Let's face it: we're all getting older. But knowing that doesn’t make aging easier to accept. The latest "What is happening!?" moment for Gen Xers like me is seeing the rock stars we grew up idolizing getting older. Sure, they're still putting out music — sometimes it's great, sometimes it's ... not so great. But when it really gets to me is at concerts. It hits me right in the chest when I see one of my childhood idols on stage and see how touring for decades has impacted their physical health.
That time has come for Shirley Manson of Garbage, who has been through two hip surgeries in recent years, one of which was a hip replacement. Manson recently assured me that she's “more or less back to (her) former self,” but her recovery period gave her time to reflect.
“I can no longer take my physicality and my vigor for granted,” said Manson. “I still have plenty of it, but I don't know at what point that's going to be taken away from me or my bandmates. It can happen at any time to anyone, and you know the forces of the world can rock you back on your heels and there's nothing you can do about it. And I realize that it's still very precious that we've had a 30-year-long career where all the original members were still healthy.”
If you’re not familiar with the band Garbage, there’s a good chance you still know a couple of their big hits. “I’m Only Happy When It Rains” was huge on MTV and was a crossover hit on American Top 40 radio. The band also contributed the theme song to the 1999 James Bond film The World Is Not Enough, which is a pretty exclusive club among rockers. The band has now released their eighth album, Let All That We Imagine Be The Light.
Garbage is somewhat unique in that all four of the core members already had extensive songwriting and music production experience before the band even formed. The most obvious example of this is drummer Butch Vig, who produced two of the biggest albums in alternative rock history: Nirvana’s Nevermind and the Smashing Pumpkins’ Siamese Dream.
Even with all four members so heavily credentialed, it's Manson who's the star of the band. In addition to her famously powerful voice, she’s well-known for her outrageous stage outfits and her willingness to speak her mind when performing live. That can veer into topics that, in today's political climate, are often considered lightning rods, and her stage commentary has been known to upset fans.
“Performing live is a very emotional discipline,” said Manson. “You know, I would argue sometimes that you're not fully in your right mind. You know, you become augmented by the sound, by the noise, by the music, by the songs and by the emotions that course through the room and and occur between audience and band. It feels like a very communal experience, and it's ultimately about connection.”
“Sometimes, it's only natural that my unfortunately very strong personality seeps out in everything I do,” said Manson. “I try, I promise you. I do try and tamper my big, big noisy, blustery personality, but I can't always control it and it comes out and sometimes it gets me in trouble. You know, oftentimes people want me to shut up and have told me so many, many times over the years. But I'm irrepressible and rambunctious, and I just want to be as authentic as I possibly can be. I'm not out there playing a role. I'm not out there just portraying one side of myself. I'm sort of ‘you get what you see and you hear what you hear,’ and you either like it or, you know, you reject it. And I think that's fair enough.”
Garbage got to work on their newest album right after releasing their seventh album in 2021. However, work on the record was delayed a couple of times, largely due to Manson’s surgeries.
“My hip surgeries were a year apart, and we began the record right after my first hip surgery and then we finished the record shortly after my second. So it sort of was made between these two stakes in the ground,” said Manson.
Manson's recovery from the surgeries was challenging. She was in a lot of pain and had to learn to walk again, which prevented her from working with her bandmates in the studio. “I wasn't feeling great initially, and that affected my mindset,” said Manson. “I didn't really want to go into the studio and work, but I encouraged the rest of the band to work without me, and they sent me pieces of music, over which I would then write.”
This was the first time Garbage worked this way, and Manson is ultimately appreciative of the experience of “having (her) habits disrupted.”
“To be in a band together for 30 years and have a new way of working turned out to be an amazing thing — like a gift,” she said. “I wouldn't recommend it to any other band, and I certainly wouldn't want to repeat it because it was quite lonely and strange, but it really actually ended up working out pretty well for us.”
The first single from the new album, “There’s No Future In Optimism,” is a love story (“for want of a better term,” according to Manson), and was also the catalyst for the rest of the record.
“The band sent me this piece of music and they titled it ‘There's No Future In Optimism,’ and I thought, ‘what a fantastic title,’” said Manson. “But I also felt a little bit of dismay, because I disagreed with the statement, if that makes any sense. And so I used that title essentially as a springboard for ... the rest of the record. The whole record is an argument with that ... first single title.”
With that first song as the catalyst, Manson sees the record as having developed into a “paean to survival,” which is the exact opposite of what that single wants us to believe.
“I feel almost embarrassed to say it, but I feel like if you invest in love, kindness, beauty, poetry — you know, dance, art, all the gorgeous things that exist in life — ultimately, we can save ourselves, and that is what the record is all about,” said Manson. “Essentially, it's just about survival, and how glorious and freeing that can be if you allow it to. I think it's so easy as a human being to feel dismay, and feel hopeless and apathetic, and I think that's a very dangerous place to land, you know.”
The apocalyptic scenes described in “There’s No Future In Optimism” help tie the new album to the band’s previous record, No Gods No Masters. In this way, Manson sees the two albums as companions.
“(The previous record) was very political and kind of outraged and is full of these, sort of like, my predictions or my imaginings of where we were headed as a sort of global community,” said Manson. “And sure enough, five years later, here we are. We find ourselves in exactly the place I feared we would. And now what? And I realized that all my sort of like, outrage and and my fear mongering were not going to be of any use to me anymore like that. It was too late to employ outrage. It's too late to cry out warnings. Instead, it was a moment where I realized I had to employ a different take on the world, and (ask) ‘how could I be helpful to the world?’ And I was like, well, I think I have to radiate love into everything I do with some tenderness.”
Garbage is taking this message and the new album on the road in September. It’s their first headlining tour in three years, and in acknowledgment of the fact that they’ve been doing this for 30 years, they’re calling it the “Happy Endings Tour.”
“Time is ticking, you know. We're not going to be around forever,” said Manson. “You know, when you first emerge as a young artist, you're like ‘I've got all the time in the world. I've got a long future ahead of me.’ And then time speeds up and all of a sudden, you're like, ‘Well, I'm a veteran of this industry.’ You know, we are community elders as people.”
As Manson looks back over her career, now as a "community elder," she remains grateful for what Garbage has accomplished and how the band got it done, while acknowledging it’s been a bumpy road at times.
"You know, the music industry is not for the faint of heart, and it's somewhat of a miracle that we're all speaking to one another,” said Manson. “You know, we still love each other ... It's a complicated relationship — most are — but I think because we all do take a hand in the writing and the producing and the performing etc., etc., we've managed to maintain a somewhat dysfunctional, but ultimately successful democracy.”
As Manson and I wrapped up, and as I thought about her gratitude for aging and where the band is right now, I couldn't help but agree. Yes, we're all aging, but there's beauty in that too. It can be a sign of a life well-lived, which I think is part of what Manson's saying as well. Celebrate what we have, even through the change.
Let All That We Imagine Be The Light is available at record stores and streaming services, along with the rest of Garbage’s music. They’ll be performing at the Minnesota Yacht Club Festival in St. Paul in July, and the Happy Endings tour kicks off Sept. 3 in Orlando.
