Siouxsie Sioux
The 50-year-old music legend discusses her debut solo album, the roles of women in music, and how to deal with male egos
By Amber Drea
Published: September 27th, 2007 | 3:53pm
On the phone, Siouxsie Sioux is nothing like the “Ice Queen” persona she embraced 30 years ago. Perhaps it has something to do with her tranquil existence living in rural France with her two cats and reading books such as Marcel Proust’s seven-volume In Search of Lost Time. Or maybe it’s due to exhaustion from her flight to London, then to New York, the night before. But despite her warm and friendly demeanor, Siouxsie Sioux can still be intimidating, and Mantaray, her first solo album ever, exudes her new-found independence with all the force you might expect from the dynamic performer.
From hard-rocking industrial-flavored tracks like “Into a Swan” and “About to Happen” to the jazzy trip-hop sound of “Here Comes That Day” and “Drone Zone” to dark post-punk number “Loveless,” Siouxsie goes above and beyond what we know of her broad musical experience. The record combines horns, vibes, xylophone, and programmed effects with loungey big band, Latin grooves, and tribal rhythms. Though she collaborated with many musicians and songwriters, the solely Siouxsie-penned songs “One Mile Below,” “Sea of Tranquility,” and “Heaven and Alchemy” are gorgeous stand-outs made even more so with the help of producers Steve Evans and Charlie Jones. Lyrics like “I feel a force I never felt before / I don’t want to fight it anymore” exhibit Siouxsie’s need for change, while lines such as “If it doesn’t kill you, it will shape you / If it doesn’t break you, it will make you” show her softer side and strength. Here, Sioux takes Venus Zine behind the scenes and gives some insight into what it means to be a female veteran of the music industry.
Why did you decide to do your solo album now, after three decades of making music with the Banshees and the Creatures?
My baby Siouxsie solo? Save the best for last (laughs.) Being in the band for so long — in the early days, people wanted to take it more as a solo thing, which I wasn’t interested in. And the band lasted a long time. I think I made my point. I was the leader of the band. And at the end of 2004, when I did the Siouxsie Dreamshow at the Royal Festival Hall, I always had it in the back of my mind that I wanted to do a solo project next, under my own name, just to freshen it all up for me and start again.
Did you start writing songs by yourself, or did you immediately start working with other people?
Well, there was a one-off thing that I did with the Basement Jaxx, which was a track called “Cish Cash,” and that kind of gave me a bit of a taste of it. About 40% of the material was ideas in the making of the past three or four years, though the rest of it was pretty new. After the Basement Jaxx, I was getting sent lots of bits of music from other writers, and I was just picking the ones that grabbed me the most. It all pretty much came together in the end of last year, the beginning of [2007].
What is your songwriting process?
It varies. It can come from a vocal melody or the sound of a train, or it can come from a lyric first. I quite often get my best ideas just before I’m going to sleep, so I’ve trained myself to keep a pen and pad or dictaphone by the side of the bed, so I don’t disturb the flow by looking for a pen and paper, like putting off writing down a dream till next morning and then you forget about it, although you know that what you’ve experienced is just really hard to put down. So I just have to do it straight from the bed to the paper. It’s not really any one way that it happens. I never sit in a room and do it.
How does it feel to have been making music for 30 years?
I think the business side can wear you down, disillusion you, and make you hate it, but the actual music and the making of the music and the performing of the music to me is a lifeline. I just feel really fortunate to be able to have this as an outlet, as a means of expression. I think I would haven gone mad a long time ago if I didn’t have it. I mean, it’s great to have this in my life and have found something that means so much to me that I can do.
And you continue to be relevant and influential throughout your career, especially in more recent years, with the resurgence of new wave and post-punk. How does it feel to see that coming back?
I’m personally always more interested in what other female artists have to do. When I started, it was a great time for women, and there were a lot of other women that were getting involved in bands and that’s not really been commented so much about. And I don’t think it’s been as positive before or since — there are more female artists out there involved in music, but not nearly enough. And I think music can only get better and improve and be more exciting with more women involved and hearing it from their point of view.
There are so many female musicians doing amazing things, but they still don’t get the same kind of attention that male artists do. They still are never as popular, unless they’re selling sex.
I know, exactly. Attitudes really haven’t changed that much. But you know, I think it’s great that Peaches is out there, and I love PJ Harvey, and I’m looking forward to seeing what Shirley Manson does — I think she’s working on a new project. And I’m not really that interested in what guys can bring along because it’s pretty much all been said before.
It seems that the women who tend to be the strongest in music history are women who go out on their own and do it their own way.
The industry is so male-dominated and they have their way of doing things. I’ve felt at odds in the music business and many times felt like jacking it in because of that. But spite has made me stay here (laughs.) I’ve got to give some of those men a hard time.
You work with men and you’ve been in bands with men, but with this album, you’re in charge, so does it take on something different for you?
I suppose. ... Things went the way I wanted them to go whenever I worked with other guys — with the Banshees or with the Creatures project. It’s just that when you have people that you work with, and they could have been females as well, but I think when you work with musicians that you have a working relationship with, sometimes your friendship can get in the way of directing it. And quite often a lot of guys’ feelings are quite fragile (laughs.) The male ego always rears its ugly head. Even with this project, with the producers, sometimes I had to say, “No, it’s going this way, not that way.” But that’s how it should be. I had veto over everything — it’s my way or no way (laughs.) And in the end they got it mostly. Like any good working relationship, you have a couple of battles, and I knew they’d eventually come around to my thinking anyway.
Issue #25
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