I have faith in evolution that evolution will
Speaker 1: sort this out sooner or later. I mean, every generation
Speaker 1: moans about the new generation that's in place, you know,
Speaker 1: And I feel that we always harp on about how
Speaker 1: things once were, forgetting that evolution has always like I
Speaker 1: have better life than my mom did, and my mom
Speaker 1: has a better life than my granny did. And I
Speaker 1: have to assume that my all my friends kids will
Speaker 1: have a better life than and than we did. And
Speaker 1: I think that's a great thing. And I think we
Speaker 1: can all sort of like pick over the carcass of
Speaker 1: what once was, or we can embrace what is and
Speaker 1: I want to be and what is I'm going to
Speaker 1: embrace what it is. Well, I'm gonna argue with you, Okay,
Speaker 1: in my generation, I know a lot of people are
Speaker 1: not doing as well as their parents. Okay, the baby boomers,
Speaker 1: your parents had a lot. Well, you're you're talking about
Speaker 1: economics though, right, you're talking about house and money okay,
Speaker 1: and you're talking about rights freedoms. Well, knowledge, I would argue,
Speaker 1: engay people can get married in America is wonderful. I
Speaker 1: gret a lot of that to MTV. People saw a
Speaker 1: rainbow of colors there and therefore they were you know,
Speaker 1: there's less racism, etcetera. But we live in a country
Speaker 1: the way there isn't less racism. But that's a whole
Speaker 1: lot of back to that. I believe in America there
Speaker 1: is less racism, but you have a very vocal minority
Speaker 1: who was afraid of losing. I have to disagree. You're
Speaker 1: talking from a very white, privileged position. No, I'm saying
Speaker 1: that if you go back decades and you saw an
Speaker 1: interracial couple walking down the street, chances are there to
Speaker 1: be sneers or comments comments. I believe there are less
Speaker 1: and now we're all victims of our own experience. And
Speaker 1: I'm not saying there's not racism, there's not anti semitism,
Speaker 1: there's not sexism. But I believe, but I believe as
Speaker 1: a result of media, there's a certain level of enlightenment.
Speaker 1: I view as a result of the economic disparity. Okay,
Speaker 1: the people who have been left out, whether through their
Speaker 1: own fault or not through room fault, have started to
Speaker 1: rebel around the world Half Brexit, Trump, etcetera. And it's
Speaker 1: focused on those people. Unfortunately, with that has come racism.
Speaker 1: And I don't want to comment on the rest of
Speaker 1: the rule because I'm not as much of an expert,
Speaker 1: but in America, I would believe pound for pound there's
Speaker 1: less racism and less homophobia than there was. Not that
Speaker 1: there isn't very vocal racism homophobia, but I think we're
Speaker 1: you know, it's like Jerry Springer, who used to be
Speaker 1: the mayor of Cleveland, Okay, before he had his insane show,
Speaker 1: and he's not a stupid guy. He says, the liberals
Speaker 1: always win in the end, Okay, all the things that
Speaker 1: were unthinkable, you know, abortion, gay marriage, etcetera, etcetera. They're happening.
Speaker 1: Eventually the rest of the world wakes up. Well, I
Speaker 1: don't even notice where to start without. To be honest,
Speaker 1: we'll start anywhere, but I'll start with have you I
Speaker 1: don't know what that is. It's a documentary about the
Speaker 1: penal system here in America. No, have you seen you're
Speaker 1: making I am not your Negro back, but you're making
Speaker 1: the point that a whole generation of African Americans were
Speaker 1: wiping up by putting them in jails. It's nothing what
Speaker 1: you're making. I agree totally. You know that there's a
Speaker 1: lot of endemic problems. I'm not apologizing for them. But
Speaker 1: what I'm saying is that I believe that generally it's
Speaker 1: going Maybe I'm wrong. I don't know. Well, again, it's complex,
Speaker 1: isn't it. There are some people who get left behind this,
Speaker 1: but generally speaking, our generation has it better than the
Speaker 1: previous generation. And then there are parts of our society
Speaker 1: who are being left behind. And that's blacks and and
Speaker 1: people of color appressively so, but it's also white. I
Speaker 1: don't want to make this, as you know, white apologist,
Speaker 1: but just to illuminate the point, this is how Trump
Speaker 1: got elected. There are people as a result of the
Speaker 1: economic changes they in globalization, they don't have if you're
Speaker 1: left behind. And and then the crazy thing stamething with Brexit.
Speaker 1: Their solution is, let's chet back to the past, and
Speaker 1: the past is never coming back. That's Trump's approach to
Speaker 1: It's it's very like I just did never believe you
Speaker 1: can look back. I think you must always look forward
Speaker 1: to you know. Well, the scary thing is I mean,
Speaker 1: I certainly lived through the sixties of the Vietnam War
Speaker 1: in the draft, but since then in America, this is
Speaker 1: the first time where every you're addicted to the news
Speaker 1: and it's uh, it's just like when the wall fell,
Speaker 1: when the wall fell in Berlin and you were there.
Speaker 1: We were of the illusion in America the other doctor,
Speaker 1: democracy will reign. And now you have booting, you know,
Speaker 1: assassinating spies in a different country, and we have you know,
Speaker 1: you know, we have the head of the country for
Speaker 1: life in China. It's you know, the world is going
Speaker 1: to it. You know. It's exactly as my dad says.
Speaker 1: And I actually feel like I have to cling onto
Speaker 1: this analogy, which is, you know, evolution happens, whether we
Speaker 1: like it or not. It's just what occurs when you
Speaker 1: leave humans on a planet for long enough, they will evolve.
Speaker 1: And there's always moments, he said, It's just like it's
Speaker 1: like tight, it's like title shifts, you know, you that's
Speaker 1: the tide gets sucked back for a moment, and then
Speaker 1: it surges forward, and it surges for further forward than
Speaker 1: it did before. And that's that's always what my dad
Speaker 1: says to try and calm me down when I'm getting
Speaker 1: hysterical and and full of desperate depression about the way
Speaker 1: the world is turning. He's like, it's it will turn back,
Speaker 1: generally speaking, Are you an optimist? I used to be
Speaker 1: a terrible pessimist, and then something turned around when my
Speaker 1: mom died for me, like it was like a bolt
Speaker 1: from the blue I had. I was forced to change
Speaker 1: my thinking because if I hadn't changed my thinking, I
Speaker 1: would have died of grief. And and I I just
Speaker 1: decided me. I made a decision that the light because
Speaker 1: my mom had a lot of light in her. She
Speaker 1: was a real people pleaser, my mom because she'd been
Speaker 1: an orphan and she wants people to love her and
Speaker 1: like her, and so she brought light into every situation,
Speaker 1: and I used to annoy me, you know, as a
Speaker 1: moody teenager. It just fucking and irritated me. And then
Speaker 1: when she died, I realized that light is gone. You know,
Speaker 1: people would say to me at my mom's funeral. You
Speaker 1: know your mam always you never left your mom feeling worse.
Speaker 1: You always left your mom feeling better than you did
Speaker 1: before you bumped into her. And I just made this
Speaker 1: decision that I had to do something with my mom's light.
Speaker 1: I couldn't let it go and dissipate into nothing. That's
Speaker 1: I had to hold a bit of her light in me,
Speaker 1: and I used that to change the way I approached
Speaker 1: my life. It sounds really okay, but it's really true,
Speaker 1: and it was quite that conscious. It was conscious. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was just like, I need to change the way
Speaker 1: I I don't want people to leave me feeling worse.
Speaker 1: I don't want to be a vibe crush. I don't
Speaker 1: want people to feel yucky around me. And you know,
Speaker 1: we're all aware of what that's like to bump into
Speaker 1: somebody who makes us feel disgusting. You know, whether they're irritable,
Speaker 1: whether they're depressed, whether they moan, whether they only talk
Speaker 1: about themselves. I don't know. There's a million one reasons
Speaker 1: why we don't like being around people. Yeah, And I
Speaker 1: was just like, I want to be a person in
Speaker 1: the world that makes people feel good. Again, I go
Speaker 1: back to this word of being in service, like I
Speaker 1: just I want to take my mom's light and give
Speaker 1: it to someone else so we can spread these particles
Speaker 1: of my amazing mother. When you talk about service, that's
Speaker 1: you know, twelve step language. Is that where you got it? Okay,
Speaker 1: and you never had a problem with Okay. That's not
Speaker 1: to say I won't develop one. I love alcohol. I
Speaker 1: had to stop drinking alcohol because I was definitely the
Speaker 1: type person who couldn't have only one. If you want
Speaker 1: to have one or two drinks, didn't you didn't call
Speaker 1: me you want to have the night of your life
Speaker 1: or attempt you know, Oh boy, I can tell story
Speaker 1: after story, and then then there's you know how I
Speaker 1: and then how I finally stopped, and I did not
Speaker 1: stop saying, oh, I'm never gonna I'm never gonna have
Speaker 1: another drink. It's just my life got way too crazy
Speaker 1: and no more, excuse me, I want to know more.
Speaker 1: This is a much longer story but I'll give you
Speaker 1: just the tip of it. Yeah, give me the cry.
Speaker 1: So this was nineteen This is a long time ago
Speaker 1: one going into two. And I had been stopped for
Speaker 1: drunk driving on the night that John Lennon got died.
Speaker 1: John jet shot and died. That's an amazing story unto itself.
Speaker 1: But I ultimately got a reckless driving as opposed to
Speaker 1: d u I and there's a condition with that where
Speaker 1: you can't drive within eight hours of having a drink.
Speaker 1: And in the time it took for that case to
Speaker 1: come to court, I had been stopped once again on
Speaker 1: the four oh five. In that particular case. The couple
Speaker 1: let me go, but I but I knew that I
Speaker 1: could be stopped. So once I got the reckless driving
Speaker 1: and I couldn't have a drink within eight hours of driving,
Speaker 1: I took that very serious. Okay, because you cannot be
Speaker 1: in Los Angeles without a driver's license. You have to move.
Speaker 1: This is pre uber, pre the train, etcetera. You can't
Speaker 1: do that. So no, I wouldn't you know, I would
Speaker 1: walk home from the bar or whatever. And the Los
Speaker 1: Angeles had something not that easy to say. I met
Speaker 1: a woman and at that big that was just when
Speaker 1: sushi was coming, and she lived in West Hollywood, and
Speaker 1: she bit me. Everybody's in you know, this is part
Speaker 1: of a sex. This is part of it during intercourse.
Speaker 1: Were what part of your boat did she bite that
Speaker 1: was on my neck? I believe the first time. And
Speaker 1: I immediately I like like, I like being frozen like you. Okay.
Speaker 1: I immediately just reacted, whoa that hurt? And she said, oh,
Speaker 1: it didn't hurt that bad. That was not the right
Speaker 1: answer for me. Okay, So she apologizes, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
Speaker 1: I'm really kind of freaked out. And for a couple
Speaker 1: of days things are sha and then she and she
Speaker 1: says it will never happen again, never happen again, okay.
Speaker 1: And I go to visit her, and the sushi bar
Speaker 1: was two blocks from her house, okay, And we come back.
Speaker 1: We come back and the same thing happens again. But
Speaker 1: I can't leave because I can't dry within eight hours
Speaker 1: of having a drink, You're stuck there. And I say,
Speaker 1: my life is way too complicated. I'm gonna stop drinking
Speaker 1: for now so I won't be in this situation. And
Speaker 1: then it was such a change, not drinking because I
Speaker 1: was not in a good spot in my life that
Speaker 1: it was such getting over the hurdle that when I
Speaker 1: got over the hurdle, I didn't want to drink again.
Speaker 1: But hold on. So when she beat you, it was
Speaker 1: during sex and she bat your neck and it was
Speaker 1: so painful that did she take a chunk out? Event
Speaker 1: she didn't take a chunk, but it was but it
Speaker 1: fell like there would be blood. It was not a
Speaker 1: playful bite. It was something very aggressive because you were
Speaker 1: such a good fuck. I'm trying to think, you know,
Speaker 1: you know, you go back into these I've been in
Speaker 1: a very long term relationship where I'd lived with a
Speaker 1: woman for years and that had ended and there was
Speaker 1: the rebound relationship, and this was the first kind of
Speaker 1: more serious relationship after the rebound relationship. So uh I
Speaker 1: And it's one of those situations where I don't know
Speaker 1: whether this is I'm wondering whether you've been on the
Speaker 1: opposite side where you're doing everything is normal, but the
Speaker 1: person is starting to say things that heighten your ange,
Speaker 1: Like I've got a great story, but it's like a holiday,
Speaker 1: Well you have to come meet my parents. Well it's
Speaker 1: one thing if I had been dating you for six
Speaker 1: months or a year. We've been going out for a
Speaker 1: couple of weeks. I don't need to meet your parents.
Speaker 1: So at some point I believe she sensed a little.
Speaker 1: This was not the first time she bit me, but
Speaker 1: the last time she bait me, I think, and I
Speaker 1: did leave. I think she sent some of my reluctance
Speaker 1: and it was a whatever. But the story you were
Speaker 1: going to tell, well, I was having sex once in
Speaker 1: my parents house with an older guy, and you know,
Speaker 1: we were trying to keep it on the download because
Speaker 1: my parents were sleeping upstairs, and we were in front
Speaker 1: of a fire in in my parents house. That was
Speaker 1: a cool fueled fire, but it had a glass pane,
Speaker 1: so you know that it was an enclosed fire with
Speaker 1: a glass front. So we're having sex anyway, and my
Speaker 1: knee falls onto the glass pane, and you know, he's
Speaker 1: humping me, and he's a big dude, and he's like,
Speaker 1: you know, making all the sexual signs, and I eventually go,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm burning up because my knee was burning on
Speaker 1: the glass and he went, yeah, me too. That was
Speaker 1: so low fi and I got really badly burned that
Speaker 1: over him. We could go on forever. They The amazing
Speaker 1: thing about you is I only know you by image, Okay,
Speaker 1: I mean I see you in the videos on the
Speaker 1: you know, in other media. You are completely different from
Speaker 1: what I thought you. It's all good for for some reason,
Speaker 1: and you will laugh hysterically. I thought you were somewhat
Speaker 1: demure in results. No, I mean I'd almost like to
Speaker 1: reel the whole podcast back and start with just the
Speaker 1: hell's a popping off the top of our head conversation first,
Speaker 1: because I was, you know, at first, I'm anxious. You know,
Speaker 1: I don't really know you what what will be the
Speaker 1: point that will stimulate you? And I realized it doesn't
Speaker 1: take that much, and it takes a lot. You know,
Speaker 1: today's me too world. I don't know where I can
Speaker 1: go there are we I meant stimulation in terms of
Speaker 1: getting you excited about the world at large? Is that
Speaker 1: what you mean? You meant it more you met it? Oh, Bob,
Speaker 1: come on, okay, I'm not now went through the mental
Speaker 1: roll index figuring out exactly what's going on here. You've
Speaker 1: been listening to Shirley Manson on the Bob Left Sets podcast.
Speaker 1: You were wonderful, Shirley. That wraps up this week's episode
Speaker 1: of the Bob Left Sets podcast. According to here at
Speaker 1: the tune In Studios in Venice, California, I hope you
Speaker 1: enjoyed my conversation with Shirley Manson about her life, career,
Speaker 1: used on relationships, sexuality, and so much more. I might
Speaker 1: still be blushing by next week's episode. As always, I'd
Speaker 1: love to know what you think of the show, so
Speaker 1: email me at Bob at left sets dot com. Until
Speaker 1: next time, I'm Bob Lefts to me exact and me