STACK #140 Jun 2016

MUSIC NEWS

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INTERVIEW

"W hen I grow up I’ll be stable/ When I grow up I’ll turn the tables” went Garbage’s 1998 hit, and speaking to fantasy aunt Shirley Manson, it’s clear that ‘growing up’ still isn’t a destination achieved – nor should it ever be. One of the tracks on new album Strange Little Birds is titled Teaching Little Fingers To Play ; it’s named for a children’s piano book which was, coincidentally, my own first foray into music. “[The title] really did speak to an attitude that we all in Garbage share, which is that just because you get older and are experienced and have seen a lot, you must never stop and think that somehow you are done,” Manson explains. “You must never shut yourself down because that, to me, is like death. I think as artists, and as human beings, you want to move through life with your eyes open, and that way you don’t lose awe and you don’t lose wonder.” Awe and wonder are folded all the way through Strange Little Birds , which Manson and her bandmates recorded at producer icon Butch Vig’s home studio in the Hollywood Hills with the express desire to loosen the bonds of experience. “Anybody using technology today is really in danger of losing the immediacy of performance,” the vocalist says. “It’s something that really great artists, like, say Jack White, SHIRLEY MANSON GARBAGE

are incredibly in-depth at capturing. But we’re not all as gifted musicians, so our temptation when we get behind the console is to really fix performance. This time around, we all decided that we had to make each other feel excited in the room – if we were able to change the molecules in the room at the time, then we’d done our job, because you can translate that to an audience.” The tracks on Strange Little Birds span an engrossing, propulsive, cinematic vista; from the insidious ‘90s riffs of Night Drive , which includes a recording of falling rain that Manson herself recorded in Scotland, to the breathy edge of the singer’s voluminous and perfectly- built harmonies in the dynamic Blackout (“I never think about harmonies – there’s a billion and one you can put down and it’s just what tumbles out of your mouth, the mood, on the day”), to the striking stand-out Empty , which features Garbage’s heavy, industrial-electronic sound with a viscid melody which is never lost amongst the thick guitars – its lyrics detail the feeling of a romantic love holding such a grip

on your insides that you become, conversely, hollow. Manson is erudite in explaining her philosophy on being “long in the tooth”; she’s passionate about the magic of getting older, which “you can’t possibly imagine” until that happiness is yours. “Lots of young women tell me how scared they are of ageing, and it makes me feel so sad for them because then I believe that they focus on all the stuff that will determine the very opposite of what they want from getting older,” she says. “That’s a self- fulfilling prophecy. If you’re scared of ageing, you will age poorly. If you embrace ageing, you will be like my dad who is 80 years old and just went off to China by himself the other day and called us, his daughters, from the Great Wall of China. That’s f-cking badass. I want to be like my dad when I grow up.”

MUSIC

Strange Little Birds by Garbage is out June 10 via Liberator.

touring with Smith Street Band; are they good eggs in your eyes? We're stoked; we've been mates for so long, since way back when we were both starting out. We brought those guys down to Tassie a few times early on and since then we've been best mates. It's taken us 5 years to finally tour together and we're going to make the most of it! These shows will be totally crazy! Great line-ups. It's basically a full-blown mate-fest. Q5/ If you could tell people one thing about Tassie to coerce anyone into visiting, what would it be? It's like no other place you've ever been. It can be isolating, but it's also got a totally different vibe than any other city. It's hard to describe; you definitely need to experience it to know it!

INTERVIEW

TYLER RICHARDSON LUCA BRASI L uca Brasi are touring with The Smith Street Band this month, and have just announced their own headline shows through mid-late August! Check lucabrasi.com.au for dates and details. By Alesha Kolbe . Q1/ Luca Brasi is basically the most savage bloke in The Godfather , and can only be tamed by the Godfather himself - who is the person that can always whip you guys into line? Danny (drums) is the one guy in the band that you have to worry about dealing with if any joke goes too far. You can push anyone else a fair way, but Danny usually ends it pretty quickly.

Q2/ What was it like playing a show in Bianca’s loungeroom? Pretty bloody awesome! It felt kinda like getting back to our roots; we played a hell of a lot of house shows when we first started coming up as a band. It's such a rad feeling when everyone is so close and getting wild, and there's always that element of danger of copping a microphone or something in the face. Q3/ There's a pic on your instagram of Pat ticking off boxes on a whiteboard; is this down at the brass

tacks end of recording? This is always a studio ritual; getting straight in there and writing out the list of songs, instruments and tracks for each and mapping out where we have to go and what needs to get done. Ticking off those boxes is up there with the most satisfying things you can do in the studio. We used to have this rule that you'd get a treat for ticking them off. Treats soon turn to a pretty common occurrence as the days go on, mainly for minor things, then for sanity.

If This Is All We're

Going To Be by Luca Brasi is out now via Poison City Records.

Q4/ How are you looking forward to

JUNE 2016

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