In those days the scene was very identikit, yet she seemed to stand outside all of that, and as the music progressed Siouxsie & The Banshees became very much their own people. The fact that they were there from the start - they were part of the Bromley contingent - mattered too: it wasn't like they'd seen the Pistols on Bill Grundy's show and thought: Oh, let's get into this. So obviously they set the pace. You had a hundred girls who copied the Siouxsie look, which progressed into the gothic look, and I'm sure she hates to be connected to that - but what she was doing was her own thing. She didn't want to follow the rules, the band didn't want to follow the rules. And that was very refreshing.

There are many sides to Siouxsie. She has a 'big sister' element to her personality. There's the other side, too - the ice maiden side, which kind-of terrifies you. When she was on stage and people were trying to touch her legs, she would stand on their hands with her stilettoes. The whole thing about Siouxsie was that everyone was in love with her, everyone fancied her - even the girls. But it wasn't so much a 'get your kit off' attitude, it was more about reverence and power. Very few punks actually thought: I'd like to fuck Siouxsie. It was just too damn rude!

I was desperate to go and see a Siouxsie show. Once I had become a punk I would tag along with my brother and half the time I would get turned away from the gigs. But I found that because I had long hair I could make myself look as girly as possible and they'd think I was an older girl and let me in. The first time I saw her was at The Nashville, then there was a long gap and the next time was at The Rainbow. There was such a sense of excitement that by the time she came on everyone had ripped up the seats and tossed them in the air. The sense of danger just added to the whole experience. Even now when I go to a gig, like a Marilyn Manson show where all these guys are jumping around, I still get a sense of disappointment that all the 16-year-olds in the audience aren't smashing the place to bits.

What was great about Siouxsie & The Banshees was that you felt they were your band because they formed in public, they grew up in public and made mistakes in public. It made you feel closer to them. At the same time, they had an element of elitism and snobbery about them.

I didn't get to meet her until we were both at the same Kraftwerk gig in 1979 or 1980. She was suddenly just there and I was like: Oh my God, the ice maiden! Maybe I should just go and say hello or something? So I went up to her to say hello and she was the sweetest, nicest person you could ever hope to meet. She had no idea that I was a fan. I think she thought I was some ex-soul boy or something. She was like, 'You must come and see us play live some time', presuming I had never seen them.

Over the years I've got to know her quite well, and I dread to think of her reading this as she hates people gushing over her. She gets it all the time, but she's not someone who gets off on it.

Whenever Siouxsie gets mentioned, the Nazi armband she once wore always comes up; but no one talks about what the climate was like at the time.

Everyone had parents or grandparents who would always harp on about the war and how they'd fought in it for us. But the war had happened 30 years ago, which when you're 15 is centuries ago. You were brought up with this Boy's Own outlook of, 'This is what the Nazis did to us ...', with films like 'The Battle of Britain' and 'The Longest Day' always on TV. If you were a bit older and had managed to get in to see 'Cabaret' then Nazism was depicted as all high-camp and Marlene Dietrich, so we never appreciated it for the true horror that it actually was. I used to live in Golders Green and I knew Jewish girls who would parade up the high street with Nazi armbands on, thinking: This will upset our parents. They didn't actually think about what it meant. At first their parents were horrified. But then, six months down the line, they became unshockable. It was like, 'I've put your Nazi armband with your Vivienne Westwood "Fuck Your Mother" T-shirt, but I'm not washing them.'

What I did find great about the whole swastika stupidity was that it took the power away from it. My grandparents were Jewish and I always felt worried about wearing a Nazi armband so I never did. But what I did do was go to the local Indian shop and buy the peace swastikas in Day-Glo pink and bright orange and purple, trying to be clever and postmodern, waiting for someone to have a go at me, which they always did. It's annoying that such a beautiful symbol can be hijacked and made into such an evil symbol.

I love the whole iconic thing about Siouxsie. When I was a kid, the female icons were people like Dusty Springfield, and that's what she's the equivalent of now. It might be a different voice and a different style, but it's still that same degree of reverence. And she deserves her own prime-time variety show - every week!

Mark's club, Electrogogo, is at Madame JoJo's on Brewer Street on the first Thursday of every month. The latest release on Mark's Umami label is the Ping Pong Bitches' new album 'Alphadog'.

18/04/07

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SIOUXSIE SIOUX will mark the 30th anniversary of the "summer of punk" with her first solo single.

Last night the singer gave Email a sneak preview of the track - Into A Swan - and we reckon she's set for the comeback of the year.

It's three decades since the Sex Pistols stuck a safety pin through the Queen's nose and caused chaos with their in famous boat trip on the Thames.

Siouxsie, a huge fan, struggled to get a deal for her group, The Banshees, back then. But she'll stick two fingers up to the record chiefs who snubbed her by releasing a solo album on indie label W14 Imprint in September. It was recorded in London and France.

She said: "What drives me is always to do better...plus the thrill you feel when working on a new project."

There are also plans for a UK tour - including Scottish gigs - to launch the new CD.

03/06/07

Courtesy of Jerry

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Born Susan Ballion in Bromley, In May 1957, Siouxsie Sioux was a member of the Bromley Contingent, a group of teens who followed the Sex Pistols.  She then formed Siouxsie and the Banshees in 1976.  Her as yet untitled first solo album is due in September.

MAUDE:  When you were a teenager, did the generation gap seem very pronounced?

SIOUXSIE:  Yes, definitely.  People were always saying:  'You weren't in the war, you should be grateful...'  But of course, we weren't.  Telling people how they should feel is like waving a red flag to a bull.  There should be a generation gap.  People should want to create their own identity, both personal and cultural.  I adore old music, I like being transported to that time.  But when people recreate old music they tread a fine line between reinterpreting it and mimicking it.

MAUDE:  Which artists got you interested in music as a teenager?

SIOUXSIE:  I loved David Bowie, Roxy Music and T.Rex.  The ambiguity of the sexes was exciting, it was a positive time for anyone who didn't feel comfortable being pigeonholed.  The music was visually stimulating - they put on a performance, with consideration to costume and lighting.  The artists made those decisions, not the stylists or the marketing men.

06/07

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Siouxsie to Release 'Mantaray'

The legendary punk priestess to drop debut solo album this October.

On Oct. 2, flamboyant London-born songstress Siouxsie, born Susan Janet Ballion, will vacate her now infamous backing bands, the Banshees and the Creatures, and release Mantaray, her first proper solo effort. The record, issued in the U.S. courtesy of Decca, is Siouxsie's first album of new material since the Creatures' 2003 effort Hai!. Produced alongside seasoned knob twisters Steve Evans (Robert Plant) and Charlie Jones (Goldfrapp), Siouxsie's Mantaray will deliver tunes with titles such as "Into a Swan," "Drone Zone," and "Heaven and Alchemy."

Mantaray tracklisting:

1. "Into a Swan"
2. "About to Happen"
3. "Here Comes that Day"
4. "Loveless"
5. "If it Doesn't Kill You"
6. "One Mile Below"
7. "Drone Zone"
8. "Sea of Tranquility"
9. "They Follow You"
10. "Heaven and Alchemy"

18/07/07

Courtesy of Matt

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Golden Square glams Siouxsie music video

Golden Square has completed the post-production on the new Siouxsie Sioux promo, Into a Swan – marking the return of legendary Siouxsie and the Banshees lead vocalist and former member of Sex Pistols entourage, the “Bromley Contingent”. This is the first promo featuring Siouxsie performing as a solo artist.

The vision of the Crossroads directorial duo Harvey and Carolyn involved creating edgy multiple images of Siouxsie which appear on screen simultaneously. Some of this was achieved in camera using a series of intricate mini sets involving mirrors and beauty lighting.

Lead smoke artist, Aman Kang of Golden Square, worked closely with the directors to recreate and enhance this mirrored reflection effect in post and make sure Siouxsie was looking glamorous and powerful. Dressed in black and looking like a dominatrix Siouxsie comes across as a force to be reckoned with.

Lighting effects and the sparkly outlines of birds were also composited on in post to accentuate the breaking out into a swan symbolism and add to the drama. Aman also created a strong marching army of aggressive swans from one single ballerina in costume.

For more information see the Golden Square Web site.

Digit Staff

16/07/07

Courtesy of bonehound

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"It wasn't time to be a writer"

Siouxsie Sioux talks to Victoria Segal.

How long has Mantaray taken to finish?

"It's been done two to three tracks at a time.  It's almost taken me by surprise that I've got an album.  Funnily enough, Into A Swan and Loveless I wrote thinking I wouldn't be performing them.  I was still in a bit of a flux deciding whether to take a backseat and just be a writer.  I wrote Loveless first and Into A Swan second and I was reluctant to give it over for someone else to do.  It was given to some artist, who I was told was kind of like the Sugababes, and they went as far as recording the track.  In eh end the company preferred the demo I handed over and that opened the door to the record.  I like to see what hand fate has to play in things and fate deemed it wasn't time for me to be a writer yet."

Had you never considered a solo record before?

"I think I'd always resisted it because I was terrified of having more attention than I had within the band.  With the band I always like deflecting it although in reality, looking back at it, I was always thrust to the front anyway."

How does it feel to operate under your name?

"It feels like a blank page for me.  The Dreamshow tour, that was under the title of Siouxsie and it freed it up quite a bit.  I was able to cherrypick from every area, without thinking 'this is a Banshees tour' or 'this is a Creatures tour'."

What's the story behind Drone Zone?

"That was a piece of music from someone called Steve Hilton and when I received it coincided with me travelling backwards and forwards to London.  The contrast was extreme with where I live (a cathedral town in Southern France).  I love London but if I'm there for too long I feel invaded by the noise.  So I was going backwards and forward to London and feeling I was going a bit bonkers, and I saw this programme about ballooning of all things.  It's amazingly quiet up in the sky except when they go over cities.  They made this comparison with what birds hear.  In summer when people's windows are open, you get the noise of TVs, people shouting - it's a wonder they don't fall out the sky in shock.  I've had people stay with me from New York and the quiet drives them mad.  It's like two centuries ago here."

Victoria Segal

09/07

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Siouxsie Sioux strides into the hotel lobby and, for one brief glorious moment, it's 1977 all over again.  The shock of jet-black hair, the luminous skin, the blood-red lipstick, all present and correct, right down to the fashionably old-fashioned zipped pants and perv-boots.

And then we're back in the room, and it's the summer of 2007, she's just turned 50, and Bill Grundy is still reeling in his grave.  We're a long way from the 100 Club in fact, in the ancient spa town of Bath, Sioux's temporary base while putting the finishing touches to Mantaray ("a giant stingray and just a really strong word"), astonishingly, after a 30-year rollercoaster career, her first ever solo album.

She now lives in the South of France, in "a cathedral town" not far from the Spanish border, with her long-term partner and drummer, Peter Clarke, better known as Budgie.  The Banshees and The Creatures are now long gone (Clarke was the drummer in both), as is a major record deal, and Sioux is finally facing the world alone, still defiantly her own woman and still, with Mantaray, making music that sounds utterly unique.

Tomorrow morning she'll fly back to France and people who know her only as "the singer, Madame Ballion" (not "Dallion" as has been misreported for 30 years "ever since some twat in the music press got it wrong").  But tonight, Matthew - just for us - she is going to be Siouxsie Sioux.

Why, after 30 years, is it suddenly time for the first-ever solo Siouxsie album?

Well, why not?  Basically, I decided that The Banshees were not going to happen again.  In fact, it wasn't even a decision, it was more just events conspiring to make it that way.

As in?

As in we did the Seven Year Itch live album back in 2002 and I was hoping that maybe with the passing of time we could get back together, but it turned out that just wasn't going to happen.  So at that point I was thinking about maybe not doing anything again onstage, maybe just write stuff instead for other people, but it turned out I ended up doing a solo record of my own.

How come?

I did that song with Basement Jaxx (Cish Cash) in 2003 and really enjoyed it, and after that happened I got lots of music sent to me, and initially the idea was to turn all these ideas into songs for other people.  So the first one I did was Loveless, then Into A Swan, and suddenly I was quite reluctant to hand them over to somebody else.  And as fate would have it, someone I knew was starting up this new record label, W14, and he was interested in me doing a solo project.  And I started to think well maybe I could.  So I did.

It sounds remarkably current.

Well, everyone else just seems so obsessed with the past - not just my past but the past in general.  This whole nostalgia trip seems to have become a total obsession with the media.  And I think, "Well if I can leave my bags at the door, why can't you?"  I've always been more excited about what I'm doing right now, keeping some forward motion going, not being forced into a dead stop.  Some people seem happy to rest on their laurels and have this satisfaction at what they have accomplished.  I don't really feel that.  What's gone is gone for me.  I'm proud of what I've achieved over the years but I'm starting to hate it.  It's such an obsession with people and I'm constantly being asked about it or to reminisce about it or to do this article or go on this programme.  I'm actually developing an unhealthy attitude to it all.

And are you happy with the legacy of The Banshees?

I don't really know where we stand in it all and I just never even think about that stuff.  All I know is that when it came to re-releasing The Scream and all the other albums a while back I thought they all stood up really well.  It's just great I wasn't cringing, you know?  But I am going to go out on tour again - doing my impression of Munch's The Scream all over again (sucks cheeks in furiously).  I'll end up looking like that, I swear!  And I still freak out at the idea of touring, even after all these years.  These days security's so tight you can't even take your lippy on the plane!  It's just the whole packing thing, what am I going to wear, that old chestnut.  It's especially difficult when you're a girl and the singer and the front person.  Still, it's worth it for that hour to two hours on stage, which I just love.  It's addictive and almost like an out-of-body experience for me, really primal.  It's just all the crap in-between I can't stand.

What do you listen to these days?

I don't really listen to that much current stuff at all.  I like Peaches and I like Arcade Fire, but most of the time I listen to classical music just to clear my head.  And I've always loved Bette Davis and Jim Morrison.  And Iggy.  Always Iggy.  And Patti Smith's Horses.

What occupies you when you're at home in France?

I've just started Labyrinths by Borges, and before that I read The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann, which was amazing.  Books are my main vice nowadays.  I'm on this book company mailing list, so I'm starting to work my way through all the books I've always wanted to read.  Dante's Purgatorio with the illustrations by Dali, A La Recherche Du Temps Perdu by Proust, all that stuff.  I really value the peace and quiet I have at home.  I think I've become incredibly sensitised to noise.  That continual roar that you get in a city just drives me crazy nowadays, and I need to see the sky and the greenery, and hear the music of nature, the birds, the wind, the insects, the rain.  So I'm reading or outdoors in the garden with the cats.  Maybe do a spot of deadheading (starts to scythe the air in a rather scary fashion).  Fuck, there goes my watch (large chunky timepiece flies across the room).  And watching sport, especially Wolverhampton Wanderers.  My brother picked them as his football team in the '50s and they became my team too, though any time I ever mention this they always seem to do badly.  What I loved about them was the black and gold kit and the gold wolf's head.  That was it for me!  I remember Derek Dougan.  The Doog!  He was a skinhead before there were skinheads.

Did you watch John Lydon on I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here?

I saw some of it, yeah.  It was quite entertaining, I suppose.  Mainly because of Janet Street-Porter.

Don't you think old Johnny betrayed "the spirit of punk" with that one?

Well, it's not something I would choose to do, but what he does is up to him.  He should have a chat show.  He'd be better at that than he is with music.  Give the man a chat show!  But no one should be held up to represent "the spirit of punk".  All that stuff is rubbish.

Do the people in your town in France know who you are?

Those that know me just know me as the singer, Madame Ballion.  I certainly don't ever feel as if I'm being watched, you know, (whispers quietly) "there's Siouxsie Sioux".  I don't feel French even though I've been there for 15 years now, but I never really felt English either.  Maybe because my dad was Walloon Belgian, from the French-speaking bit.  Remember that old Monty Python sketch about boring Belgians?  Belgium actually gave the world four fantastic things - chocolate, chips, Margritte, and Jacques Brel.

Do you ever regret not having any kids yourself?

The baby thing has just never appealed to me.  I mean I love children, I have nieces and nephews, but I like it when there's some communication going on, usually after about the age of three.  I think if I had a baby I'd treat it as a toy, dress it up like a doll.

Get the old fetish gear out?

Yeah!  You're wearing this!

Isn't it hard being a vegetarian in rural France?

Not really.  They have great vegetables there, really fresh produce, there are loads of vegetarian dishes you can make if you want to.  You're not a vegetarian are you?

No.

No, you don't look like a vegetarian.

Thanks.  Any other health tips?

I swear by water and air.  Air-conditioning is the real curse and if I'm travelling, especially in America, I have to ring ahead just to check that they don't have any suicide locks on the windows.  I nearly got deported from Japan in 1982 over the air-conditioning in a hotel in Osaka.  We'd been out on the sake, came back to the hotel and I knew I needed to get some sleep and to sleep I need air, not air-conditioning.  I rang down to reception to see if they could come up and open the window, 'cos I couldn't, and they just said no.  So I looked down at the phone, then over at the window, then just threw the phone through the window.  So I got my air, but I also got the local detectives coming into my room at three in the morning, and I wasn't invited back to Japan after that until 17 years later, in 1999.

What would the Siouxsie Sioux of 1977 say if she met the Siouxsie Sioux of today?

I wish you were my mum.

Barry McIlheney

09/07

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Pam Hogg and Siouxsie Sioux love a giggle and a good time, especially after a glass of bubbly... or two.

They've had some fun adventures - from drinking pink champagne all day, and squealing around on the balcony in a thunderstorm at Siouxsie's house in France, to gatecrashing the Paris fashion shows.  "We'd always talked about going," Pam explains, "and since we'd left it too late for tickets we decided to get dolled up in disguise and gatecrash."  With Siouxsie in a red wig, and Pam in a black wig, the naughty twosome tried their luck.  "Pam managed to get us into the Westwood show which was great," Siouxsie says, "but I desperately wanted to go to Gaultier which at that time was one of the most fortified.  So we went on a bar crawl for an hour or so and then charged the gates.  There were hundreds of people trying to push in but my friend Fuzzy had one ticket and we used him as our battering ram!"  Looking, as always, jaw-droppingly hot, the girls met with little opposition.  "It was amazing," Pam laughs.  "They let us straight through and ushered us to front row seats reserved for Catherine Deneuve.  I only realised then that the woman I was chatting to was Liza Minnelli."  Blagging their way backstage after the show, they attracted the attention of Gaultier himself who rushed over with his film crew.  "That's the best thing about Siouxsie, we always have such a laugh," Pam explains.  "We're double trouble," exclaims Siouxsie, who has her first solo album out in September.  "It's just great having someone to go out with who looks so fantastic."  We're sure the feeling's mutual.

Holly Shackleton

09/07

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You can trace everything back to your environment.

My mum was an incredibly strong person.  She was, to all intents and purposes, a single mum, cause she married someone who had an alcoholic illness.  Because he was pretty useless, she had to go out to work, and did all the maintenance round the house.  She was Mrs Fix-it - and she brought us up.  Very self sufficient, a very strong woman.

When you're very young,  you don't want to be the odd one out.  You desperately want to fit in.  But then there was a point round about puberty where I thought; "Fuck 'em!  I'm right and they're wrong," and started to have fun with it.  I learnt to turn a negative into a positive and almost encouraged that; "Keep your distance!"  I was dressed to be killed.

The suburbs where I grew up had typically middle-class English values - all that keeping up with the Joneses and Stepford Wives nightmare-dream that goes on.  I was always looking to just get out.

Bowie was really important.  He was the only one who threw up traditional stereotypes of male and female.  That was really attractive.  I felt I had nothing to do with anyone.  You really felt isolated if you weren't part of the mainstream.  Kids my age wanted to settle down with a man with a nice job and a nice car.  I felt horrified that they didn't have anything more exciting on their horizons.

When I met Berlin (her old Bromley Contingent friend from the punk days) I had to tell him he was gay.  He was very confused.  he hadn't a clue!  I knew a lot of people like that.  They thought they were straight, then they discovered they weren't - but they weren't confused, they just hadn't considered it.  One of them's been in a gay relationship for 30 years now.

Sometimes I need to dress up because I feel crap inside and I need to cheer myself up - like I've put a brave face on it.  Other times I'm in such a good mood.  I can just throw it on and not be bothered.

I gave up smoking, but it made me ill.  I was getting bronchitis and asthma.  I was pumped full of steroids and antibiotics.  I went back to smoking and got better.  I could walk around with my packet of cigarettes and my sick note, saying; "It's alright.  It's for the good of my health!"

I always find what's in, trendy and fashionable a bit... so fucking what?  Once something becomes fashionable, it's out of date already.  It's time for something else.

Making a solo album is totally different, but in a good way.  There's no baggage, like when you've worked with people a long time.  This time it was more about the songs and getting on with the work.  It's been very organic in that way, very immediate.  My favourite things are when something is as easy as pissing - they just pop out.

I think I should come up with a lyric; "If you're an obsessive fan, go home and slit your wrists.  Get a life!"  And sing it backwards.

Many times I've thought; "Fuck it" (and stopping making music).  It's when you become too aware of the industry, the goings-on and the lack of sincerity in it all.  Sometimes you think; "What am I doing?  This is everything I hate."  I like people being upfront, but I'm surrounded by stuff that's going to wind me up.  More and more I find that hetro men do things very differently from the female way of doing things.  I'm so opposite to the way they want to work.  I must be a masochist.

I like being on my own.  I like doing things like reading.  I can spend days ploughing through Marcel Proust.  And when you come to the end of a book, it's sad.  You get so involved in it, it's like something's died.

I had my 50th b-day at the end of May.  I do have a settled life now, with my cats at home in France.  But then I'm coming to London and putting lots of stress on myself.  Driving myself to the airport and just making the flight, and getting pestered by some twat on the plane and nearly beating him up.  I had to do with a lashing from my tongue.

If I saw myself when I was a kid, I'd say; "Listen to your gut instincts and don't be swayed by thinking that you have to be logical or reasonable."  The only things I've ever regretted was when I was doubting my instincts.  Even if it doesn't make sense, go with your instincts.

Richard Smith

09/07

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Don't get Siouxsie Sioux started on the subject of the internet.  Before we meet, the video for her new single, Into A Swan, has been leaked online.  "YouTube," spits the high priestess of punk, "technology - I hate it.  Everybody has downloaded it.  You try to stop it, but it's pointless.  Someone from (the gay club) Trannyshack in San Francisco is already miming their act to the song.  Even my brother hasn't heard it yet.  Mind you, he's only just got an answerphone."

If you were going to meet Siouxsie, what would you expect?  That she'd be as spiky as her hair still is, frosty, magisterial, aloof?  She's none of these things.  In an adenoidal voice with a twang that recalls her fellow Bromleyite David Bowie, Siouxsie in the flesh is candid, approachable, emotional, her pale-blue eyes often swelling with tears of laughter or distress.  The woman once labelled the queen of goth is as far removed from her image of severe, slightly threatening "artiste" as it is possible to be.

"I've never been able to categorise what I do," she muses at one point, "but I know others try.  Though there has always been that undercurrent of, 'Don't get too comfortable.'"  The labels we plaster her with are, she thinks, for the most part wrong.  As just one example, the blogs are agog with speculation about Into A Swan, on which she intones:  "I feel a force I've never felt before/I don't want to fight it anymore."  Bingo, the tap-tap-tap:  she's come out as a lesbian.  Or not, as the case may be.

When I ask her how long it took for the inner her to catch up with the outer one - confident, defiant, a mask of industrial mascara and punked-up hairdo - who stared out of early photographs, she says:  "I think maybe it's still trying to catch up, in total honesty."  We're in a London hotel bar, patrolled by a clipboard Nazi whose pernickety perambulations Siouxsie delights in monitoring.  Mantaray is her first solo record, after 11 studio albums with the Banshees and six with the Creatures, the side project she formed with her husband, the Banshees' drummer, Budgie.

Her home for the past 15 years has been a farmhouse near Toulouse, packed with cats and books, and she briefly considered making the album there.  "But you have to have a workplace to go to," she says.  "You think, 'Oh how perfect: when I get an idea, I can just walk into that room and do it.'  But there's no urgency, it's always domani mañana, demain.  Yet the idea is still there, lurking, like a reminder that you haven't done anything today."

Discussing the logistics of travelling from France to the studio in Bath where the album was recorded, she says, matter-of-factly:  "I've just gotten into driving again.  I hadn't been driving long while I was in London.  I didn't enjoy it, so I quite happily gave up and allowed my husband to be my chauffeur.  And so, in the last..."  She pauses.  "I've actually gone through a big upheaval.  I'm divorced now.  This is the first time I've publicly told anyone."  Another, longer pause.  "So, in the past two or three years, there have been major changes - practical, emotional, all kinds.  I knew I needed to get to the airport.  So I got a car, a little second-hand Renault.  It's been like a real journey - literally."  Then she adds, in a much smaller voice:  "And, you know, there's tons of other stuff as well.  It's not just about getting myself to the airport."

Siouxsie fans will be able to enjoy many a "eureka" moment sifting Mantaray's lyrics for post-divorce fall-out.  "I want the record to stand up on its own,"  she says, aware of this possibility, "and not be, 'Oh, it's about all that stuff.'"  Lines such as "If it doesn't kill you/It will shape you" and "Sweetness covered falseness" may mean she is denied this wish.  But it's clear the album deals as much with history as with recent events.  She mentions, again, the disparity between the up-yours 1976 photos and the person behind the disguise - back when Susan Ballion became Siouxsie Sioux and was part of the so-called Bromley Contingent, alongside Billy Idol and the Banshees' bassist, Steve Severin, caterwauling through a punk version of the Lord's Prayer at the 100 Club and getting chatted up by Bill Grundy during his infamous television interview with the Sex Pistols.

"The confidence youth projects isn't very deep," she says.  "When you're very young, you desperately want to blend in.  I remember feeling aware that my family background wasn't akin to everyone else's, that our home was at odds with what was around us in suburbia.  And there was a point, round about 13 or 14, when I thought, 'You know what?  F*** it.'"  This metamorphosis wasn't, then, an act of rebellion against her upbringing, but against the suburban conformity she saw around her.  Home life was, though, pretty complex, by all accounts.  Her mother, a bilingual secretary, was, she says admiringly, "someone who went out to work at a time when I didn't know anyone else's mum who wasn't at home.  I had a great teacher there, and I've had to remember that again now - you know, I used to do all this shit before, I lived on my own, I was the boss.  She was the odd-job man, too, changing fuses, painting, doing the gardening.  My dad was there, but not functioning".

Siouxsie's father, a scientist, was an alcoholic, and died from complications caused by drink when she was 14.  She has, she says, spent years telling herself that isn't the whole picture.  "You're angry at the disease.  It's like you've been robbed of this person.  But it's not the person, it's the disease you hate."  Thinking back, she associates music with happiness, albeit in a complicated way.  "It was like the classic Tom and Jerry cartoon, where they're getting on fine when the music's playing, and the second it stops, they're at it again.  I remember when I was young, feeling really dismissive, but later I knew there was this other side:  he read to me, things like the Just So stories.  He was educated; he had all these ideas, a great sense of humour.  Apparently, he invented a tropical-disease cure - I've only just found that out.  I wanted to know, 'Why is this so?'  And it was always, 'Don't ask so many questions.'  But I'm still of the opinion:  shine the light on it, get it out of the darkness and let's look at it."

On her wonderful new album, Siouxsie does just that:  raging against adversity one minute, calming herself down the next, drifting off into fantasy on Sea of Tranquility (a song she describes as a "sci-fi murder mystery"), bathing in Bernard Hermann-like strings on Loveless.  Here Comes That Day is so brassy, it sounds as if it's auditioning for the nest Bond film, while fans of the early, Metal Postcard-era Banshees will welcome the motorik austerity of About to Happen and They Follow You.  The endlessly inventive soundscaping of her producers, the Robert Plant collaborators Steve Evans and Charlie Jones, means those jittery drives to Toulouse airport were not in vain.

Siouxsie turned 50 in May.  Her influence - on the likes of Bjork, PJ Harvey, Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Bat For Lashes - has never been more apparent, though she reckons she wouldn't last long if she was emerging now.  Innovators, these days, "get assimilated", she says, "eaten up and spat out.  Something becomes fashionable and, like all fashion, it's destined for the heap".  Not that her memory is rose-tinted.  The moment punk was commercialised, she says, "it lost its teeth.  People forget it was an attitude, a mindset, reacting to what was going on in the world, in music, at that time.  You can't take that and place it now:  that would just be mimicry.  It's weird when you hear things like, 'This is the new punk rock.'  They're so obsessed with looking back.  I mean, after Bill Grundy, forget it.  Once it hit the tabloids, it became a cartoon.  People doing their own thing - that's punk.

"I did that.  I didn't get a degree that told me I could do it.  I didn't get permission.  I just went ahead and did it, gatecrashed the party and took it over."  She throws back her head and laughs in delight vat her bombast.  There is, she admits, "a bit too much of Beryl the Peril in me sometimes.  But I think I've always had the ability to channel my anger or frustration or longings through music.  And, without vulnerability, there is no daring.  If you're thick-skinned, if people say stuff and it doesn't hurt you, well, what's so strong about that?"

A move back to London is being considered, though Siouxsie says she's wary of the noise, of "all those straight lines and grid-like routines".  Any new home in the city would have to be central.  "I'm not going to the suburbs," she cackles edgily.  "I'd rather commute from France than from Bromley.  Toe me, that's a much more painful journey - in every way."

Dan Cairns

26/08/07

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From the doorway of the Deville Restaurant in central London's quietly luxurious Mandeville Hotel, Siouxsie Sioux turns back to yell at Mojo:  "You're that fucking close to getting a smack in the face!"  Given her blazing eyes and the fact that she's clutching a large glass bottle of mineral water, it feels no idle threat.  She then throws open the door, turns on substantial heels and marches towards the sanctuary of the elevator.  Her press officer looks on, aghast.

It's not a typical way for the MOJO interview to end.  But the woman born Susan Janet Ballion in Guy's Hospital, London, on May 27, 1957, has never done typical.  Immortalised in punk folklore as the Sex Pistols acolyte with whom Bill Grundy fatefully flirted on live national television in 1976, her force-field personality ensured that Siouxsie And The Banshees - originally an ad hoc racket assembled for the 100 Club Punk Festival - transcended the era's swift slide into generic postures.  With 1978's The Scream, the Banshees defined the post-punk sonic landscape: suburban alienation and lacerating power-chordage spiced with bleak humour.  The sensational departure, mid-tour in 1979, of drummer Kenny Morris and guitarist John McKay was but the first in a litany of line-up changes and personal traumas, throughout which Siouxsie's determination to drive the Banshees -always different, yet always true to her singular vision of a gothic psychedelia - remained unshakeable.  Even after their seemingly final split in 1995, the core of Siouxsie, drummer Budgie and bassist Steven Severin couldn't resist the allure of a reunion, and 2002's Seven Year Itch tour introduced a new generation to the band's formidable legacy.

With the advent of her debut solo album, Mantaray, it's a legacy she evidently finds burdensome.  Following the Banshees' demise, Siouxsie devoted more time to The Creatures, the Banshees offshoot formed in 1981 comprising herself and husband-to-be Budgie, but finally struck out under her own name at the Royal Festival Hall in 2004 with the Dreamshow, sowing the seeds for this latest return.

Resplendent in figure-hugging black leather, though all smiles as we mock-merrily clink glasses, she famously disdains the interview ritual and that ice queen froideur is never far away.

"I want to know what someone thinks," she declares.  "I don't wanna know what they think they ought to think."

As things transpire, it might be best not to quote her on that.  And whatever you do, don't mention the war...

Why do a solo record?

I think because after all this time I felt I could.  When I did the Dreamshow, and called it 'Siouxsie', it was amazing how freeing it felt.  I could cherry pick all the best things.  I felt, I can do this on my own, and I felt like working with a bunch of different people, put myself in a situation that was not my comfort zone.

You chose Robert Plant's producer, Steve Evans.

I loved (Plant's 2005 album) Mighty Rearranger.  That was the only person I was thinking of working with.  It's been a journey from then on.  It's been a different way of working because the producer's based in Bath and I'm still based in France, near Toulouse, so it was little trips to Bristol, doing two or three tracks at a time.  I wasn't in the studio 24/7 breathing down someone's neck, saying, "Haven't you finished yet?!"  I was going for a few days, doing my vocals, then going back home.

On the opening track, Into A Swan, you declare: "I'm on the verge of an awakening".  Is that truly indicative of your state of mind as you embark on this new era?

I think so, yeah.  Of course!  Why not?  I think it's one of the best things, if not the best thing I've done.  Even looking back on the first few albums.  I know it's different, but I don know it's strong.

You mentioned comfort zones.  Should the Banshees have split earlier than 1995?

No.  I think it's rare that a band lasts in spite of all the crap that goes on, but also it's difficult to be able to stand back and see: are you really pushing it as much as you should?  It always felt like you were, but objectivity comes with hindsight, I think.

No regrets, then?

Why would there be regrets?

Perhaps that you'd become sick of each other?

Well, towards the very end.  But it was an amazing journey.  And, that's life.  Relationships, y'know, it's not all, Wahey!  Get real.  If it's only good when you're riding the charts or it's the good times, that's juvenile.  Even when I did stop the band it was tough.  Because it was something I felt really emotional about and very attached to.  But, it felt the right thing to do.

You got the Seven Year Itch...

There was an itch and a scratch, and that was enough!  Worth for an itch and a scratch but nothing more, nothing less.

The Banshees went through many line-ups.  What was the best one?

God... (The) Scream was very strong.  And I think the Juju period.  And Peepshow.  But from the beginning to the end, I've loved nearly all the B-sides.  That's one link.  I always wished we could bring the B-sides' spontaneity to the album sessions.

The line-up on The Scream didn't last much longer than the second album.

True.

And many people who've seen the Banshees throughout maintain it was the best.

It was the times as well.  All those gigs we did before being signed, I mean, that was heavy.  They were battles.  It was like turning up with rocks in your pocket.  If anyone invades we'll kick 'em off.  Punks were being chased down the street and beaten the shit out of by teddy boys.  Lydon was being slashed.  It was just violent.  And we probably enjoyed it, a bit.

You were spat at a lot?

Ooh, yes.  And I tried to control it.  Whereas now, they way I controlled it there'd be lawsuits left right and centre!

You gave some back.

I certainly did.

Ultimately why did Messrs McKay and Morris leave?

Phhhrrrr!  This is so boring.  Who knows, who cares?  I don't know.  Obviously the success of Hong Kong Garden, a bit too much success too soon.  I guess they left because they were scared of success.

Success didn't scare you?

Yes, but I was willing to meet it head on.  I think there are two kinds of people: people get scared and they run away or they stand there and face it.  Two ways of survival.  I prefer facing something rather than running.

Do you regard songwriting as a means to tell the world, or even just yourself, about yourself?

I think it's personal.  Maybe it's a need to connect with other people.  Although not in a direct way.  Or maybe it's the most direct way you can connect with people, without all the filters on.  It's more pure, maybe more intuitive.  And it's something that's more universal.  Sometimes talking about it fails.

So you feel a need to do it?

Well, it's physical.  It's important to me, to be in motion.  Making music and performing is physical as well as being, not cerebral, but using your imagination.

What's your frame of reference, songwriting-wise?  There was a big difference between the world depicted in The Scream to the one, say, in A Kiss In The Dreamhouse.

They were different worlds.

A product of you living in different worlds?

Yeah.  A product of being receptive to different things in different worlds.  The first album is very much your life leading up to that point.  Growing up in the suburbs, and recognising that transition of being a child to being your own person.  And of course, it's probably the easiest thing to write about, because it's so under the skin.  All the things that you go through from adolescence... When you're at that age, a year is so long!  You can go through three or four changes of opinion or evolutions.  And you're still growing, physically.  Yeah, it's very fertile, isn't it?

So the first album is you at your most personal?

No, it's the first thing that you're setting down, from never having a voice.  And I think it's sad when people think they have to repeat that.  After you've done your first thing then there's expectation.  Of what you should be doing.  And that is a red rag to a bull.  I don't see the point in being a people pleaser unless you're pleasing yourself first.  But there are a lot of people that put others before themselves, because they so want to be liked by everyone.  If that's what makes them happy, fine.  But I don't find any worth in that.

I want to ask you about Juju...

Oh, this is... I didn't know this was all going to be about the past.  This is really boring.

But this is the MOJO Interview: it looks back over an artist's entire creative life.

I know, but I haven't got all bloody day, to be honest.  We're at Juju, and I've just done a new record.

Can I just ask you a couple of questions about Juju?

(Sigh) All right.

The band seemed a real powerhouse unit by that point.

I think it was probably the strongest band.

Because you'd got Budgie and John McGeoch on board and they'd been honed by touring before you went into the studio?

Yeah.  And McGeoch was a great guitarist.  The chemistry worked so well with the four of us at that time.  It was so easy, it was like pissing.  There wasn't much thought.  Everything just rolled.  When I know something's good it's like writing on one long page.  And it was seamless and easy.

Was it frustrating when that line-up didn't last longer (McGeoch was sacked in 1982)?

Of course, but that's life, nothing can sustain that brilliance, that feeling, that way of connecting.  Christ, you've got other people on the periphery that end up getting involved, and somebody gets into drugs or into booze, and then it's sad.  But it's probably inevitable.  So just bloody enjoy it when you've got it.  You're lucky to have it in the first place.  And you'd better bloody know it, or you're a fool.

It was released at the height of the Thatcherite years - yet you seemed to be inhabiting your alternative reality, a horror-show phantasmagoria: Halloween, Voodoo Dolly, Arabian Knights...

Right!  You're saying "Thatcherite Years" and I'm going "Really?!"  I wasn't even aware!  We were in our own universe.  Not touched by anything else.

How nice.

Fantastic!  But nothing last forever (laughs).

Did other aspects of the decade impinge?  Ecstasy?

I think probably... Actually, no, ecstasy was later.  I never really got into drugs, although I did discover LSD around about '82.  Which is very different from ecstasy.  Have you taken LSD?

Once.  It was rotten.

Rotten?  When did you take it?

1990.

Oh wow.  Well, I think it had been tampered quite a lot by then.  Blotter or microdot?

Blotter.

Right.  I tried purple haze once.  In California.  Probably had been tampered with too, but it was wonderful.  I've never had a bad time on LSD.  Ever.  And I'd been warned by some junkie, 'cos I was so not into smack - I was friends with him but I didn't approve of his drug-taking - "Whatever you do don't take LSD, you'll have a terrible time."  So of course, to spite him I took it.  And I loved it.  It made me laugh a lot.

Did it impact on your writing?

Um, yeah, certainly for Dreamhouse.  I seem to remember Cocoon being written whilst I was tripping.  I was in a rented flat and if I didn't have a notebook I used to write on the wallpaper.  I remember strips of wallpaper lying around and piecing it together.

Drugs, and I'd include alcohol in this, must prompt cautionary tales, given your bad experiences with family and friends.

Unfortunately, in the music industry it's an acceptable thing to use.  And I think it probably attracts a lot of people that are gonna be victims of it.  More so than anywhere else.  It's tolerated and almost encouraged to 'go for it' and abuse it.  It's not nice to see people destroying themselves.  I think having fun with that sort of stuff isn't a bad thing.  It's just unfortunate that it's encouraged to go into the excesses where it's not really funny or entertaining, it's just a bit sad.

You've lost people to alcohol.  You once said your one regret was not being able to quiz your father about things when he was alive?

Yeah, that's powerful stuff.  But that wasn't just who he was: an alcoholic.  There was a lot more to him.  And I hate it when people take it out of context, because whenever I've spoken about my father it's always been in context of what else he did, and what else there was, his intelligence, and what a waste it was.

What was the best part of your childhood in Chislehurst?

The fact that there was always laughter and music.  And the worst part was feeling very different from everyone and not really being able to invite people round, because it seemed like no one else had that problem, the unpredictability of what life at home would be like when you came home.

The suburbs have a malign reputation as depicted in some of your early songs.  Was it all bad?

No!  Not at all.  But there was some bad.  And I obviously wanted to get out.  I loved the woods.  I loved having the freedom of playing out on my own, and I don't know how much freedom kids have now.  Young kids.  I remember it seemed like I was running around wild.  And that was great.  Playing football or tennis in the street... and a car wants to come down this road?!  We'd make him wait!  We were right little brats.  The road and the street was ours.  There weren't many cars parked in the streets then.

What used to be alternative or dangerous just isn't now.  You wonder what kids would do to offend their parents.

Be a lot more subtle, I guess.  Well, it's all relative.  You gotta go with, "What have you got?!"  Smoking in a non-smoking area is a vigilante thing now.  Which is ridiculous, when you think about it.  Someone who smokes in this restaurant is gonna be like a terrorist.  Shocking isn't it?

Wearing a swastika would still work, though.  Was the Israel single and your adoption of the Star of David in any way to atone for the outrage over you wearing a swastika?

Yes, of course it was.  I think the swastika was used in '76 for one gig, or two gigs, and it was just something that was picked up on.  Very naïve, but I was 19 for fuck's sake.  Nineteen and rebelling against the establishment and what seemingly was, 'You've never had it so good'.  Being ignorant then, about what it signified.  And it was a symbol that had been hijacked, the Nazis hijacked it, although I wasn't even aware of that... No matter how often I explain it, I'm bored of this as well.  The one sensationalistic thing that people can bring up is a swastika.  For two days I wore a swastika and you're using that as some kind of... I don't know.  It's pathetic.  And you're ignoring the fact of Metal Postcard, John Heartfield's sleeve.  Why?

I'm not ignoring it.  I'm well aware of it.

So why are you bringing it up?  You know the answer, so why ask the question?

Because I think it's interesting in terms of youth culture.  It was so easy to shock people then and it's not so easy now.  But the swastika still shocks.

But even the swastika wasn't that shocking.  It was only in hindsight that it became shocking.  In the same way that, there were a lot of T-shirts around at the same time that were shocking.  I remember Vivienne and Malcolm's shop getting raided constantly, 'cos of the T-shirts.  The young boys, the cowboys, Karl Marx.  Everything was up there for grabs, and in a way, there was nothing, as far as I or anybody else was concerned, political about it, it was just strong symbols.  I hated the fact that anyone saw anything more than that, and couldn't accept that it was naïve.  And 30 years later it's still being brought up.  And I know you've probably been told by your editor to bring up the swastika.  And it's pathetic.  It's boring!  How many fucking more times do I have to say what it is and what it was for to get asked it again?  For two days I wore a swastika for fuck's sake!  In total naïvety.

Subject over...

Why ask me?

Because it was offensive then and it's offensive now.

And I've talked about it and you know the fucking answer.

Fine, and you've just given it...

So why do I have to keep giving it?  Why ask me a fucking question you've heard the answer to.

Perspectives alter over time.  But I apologise.  What's your favourite song on the new album?

Well, you know what?  I'm not interested.  Oh from that, you want to talk about the new album.

I'd rather talk about something you want to talk about.

Well you know what?  I'm not interested now.  It's so pathetic.  This is what I mean about the bullshit in this industry.  You've been given a fucking menu by your editor, like some fucking hungry little terrier.  You've got a fantastic album and you wanna talk about something that you know the answer to, because you think, Oh, how's she gonna react?  Well you know how I've reacted.

I'm perfectly happy to talk about the new album.

Well I haven't got fucking time now.

How much time do we have left?  Ten minutes?  As long as you like?

Oh, 10 minutes for the new album?  Go fuck yourself.

Excuse me...

Excuse you?!  How long have we been here?

An hour and 20 minutes.

It's already too long.

And off she goes.  The most surreal detail is her seizing the two-thirds empty water bottle, lest the pesky journalist enjoy a restorative swig on her account.  The next day, her press officer calls MOJO to apologise.  "I love her and her music," he says, "but Siouxsie behaved badly yesterday."  Earlier, Siouxsie had called him en route home to France and stated that she will now do interviews only about the new album.  Within days Siouxsie has a new press officer.

Six weeks later, MOJO is back at the Mandeville Hotel, this time in the tearoom, where we've been invited to finish the interview.  Siouxsie arrives, unapologetically, 15 minutes late and we sit at a low table.  The atmosphere is polite, businesslike.  Her record company representative and manager sit within earshot.  A bottle of water arrives.  Siouxsie keeps it to herself.

Thanks for sparing us some more of your time.

Right.  Good.

I promise to make it as painless as possible.

Yeah, well, if you have to ask certain questions, make sure they're informed.

I'll do my best.  You said you wrote the lyrics for Cocoon on A Kiss In The Dreamhouse on wallpaper while tripping on acid.  I'm guessing Mantaray wasn't written under similar circumstances?

No.  But... When I'm working on something I still get flashes of insight, or just ideas for tunes, so I have to have either a dictaphone or a notepad by the bed.  So, not the wallpaper - but I'm prepared.

You've lived in France for more than 15 years now.  Do you enjoy coming back to London?

Over the years, London has become more of a magnet to me.  For a while I was like, I'm never going back!  When you're in it all the time you never appreciate it.  Since coming back, I went on the London Eye.  Which I wouldn't have done if I still lived here.  And it was fantastic!  We tried to smuggle a bottle of champagne up there, 'cos it was sunset, but they stopped us!  Sunset in the summer, it was amazing.  You really get a sense of being proud of London up there.

What's your daily routine back home?

There isn't an average day.  I always maintain my physical working out.  I do that every other day.  It's pretty much based on yoga.  Bike, whether indoors or outdoors.  Look after the cats.  Look after the house.  And then with my new-found freedom of using the car, it's great just going for drives.

You've just learnt?

I could drive before, but I was a late learner and I hated driving in London.  I don't get on with machinery that well.  I allowed myself to be a passenger and be driven.  I finally decided I had to ferry myself about.

Was it awkward being in the band with your partner?

Yeah, for sure.  But we weren't a couple when we were working.  That's how we dealt with it.  And, long-term relationships, like band relationships, need constant work.

Didn't you crave a separation between personal life and work, where you could go home after a crap day and bitch to your husband?

Well, I always thought it would be nice to go out on the road and come back to someone who has been looking after the cats and doing the housework.  "OK," I thought, "this could be easier!"  But you never know, that might yet still happen! (Laughs)

You've been in the music industry 30 years and yet you hate it.  Why keep coming back?

Because the music is the be all and end all.  It's incredibly important in my life.  Music has always had an importance, even from being young, I always associate music with things going well - even when things are bad, to have that as an outlet and have that as a way of expressing frustration or loss, pain or exhilaration, or assertion, or doubt, it's an amazing weapon, tool, device, outlet.  And yeah, I don't give a shit about the rest of it.  It's all, or can be, irritating, boring, supposedly necessary.  But what's important is me having that vehicle to vent my expressions.

You can't get that from singing in the shower?

No, you can't.  Though if you could get a pill that did that I'm sure it would do very well!

We're Not WORTHY

"Bono?  It's all Siouxsie's fault," says The Edge

"Bono always reckoned that he sounded like a girl on our first record and I didn't agree with him until I listened back.  But while he was talking about the light voice of an 18-year-old what I was hearing was something altogether different and that was the influence of Siouxsie And The Banshees on U2"

GothALMIGHTY

Three breathtakingly Bansheean moments by Mark Paytress.

THE POST-PUNK CLASSIC

The Scream *****

The most explosive and - given the band's early reputation - surprisingly accomplished album from the Class of '76, The Scream eschewed punk orthodoxy with 10 hymns to madness, absurdity and nicotine addiction.  Sonic switchblades flash menacingly on Jigsaw Feeling and the cover of The Beatles' Helter Skelter, while Overground and Metal Postcard sound consumed by chronic catatonia.  Oh, acknowledge the debt Joy Division, The Cure and assorted weaklings!

THE GOTH ALBUM

Juju ****

Reprising Bowie's early '70s pop/rock-straddling role with hit 45s and seriously acclaimed albums, the Banshees hit their career-defining, Ziggy Stardust moment here.  Two singles, Spellbound and Arabian Knights, are neatly separated by one song of beguiling beauty, Into The Light.  But it's that unholy trinity of monstrously effective concert faves, Halloween, Monitor and the self-defining Voodoo Dolly that paints Juju a deathly black.

THE NEGLECTED ONE

Tinderbox ****

Road-weary, struggling to fix their eternal guitarist problem and dangerously close to falling apart, the Banshees had no fun making Tinderbox.  But what had seemed frustratingly clichéd to them sounded to diehards like a tense yet persuasive restatement of classic themes and motifs.  92º and This Unrest were magnificently moody, Cities In Dust joyous and cutting-edge, and Candyman quintessentially Bansheean.

Keith Cameron

10/07

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Interview: Siouxsie Sioux: The punk icon turns 50

Thirty years have passed since the summer of 1977, but Siouxsie Sioux is still a force to be reckoned with. Hermione Eyre meets an original punk icon turned solo survivor

Siouxsie Sioux inspires me to rewrite a celebrated Sondheim song from Follies: "Good times and bum times/ I've seen them all and my dear/ I'm still here/ Sometimes with Banshees/ Sometimes with Creatures/ Now it's just me and my gear..." I hum as I wait for her to finish her photoshoot for The Independent at Home House, a swanky London club. I tap my foot. It's nice out here in the garden area. "I've seen off the Pistols/ Without flaunting my Bristols/ I've shown the door/ To the Cure..."

But hang on a tick – what's that? A crazy horrible face is looking out at me through the window, sticking out its tongue, making flapping ears with its hands. God almighty, who is it? The face relaxes out of its grimace into the stately beauty of Siouxsie Sioux. She carries on posing for the photographer. Phew. That put an end to my little ditty. She's not only still here, but she's still giving us all a bit of a fright.

In fact, the old Siouxsie Sioux of the 1970s and 1980s is very present culturally: she featured on the soundtrack of two of the most talked-about films of last year – Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette and Richard Eyre's Notes on a Scandal. "Hong Kong Garden", her first-ever single, held its own in the Court of Versailles. But in Notes on a Scandal, the Cate Blanchett character Sheba Hart's nostalgia for the Banshees and her own punk days was presented as self-indulgent. Her kohl-smeared eyes at the end of the movie had the madness of a grown woman trying to go back to her adolescence, to an over-romanticised culture now gone. None of that for Sioux, the mouthy one from the Bromley Contingent who became the star of "the most élitist band in the world". She hates looking backwards. The greatest hits collections can look after the legacy. She's covering new ground.

She has an album out this month called Mantaray. Over her career she's released more than 20 albums, but, would you believe, this is her first solo work. "I'm on the verge of an awakening/ A new kind of strength for me..." she roars on the single "Into a Swan". The video for this is like the view through a kaleidoscope found in a Gormenghast nursery. Black-corseted and feathered, our heroine divides and doubles in a kind of amoebic reproduction, so that in some shots there's a whole army of Sioux. "I burst out, I'm transformed!" she yells as she metamorphoses into an owl and flaps off screen. I know it's naïve to expect videos to have anything to do with a singer's state of mind but I can't help feeling this might...

Ah, here she is, stalking over on heels, under a mane of black. The make-up isn't stagey – there's just a suggestion of those angular eyebrows – but the presence is full watt. She was a star before she was a musician. Years before she had a record deal, she caused a riot on Bill Grundy's Today show (don't tell me you haven't seen that clip where she and various Banshees and Sex Pistols swear themselves blue. What do you mean, you haven't watched The Top Ten Totally Terrific TV Moments? What do you do on a Saturday night?).

The heads of the businessmen in the Home House garden turn, whether or not they know who she is. There is something abject in their eyes as they look up at her, though.

So that new video... "Yeah. I liked the fact that Harvey and Carolyn, who made it, come from a background of making fabulous, glamorous, otherworldly commercials. But advertising has hundreds of thousands of pounds to play with so they had to get back to basics for old Universal." A grin. "Sometimes it's velvet/ Sometimes just pretzels and beer/ I'm still here..."

"Another video I'd like to make would be for 'Here Comes that Day'," she adds. It's another fabulously strong number, very John Barry/ Shirley Bassey and throbbing with punishment: divine retribution by big band. "Oh here comes the rain on your parade!" she sings. "There's a price to pay for a life of insincerity..." Every syllable of "insincerity" gets its due. "My vision of the video is a very empowered stripper in front of a culprit, one of the many guys there who has double lives or whatever. She becomes far too raw, progressive and confrontational and very violent even ... She might be swinging a nipple tassle and then..." – she mimes this with some relish – "take 'is eye out with it!"

As she crosses her legs and lights a cigarette – she has to, she says, 'cause giving up was so bad for her health – I notice her strappy sandals and the matte-black nail varnish on her toes. No, hang on a minute, her toes are bare but her big toenail is discoloured by a purple bruise. Slightly gothic, putting it on show like that. Slightly screw-you, too. Power to the toe!

I wonder what might have changed in her life to give her the boost to make this strong solo album – not to reinvent herself so much as to simply be herself spectacularly again. Soon it emerges that her husband and bandmate Budgie is in her life no more. "He's doing his own thing. It's been two or three years, actually, but I don't make my private life public. Life is full of change and reinvention and things don't work out how you expected and it would be boring if they did. It wakes you up. Maybe you have to tear down a bit what's gone before and start again. When you have to start again you just feel really alive. It's not over yet! There's plenty to do, you know."

She hits a throaty war cry. "Come on!"

Poor old Budgie. Sioux was always making jokes to journalists about how she was the cat and he her feathered victim. "I'm always eyeing him, wanting to bite his neck," she once said. Another time she made a quip about throwing a blanket over Budgie's cage when he wouldn't shut up. But of course these lines may be misleading about what really happened in the relationship.

There's a lot of pain and disappointment on the album, and certainly one or two cut-up-his-suits tracks. "It's healthier not to shut it down and block it up. It just gets heavier and heavier if you carry it round with you. There is some anger there on the album," she says. If I were Budgie I wouldn't be putting my eye near a stripper's nipple tassle any time soon.

"I think men and women are very different and maybe we're not totally suited as partners. We are so different emotionally. Women are allowed and encouraged to have all these emotions, whereas I still find men repressed. Isn't it weird the way, politically, women are oppressed but emotionally men are? I just do think females are superior. I, erm, I think they have the whole package." Is Sioux telling me she's a lesbian? "I've never particularly said I'm hetero or I'm a lesbian. I know there are people who are definitely one way, but not really me. I suppose if I am attracted to men then they usually have more feminine qualities." Russell Brand, did you hear that?

So no wonder the solo energy of her album felt real rather than manufactured. There is some kind of transformation in the works. It was her 50th birthday last week and about nine friends came to stay at her place in France (an 18th-century stone house near Toulouse that sounds suspiciously like a château).

Sioux recently said that one of her all-time favourite songs is "Hey Ya!" by Outkast, so I imagine them all dancing round the pool to André 3000, but perhaps the party was a little more subdued than that. "Weather was a bit crap but it's been crap everywhere." She seems happy about the birthday. "The big 50. Half a century. One half down, many more halves to go. In fact I've already done a few half centuries. I'm actually 350 years old but I just look fabulous for my age." It's weird seeing her laugh so freely. In the past she had a rule never to smile when she was performing, so on most of the footage the nearest thing you get to a smile is a sort of lipstick leer.

What is her elixir of youth, by the way? "I need my eight hours, still. I sleep a lot. I try and copy what my cats do. Eat, sleep and play."

Ah, the cats. She loves them cats. No children but three moggies: Spooky, orange and waspish; Spider, sleek prince of Siam; Dandy, white and fluffy murderer-cum-cutie pie. Are they on the album anywhere? Do you sing to them? "Oh I give regular shows to my kitties. And if they don't storm off with their tails up high thinking 'insufferable woman' then I know something's gone wrong. If it's something they find quite tuneful they might be my backing singers... Miaow." She's mocking me I think. Pretending to be all ironic about it. Why can't she just admit it – she sings to her cats. It's nice.

Anyway, she's got to rehearse – a tour starts this autumn. "I don't step up until I've got an audience. I don't like the idea of having a routine. I like mixing it up and including things I haven't played before." How does her new band take that? "Ha! Sometimes I'll torture them and I'll get a thrill out of making them suffer, like: 'Right, what was that B-side I did 30 years ago?' I like to wind them up – in a good way. I like things when they go wrong."

What will her costumes be like? "Have to wait and see." Fashion's currently having a goth phase... "God, not again. Posh Spice in black nail varnish? Ugh, whatever next? My rule is, if what you're wearing's in fashion, it's time to do something different." For inspiration, she might wander round the V&A. She loves the collection of art nouveau. Watch out for that black mane stalking the corridors at closing time.

Before she goes, two quick questions. I know she doesn't want to talk about the past, but on that Bill Grundy programme... She rolls her eyes – "The so-called 'Filth and the Fury', yes." Did you have something going on with [Sex Pistols guitarist] Steve Jones? Was that why he leapt so fruitily to your defence when Grundy tried to chat you up? "No! He was just being a gentleman, innit!" She pulls the same wide-eyed Marcel Marceau expression as she did back on the show. And finally, do you ever get frustrated spelling your name to call centres? What is the name on your bank card? Siouxsie Sioux or Susan Ballion? "Ere, I'm not telling you! What's your pin number then?"

"Good questions, bum questions/ I've seen them all and my dear/ I'm still here/ I've lived through punk, post-punk, new punk/ And I'm here!/ I've given Budgie the nudgie and yes, I'm still here! Look who's here!"

01/09/07

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Kate Mead

29/08/07

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SIOUXSIE SIOUX - Mantaray

Rating ****

THE British music scene has long been populated by colourful characters. Few have been as bold and imaginative as Siouxsie Sioux.

In May, she turned 50 but remains as uncompromising as ever, dropping The Banshees and The Creatures for a challenging first ever solo album.

Mantaray is loaded with vivid splashes of sound — her distinctive, mannered vocals snaking in and out of the heavy industrial clatter of synths, beats and guitars.

Occasional shafts of sunlit melody bring relief from the album’s claustrophobic core. Hear the piano-led finale Heaven And Alchemy for a prime example.

“I’ve loved making this album,” she says in an interview for Universal’s new label W14 Music. “It’s the first major label I’ve been on since we were kicked off Polydor in ’95.

“In that time it’s been a bit of a wilderness of being self-employed. It was fun but mainly it was a lot of hard work and being overly aware of budgets and the boring side of everything.”

Now she’s back with a collection of songs that retain her independent spirit but bolstered by major label support.

“This album’s going to be thrown out to the piranhas and it’s going to be eaten at and assimilated,” she suggests.

“There’s a lot out there that is so reliant on the industry, on stylists, on people being moulded to be something. This just is.”

Siouxsie entered the British consciousness in 1976. The ultimate punk groupie was seen egging on The Sex Pistols as they turned the airwaves blue and shocked a nation.

On Bill Grundy’s Today programme, there she was, bleach blonde hair, wild eye make-up that became her trademark, polka-dot cravat, braces supporting her black baggy trousers.

Her outrageous fusions of glam and fetish set the style for girl punks everywhere. Two years later, people realised there was a lot more to Siouxsie than her fashion sense and punk attitude when first single with The Banshees, Hong Kong Garden, crashed the Top Ten.

Though clearly imbued with the spirit of music’s brazen new wave, her other references points were great glamsters David Bowie, Roxy Music, T.Rex, even the pulsing, synthetic soundscapes of Krautrock pioneers Can.

Debut album The Scream heralded the arrival of one of our most important female artists.

Thirty years on, following her recent divorce from Creatures collaborator Budgie, Siouxsie reflects: “I don’t feel that much different to how I felt in ’76. I mean I’ve taken on a lot more shades and have a lot more options that I can look at, but I don’t feel very different.”

And though the singer born Janet Susan Ballion accepts she’ll never shake off her stage name, she’s not bothered by the trappings of fame.

“I will be Siouxsie Sioux but I’m certainly not going to be the kind of artist I don’t want,” she says.

“I won’t be doing any TV chatshows and I definitely don’t want to be a personality. All I’m really interested in is the music.”

After giving up smoking and getting “incredibly ill” in 2004, Siouxsie was in a right mess.

“I got bronchitis, asthma, sinusitis. I had to have an operation and I was pumped full of all these drugs like steroids and antibiotics. I put on so much weight even though I’d never really had a weight problem.

“I felt like I’d been invaded by aliens. It was really traumatic and I think it was almost like surviving death. It was horrible.”

Then she “got her body back” for the acclaimed Dreamshow solo tour and “there was a huge sigh of relief”. That led to where she is today, proud creator of a debut solo album.

Mantaray begins with the dramatic Into A Swan, intimate lyrics woven into crashing waves of music. It seems to distil one person’s rites of passage.

She says she “originally liked the idea of someone else doing it” then realised “there’s too much of me in there.

“I was reluctant to let anyone else have it because it was how I was feeling. I was breaking off the old. I was feeling lighter. I just shook off all that had been before. Something was right.”

Siouxsie adds that this new spirit wasn’t just confined to her music.

“I think I was doing a lot of things differently. I had a new physical regime. I’ve always kept fit but I discovered other methods that were invigorating.

“I was just feeling much more positive within myself. I survived a real load of s**t and I was just rising above the cesspool of what I’d been through.

“It felt like a rebirth. I know it’s insane that it’s come this late. It’s not normal!”

As for reaching 50, she says: “When you’re approaching 30, you think, ‘Oh my God, it’s over.’ And then, when you’re 40, it’s a case of, ‘It really is over now’.

“And then as I’ve just started with the next decade, it’s like, ‘Who gives a f***?’ You have to put all that into perspective.

“I remember when I was 18 or 19, not all 18 or 19-year-olds were young. I remember feeling quite isolated not seeking the conformity of ‘find a husband, get married, settle down’ so I know that being young doesn’t mean you are young and being old doesn’t mean you are old.”

What’s for certain is that Siouxsie Sioux, young or old, is never dull.

Simon Cosyns

07/09/07

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'I get the voodoo thing. My dad milked snakes'

Scissor Sister Ana Matronic idolises Siouxsie - so we brought the two together to discuss punks, parents and the male ego.

Though polite and attentive, she conveys the impression of granting an audience, rather than giving an interview. Even her south London accent has become vaguely gentrified. Waking herself up with coffee in the West End hotel where she stays whenever she visits from her home in France, she could, at 50, be a member of some distant, arty branch of the royal family

Siouxsie was the hero of Ana Lynch's formative years - as a teenage misfit in Portland, Oregon, she won a high-school lip-synching contest by miming to the Banshees' Peek-a-Boo. Her devotion lasted through her 20s, when she hosted a Siouxsie tribute night at a New York transvestite club, and now - 33 and a pop star herself as Ana Matronic, the Scissor Sisters' in-house glamour puss - she calls Siouxsie her "fairy godmother". The Banshees' leader was "instrumental in women being taken seriously as writers and musicians and creators," she told the NME in 2004.

They are to meet for the second time today (the last time was at an awards ceremony), but Siouxsie is late and a small entourage is bustling about the hotel lounge, looking at their watches. Ana declines a croissant: "I don't want anything on my teeth when I meet her." When Siouxsie finally appears, angular and remarkable in tight black skirt and white top, Ana is actually - momentarily - speechless. To break the ice, she shyly tells Siouxsie that Scissor Sisters, who've been touring their second album, Ta-Dah, are in London for a sold-out run at the 02 Arena starting that night. "So if you're not busy tonight and want to come to a show ..."

Siouxsie says nothing. (Her publicist had earlier said she was worried about upsetting Ana by revealing her relative lack of familiarity with the Scissor Sisters' catalogue.) Ana tries again, telling her she plans to celebrate her 33rd birthday by staging another Siouxsie tribute night in a San Francisco club. At this, Siouxsie nods approvingly, then glides away to instruct a waiter to bring her coffee with soya milk. "I love her shoes," Ana whispers. The coffee arrives and Siouxsie perks up.

As artists you're very different, but what you have in common is that you're both pop outsiders.

Ana: I was always a weird kid, and attracted to things that were dark, like goblins and witches. I'm in a pop band, and we make hopeful, up music, because we've been surrounded by dour, bad things.

Siouxsie: Punk was about doing it yourself, making your own rules, autonomy. That's what I've always done. My family felt like the Addams Family, and I grew up desperately wanting to be normal. We stuck out - even our house was different from all the others on the street. It was this modern house, with a hedge in front that was so tall you couldn't see the house, and the neighbours complained. Even in the register at school, they'd stare at my surname [her given name is Susan Ballion] and couldn't pronounce it. I desperately wanted to change my family. Then, at 16 or 17, I was in hospital with ulcerative colitis, and when I came out of hospital I decided to transform myself.

Both of you also lost your fathers in your mid-teens, didn't you?

Ana: My parents split up, and I learned my father was HIV positive when I was 14. Part of the grief of his death was eased because I had a stepfather, and that made it easier, but it still sucked. I retreated into myself. I disappeared into my bedroom and listened to a lot of Siouxsie and the Banshees.

Siouxsie: My dad ... I grew up, and all I knew was that he was an alcoholic. I was so aware of being different from everyone else. But I had a fantastic role model in my mother. She worked [as a bilingual secretary] at a time when mothers didn't work - she was about the only one I knew who did. So there's the gene pool you come from, but there's also the environment you grow up in, and I grew up with all that strong-women thing - thinking men suck and women are strong.

So women are innately stronger than men?

Siouxsie: Well, we are, because of where we come from. I never dreamed I would be some little fawning thing. I did want to be a ballerina, but that's strong!

Ana: I'm the only woman in the band, but luckily the guys have a heavy dose of femininity, anyway. They don't have pissing contests, like most indie bands.

Siouxsie: I had a really male band, and male-ego shit in the band to deal with. They were men being men, and touring in the early 80s was really lonely at times. There was a battle for supremacy. Journalists wanted to talk to me, and the others would go, "Oh, fucking hell." Being the lead singer is isolating.

Ana: I'm glad Jake [Shears] is the lead singer. There's less pressure on me.

How would you deal with that pressure?

Siouxsie: We were in a hotel [in Japan] where you couldn't open the windows. I think they're afraid people will jump, or something. And the air-conditioning was on, and it's bad for my voice, so I wanted to turn it off and open a window. But it wouldn't open, and I got so pissed off that I took the phone and threw it through the window.

Ana: Really? So what happened?

Siouxsie: Nothing, at first. I was expecting someone to rush up to my room, and I was waiting for a knock on the door, but nothing happened, so I just went to bed. But the next day, the hotel guy came up and said, "Did you throw your phone through the window? You can't throw your phone through the window!" And we couldn't go back to Japan for ages after that.

Ana, you've said Siouxsie helped women musicians to be taken seriously.

Ana: I can't think of anyone like Siouxsie. If you look at her discography, this is an incredibly prolific and poetic songwriter. Whenever I got a new Siouxsie record, I'd immediately rip open the liner notes and get immersed in them. [To Siouxsie] The scope of your career and writing is incredibly grand. There's an incredible amount of artistry and inspiration for me. Lots of women have tried [similar] things, but you go a lot deeper than the surface.

Siouxsie: It's great that you get that. I appreciate everything Ana is saying, but to me, it's the only way it can be. It's not a "philosophy" - you just do what you feel. It's a deep-seated thing from a long time ago.

What do you think of the Scissor Sisters?

Siouxsie: Their music is not categorisable. Anything that defies categorisation has got to be healthy.

Ana: I know Siouxsie has a fascination with the South - that Southern Gothic thing, that uncomfortable beauty of it. That's in a lot of the music you make.

Siouxsie: Yeah, that voodoo tradition. I can understand it a bit, because my dad milked snakes.

Ana: He milked snakes?

Siouxsie: He was a bacteriologist.

Siouxsie, how do you feel about the fact that you're still influential and respected by people like Ana?

Siouxsie: I'm not! I'm not 19 and wearing aggression on my sleeve any more.

Ana: Oh, I think you are.

You must be, you won an "icon" award.

Siouxsie: It's nice, but we couldn't get a record deal for two years [the Banshees were the last of the original punk bands to be signed; their debut album, The Scream, was released in December 1978]. The industry so hated the idea of "punk," especially fronted by a woman who had any kind of assertiveness.

Ana: I get annoyed when girl pop stars now say, "Oh, no, I'm not a feminist!"

Siouxsie: That's because "feminist" has 60s connotations of burning your bra.

Siouxsie, what will your legacy will be?

Siouxsie: No! I don't embrace the "legacy" thing. I just want to do what I do, and leave me the fuck alone.

Don't you embrace the fact that you and maybe Debbie Harry were probably the most influential women of late-70s music?

Siouxsie: I never had approachability - there was always too much of Beryl the Peril in me.

Ana: Siouxsie and Debbie Harry were opposite sides of the coin. Siouxsie was dark and angry and scary - the evil queen.

Do you have any plans to follow Siouxsie into a solo career, Ana?

Ana: I don't want to do anything solo, because I like being with a band. But my boyfriend and I have a side project, and you'll see similarities to the Banshees in it. It's like dark dance music.

Caroline Sullivan

07/09/07

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It's 30-odd years and many albums later, and Siouxsie Sioux is regarded as a highly influential, some might say legendary, member of the punk/post-punk scene - and is about to release her first solo album, 'Mantaray'.

FLUX:  Would you like to tell us a little about the album then?

SS:  Well, it's been in the making for awhile.  There's been an idea for doing a solo album since the end of 2004 when I played the last two shows of the Siouxsie Dreamshow with an orchestra at the Festival Hall.  We were cherry-picking everything from Banshees and Creatures and I just had the freedom that came with that.  The idea was to work with people I've never worked with before.

FLUX:  Had you ever thought of doing a solo album prior to 2004?

SS:  My idea of what a solo album was didn't interest me at all; I just enjoyed collaborating with people.  To an extent this album has still been a collaboration but the main difference is there's no baggage (laughs)

FLUX:  What would you say the influences and inspirations were for this album?

SS:  It kind of coincided at the end of 2004: the DVD of the Dreamshow was released in 2005 and Polydor were reissuing the masters and it was, I suppose, listening to those first few albums of where it all started that was inspirational in propelling me forwards.  I think I was dreading listening to them because I hadn't heard them in 20 years or so.

FLUX:  What current music do you listen to now?

SS:  I really like Peaches; that's probably the last gig I went to, at the end of last year.  I like what Polly Harvey has done and band-wise, umm, I don't know, I think I've just been pretty much heads down and just in my own world.  I'm probably totally out of touch with what's going on.  I haven't read music magazines in years, it was quite a shock going back and talking to them.  I actually had to plough through the music press just to see what they were proposing I do.  I mean nothing much changes you know, boys will be boys - boring and predictable....

FLUX:  Do you know of this new wave of female singers, kind of the anti-Jessica Simpsons, such as Lovefoxx of CSS or -

SS:  I don't.  I came back from London with a bunch of albums to listen to and one of them is Bats For Lashes... I've just really been getting ready to prepare for rehearsing, I'll be doing that next week, so for me it's been all sorting out the artwork and so on, and dealing with the security for the album.  I mean, within an hour of finishing the video (for first single 'Into A Swan') it was circulating Universal and it found its way onto YouTube, and I think there was a drag act who had based their whole act around 'Into A Swan' within a day! (laughs)

FLUX:  How do you continue to challenge yourself, musically?

SS:  I see everything that I've done (as having) evolved, one thing from the other - but to an extent, it's been allowed to do that.  When we were starting, we didn't get signed for two years, which seemed like an eternity back then but in hindsight it was probably a good thing, we were able to hone our very raw talents and develop in those two years and to get our audience without relying on radio play and all that.  It does seem that marketing is so important in the music industry now.... Yeah, it's like a development and an evolution but I've been fortunate to come from somewhere - I mean, when we were doing the albums for Polydor, we were pretty much just left alone to do them.

FLUX:  How much do you think digital music files have changed the way people interact with the music and the band and the artist?

SS:  Well, it's something I'm having to get used to and I don't really like it; I don't like having it sent by email, it does my head in.  It seems like there's a confusion (between) the real world and the virtual world, like a competition to out-do each other, be the first to get the tracks or whatever... like, for me, the release date was like Christmas - you get your Christmas presents on Christmas day and not before - and now all that's been blown out the water.

10/07

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After 30 years of courting controversy, singer Siouxsie Sioux amazes CHARLOTTE HEATHCOTE with her new album and a strange request...

From the moment of her very first gig in 1976, in which she screeched a warped version of the Lord's Prayer, it was clear that Siouxsie Sioux was hell-bent on rebellion.

Famous for wearing cupless bras and swastika armbands, Siouxsie even dismissed the anarchic punk movement as conformist.  Thirty year later, as she releases Mantaray, her first solo album, it's clear that age has not dimmed her feisty spirit.

As we meet in a central London hotel, Siouxsie goes to greet me with a kiss, until I tell her to steer clear as I've caught a cold.  She recoils in horror.

"There's no way I can do this interview," she tells her PR, who thinks she's joking.  "No, really.  I've got to sing later."

At that moment, one of the hotel staff walks into the room and, in the same casual way that most people ask for a glass of water, she says:  "Have you got any surgical masks?"

Unfortunately, the hotel is clean out of surgical masks but Siouxsie is undeterred.  "You'll have to pop over to Boots," she tells her PR, reluctantly agreeing to start the interview with me sitting on the other side of the room.  When her PR returns, I'm forced to don the white mask.

"You look like Michael Jackson," she cackles, before carrying on as if nothing odd has happened.

It's the kind of willful behaviour that sees some stars branded as difficult or diva-like yet somehow, with Siouxsie, it's just entertaining.  And it will please her fans (including U2, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Scissor Sisters and Massive Attack) to learn her musical ability remains as inimitable as her attitude.

Mantaray is an impressive record.  As Siouxsie explains, she approached every tracks as a potential single and that attention to details has shone through and paid off, cementing her reputation as one of the industry's most influential women.

Still, Siouxsie dearly wishes she didn't have to promote it.  Born Susan Janet Ballion in Bromley, Kent, in 1957, she has been perceived as something of an attention-seeker ever since her band, Siouxsie And The Banshees, exploded on the fringe of the Seventies punk scene.

Having courted controversy for her music, her style and her attitude, it was Siouxsie's presence that sparked the infamous Sex Pistols furore on the Bill Grundy Show.  "We'll meet afterwards shall we?" asked the chat show host, prompting a stream of sweary invective from the band.

Since then she has released a string of critically-acclaimed albums as part of Siouxsie And The Banshees and splinter group the Creatures, so it's perhaps surprising when she says:  "I don't particularly like the limelight that much.  I was thinking on concentrating on writing and I was looking forward to being anonymous."

But then she teamed up with Steve Evans and Charlie Jones, who worked on Robert Plant's Mighty Rearranger.  "We started working together last summer, doing two or three tracks at a time in Steve's studios in Bath.  After a few mini sessions, we had 10 songs.  The album just crept up on me."

After years of both releasing and producing records on her own label, Mantaray is being released by major music label Universal.

"Being on a major again is quite a shock, but I wanted the clout and the finance that comes with a major.  It's tough on your own.  There's a lot more promotion to do but I've made a good album, unfortunately, and I want to give it a chance.  I think it deserves to be heard.  So I'm putting on my armour and getting back out there."

Siouxsie may well have paved the way for women to succeed in the music industry on their own terms, but she remains indignant about sexism in the media:  "There's far too much attention on how you look, especially being a woman, and how old you are.  It's insulting and degrading.

"I'm someone who can tell people to **** off and die, but I still feel it's a lot of pressure.  I'm not in my 20s.  I don't want to be part of that stupid circus.  Even Kate Moss gets Photoshopped.  It's not real, but that's the pressure that's being put on the real world."

As it happens, Siouxsie, who turned 50 in May, could easily pass for a woman almost half her age.  There are no discernable lines on her face and her figure is, frankly, to die for, without the slightest trace of middle-aged spread under the see-through top and leather trousers - but then that's exactly the kind of superficial observation that makes her blood boil.

Perhaps another reason why Siouxsie is feeling fragile is her recent divorce from Budgie, the Siouxsie And The Banshees drummer whom she married in 1991.  "I've gone through a  big upheaval in the past two or three years," is all she will say.

However, the only sign of her inner turmoil comes when she admits she hopes to make some cash from Mantaray.  "I want to make lots and lots of money to give me lots and lots of freedom to what I want to do."

Which is?  "Running away.  I haven't had a holiday for years and years and years and years," she says.  "I want to go somewhere exotic for treatments and yoga, scuba diving and horse riding and to really connect with nature, but I'm not someone who can camp; it would have to be somewhere with an en suite bathroom."

Maybe holidays aren't such a priority when you've relocated to a farmhouse near Toulouse, as Siouxsie and Budgie did in 1992.  "It's home and it's beautiful but it's not the coast.  It's beautiful countryside inland.  I'm staying there for the time being, but the London magnet's kicking in, although I'd want a house slap-bang in the middle with a rooftop terrace with a mini Kew Gardens.

"It's another reason why I want the album to be really successful.  How much do you reckon I'd need for that?"

Musically, she'd have to compromise to earn that kind of money, something that's obviously never going to happen.  "People in the music industry are only willing to invest their money in a surefire hit, so there's a lot of dumbing-down," she says.

"I'm more interested in female artists because they have more of a hurdle to overcome.  I like PJ Harvey and I love Peaches, she puts a smile on my face.  I like anyone who's not conforming to what's expected of them."

By releasing such a powerful album in her fifth decade, Siouxsie is still setting the perfect example.

Charlotte Heathcote

09/09/07

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At 50, punk's princess is singing solo for the first time. She talks make-up and deep-sea diving with Helen Brown

It's a cartoon-cool scene of black on black: the serpentine silhouette of Siouxsie Sioux shrink-wrapped in skin-tight midnight leather against the noir of a night sky in Paris.

I look out from the backstage of a television studio to where the punk icon, now 50, stands on the balcony, the glow of her cigarette snaking up and down in the dark. A throaty laugh drifts over the staff of Taratata, a live rock show that seems to be a French Later… with Jools Holland.

Though she's had her claws around a microphone since the late 1970s - first with the Banshees, then the Creatures - this is the first time she's performed live as a solo artist. "I'm not worried about the music," frets the manager, "but I'm not sure what she'll think of the interview."

It was an interview that launched the confrontationally kohled face of Susan Janet Ballion, as she was then, into the living rooms of a startled British public back in '76.

She appeared as part of the Sex Pistols' entourage when the band were interviewed on Thames Television's Today show; it was when the host, Bill Grundy, attempted to flirt with her that one of the most famous bouts of swearing in television history began.

Tonight, Sioux handles the interview with grace, as the only English-speaking guest to answer the cheesy host's questions in French, raising a painted eyebrow when he calls her "Syyyou-sie". He argues that the 'i' in her name demands it.

"You don't pronounce the 't' in Bardot, do you?" she replies.

French Jools is clearly 'orrified at the thought, but rallies, waving Mantaray, Sioux's new album and her first one solo, at the camera. The sleeve art has her as a sort of entomologist's geisha, with fake insects arranged over her powder-white skin.

Along with a hissed-out cover of the Doors' Hello I Love You (rehearsed only once) Sioux performs her new single, Into A Swan.

"I'm on the verge of an awakening / A new kind of strength for me," she roars. Sioux recently announced her divorce from husband and co-Creature, Budgie, and this is I Will Survive for women who prefer bondage boots to disco glitter. "I feel a force I've never felt before," hollers Sioux, "I burst out / I'm transformed."

'Puhhhhphew!" she sighs as we share plastic glasses of champagne in a dressing room. The force is fading and Sioux's arms mime exhaustion. She had a cat nap this afternoon but "needed a tiger nap".

She's not 19 any more, she says, and bored of "the crap": sitting about, 7am starts. In fact, the earliest of the new songs weren't written with a Sioux album in mind. "I thought they would be perfect for a band like Sugababes.

I liked the idea of being a writer and letting somebody else do the graft. And then I wrote Loveless and I wanted it. Still, I sent it to the label, and they preferred my demos to the girl group version."

She sparks a Marlboro Light and grins. Her rule has been never to smile on stage, but she is funny and engaging in person. She involves all four long limbs emphasising a point, praising her producer/bandmates Steve Evans and Charlie Jones for putting the industrial "Guhhghh-urhhh-glahh-urgggh" (mimed as a giant robot-dog running out of batteries) into her new sound.

It was Evans and Jones who also picked the album title out of her lyrics. A manta ray is described as "a ghost of a roar from the sea floor" on the track Sea of Tranquility. "Because the sounds on the album are so diverse, we needed an abstract title.

Rays symbolise something from deep space and a long, long time ago," says Sioux, flapping her arms. "The deep ocean also inspired Stingray and science fiction.

Which takes us on to space - those wings … Deep ocean and space are almost reversible worlds. I'd love a ray's wing to scrape past me in the water." Has Sioux ever been diving? I ask. "No, I really want to, but I've never found anybody to do it with me - story of my life."

But Sioux's lyrics were always aqueous. "You're right. I love the ocean. I've always liked the blue, so tranquil and peaceful and gliding. And the fear of it.

I remember being on holiday in Spain, about 16 and y'know, you've all had a few drinks and it's 'Let's go swimming at night', and the waves come toward you in the dark, and it's almost like oil. You can't see your body, and there's this idea of something lurking underneath. My dreams are of water. And my nightmares."

The Scream (her first Banshees album, 1978) was based on Frank Perry's film The Swimmer (1968). "Water's almost orchestral," she says. "But I've also always liked really heavy orchestral music.

My first awareness of being caught by it was the use of strings heightening the shower scene in Psycho. Bernard Hermann's music is soooo powerful. But I also love Shostakovich and Stravinsky, Eastern European music. It's got a strength and defiance with a real undertow of sadness and grief."

Inspired by cinema ("I was enraptured by the last Harry Potter film - the darkness and cobwebs"), she's always tried to use music to launch her listeners into an individual soundscape. "The Banshees to me never really sat in that very male, stamped dagh-dagh-dagh-dagh of male punk … evocative of nothing other than itself, of rock and roll.

"The Banshees took you into a world, added a sense of tension. So I suppose film and film music has been," she shrugs, "mah thang. Along with the sea and the moon - I suppose women are meant to be governed by those things. People forget the punk thing was really good for women. It motivated them to pick up a guitar rather than be a chanteuse. It allowed us to be aggressive."

Sioux thinks it's harder for women now, although they can still do it. I suggest that Amy Winehouse is taking her heavily kohled attitude into a new generation. "Yes…" she muses. "The make up is armour. It's tribal, primal. It's still war paint.

"You'd have to take it off if you ever do get to go diving, though, I say. "Hmmm," Sioux pats her eyebrows, "You'd be amazed at how well it stays on. You can immerse it in water, you just can't scratch at it." And leaving a whisper of crimson lipstick on each of my cheeks, Sioux heads back out into the night.

Helen Brown

13/09/07

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The Witching Hour

From Sinatra to Screaming Jay Hawkins, the sound of that old black magic.  By Siouxsie Sioux.

The Witch Queen Of New Orleans - Redbone

When I DJed on the John Peel show (Sioux was one of the stand-ins for Peel when he suffered a fatal heart attack on holiday in 2004), I played this and it sounded great.  You know how sometimes you go back and you play something that you once thought was fantastic and it isn't quite as fantastic as you remember?  Well, this was as good, if not better than I remembered.  It's very groovy with a great beat and rhythm.  It was a hit in the early '70s.  I'm really drawn to them because they're Native Americans and, of course, I name myself after a tribe of Native Americans.  Initially it was because the song was great, then when I found out it was by a band of Native Americans it all just clicked together.  I always preferred them to cowboys.  And I find Native Americans really handsome.  It's the long dark hair.

Available on:  Message From A Drum, Epic, 1972.

Supernatural Thing Part 1 - Ben E King

I'm a big soul fan - artists such as Aretha Franklin, Sly & The Family Stone, The Temptations and a lot of Stevie Wonder.  I think the words in this song - "When we kiss, you know you make me hot/I break out sometimes in little bitty green spots" - are stupidly funny and they make me laugh.  We covered it in The Banshees in the early '80s; it was the B-side to Arabian Knights.  I don't think Ben E King would have recognised it.  It reminds me of the time when Marc Bolan came to see us.  It was 1977, before we were signed, and we were playing at The Music Machine in London, subsequently renamed Camden Palace and now Koko.  At the time we did a cover of 20th Century Boy.  Marc Bolan came to see us do it.  When we did, he had to be elbowed in the ribs to be told that we were playing his song.  He didn't recognise it.

Available on:  Supernatural Thing, Atlantic, 1975.

The Witch - Die Rattles

They're a German group and this is the only song I know by them.  It contains some maniacal laughing and screaming.  There's a great string section, and although they were an all-male band they had incredibly high voices.  It's something I remember from the radio as a kid.  I had a clock radio and I listened to it a lot.  I was always attracted to the weirder stuff.  Lunatic songs, like (Napoleon IV's) They're Coming To Take Me Away, Ha-Haaa!  I don't listen to teh radio as much now.  When I'm in France, where I live, I listen to the French version of Classic FM.  They also play stuff like Nina Simone and Frank Sinatra, too.  There's very little talking.  I hate Radio 1.  It's so irritating.  Too much chit-chat.  And competitions.  They try way too hard to be "mad".  You just feel like telling them to shut up.

Available on:  Die Deutschen Singles A&B: 1965-1969 Vol 2, Bear Family, 2000

I Put A Spell On You - Screaming Jay Hawkings

I think I heard the Nina Simone version first, which I love.  It's beautiful, the string arrangement is great and I love her voice.  Compared to Nina Simone, who is very understated, Screaming Jay Hawkins sounds like he's losing his mind in the studio.  It's such a performance.  He's almost totally out of control.  It's like you can hear him having a breakdown, and it's fantastic.  It's quite scary hearing someone screaming at the top of their lungs.  He puts a lot of himself into it.  I think this is the best thing he's done.

Available on:  I Put A Spell On You, Collectables, 1957

Abracadabra - The Steve Miller Band

I'm not a Steve Miller fan.  He's a bit too straight for my liking.  He's a bit soft rock, isn't he?  But I love this song, the main reason being the guitar.  It reminds me of Phil Manzanera at his best.  Even when Roxy Music weren't all that good, Manzanera was at least a consistent plus.  He redeemed them.  I love this really mad guitar bit in Abracadabra (makes a Psycho-style stabbing string noise). It doesn't even sound like a guitar.  A good guitarist can do that; make a noise that you don't even recognise.  It's totally inspired.  A very clever pop song.

Available on:  Abracadabra, Eagle, 1982

Fire - Arthur Brown

Most people remember the video to this, the one where he looks like he's got a candelabra on his head.  I suppose it's a bit of a tenuous connection to the witchcraft theme, but it always makes me think of burning in hell and the devil.  I think the song is about being punished for doing something bad.  The video certainly looks quite satanic.  Have I heard the disco version by Lizzy Mercier Desclous?  No, but I was into (hip late '70s label) ZE records and all that New York post-punk stuff.  I liked another ZE artist called Cristina.  She was really peculiar.

Available on:  The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown, Polydor, 1968

Witchcraft - Frank Sinatra

I'm a huge fan of Frank Sinatra.  I love his voice.  For years I would play his music to wind down to and take the edge off the day.  I find it fantastic for relaxing and very romantic.  Other songs I particularly like are Night And Day, In The Wee Small Hours Of The Morning and One For My Baby (And One More For The Road).  I don't know if Witchcraft is his best, but it's one of my favourites.

Available on:  The Capitol Years, Capitol, 1998

Spooky - Classic IV

This is another old memory off the radio; I must have been very young when I first heard it.  Classics IV were a pop-rock band and this was a big hit in America in the late '60s.  It's got an R&B feel and it goes, "Love is kinda crazy with a spooky little girl like you".  I remember the backing vocals, which go, "Spooooook-yyyyy" and thinking it was brilliant.

Available on:  Spooky, Imperial, 1968

Voodoo Chile (Slight Return) - The Jimi Hendrix Experience

I remember when Polydor re-released his back catalogue in the early '80s, and it got me back into him.  I also remember seeing him on The Lulu Show performing Hey Joe when I was about seven.  It was totally out of tune, but he just made a great face and started retuning his guitar while he was playing.  Of course, his guitar-playing is unique, but I love his voice as well.  He was really embarrassed about his voice and wouldn't let anyone in the studio when he put his vocals down.

Available on:  Electric Ladyland, MCA, 1968

That Old Black Magic - Frank Sinatra

It's just timeless.  There are lots of versions of this song - Sammy Davis Jr, Tome Jones, Ella Fitzgerald - but I like Sinatra's the best.  I'd imagine there are loads of metal bands who've done songs about black magic with loads of extreme screaming, trying to be very scary but not actually managing it.  I find that kind of thing a bit unimaginative.

Available on:  The Capitol Years, Capitol, 1998

10/07

BACK TO INTERVIEWS/ARTICLES INDEX

PUNK matriarch Siouxsie Sioux was certainly rolling back the years when she performed an exclusive live set in Manchester.

In a vibrant printed mini-dress and thigh-high PVC boots she rather belied the fact she's now in her 50s.

Siouxsie, a punk rock icon in the late 70s and early 80s with her band the Banshees, is making a comeback as a solo artist - with a string of concerts planned this autumn.

And fans got a sneak preview in Manchester when she performed at the Royal Northern College of Music as part of the new series of Channel 4 music show Transmission, which will be screened on Friday at 11.30pm.

TV producers had planned to use the impressive backdrop of Manchester's Victoria Baths for the filming, but I hear they didn't get the correct paperwork signed off in time.

So the RNCM stepped in at the last minute to save the day to host the show.

And as well as Siouxsie, the show also bagged exclusive live sets from chart-topper Kate Nash and indie kids The Enemy.

Diane Bourne

19/09/07

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"i do like my pop music you know,  i like it with an edge."

biting back for more...

Infamous music journalist Paul Morley in conversation with the icon that is Siouxsie Sioux as she returns with her solo album...

So this is your first interview for quite a while then?

On a new thing, yeah.

I guess once you've made a record like this that's what it means isn't it?  You're gonna have to go back in that mode.

And that's why I'm going, oh bloody hell!  I've loved doing the work, I've loved making this album and it's the first major label that I've been on since we were kicked off Polydor in '95.

Have there been thoughts previously about doing a solo album?

I think I'd always resisted just because of my perception of what a solo album was.

And what was that?

That it would be me, always.  That it's the solo artist to the front and then this kind of inconsequential music in the background.  I don't like the rest of it being 'Siouxsie' Siouxsie, Siouxsie'.  I think even in the Banshees days I was always deflecting and trying to point out that it's four in the band.

But it was always you on the cover of the papers, wasn't it?

Well, exactly.

The pressure was always that it was going to be Siouxsie.

Yeah, and you know I kind of battled on and said, 'no it's a band, it's a democracy.'  And of course it wasn't, so, I think by the time I decided 'yes I want to do a solo album' a lot of things had happened like working with different people and other people.  And doing this album, Mantaray, probably more than anything - I've worked with only people that I've never worked with.  

Did you find yourself over the last 20 or so years ending up in many cul-de-sacs and in a way creating your own cul-de-sacs?

Yea, in hindsight, definitely.  It's hard to see when you're in the cul-de-sac that you're actually in it, but I think that happens with everyone, after your initial bursting out and discovering what you could do when you are 19, 20, and the euphoria from that.  Sadly I think everyone tends to create a cul-de-sac without realising it and it usually takes some kind of a massive kick up the arse to wake you up.  It's like that with everything.  If you've been doing something long enough, unless the situation arrives and you have to adapt, you're not going to go looking for it sadly.

By enduring for so long you've also left behind lots of trails of noises and images that create expectation.

Expectation and also baggage, and realising that people and the media want to pigeonhole you even further.

Of course in those early days - which we must just gently touch on - (S: laughs).  Early on, you had a kind of stubbornness.  You seemed like an independent unit that would resist all of these pressures and expectancies simply because you were so spiteful.

Yes just to spite people and what they thought!  When the band first split up, it was like, "urrgh, that's the end of that" and it was a catalyst for it to move onto something else, and so you had to either give up or you continued but in a different way.  In a way that ensured our survival - the fact that it was stubborn not to be defeated by something as trite, as, "oh god, has half the band pissed off?" (laughs).

At what point did it occur that you were creating works that, you know, did leave a kind of legacy?

Oh, I don't think I ever really considered that I was leaving works behind until I decided to stop.

Is there a sense now that this world has kind of caught up with some of that energy and ideas that were around in the late '70s.

Yes, well I suppose there was a time when we were incredibly fashionable so of course it's inevitable that you become incredibly unfashionable.  I really think at the time when we were being dismissed as unfashionable, people were very aware of what had gone before and maybe were desperate to be something apart from that.  Bands were desperately trying to create the next punk, I don't think they realised just how pointless that notion, because the environment then was so different.  It's one of my only philosophies, you can rarely go looking for it, it usually finds you and it's a mutual accident.

You must be proud of the fact that in the end you did create a kind of history that did change things.

Proud.  I think mainly I was very fortunate and on the whole I wish everyone would shut up about it (laughs), you know because, yes, something really special happened, but I don't think it had much to do with any one individual or any intent.  Most people that weren't involved around any of that are so envious of the fact that they missed out on a great amount; we had such a lot of fun.  I was just a kid having fun, and I was able to have fun in my own way, which I was very lucky to be able to do.

So what kind of decision did you make about the fact that you were going to make a solo album then?

I think I had been a bit deranged (laughs) leading up to the 2004 tour because I got incredibly ill.  I mean, horribly ill and, ironically, (and probably this will get edited out because it's not what anyone should say) it was when I gave up smoking.  I was very successful and I swear I didn't just get a cold; I got bronchitis, asthma, sinusitis.  I had to have an operation.  I was pumped full of all these drugs like steroids, antibiotics.  My body was taken over by all these drugs and I ballooned.  I actually put on so much weight and I've never really had a weight problem.  I was seeing all these doctors and, quacks, I was calling them.  All kinds of specialists.  They were talking about blood tests.  They were doing this, doing it and I was saying so what is it?  Why is this?  It's since I've stopped smoking.  He said, "oh that's probably just coincidental".  I said "coincidental, I've never bloody had asthma, bronchitis and all this rubbish" and, I honestly, I did that tour under a lot of pressure and I didn't go back to smoking.  Meanwhile all through the tour I was having to see specialists, you know, I had like this spittoon on stage, I was constantly spitting up gunge.  Finally at the end of the tour I just had enough of taking all these drugs and I gradually started smoking and the symptoms started improving and I did finally find a doctor that said "well it's not publicised but in some very are cases, there is a minority of people for whom this is a reaction.  I really felt like I'd been invaded by aliens and it was really traumatic and I think it was like almost surviving death.  It was really horrible...

(interjects) You started smoking again then?

Gradually, but I was so exhausted.  Touring's knackering and when you're not in your 20s.  I was at a point where there was no offing of a deal in sight, I was having these fantasies of just staying in France and opening up a flower shop or working with plants.  Anything, so that I wouldn't have to deal with the bullshit side of what I loved doing.  So, I was kind of in this flux and then when I was really ill Basement Jaxx sent me a song, some music and they said, "are you interested?" and I thought, "well, I like this".  They sent me other stuff but I picked one thing and thought, "yeah, I like this".  I just worked it up as a kind of demo at home in France and sent it to them and was expecting to be invited to London to put the vocals down proper and said "oh no, that's fine, we'll work with that" and they released that and I thought, "oh well maybe this is another direction to go".  Just, like, not necessarily being in it.  It's almost like from being an actor to being a director, being behind the scenes and I thought, well maybe that's the safest way to go.  And then, a couple of tracks arrived when I was in this kind of state of flux and exhaustion and they were what became Loveless and Into A Swan, the two pieces of music...

So when you say they arrived, what do you mean by arrived?

Well they came via Polydor because I think we were having talks and I knew things weren't going anywhere.  Then these two pieces of music arrived "Loveless" and I got quite excited.  I thought maybe I can be a writer and at that time, to me, that was how I was gonna survive and be over 20 working in the music business.  You know, that to me was a logical quite freeing thing to do, you know, nobody has to see my ugly mug anymore (laughs) and so I really loved the music so I wrote the words and put down the vocals and they told me it was going to be for, like a girl group, like the Sugababes.  I do like my pop music, you know, I like it with an edge but I also like it just undiluted good pop.

So I wrote that and I was really pleased with it and I was looking forward to hearing a Sugababes-type rendition of it.  Then they sent me some more bits of music and then I found what was gonna be Into A Swan  and I thought, wow this is great.  They ended up preferring my demos, and then the conversation was, "oh well maybe there's a deal in the offing".

When you were writing the lyrics to Into A Swan, what was the picture because it's turned out to be one of the great opening tracks to an album I've heard in recent years.

Yeah, it's like...

(interjects) Did you write that knowing it was about you, about what might happen or was it an idea for someone else?

I think obviously it was me but I kind of liked the idea of someone else doing it.  Swan was the first one that I was reluctant to let anyone else have (laughs) and because it was how I was feeling.  I was feeling that I was breaking off the old, I was feeling lighter.  I had a new physical regime, you know, I've always kept fit but I discovered other ways and other methods to do and that was invigoratingly, I was just feeling much more positive within myself.

And it's taken you by surprise which is probably the point in a way isn't it?

Yeah, and the surprise has got another effect, its propelling me even more.  It's almost like, "oh wow I can fly" and then its like whizzing off.

Without it as being as twee as a concept or a narrative, it's very clear that once you had that moment - and its obviously the opening - and you burst through, everything seems to come afterwards on many different levels.

It was a catalyst for how to move forward.

What are the big "thou shall nots" that there are for you?

Erm, "thou shall not be too clever".  I said I don't want too much subtlety here.  That was the main thing.  I want the vocals to be there and present between the eyes pretty much and I want everything else to be as powerful but obviously not getting in the way of the vocals.

Heaven And Alchemy finishes it and Into A Swan could only be the opening Heaven And Alchemy could only be the end (Siouxsie agrees).  Heaven And Alchemy is the one where I need to ask what's that one about?

I think it's just facing up to how we delude ourselves, with ourselves, or with other people.  I think especially in important relationships and I think it's realising that absolute honesty is essential for anything to flourish and thrive.  No matter how hard or difficult it is.  In the end, it should be simple, and easy but you have to do it before you realise that (laughs).

Will you go out and perform these songs?

I think they should be performed.

Why Mantaray?

Mantaray, it's just a great word and I kind of like the idea that it's not per se, a word that means anything for the album because I know I was trying to do something that summed up the album and it just sounded contrived and clever and I didn't want to do that.

It's better to be kind of abstract and a bit mysterious.

It does look amazing written down though and it leaves it open and I like that that it's open.

Which is kind of what you wanted to recover?

Well, you know, I've dumped my bags, you know, I'm feeling a lot lighter and my shoulders are feeling less tight (laughs).

There are absolutely millions of pop records out there, millions of rock records, millions of people now selling and servicing the rock community.  How do you feel about that, the idea that it just goes out there and some of that awkward specialness that we've been talking about had kind of gone now, pop is a lot more industrial isn't it, its an industrialised world.  In a way, you've rejoined it, you know, you're part of Universal, you're part of the process as well so it's mixed up with the optimism.

This album's going to be thrown out to the piranhas and its going to be eaten at and assimilated and you know, all of that, but I think amongst all that's out there, there's a lot out there that is so reliant on the industry, on stylists, on people being made, moulded to be something.  This just is.

Paul Morley

09/07

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The instantly recognisable 50-year-old frontwoman of The Banshees and The Creatures says it was the opportune moment to strike out and record Mantaray with a brand new coterie of musicians and collaborators.

"The time felt right to drop the bags, start again and leave the past truly behind," explains Sioux in her distinctive gravelly tones, adding that a live tour in 2004 was the long-burning inspiration for a new album.

"It was totally different. The producers were also musicians so were hands-on. The way we worked was easy and direct.

'Leave me alone!'

"You know what's coming next when you're in a band, but this time some songs took complete turns and really surprised me. Everything was more intense and heightened," she adds.

"I got into more fights when it was the band. I'm pretty much the boss lady, but we knew which way we were going this time which made things flow quickly."

Sioux, who has lived in France for the past 15 years, had to conquer her fear of driving to make the journey to Bath, where the album was recorded over several sessions.

The album's recent release has caught the veteran singer up in a gruelling whirwind of publicity of both sides of the Atlantic - leading her to question the demands made on today's music stars.

"I've been screaming 'leave me alone!' quite a few times. It's exhausting. I couldn't do it constantly.

"If I didn't have my quiet, sedate life in France, I'd have been carried off to the lunatic asylum a long time ago. I can breathe properly there.

"This idea that life's a stage? Give me a break!" she laughs.

'Truly bitten'

Sioux has been contemplating a move back to "the buzz" of London, but the round of activity to promote her album has made her think about maintaining her solace.

In the early 1990s, the retreat to France with former partner Budgie was prompted by her fame becoming too close for comfort, with fans leaving messages on her car windscreen and even turning up on their doorstep.

Winding back to the start of her career during the height of the punk era, Sioux - born Susan Ballion - admits she had a burning desire to perform and be famous.

"I was at this club called Louise's. Everyone was hanging out - Malcolm [McLaren] and The Sex Pistols were there," she recalls.

"He said 'there's this punk festival coming up and one of the bands has pulled out. I've really got to find someone to make up the bill'.

"And without thinking I said: "Oh, I'll do it". That night I was asking people if they could play.

"Opening my mouth without thinking is really what got me started!"

Sioux's resulting stage debut was at London's 100 Club in September 1976, with a line-up including Sex Pistol Sid Vicious on drums and Steve Severin, who went on to form The Banshees with her.

"I was well and truly bitten after that," adds the singer, arguably one of punk's most enduring figures - and still going strong today.

Siouxsie Sioux's album Mantaray is out now and released in the US on 2 October. She will perform at the BBC Electric Proms in London on 24 October.

Michael Osborne

21/09/07

BACK TO INTERVIEWS/ARTICLES INDEX

Three decades after she first shocked and surprised the audience of London's famous 100 Club with her distinctive voice, Siouxsie Sioux is preparing to hit the road again.  There's a slim possibility she might return to her old stomping ground to play a date or two but it's unlikely she'll be performing her electrifying version of The Lord's Prayer or any of the singles she recorded during her 17 years with The Banshees.  Instead, she'll be previewing songs from her long-awaited solo debut Mantaray.

"Apart from a few friends and associates, nobody has heard any of the new tracks so it'll be interesting to see how people react to them," she suggests.  "I know the video for the first single has been well received but I've no idea what people will make of the album.  I'm hoping they're going to love it as much as I do but you never can tell.

"We were originally going to play our first show at the Russian Embassy in Berlin but I think we're going to be playing the revolving restaurant at the top of the Eiffel Tower now.  After that, we're playing the Electric Proms, a couple more dates in Europe and some dates on the east and west coast of the States."

It's a clear indicator of how well respected Siouxsie is as a singer and performer that she was invited to play Electric Proms while she was still working on Mantaray.  As she speculates over the artists on the bill, it's apparent that she still relishes the opportunity to perform live.  Her slashed shirts and leather mini skirts might have been replaced with tailored suits over the years but she's still a magnetic performer who doesn't think twice about heckling anyone daring to talk during her sets.

Part of her appeal lies in the fact she oozes attitude and intensity and the rest is down to her trademark sneer and kohl-black eyes.  The lipstick is a little darker these days and the kohl less dramatic but she still has a look that can make grown men and women melt.

Though her friends and colleagues keep her up to date with new artists she might like, Siouxsie prefers to listen to the radio these days.  There are a couple of different stations broadcast in the south of France and her favourite plays a mix of jazz, classical and old chanteuses like Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald.  On the rare occasions she feels like listening to something more lively, she usually listens to Peaches or PJ Harvey.

Asked what she thinks of the contemporary artists dominating the charts, Siouxsie instantly retorts:  "Not a lot.  The only singer I find quite interesting is Amy Winehouse.  She looks scarily out of control but I like her balls.  It's a shame people won't leave her alone to just get on with her life.  Nobody can cope with the amount of attention and intrusion she's received over the last few months, it's unreal."

Informed that several London freesheets ran cover stories about Winehouse nearly missing her train this week, Siouxsie is horrified.  "I can't begin to imagine how she must feel being followed round by paparazzi day and night.  I don't envy her at all.  I never had that kind of pressure when I was her age because I was seen as a filthy punk girl they couldn't control or manipulate.

"At the time it was frustrating because it meant nobody would take a chance and sign us.  In hindsight, however, it was a blessing because it gave us two years to get a footing and find our own audience.

"The media kill everything now through overexposure.  They think people want more, but it just turns everyone off.  Whenever something is raved about, I always wait until the fuss has died down so I can experience it objectively."

Mantaray was recorded at Riverside Studios in Bath and comparisons will inevitably be made with The Banshees and her previous side-project, The Creatures.  For Siouxsie however, Mantaray feels and sounds like a completely different beast.

"With previous albums I usually had a strong idea what direction they should go in.  With this one, I was completely open to the idea of just seeing what we came up with," she states.  "There were no rules about what sounds we could or couldn't use, I just wanted to approach each song as a potential single.

"I thought that would help us capture the essence of each song and edit them as we were going along.  So many artists these days don't know how to discipline themselves - they think because a CD can hold up to 80 minutes of music they should record 80 minutes of music."

Produced by Goldfrapp cohorts Steve Evans and Charlie Jones, Mantaray is a concise and compelling album that features ten pop and rock twisters.  Opening track Into A Swan announces its arrival with brutal guitars and powerhouse drums while One Mile Below and Here Comes That Day inject playful basslines and colourful percussion into the equation.  Elsewhere, Siouxsie flirts with glam-rock (About To Happen), croons over piano and distorted effects (Drone Zone), and delivers her most intimate and unsettling love song (Heaven & Alchemy).

"I was given other bits of music but the ones I went for were the ones I knew I could get my teeth into," she emphasises.  "Working with new producers was a bit of a leap of faith but I'm glad I did because I ended up having a lot of fun making this record.  Steve and Charlie are both great guys and they really encouraged me to push myself further and take a few risks.  Some of the songs were done almost acapella, just sat around the piano, whilst others were programmed and mixed over and over.  Into A Swan was the first track we recorded, though the final version is completely different from the original version.  The chords are the same but the noises are completely different."

Interestingly, the tracks that really highlight Siouxsie's strengths as a singer are Loveless and If It Doesn't Kill You.  The former finds her asking "How could you be so cruel... what am I going to do?"  and the latter captures her whispering "Don't be bitter, don't be gloomy/If it doesn't kill you, it will shape you" over soaring strings, moody percussion and cinematic synths.

"I'm glad you like those tracks because they're two of my favourites," she says.  "If It Doesn't Kill You was something I'd had kicking around for a few months but it wasn't until Steve and Charlie came up with the music that it really started to take shape and sound like a James Bond theme.  Loveless was actually something I wrote for a new artist on Polydor.  They played around with it but it didn't suit her voice apparently.  I was really pleased they rejected it because it was too good to give away.

Informed that the press release accompanying Mantaray implies it's a record that "encompasses disappointment, distrust and despair", Siouxsie laughs heartily.  "I think that's someone else's baggage, don't you?  Personally, I think it's a really uplifting album that captures a full range of emotions from desire to delight.  Looking at the song titles, I can see how someone might jump to the conclusion certain songs are about heartbreak, but the truth is I just enjoy dramatising things.  Drone Zone is about transition and the need to put your armour on when you go from one environment to another whilst Into A Swan and If It Doesn't Kill You are about transformation and endurance."

Reminded that it's the 30th anniversary of The Banshees' first single Hong Kong Garden next year, Siouxsie implies it doesn't feel that long.  "It's scary how time has just evaporated... I never listen to our old records but when Polydor decided to reissue all the early albums last year I had to sit and listen to the re-masters.  I was dreading hearing them again because I thought I'd be sucked into this time tunnel but I was pleasantly surprised by how fresh and inspiring they still sounded.  I actually got quite caught up deciding which B-sides and live tracks should be included as extras."

Just as I'm about to enquire if she misses the camaraderie of being in a band, Siouxsie says becoming a solo artist makes things much simpler.  "When you're in a band there's always a level of compromise," she concludes.  "Aside from having to deal with everyone's egos and hang-ups, everything just takes a lot longer.  Whenever I was in the studio with The Banshees and thought we'd nailed a perfect take, inevitably somebody would have fallen off their stool or been playing out of time.  It used to drive me mad.  Deciding to do something on my own has heightened my senses and made me realise my strengths and weaknesses.  It's been scary but exciting."

Sarah-Jane

17/09/07

Courtesy of Robbie's mum

BACK TO INTERVIEWS/ARTICLES INDEX

THE ICON TALKS TO EMILY MACKAY ABOUT HER NEW SOLO ALBUM AND, ON FOLLOWING PAGES, WE RECALL THE START OF HER AMAZING CAREER

Some stars are happy on a pedestal, frozen into the iconic images of their glory days.  Siouxsie Sioux is not one of those people.  While contemporaries like Deborah Harry or John Lydon grow increasingly embarrassing, hopping on the nearest bandwagon or celebrity TV gig, the unbelievably youthful-looking Siouxsie has kept to her own course, stretching and pushing the boundaries of her beloved trademark sound but never overreaching into the gimmicky or merely fashionable.

From the start Siouxsie and her Banshees were the thinking person's punks, rejecting the norms of the era before they'd even had times to solidify, outraging the outrageous and later defining post-punk and goth without ever being defined by them.  They went on to refine and develop their initial aggressive racket, and explore dancier byways in The Creatures, and come to celebrated, mature elder status with The Rapture.

In all the hoopla surrounding the 30-years anniversary of punk, you won't see Siouxsie hosting many nostalgia concerts, appearing as a talking head on I Heart Punk or competing in Celebrity Goth Island.  And yet there are more exciting young bands today drawing on the Banshees dark post-punk template than there are Sex Pistols or Buzzcocks soundalikes.  Her Dreamshow topped the UK music DVD charts in 2005, the year she was also awarded the Mojo Icon award.

This is a woman informed by her past but not in need of it.  With the recent release of her debut solo album, Mantaray, she's proved she can stand alone, without the bandmates she's worked so closely with over the years.

RC joins Siouxsie looking resigned to the prospect of a day of interviews in London's Mandeville Hotel, with, appropriately enough for the doyenne of dark, Dusty Springfield's Spooky playing softly in the background.

A lot of the imagery in Mantaray centres around transformation.  Is that something you were feeling?

Yeah, for instance, Into A Swan is about more of an internal transformation, not transformation like a new set of clothes or something!    The chrysalis to the butterfly is a metaphor for that sense of change.  I think it's about starting again.  This album's the first album I've done not working with anyone that I've worked with before, and for the first time, the producers are also playing on the album.  It's felt very tight as well, quite organic, because the core of it was that Charlie (Jones, Goldfrapp guitarist) and Steve (Jones, producer) played the guitars and then Clive (Deamer, sticksman for Portishead and Roni Size) was on drums.  It's almost like going back to being a three-piece, working up on the songs, and then everything else is added to it, to make it the fabulous shimmerer that it is.

After so long as part of a group, was it nervewracking to step out on your own?

I was excited by the thought of "How's this going to work, what's going to happen?".  It came from deciding to do this solo project, which started in 2004, and culminated in some shows at the Royal Festival Hall, Dreamshow.  I knew I was going to be working with this orchestra, so it kind of freed up the choice of material.  Being able to do songs like Obsession for the first time live with strings, but also interpreting some classic Banshee or Creatures songs with percussion section, brass, strings... I found it really exciting.

But also, I just hate the music industry, the business side of it.  It can really grind you down sometimes.  I seem to be forever fighting against the male way of doing things.  I don't like putting things into boxes and having a plan and a name.  I like to keep the spontaneity and keep it open.

I'm on a rediscovery of self-belief and feeling fresh about something and really wanting to move forwards and not be too hung up on what's been and what's expected.  That's how I like it, and I'm forever being asked "What was the theme of this?", "Why do it?" and I said, "Well, you've got the record, that's why I've done it"  It answers itself.  There wasn't a particular plan or manifesto."

So nothing triggered the solo album now?

It was just doing Dreamshow, and then I thought, "I haven't been on a major label for 10 years, ummm..."  and I was thinking maybe I should be behind the scenes to move forwards.  I enjoyed doing the Basement Jaxx track Cish Cash (from the 2003 album KIsh Kash), which was a one-off.  Initially, the first two songs for this album, Into A Swan and Loveless, I was writing for a new artist on Polydor, and I thought well, maybe that's my way of going forwards, because I'm not in my 20s anymore.

But I ended up feeling quite reluctant about giving these songs away to someone else.  And as it worked out, they loved the songs, but they preferred the demo that I'd done.  Then I got offered a deal with W14 within Universal.  I really liked the production on Robert Plant's The Mighty ReArranger and I thought, well, I'll try that.  So I met Steve Evans.  He works from Bath, and he and Charlie worked their magic, and I knew that it was the right partnership.  Half of teh album, I'd say is about ideas that were already there, although not fully formed, and half has been written in the last two years.  Swan and Loveless came together last year and then Drone Zone, About To Happen, Here Comes That Day, If It Doesn't Kill You, the rest happened very recently.

There is quite a range of styles on the album.

I was being sent all this music by different writers, and I picked just the music that I wanted to write to.  It's not been like, "I need rock, it has to be a rock thing."  The way Charlie and Steve work, they transformed If It Doesn't Kill You from what it was into what I think would be a great James Bond theme.  They should write the next Bond theme.  If It Doesn't Kill You would be a great title.

Lyrically, do you think this album is more personal than you've been before?

It's taking stock of the different journeys that I've made over the years.  It's almost like they say painters need a lifetime of experience to draw from, and draw on, and the same with novelists, who usually start quite late as well, and have a well to draw from, rather than a little rock pool.  Hahahahaha!

You've not tried to link up with the big production name of the moment or make a new rave album.

Oh god, no.  At the time when Polydor were in the offing for signing me up, and they were like, "Oh, you've got to collaborate with Marilyn Manson," and I just kind of despaired and gradually let them fade away.  So it was great when John Williams at W14 was actually really excited about me doing the solo album and wanting to just do it my way, and thankfully had confidence in that, because he didn't hear anything when he signed me.  It was just the idea.

Personally, if something's fashionable or in, I tend to think, "Well, that's a good reason for not doing it,"  My favourite artists, I always feel that they're doing what they do in spite of what's around them, not just reflecting what's around them.  I'm interested in an artist's own viewpoint, not someone that is looking to please the now and fit in with now.  Because ultimately, what anyone does, I think you'd want it to be around longer than 15 minutes, to have a certain timelessness to it.

Is it unfortunate timing that Mantaray's release coincides with the 30th anniversary of punk?

They do it every 20 years, every 25 years, every 25 and a half... any excuse!  I'm so, so sick of it!  You know?!  It's like... the amount of stuff that I just turn down.  I'm not interested in being dragged back there again.  I think I did the Banshees biog (by Mark Paytress) in 2003 just so that if you've got those questions, all those are answered there.

A lot of the punk nostalgia industry tends to ignore the female side of the movement in favour of the big names like the Pistols and The Clash; you'd never see Ari Up on a magazine cover.

No, and I love The Slits.  Around mid-to-late 70s was a really exciting time for women; there wasn't a battle of the sexes.  Of course that changed very quickly in the 80s and then it became very industry-friendly female frontpeople, which is probably why Blondie were so successful.  Good pop, but definitely fits easily into that cover girl kind of thing.  I've got too much of Beryl The Peril in me to be totally taken to the heart of the music industry.  The first posters for (The Banshees) were "Your mother wouldn't like her" (cackles madly)!  It was so funny!  The first gigs we did after the 100 Club punk festival, I think it was somewhere like Tiverton, and they'd taken this big blown-up shot of me, with the star make up, and "Your mother wouldn't like her" printed on it.  Which is ironic, because she would.  I loved my mum.  I got on really well with my mum.

Do you still feel any kinship with any of your peers from those days?

No.  I've noticed that a lot of people who are involved in those kind of TV nostalgia programs, they haven't had a kind of continuous involvement in music, it was just around that kind of era, and then they didn't do it anymore, so it's probably something that they kind of look back on as the heyday of their youth.  To me it's just part of the many things that happened.  There was no plan when I got onto the stage for 15, 20 minutes, that's all it was for, for the there and then, and over 20 years later, that's kind of turned into me being around doing this, but I don't know, that's how its worked out.

I think also the Banshees were quite apart at the time, firstly in having a female front person, and also, I always thought we had this cinematic quality, while what was going on was very much rock, quite narrow, and direct, of course.  I always thought we brought an exotic kind of mystery that defied being bracketed into 'this is punk rock' or 'this is new wave' or post-wave or, urgh... goth, or death or... I don't know.

We've never only done fast songs or only done slow songs.  There's been no rules as to kind of material we do except that it's go to have a slight disturbing quality there and it's got to transport you somewhere and it's got to have something that's beyond black-and-white, beyond the printed word.  It's visual.

What do you make of today's rock frontwomen?  Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs is often compared to you.

I don't know them so well.  I love Peaches, though.  She played at, I think, The Forum last November and October, I loved the gig.  I hadn't seen any of their live performances before, but she had a band with her and my friend said, "Oh, I'm so glad you saw that gig, because it's the best gig I'd seen her do."  She'd never had a band before, she always had tapes, or, you know, an exotic dancer, or something, and it's always been quite a small club.  But this time she had a great band with her.  It was all female, that was a great gig.  I love the titles of her albums, I mean, Fatherfucker, what a brilliant title.  And what a great song Fuck The Pain Away is.

Where do you hear your influences today?

To be quite honest, I'm not really up on a lot of bands.  The last time I was over in America, people were saying about the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, "Oh, it's so Banshees", and I couldn't hear it.  It's more people telling me that there's a lot of Banshees in it.  I try to hear it and I can't hear it.

There's quite a few bands that have taken their name from songs or material.  I've never heard The Rapture, I don't know what they're like...

They're a dancey, punk-funky sort of thing.

Well you know, there's that element, see people tend to think of us as just rock, and if you only know us by the singles, you might think that, but the album tracks and the B-sides are different.  We do a great version of Supernatural Thing (the flip of Arabian Knights).  The B-sides are all anything goes, really, there's Drop Dead, El Dia De Los Muertos... a lot of things flying in from different areas.

What's your favourite cover that someone's done of one of your songs?

There's one about to come out by this UK hip-hop artist Akala, who's done Love In A void and it's fantastic.  I loved it.  Jeff Buckley did Killing Time, I loved that, I love his voice.

Not that 90s dance track by Capella that used the guitar motif from Happy House?

U Got 2 Know?  Paid my rent, that has.  But I don't play it.  It's a nice little earner!

What is your favourite cover version that you've done with the Banshees or The Creatures?

I'd say Supernatural Thing.

Do you have much of a record collection?

Yes, but they're old records.  My vinyl is all the Stooges, all the Bowie albums.  The Velvet Underground, Eno's Music For Airports.  Gavin Briars... there's that amazing record called The Sinking Of The Titanic.

What about your own back catalogue?

Sadly, yeah, they're stuffed away somewhere.  But I've got a secret; I love the smell of acetate.  When you used to cut a record, you'd get that really heavy-duty, sort of purply-black colour vinyl and it had that amazing smell.  It's a bit like if you used to open my mum's Ryman typewriter with its box and it had all that carbon.  So I'm a secret carbon sniffer.  It's fantastic.  That's better than playing it.  Well, they just wear out after a while.  But I just keep it for the smell of it.

Emily Mackay

20 MINUTES TO 20 YEARS

THE BANSHEES' TALE

AS EDITOR OF LEGENDARY FANZINE ZIGZAG, KRIS NEEDS HAD A FRONT ROW SEAT FOR THE EXPLOSIVE RISE OF SIOUXSIE & THE BANSHEES

In September 1976, Siouxsie & The Banshees defined the DIY punk ethic by venturing onstage for the first time with instruments they'd never touched until the day before.  Siouxsie became one of the faces of British punk, but the Banshees subsequently developed a sound which left Ramones-imitators in the dust; fearlessly uncompromising, experimental, always progressing but boasting uncanny pop sensibility.  Their striking, sometimes shocking, visuals cleverly avoided obvious moves like pushing Siouxsie as a UK Debbie Harry.

From the numbered gatefold of their first 7" single, Hong Kong Garden, Siouxsie & The Banshees paid special attention to presentation and marketing.  They were at the forefront of the 12" revolution, including extended mixes and bonus tracks, while sleeves and videos came with band-hatched concepts.  Even now they stand alone among the bands from that era.

in 1976, you couldn't miss Siouxsie and her suburban misfit mates, dubbed the Bromley Contingent.  Siouxsie always had a voracious desire to break out of suburban normality in the loudest, most shocking way possible, getting an early taste of the night-life by accompanying her go-go dancer sister to work and frequenting the capital's underground gay clubs.  She met a fellow malcontent called Steve at a Roxy Music gig and, along with others like Billy Broad (later Idol), glammed up early Pistols gigs.  Calling herself Suzi while causing a stir in her fetish underwear creations, she introduced the Pistols crowd to the seminal multi-sexual Louise's club on Poland Street.

The scene which developed around Louise's, McLaren's Sex shop and Pistols gigs galvanised Sioux and Steve, now calling himself Spunka.  When another group was needed for the Pistols' 20 September show at the 1976 100 Club Festival, Sioux thought up the name Suzi & The Banshees the night before, while looking for something that "sounded offensive but would get people confused".  Joined by guitarist Marco Pirroni and Johnny Rotten's old mate Sid Vicious on drums, Steve picked up a bass.  Their 20-minute caophony revolved around The Lord's Prayer, incorporating piss-taking snatches of She Loves You, Twist & Shout and Knocking On Heaven's Door.  They planned to play until forced off but got bored before the audience did.

While Sid sang with infamous bedroom band Flowers Of Romance and Marco joined Adam & The Ants, Suzi became Siouxsie Sioux and was thrust into the nation's front rooms after being leched over by a drunken Bill Grundy on teatime TV, prodding the Pistols to swear themselves to overnight notoriety.  Siouxsie and Steve, now Severin after the Velvets' Venus In Furs character, continued with the Banshees, recruiting guitarist PJ Fenton and drummer Kenny Morris, who'd rehearsed with with the Flowers.  Although musically inept, they had bold ideas and provocative lyrics, bent on abusing rock's traditions and taboos.

"You don't think about old forms," said Steve.  "You pretend you're the first person to pick up a guitar."

With an admiration for glam's simplicity, the primitive Banshees sounded like nobody else.  By March, they were supporting Johnny Thunders & The Heartbreakers, whose record label, Track, let them rehearse at their Carnaby Street HQ.

The Banshees started playing at The Roxy, the Covent Garden underground transvestite joint which was about the only place for punk groups to play, but didn't feel sufficiently developed to appear on The Roxy London WC2 (Jan-April 1977) album.  In July, the Banshees started appearing at The Vortex, the Wardour Street club which replaced the floundering Roxy as London's hangout.

Siouxsie and Steve's lyrics were graphically evocative, dealing with situations not encountered in rock music.  Carcass concerned a butcher who feel in love with his meat to the extent of cutting his limbs off.  "We just like to get people's backs up," cackled Sioux.  "We've got a morbid sense of humour," adding that lyrics were "just explaining what is around you."

At first, they used the swastika in order to debunk a shock image but phased it out as more sinister, wide-reaching implications loomed.  Other early songs included Love In A Void, Make Up To Break Up and irreverent covers of T.Rex's 20th Century Boy and the Captain Scarlet theme.  Gradually, a majestic, heavy, monster sound emerged, helped by guitarist John MacKay replacing Fenton in July.

While entrenched in the front line of the London punk scene as editor of original fanzine Zigzag, I witnessed the Banshees' rise up close from earliest gigs to heady success, the magazine acting like a monitor in the heart of the group as they continued to claw an ever-deepening weal across the nation's erogenous zones.  The October 1977 issue marked the first of many covers, placing Siouxsie as the strongest no-nonsense female singer this country had seen.  "I don't want to appear as some kind of Women's Libber, 'cos I'm not, but neither am I someone who lets herself be pushed around and manipulated.  I've got a mind of my own," she said.

The Banshees continued packing out the Vortex and venturing further afield, improving all the time.  Siouxsie started appearing on music weekly covers, now crowned the Ice Queen.  Many asked why the Banshees hadn't been signed despite record labels in a frenzy, snarfing up any punked-up hopefuls.  Despite selling out gigs, the Banshees seemed to baffle or repel A&R men.  Atlantic's Dave Dee, having turned down the Sex Pistols, proclaimed, "punk's finished".  Decca offered a princely two grand, with other similarly paltry deals dismissed.

In November, the Banshees recorded a John Peel session (Love In A Void, Mirage, Metal, Suburban Relapse), which went out on 5 December and became one of the most requested in the show's history.  Peel and his producer John Walters were massive fans and even talked with Banshees manager Nils Stevenson about releasing them on the BBC label.  Their popularity further escalated in early 1978 as they sold out the Nashville, Music Machine and 100 Club, even promoting their own well-attended gig at North London's Alexandra Palace in March.

Another Peel session in February, with the new Hong Kong Garden, Overground, Carcass and their terrifying disembowelment of The Beatles' Helter Skelter, stepped up the pressure.  They ran away with Best Unsigned Band in Zigzag's annual readers' poll.  The group got so annoyed at A&R men coming to gigs, getting drunk on expense accounts then passing out that mysterious "SIGN THE BANSHEES" graffiti started appearing on record company buildings.  Deciding a Zigzag cover and four-page feature might help, Severin designed a front page and an interview was arranged.  The feature became a celebration instead of a protest when news came that the Banshees had signed with Polydor.

The Banshees were happy, especially with complete control over track selection, packaging and promotion.  Sitting with the group in Soho Square, Siouxsie made no secret that she wanted to reach the biggest possible audience.  "I can't understand bands that are in love with the idea of being underground.  If they've got something to offer, why don't they make it on the television or the radio?  If we got to No.1 on Top Of The Pops it'd be a great achievement."

"We've always aimed to get into one of the big five companies," added Steve.  "Everybody got signed up, but hardly anyone got into those five companies."

Siouxsie did admit, though, "If everybody starts liking us then we're going to find it very hard!"

The Banshees already saw battles with the record company coming up, but Siouxsie reasoned, "We don't exist if we don't have something to fight against."  She knew that with the success of Blondie, Polydor would try and push her as the UK's Debbie Harry.  "Yes, yes, yes!  I think every record company we've come into contact with wanted to do that but we were aware of it.  That's how we could stop it.  It's like a barrier.  If it's a girl, 'Oh, she's just flogging an image, she hasn't really got anything to say.'  They like that, whereas if they think she's got as much there as anyone else and more so, they don't like it.  Everyone's so conditioned to think men say this and girls follow behind or just look pretty."

August's Hong Kong Garden was one of the brightest singles to emerge from the Class of '76, chiming guitars and glorious chorus laced with mystery and exotic embroidery.  Flipped with the spectral Voices initial 7" copies came in numbered gatefold which, with the clamouring demand, propelled it into the Top 10.  Now the Banshees were touring on the back of a hit single and packing the Hammersmith Odeon.

First album The Scream, produced by the by the band and Steve Lillywhite, was released in November, reaching No.12.  It stands as one of the great debut albums from any era.  From the primeval scene-setting of Pure through the fractured psychotic charge of Jigsaw Feeling, it rollercoasters through coruscating scenarios, including Helter Skelter and the harrowing breakdown of Suburban Relapse, before closing with the emotional tour de force of Switch.  Unhampered by tradition and virtuosity, the Banshees arrived at their monolithic sound, redefining the traditional guitar-bass-drums-voice lineup in the process.  Typically, the UK release didn't feature the hit, although it later appeared on the US version.

The November tour, supported by Spizz Oil and some unknowns called The Human League, saw Zigzag travelling with the group in their black Mercedes.  While the previous feature celebrated the deal, we now set out to debunk the morbid image which had grown around the Banshees, showing that, although deadly serious about the music, they were also engagingly human and could even partake in booze-fuelled stupidity after hours.  Whilst belittling lager louts in a post-gig Indian restaurant, Siouxsie declared that people were "too serious about the wrong things and not serious enough about other things... just in you doing this, observing a couple of days, shows the bad reputation that we've had through interviews".

The live set was now an amazing beast, mixing the album with new songs like Premature Burial, while The Lord's Prayer traversed a different irreverent orbit every night.  After starting with nothing two years earlier, Siouxsie & The Banshees were now ferociously spectacular.

On a roll, they came up with next single, The Staircase Mystery.  "It's a waltz and is about an unsolved mystery," explained Sioux.  It was released the following March, flipped by a live version of T.Rex's 20th Century Boy, before they started demoing material for the second album, previewing tracks in another Peel session.  Recording lasted three weeks, the band producing with Nils.  Midway, Sioux guested on Radio 1's Round Table review show, her honest opinions resulting in a lifetime band.  The Banshees swept the board in the Zigzag poll and pelted guests at London's Venue with cuddly animal trophies, although Sioux kept the giraffe.

The Banshees recorded a version of Metal Postcard for German release in September as Mittageisen.  With Love In A Void on the flip, import demand prodded a hasty UK release as a double A-side.  The cover was adapted from a photo-montage by pre-war anti-Nazi artist John Heartfield, depicting a German family under the Nazi regime eating guns and machinery in reference to Göring's World War Two Hamburg speech ("Would you rather have butter or guns?  Guns make us powerful; butter merely makes us fat.") which also provides the song's chorus.  Polydor obliterated Hitler and swastikas from the original.

Having discounted Icon as a single, the bell-driven swirl of Playground Twist was released in June, Flipped with sinister kiddy-song Pull To Bits.  Reviewed on BBC's Juke Box Jury, the panel of Elaine Page, Joan Collins, Alan Freeman and John Lydon predicted a Hit before it reached No.28.

Kris Needs

10/07

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KNOW IT ALL SIOUXSIE IS A BIT OF A SMARTIE

SIOUXSIE Sioux is back, and the high priestess of punk has preached a powerful sermon to Amy Winehouse, Pete Doherty and Victoria Beckham.

We went to gay Paris to see the grand dame of rock, 50, perform inspirational tracks from her first solo album Mantaray at the Eiffel Tower for the Coke Music Discovery Sessions.

The legend has worshipped at the altar of hedonism in a glittering 30-year career, which saw her blossom from Sex Pistols groupie to musical goddess in The Banshees and The Creatures.

And when asked what lessons she can pass on to Amy, 24, who has taken her heavily kohled attitude to a new generation, she warned: “Innovators get eaten up and spat out. Something becomes fashionable and, like all fashion, it’s destined for the heap.”

And that’s where Victoria belongs for dabbling in gothic clothes: “Posh Spice in black nail varnish? Ugh, whatever next?” Siouxsie invented girl power before The Spice Girls diluted it with mimsy-flashing Union Jack dresses.

She added: “Women are innately stronger than men.”

And she advised Pete Doherty to move to France like herself: “If I didn’t have my quiet, sedate life here, I’d have been carried off to the lunatic asylum.”

Neither insanity nor the ravishes of time have affected Siouxsie. They wouldn’t dare.

01/10/07

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It’s hard to recall a time when the scent of Armageddon has hung so heavy in the international air as it has during this, the nose-end of the 21st Century. During the century previous, a few sentient seers--Orwell, Gramsci, Ballard--had, in fact, offered fair warning. But none did so with anything quite like the luridly affective glamour of the puissant post-punk prophetess Siouxsie Sioux.

By now lazily tucked into a few tired classifications (“Punk Survivors”, “Proto Goths”--whatever), she and her army of Banshees actually embodied all the horror of the post-industrial wasteland into which they were born in 1977, deftly and alluringly twisting it into their singular little heap of exhilarating cultural wreckage. After all, who but they could have recontextualized Nazi imagery whilst also penning an homage (“Metal Postcard”) to infamous anti-Nazi artist John Heartfield? And certainly none but they could have dragged Big Brother so presciently towards this new century, with positively chilling lyrics like those to “Monitor” (“The victim stared up / looked strangely at the screen as if her pain was our fault / But that’s…entertainment!”), cunningly predicting the human cruelty parade we now nonchalantly refer to as “Reality TV”.

So, in 2007, as Baghdad burns and Halliburton earns, one might hope the debut solo album by the Princess of Pyro-poetics would be another caustic call to arms. But as she would herself surely insist (or warn, actually), the most critical mistake of all would be to limit our expectations of her.

Indeed, the mysteriously titled Mantaray is, instead, Siouxsie’s journey into the within. “Don’t be bitter / Don’t be gloomy,” she asks of us, and you might think, okay, you can stop kidding around now, dear. But she may have simply had enough of being forever the diviner of doom. “I’ve burst out / I’m transformed,” she also exults here. Well, okay then.

And damned if she hasn’t taken everything we’ve ever worshipped her for—the Teutonic strut (“Here Comes That Day”), the buzzsaw metallics (“One Mile Below”), the eerie, cinematic grandiosity (“If It Doesn’t Kill You”)—and bathed it all beautifully in the light of earnest reflection. Stripped away are several layers of alloy, and songs like the charmingly glampop “About to Happen”, the jauntily sexy “They Follow You” and the gospel-tinged “Heaven and Alchemy” feel as intimate as you might have thought this media-dubbed “Ice Queen” would ever allow herself to be. Yes, she who once hissed at us that all our joys and comforts were counterfeit and that all our “truths” were probably lies, now purrs of new philosophical possibilities.

Perhaps, then, the Apocalypse can wait? Well…for now.

It would seem there might have been a record with just your name on it a long time ago.

“Yeah, I think I resisted that for a long time.”

But now imagine someone putting on Mantaray and hearing you sing of this transformation, “Into A Swan.” It’s not really what one might expect from you. I’m not limiting you, but...

“Well, it’s good to do something people don’t expect.”

But is there something you’re trying to tell us?

“I think I just really wanted to forget the past. There’s always some punk anniversary or something, and I have to say no to...”

It’s such a drag.

“It’s a drag for everyone that thinks I’m going to say yes to it.”

Well, considering to how many different places the Banshees went creatively after punk, it should just not be a matter anymore.

“I know, I know. I thought that we had surpassed any kind of labels. But the media loves their labels...and ever more shall it be so.”

I interviewed Dave Gahan of Depeche Mode recently, and he’s just made a solo record which is very much about the, “I don’t believe in God but I’m searching for answers” time in one’s life. And you seem to also be…

“Well, I think when you’re not in your twenties anymore, it’s a lot about trying to understand yourself, fitting the pieces of the puzzle together; and making sense of it for yourself. And that’s not exclusive to an artist--it’s everyone. Everyone at a certain point needs to understand where they came from and what they are.”

Of course, an artist gets to project it into the world. And it seems there is some sort of journey on this record...I don’t know if spiritual is the right word. But your lyrics in the past have been very much a commentary on things going on around us, the socio-political, if you will. And this seems much more about the personal.

“Yeah, the fantastic journey! Traveling inside of yourself.”

Did you discover anything about yourself through writing lyrics like “Heaven And Alchemy”?

“It’s weird, I think when you’re projecting...well, certainly with the way I write and with what motivates me…people will say, Oh, what’s that about? And I say, I don’t know, I’ll let you know when I figure it out. It usually comes later that it makes sense to me. When I write, I tend to just go with it and not question it.”

Now, the Banshees were an outgrowth of an almost unimaginable explosion of radicalism and experimentation. One could go to shows or clubs and half the audience were doing some sort of confrontational fashion thing; and there were all the politics, and you had artists writing songs based on reading Camus, Mishima or Isherwood. Musicians don’t seem interested in such things anymore.

“Well, the cult of celebrity has hijacked the cult of creativity. This preoccupation with other people’s lives, people who are famous for not doing anything. And TV, all those terrible...”

Reality shows?

“Oooooooooohhhhhhhhhh, please. But it was the right time [back then], the right place; and it was the people involved. It’s not something you can preordain or plan. It’s like chemistry. At certain temperatures you’re going to get an explosion. Trying to recreate that is like trying to control the weather.”

But it is certainly missed now.

“Yeah! But it’s got to be a reaction or response. There was a stagnation in the 70’s, creatively, and that made the time ripe for what was to come. That’s got to happen again soon, maybe as a reaction to how technology has taken over our lives. The virtual world is my bugbear.”

Well, what’s mostly resulted from the technology explosion has been utter junk. It’s created this immense sort of alienation.

“And a false sense of belonging. People are just pulled into this other world, and are not living in the real world. It’s 1984 with a new kind of machine, people sitting and watching a screen more than living their lives. And you have to get out into the world for things to happen. But even at gigs, I’ll see people watching me perform through their fucking phones!”

So, how do you feel now about your place in all of this? As, on the one hand, this revolutionary icon, on the other, being still an outsider, someone viewed always with a bit of suspicion?

“Well, I don’t ever move forward considering how something is going to appear or how do I fit in. I think it would be dangerous to do that. Or to take the wrong aspects of what I project too seriously. I love imagery; and how I go about visually attracting attention...it’s something I’ve always been interested in, it entertains me. But it shouldn’t overwhelm the significance of the content.”

But do you still feel a bit the radical outsider?

“I don’t know. There has certainly always been a big resistance to me within the industry, and nothing has changed there. But to be honest, I never thought that what I think is actually that radical.”

Ken Scrudato

11/07

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Iconic British singer Siouxsie Sioux is launching her first solo tour of the U.S. in support of her debut solo album, Mantaray.

Siouxsie kicks off the run with a pair of shows February 8-9 at The Fillmore at Irving Plaza in New York City.  Other stops on the schedule include The Fillmore in San Francisco (February 13), the Music Box at Henry Fonda Theatre in Los Angeles (February 15-16) and House of Blues in Anaheim, Calif. (February 18).

The singer will follow the trek with a U.K. tour that begins February 29 at Manchester Academy, with stops at Carling Academy Liverpool (March 1), Wulfrin Hall in Wolverhampton (March 4), the Anson Room in Bristol (March 6), Carling Academy Oxford (March 7) and London's Shepherds Bush Empire (March 10).

Tickets for U.S. shows are available at Ticketmaster.com, with U.K. shows available at Ticketmaster.co.uk. 

Siouxsie said Mantaray, which has been well received by fans during her European tour, was a long time coming because she'd always had something else to focus on.

"I suppose the one constant thing throughout has been me being involved in The Banshees or The Creatures," she told Pollstar. "And, as you know, musicians come and go. I guess this just felt the right time to just look for a whole new bunch of musicians."

She sought out Steve Evans and Charlie Jones after hearing their work on Robert Plant's 2006 release, Mighty ReArranger.

"It was really the first - I'm not a huge fan per se of Led Zeppelin or Robert Plant - but I thought it was a really strong album."

The pair not only played on the disc, but produced it, and will also be on the road with her for most of the tour.  Once the ball was rolling, the album came together very quickly, even though it was cut a little differently than some of Siouxsie's previous projects. 

"I did actually work a lot from home. I didn't do any recording at home, which was a different tack. It felt good traveling to work, rather than it kind of overlapping in the domestic situation.

"And really I'd say half if the material, certainly lyrics, had been hanging around for a while. The other half was done very immediately. I had other writers sending bits of music. I think that probably was prompted by when I did the Basement Jaxx track, "Cish Cash," and suddenly people started pricking up their ears and saying, 'Oh, she writes with other people.' So I had a real luxury of just cherry picking the stuff that was the most immediate for me to work with."

Speaking of collaborations, Siouxsie said she'd love to write and record the theme song for a very specific kind of movie. "I'd love to do something specifically for film. I think there's a couple of songs that would be perfect Bond songs on the album. 'Here Comes That Day' would be a good one and 'If It Doesn't Kill You' would be a great title for a new Bond film. I love film and I love the visuals to go with it." 

The singer recently performed a song with composer Angelo Badalamenti for a film directed by British director John Maybury about Dylan Thomas, starring Sienna Miller and Cillian Murphy.

Now that she's flying solo, Siouxsie said she's interested in any project that leaves her free, including performing with a full orchestra. "I'm up for anything that takes things out of just strictly being in a band.

"After I did the Dream Show at the Royal Festival Hall, where I did have a whole string section and brass section and percussion section, we tried to make that happen traveling to cities and picking up a string section for whatever town. But that didn't happen. It may still happen one of these days. I'd love to be able to go to places like Moscow."

The singer said she's excited about being back on stage in the U.S.

"It's been four years since I've played in the States, so I'm looking forward to getting over there again. I think touring in America is a lot easier. It's just geared up to be a lot easier. And I suppose not being on the doorstep in America, it always feels like more of an event whenever I travel over there and do shows. The audiences are always enthusiastic."

In part two of Pollstar's interview with Siouxsie, she talks about her illustrious past and how things have changed since she started in 1976.

Jim Otey 10/02/08

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Goth-Punk Icon Siouxsie Sioux Maintains Her Provocative Edge

Siouxsie Sioux has just returned from vacation — from Sri Lanka, to be exact. It's an odd place to imagine the famously pale punk poetess and avatar of all things gothic. But as she explains from her maison de maître in southern France, she felt obliged to take some uncharacteristic downtime before revving up for her American tour. "The industry can really take it out of you," she sighs over the phone, noticeably tired after a long day of interviews.

She deserved the rest. After 30 years as a legendary punk-rock provocateur, beloved frontwoman for Siouxsie and the Banshees, and an outspoken firebrand who has probably inspired more young feminists than Betty Friedan, there have been some major changes in her life of late. She quit cigarettes. She dissolved her two-decade partnership with Budgie, her husband and drummer. And, most notably, she finally released her first solo album, Mantaray.

A simultaneous continuation of, and departure from, her previous output, Mantaray is nothing if not diverse. It begins with "Into a Swan," a dense burst of distorted electronics and guitars with lyrics asserting a "new kind of strength" that makes her "laugh in the face that is vulture law." (Online bloggers have tried to claim the song as the newly single Siouxsie's closet-smashing lesbian anthem; on the subject, she says merely, "Stop me while I laugh some more.") Elsewhere she swoops through the darkly swooning "Loveless," hums in a buzzing "Drone Zone," and trills around the tribal beats of "One Mile Below." Then she takes some time to play a spy-theme diva on "If It Doesn't Kill You" and adopt the role of a brassy, Shirley Bassey–esque jazz belter in "Here Comes That Day."

"Things took different curves and swerves," Siouxsie says of the songwriting process. "The album isn't a snapshot of a distinct period of time." That's a result of not working with a normal band in a rehearsal studio, instead collaborating long-distance with record producers (and longtime musicians) Steve Evans and Charlie Jones, who contributed most of the album's synth programming, bass, and guitar work. They'd mail Siouxsie song concepts to which she would add vocals and her own melodic contributions. Back and forth they went until, at last, all that needed to be added were a few session drum tracks.

Of course, the record gleams. When an album's producers are also its programmers, you can be guaranteed of that. And no matter what possible criticisms you may level against Mantaray — it's too eclectic, it's too slick, it isn't Peepshow Redux — its postmodern mash of glam, jazz, synth-disco, and epic pop make it undeniably a product of the 21st century. Siouxsie Sioux at 50 isn't trying to sound like Siouxsie Sioux at 25.

That's partly because the notoriously strong-willed Siouxsie despises nostalgia. "I don't do the 'legacy' thing," she scoffed to the U.K.'s Guardian. "I just want to do what I do, and leave me the fuck alone." And when a Mojo interviewer kept pestering her with Banshees questions, she stormed out, her tongue lashing back over her shoulder: "You're that fucking close to getting a smack in the face."

Can she really expect to escape her iconhood, though?

In San Francisco alone, you could cover your apartment with what she dismissively calls "Siouxsie wallpaper" — the endless flow of event posters, flyers, and handbills that use images of her famous cheekbones, raccoon eyeliner, and black rat's-nest hairstyles as shorthand code for Total Uncompromising Awesomeness. The same fans, of course, also want that icon frozen in time. But the woman whose French neighbors know her simply as "Madame Ballion" — 1957 birth certificate: Susan Janet Ballion — wants to be recognized by her music, not her face.

Siouxsie's drive to reconcile her past with her present, 1978's The Scream LP with 2008's Mantaray and More tour, starts now. Faîtes comme vous voulez, madame.

John Graham 06/02/08

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POP QUIZ:  SIOUXSIE

Siouxsie is cleaning house. After 30 years with the Banshees and the Creatures, she has dumped both bands, along with her drummer husband, Budgie, and set off on her own with a highly confessional solo album, "Mantaray." On the first single, "Into a Swan," the woman who schooled everyone from PJ Harvey to Karen O wails, "I feel a force I've never felt before." And for the first time ever, at 50, the high priestess of punk sounds like she's in a happy place. We called her up at her new home in the south of France, where she had just returned from a vacation. Siouxsie plays Tuesday at the Fillmore.

Q: You were just in Sri Lanka. What did you do?

A: I did safari. I went swimming. I did yoga.

Q: I'm sorry, but I'm having a hard time picturing you in scuba gear.

A: It was fabulous. It was nice to go somewhere exotic. I hadn't been on holiday in a long time.

Q: Aren't you constantly traveling the world?

A: Touring isn't a holiday. After 30 years, it must be in my system, but I hate the travel, especially now with all those bloody restrictions. I hate those terrorists making me pack my toiletries in my suitcase.

Q: Do you think that's the worst thing about terrorists?

A: That is the worst thing. I'm getting tendonitis from carrying my suitcase, it's so heavy. I used to be able to balance it out with the carry-on.

Q: Don't you have people to carry your bags for you?

A: I've got no slaves, unfortunately.

Q: Let's talk about your solo album. It sounds like it's all about your breakup.

A: With any significant long-term relationship there are many ups and downs. I'm not put off by downs. I actually think it's not how you cope with things going well, but how things are when they're going badly. That sorts out people who are there for the long haul.

Q: What have you learned from all this?

A: It's really struck home to me how different men are from women. I always thought there was a possibility to be equal. I'm not sure they're that well suited anymore. It's almost like a fantasy that you're going to be happy. It is a pure fantasy.

Q: Has anything good come out of your divorce?

A: Definitely. I've rediscovered my independence, which I had before I got embroiled in the relationship. It's been very empowering. This holiday was very spiritual. It's something I would never have done having a partner.

Q: After 30 years, it must feel strange to be on your own.

A: I did start off independent. Most women wonder when they're going to find someone. I had my music, so that was never an issue for me. But then the music and the relationship blurred. This new album and my new lease of freedom are my reminders that I'm very independent and very strong and always have been.

Q: Are you dating again?

A: That's none of your business. I've had enough dating to last a lifetime. I'm dating my kitties.

Q: What do you make of all your little big-haired clones?

A: I don't really see that much because I live in France. I'm totally clueless. That's been great about not being in London and bombarded with what's going on.

Q: Last night I spent nine hours watching old Siouxsie and the Banshees videos on YouTube. Do you ever do that?

A: I'm so nontechno. I do not hang out on the Internet. I'm so not into doing that. I still like writing longhand. I hate machines. I just want to take a hammer to them.

Aidin Vaziri 10/02/08

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Siouxsie Sioux launched her first solo tour of the U.S. last week in New York City and is headed for the West Coast this week to give audiences there the chance to hear her impressive new disc, Mantaray, live.

The singer told Pollstar although she's off to Europe after next weekend, she plans to keep her eyes open for some festivals to play Stateside this summer.

Of course any conversation with Siouxsie has to include a discussion of her illustrious past. The singer said when she hit the stage at the 100 Club Punk Festival in 1976 with a twisted version of the Lord's Prayer she had no idea what kind of journey she was starting. 

"I guess I had some musical aspirations. I think I've always thought about wanting to perform in some way. I had no idea how, because I had no training of any sort. I certainly wasn't qualified in that way, which made it such a perfect time for it to rely on just instinct and doing it yourself. 

"I think performers - it's like any artist - I think you have something there to start off with. And I think anyone that is trained, usually, unless there is that - I don't know, I don't want to call it a talent - but an ability or a feeling for whatever they choose, then I think there's always something lacking with a performance that comes from someone that's just trained. I think they have to have a natural feeling for it. And that's something you can't really learn. You have to have it or not.

"I think most artists are searching for something, searching for that connection with other people. And searching for an outlet for their frustrations or their anger. You know the great thing about music is it does express almost what's intangible and hard to express just by talking. And it tends to be an outlet for the whole range of emotions, not just the easily discerned."

Siouxsie said the free-for-all atmosphere of the London music scene in her early days made the experience that much better. She has her doubts about anything like it ever happening again for one reason - the Internet.

"The best thing about then was there was no way of knowing what was going to happen next. I think we just enjoyed the journey and took it as it came.

"It seems to be so much more organized and official now. And I think possibly with the way technology has gone, I think music's been devalued quite a lot by over-accessibility via the Internet. I think it seems to have less of a - I don't know - a do or die feeling about it. I think it's possibly made people lazy.

"I personally can't understand why people would want to have a record downloaded on their computer. What I grew up with, if I want something, I just want to have it in my hand and actual."

But what about the argument that the Internet has freed artists from label constraints? Siouxsie thinks that fight helps bands in the long run and points to The Banshees as an example.

"I think maybe it's made it easier on some levels - that it's not absolutely necessary that you sign to a major label or anything. But I don't know, it's just become more ordinary, seemingly. The struggle of surviving before maybe toughened you up a bit more.

"By the time we were signed, we'd actually got our own audience on our own steam. We couldn't get signed, so we got our audience and, of course, there were other outlets like John Peel with the radio sessions that we did.

"So when we released our first single, I think it shocked everyone in the industry. We just worked and carried on and got an audience that way. It wasn't reliant on the industry backing us. It seems now it's almost like unless you get playlisted, you're dead. On the radio it just so competitive and all sewn up."

One thing Siouxsie thinks hasn't lost any importance is touring.

"That's something you can't replace, actually being in a concert. I think live performance has always been important. But that's what I mean by the music itself has been devalued somewhat."

So what advice does an artist who's survived by transforming herself from angry punk to goth goddess to musical elder statesman have for bands trying to make it? Basically two words - have fun.

"I think just go with your instincts as much as possible. And you have to enjoy it. It's not all fun, but you have to actually enjoy what you're doing, otherwise it's pointless.

"I love being on stage and doing the show, but it's almost like - you know, the traveling isn't fun and being away from home all the time isn't so much fun - so it's almost like I have a fear of it up until the moment that I'm on stage. But once I'm up there, that is what's the most important thing. And if you didn't have that, it would be pretty meaningless."

Jim Otey 12/02/08

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"I started smoking again," she says. "I had stopped four or five years ago, and it made me sick. My body rejected all the good intentions. When I started up again, it improved."

Spoken like a true punk - or life-long contrarian. After all, we are talking about the woman who made her debut screeching "The Lord's Prayer" onstage at Brit-punk's ground zero, the 100 Club, in a band that featured Sid Vicious flailing away at the drums. Siouxsie went on to forge one of the most freakishly original bands of that spiky season: the Banshees, a group often credited with birthing the modern goth movement.

Now, three decades later, Siouxsie has made another striking about-face. At 50, she has just released her first solo CD, "Mantaray," whose material she'll highlight at concerts tonight and tomorrow at Irving Plaza.

"Mantaray" represents her first work with musicians outside the Banshees, or her subsequent group the Creatures. Though it boasts the kind of severe arrangements and drama-queen vocals fans love, its lyrics couldn't be less goth. "Don't be bitter/don't be gloomy," Siouxsie sings in her triumph-over-adversity tale "If It Doesn't Kill You."

"There's a price to pay for insincerity," she sings earnestly in "Here Comes That Day."

"I guess the lyrics are more direct," Siouxsie says. "My frame of mind was very positive because I was looking forward to doing something new [in the music]."

Yet the lingering goth image can irk her. "People tend to have a cartoon image of who a performer is," she says. "It's very black and white. It's an easy way of filing me away."

But fans have loved it, showing up to her performances with distressed hair and spidery garb. Many tried to look as much like her as possible.

"At first it was quite confusing," she says. "My image had come from feeling like I didn't fit in. So I did my own thing. The whole point was not to fit in. It was pretty scary to [then] see an army of Siouxsies."

But the press ate it up, and - aided by her aloofness - dubbed her "The Ice Queen of Rock."

"It's better than being 'the ninny of rock,'" she quips. "When I was young,I did love the image of the wicked queen in Snow White. I thought she was really beautiful. I didn't want to be Snow White. I was always drawn to stronger features rather than cherubic-looking, cutesy types."

The result made her a fashion icon - ironic for someone who loathes the insecurities played upon by the fashion industry. Worse, such things drew attention away from the music. Yet, at this late date, that has quieted down some. In the last few years, Siouxsie's aural legacy gained new focus through remastered versions of her classic CDs, like "The Scream" and "Kaleidoscope."

The singer says she hadn't listened to those early works since they came out. When she did, she was "pleasantly surprised."

The experience also helped her turn the page on the early days and point her squarely toward her new solo sound. "Hopefully," she says. "This is another chapter - or even a whole new book."

J Farber 08/02/08

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"When I arrived at the airport, everyone was cheering. But it turned out it was for the New York Giants."

Siouxsie's slightly jet-lagged voice is full of sly humor, but it's no joke—people should be cheering for her anywhere she goes. An iconic figure whose early music and imagery fronting the Banshees inadvertently codified a genre, she has kicked against such stereotyping ever since. Her passionate and playful performances are, at their best, still a constant, glamorous blast of wryness, desire and rage, and her distinctive purr of a voice is still strong.

Siouxsie's latest step might actually be her most unexpected in years: Having reunited with the Banshees for a tour, then following that up with the career overview Dreamshow performances, she's back on the road with her first solo album, Mantaray. Having parted ways professionally and personally with Budgie, the drumming stalwart behind the Banshees and the Creatures, she's now almost beginning from scratch. But a chance listen to a recent Robert Plant album led to hergetting in touch with one of his collaborators, multi-instrumentalist/producer Steve Evans.

"I first met Steve on his own in his studio in Bath [England], just to meet him and to see if we could work together. I met him again with [co-producer] Charlie [Jones] to talk more specifically about material. They both worked on 'Into a Swan' [the album's brawling lead single] and 'Loveless.' I asked them, 'Let's see what you do with these two songs; I want to hear what you do, rather than talk it up.'"

The result is a 10-song effort created from a variety of individual sessions, drawing on both newer songs and older ones reworked by the Evans/Jones team and other musicians. While understandably reminiscent at points of her vast, three-decade repertoire, the disc possesses plenty of highlights in a very stylish way, from the funhouse/burlesque vamp of "Here Comes That Day" ("We went all-out to get that feeling," Siouxsie notes) to the "science-fiction murder mystery" of "Sea of Tranquility," a reflective song she considers the album's emotional heart.

"It's inspired by the site of that name on the moon and was really a creative piece of writing that I had around; it didn't have a vocal melody, but it came later," Siouxsie says. "It was inspired by both deep underwater and deep space, the future with of an organic feeling."

Evans is heading up the four-piece band backing Siouxsie on tour; having already completed a series of shows in Europe, she feels they've settled in together very well, something she finds reflective of a growing sense of strength in her own abilities.

"The evolving and the experiences and the confidence you grow to have with other musicians is important," she says. "When [the Banshees] first started, I felt I could only communicate with those three people with me. As time goes by, the musical vocabulary that you accumulate makes you much more able to interact with other musicians more easily."

The variety evident on Mantaray, itself reflective of the many musical approaches in which she has worked over the years—from near-atonal noise to slick dance pop, demented jazz to frenetic psychedelia—further helps to dispel the perception she describes as one of her life's biggest frustrations, that for "a lot of my music, the cliché is that it's gloomy and dark. I think that's very much a cartoon impression that people read about, and it gets perpetuated."

Mantaray may just be a starting point for a new phase of Siouxsie's work, but it's one that rewards attention, and she hardly seems inclined to rest on her laurels. Asked what constitutes artistic satisfaction, she concludes, "I'm always looking for it—I think it's actually starting something, whether a project or a song, and you're not sure how it's going to work out, and there's a bit of unsureness if it's going to work out, but then you go through the work process, and when you've actually done it, you see that it's all been worth it."

Ned Raggett 14/02/08

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Dawn Collinson meets with the legend that is Siouxsie Sioux

PUNK doesn’t always deal well with its survivors; not the legendary ones at least.

Those who didn’t succumb to drug immortality in its 70s heyday can increasingly be found offering wise words of anarchy from the comfort of reality TV.

But not Siouxsie Sioux.

The razor-cheeked goddess of punk is very different from them, and so very much the same as she ever was.

“I’m really doing what I always do and p***ing everyone off!” she laughs. “I suppose the music industry, especially for women, doesn’t encourage people to hang around too long but I don’t care about that.”

Conformity is not a word which has ever, or could ever, apply to Siouxsie.

Although she was born Susan Ballion, from the moment she made her stage debut in 1976 she was always her alter ego – raging against the machine, caught up in a surge of youth revolution.

“I didn’t project too much forward when I was younger about what I’d be doing now,” she says. “I was too much in the moment, but then I think you are at that age.

“When I started it was just a lot about ideas, and there not being enough hours in the day for them all.

“In its own way it was naive too, and not careerist. We didn’t think about the future so much, I didn’t set out to be famous, it was just great to be able to do something that I was madly keen and excited about.”

It’s hard to imagine anyone feeling that intensity of passion more than 30 years later. But, at 50, it seems that Siouxsie does.

Although she’s keen to stress that the Siouxsie which fans get these days is not simply a musical museum piece, preserved for nostalgia’s sake.

What happened in the 70s was of its time, and it’s not up for re-creation.

“What people don’t understand is when punk started it was so innocent and not aware of being looked at or being a phenomenon,” she says. “You can’t consciously create something that’s important, it’s a combination of chemistry, conditions, the environment, everything and it’s not something you can orchestrate. It’s a freak of nature.

“But something becomes fashionable and, like all fashion, it’s destined for the heap. Once punk hit the tabloids, it became a cartoon.”

Siouxsie, though, was determined not to be caught up in the commercialisation.

A high profile career which began in 1978, with the top 10 single Hong Kong Garden, has endured – but strictly on her terms.

Eleven Banshees albums and numerous collaborations later – including The Creatures, with her husband at the time Budgie – she is still a uniquely creative force to be reckoned with.

Currently on tour to support her solo album Mantaray, she will be in Liverpool on March 1.

Although any fans from the old days, of which there are still many, hoping to hear the old songs will be disappointed.

Siouxsie maintains they are in a minority.

“People know that when they come to a gig they’re not going to get a greatest hits package.

“My audience now is very mixed, male and female, and there’s a lot of young kids just getting into me as well as some that have been there from the late 70s.”

Since 1992, home for Siouxsie has been a farmhouse near Toulouse. She made the conscious decision to distance herself from London when she did, she says, “because it felt like everybody knew your business.

“There wasn’t any chance to escape the constant goldfish bowl, so I decided to go somewhere and just be a girl.”

Siouxsie Sioux is at the Liverpool Academy on Saturday March 1

Dawn Collinson 15/02/08

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“I was waiting for people to stop nagging me”

A tour by Siouxsie Sioux is an event. She hasn’t mounted a proper UK tour since 1995, but with the arrival of Mantaray, her first solo album, late last year and with a few “trial” gigs under her belt, the first lady of punk is most definitely back. So what kept her so long?

“Crap promoters!” she laughs, when she chats from her home in Toulouse. “Plus I’ve been touring the States, and I guess there never seemed to be that much call to do the UK.”

Her fans may disagree, many having a devotion to Siouxsie verging on religious. Siouxsie was the original punk, coming out of the infamous Bromley Contingent to form her band, Siouxsie and the Banshees in the mid 70s, followed by spin off group The Creatures in 1981. Despite the hiatus, however, the new album has been well received by the fans and critics alike.

“Bringing out the album was all about it feeling right,” says Siouxsie. “I did resist for a while, but once everyone stopped nagging me to do a solo record, it felt right to do it! Up until now it just felt too obvious to do a solo album – I wanted to establish that I was the leader of the gang again!”

A lot of fans have assumed Mantaray is Siouxsie’s response to her recent divorce to ex-Banshee and Creatures drummer, Budgie, but Ms Sioux is quick to dismiss that view of it.
“A lot could be read into it but quite honestly a lot of the lyrics were written pre-divorce, but then I suppose divorce doesn’t happen overnight and so maybe the seeds for that happening were sub-consciously germinating anyway. I think it’s more a reaction to where I’m at now, not what’s brought me to where I’m at.”

Sioux is about to release About To Happen, her third single from Mantaray. The last single, Here Comes That Day, was favourably compared by some critics to none other than Dame Shirely Bassey, a comparison Siouxsie is more than happy with:

“I’ve always been a huge fan of Shirley Bassey, I just don’t know if that’s been evident in the music before! I did use bits of Hey Big Spender in a remix of Peekaboo, so there’s definitely a Shirely in there fighting to get out – and I’ve certainly done all the sequins and ostrich feathers, in my own way!”

So who else does Siouxsie rate? How about Pink, sometimes touted as the nearest thing to a punk singer in the charts?
“Pink? What?” Siouxsie splutters with indignation at the suggestion. “Actually, I do like some of her pop songs, like Get the Party Started, but it’s so organised and institutionalised into the pop industry, although I suppose there are some elements of her that are more interesting than a Robbie Williams – more meat on the bone.

“I really like Peaches. I like her attitude, the fact she doesn’t fit in. She comes up with some great titles that should be spoken on Radio One constantly, like Father Fucker.

“Whenever I’m asked on the radio to do my top 20 songs, I always say ‘Oh, Peaches with Father Fucker or Fuck the Pain Away’ – so they now insist that I do the interviews pre-recorded. I think since Bill Grundy [the infamous TV interview where Siouxsie appeared with the Sex Pistols] I’ve always had to do things pre-recorded!”

People sometimes claim that punk can be reinvented for a modern audience, but Siouxsie is convinced that the creative anger around punk was a product of its time.

“Punk was a one-off,” she insists. “Music now has become so homogenised, and technology has helped in some ways but in more ways it’s devalued music and made people lazy. It’s creating more people sitting on their arses in their room, whereas punk was anything but that, getting on and doing it and not procrastinating or thinking about the results of your actions – it certainly wasn’t careerist.

“Once punk became tabloid fodder there were horrible bands that called themselves punk bands, but they were just blokey, with no diversity in them.

“In the initial stages of punk it was all very open and diverse, eclectic even. It was the attitude that was important, but as usual when something becomes popular, it turned into something really two-dimensional and it became a fashion statement – when it was originally anything but!”

See her live

Siouxsie Sioux is touring to seven venues around the UK in March. Her album Mantaray is out now.

Steve Bustin 15/02/08

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BOWIE TOP 50

No. 14 JOHN, I'M ONLY DANCING

Released as a single, September 1972, re-released January 1980; "John, I'm Only Dancing (Again)" (1975) released as a single, December 1979.  Highest UK chart position: 12.  Bowie's first successful follow-up single, six months after "Starman", consolidated his career and cemented the "Hi, I'm bi" pose.

Siouxsie Sioux

It always takes me back to when I was 14.  I just remember the feeling of that time.  I think "School's Out" by Alice Cooper was out, too.  I was just getting ready to turn, I think.  When Bowie's music happened, it was a lifeline.  I'd always grown up with music, but to be into something that was happening currently, something of my own that my sister or brother hadn't played first... it felt personal.  I liked the subversiveness of Bowie.  That was his appeal, and the fact that there was all that confusion about "Is it a boy?  Is it a girl?"  And I was pretty confused about myself, and that really tapped into something.  I'd never be tempted to cover "John, I'm Only Dancing".  It's perfect as it is.  It's so of a time.  I wouldn't wont to mess with that."

05/08

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BLOOD SPLASHED ON A DAISY IN THE SUNSHINE

An Interview With Siouxsie Sioux

How do you like the US these days?

I really enjoyed America this time. We did pretty much all-new material and some choice oldies, and the response was great. A lot of old regulars, but definitely younger fans coming. The last show we played was Orange County, California, and there were all these really young kids, their mums with them, obviously. There was one girl of nine or ten, she knew all the words.

I could see children loving a Siouxsie Sioux concert, sure.

My catsuits were going down a storm, I think. I really landed them with my Emma Peel look.

Do you think of the new solo album as a continuation of your work with the Banshees and the Creatures?

Lyrically this album is more direct than the others. I’ve been going through a lot of changes personally. Also, over the years I’ve seen many aspects of the pop world, the music industry, and life as well.

You were smack dab in the ’76-’77 punk stink-bomb, but you didn’t make your first record until 1978.

Yeah, we were one of the last of those bands to get signed. We’d resisted a lot of crap that was around that wanted to exploit what was happening in the early days. Also the fact that I was a female actually did scare a lot of the labels off. They weren’t really into a band fronted by a young female with what they considered to be “attitude.” But by the time we were signed we’d gotten our own audience, so we weren’t at the mercy of relying on hype and the record company doing what it does naturally.

The Scream probably wouldn’t have been successful in 1976. By the time it did come out in ’78 the musical vocabulary was expanding again.

Exactly. But to me, early punk did mean something a bit wider and encompassing than it became. It became very cartoon, three-chord wonder, blah-blah-blah. And very male. In the beginning it was a great time to be a woman. When people overview punk, they kind of miss those points. It was really more about shaking things up, and a lot of change happening. Musically, but mainly socially.

It’s not often mentioned, but punk was originally instigated by a lot of fags and women.

It’s a really significant point that needs to be grasped. I do get pissed off when people don’t cover the whole spectrum. They always mention the usual suspects and never see the diversity of what was happening. Once you take away those facets, it becomes less harmful.

You have an argument with what became hardcore...

Oh, I hated that. Unimaginative and loathsome. In England we had the Angelic Upstarts and Sham 69. All that “Oi! Oi! Oi!” football music.

...but what about the Batcave kids who embraced you as some kind of Queen of Darkness?

Again, taking a very narrow view of one aspect of the band. John McGeoch used to have a quote in our bio. He said the Batcave thing was all obvious monsters and dark houses. With us it’s not buckets of blood, it’s more the tension of blood splashed on a daisy in the sunshine.

Well, your voice has always conveyed that sort of tension and mystery. It can be a monstrous instrument at times.

Right, but that comes from not having any actual musical training. Also, a lot of musicians and singers tend to want to sound like someone else. As soon as I started making music I knew that I didn’t want to sound like anyone else. I remember reading something by William Burroughs about letting the voice be an instrument, but also a weapon. A tone being able to break glass or a bass note being able to make people’s insides fall out.

The brown sound.

Yeah. I remember thinking, “Well, that sounds good.” Hence, the first time anyone saw me performing at the 100 Club in ’76, I had three microphones strapped together. I was so naive, I thought, well, if I put three together, that might cause a nasty effect. [laughs] Of course, y’know, three microphones is just three microphones.

Sometimes I’m not even sure what nationality your voice is.

A lot of English singers have American accents, that kind of drawl. But with us it always sounded, for want of a better word, European. Which is ironic because I grew up with loads of ’60s R&B... Atlantic, Tamla, Motown. But then there’s classical and film music in there, and a lot of English artists like Bolan, Roxy, and Bowie. I’m picky about the kinds of singers that I do like.

Was Julie Driscoll one of them?

Yes! I covered her version of “This Wheel’s on Fire.”

Another one with a big voice and an unaccountable accent.

You’d have to put Nico in there, too. But then also a lot of male singers that I saw as having their own voice, like Jim Morrison and Iggy Pop. I even loved Hendrix’s voice. And Howlin’ Wolf. So distinctive. I don’t know how people gauge a voice simply by whether it’s in tune or pretty.

You’re so full-on live. Do you do all those singerly things to protect your voice?

When you’ve done a lot of touring, it’s tough on the vocal cords. The one thing I have learned more recently is doing exercises before I go on stage.

Have you ever gotten up there and nothing came out?

In the past, sure. I’ve gone onstage knowing I had laryngitis, the worst feeling in the world. In the early days we’d play five or six nights in a row, traveling as well. The voice can’t take that kind of punishment. I would always dream of being a backing musician and not having to take the spotlight. There are also singers out there where it’s pretty much on one level. They don’t really push up or down or around. It’s all midrange.

It’s amazing that you’ve never worked with a voice coach.

When I knew I wanted to try singing, our manager at the time sent me to Tona de Brett, who I think had tried to teach Johnny Rotten to sing. [laughs] Anyway, I went along and had one lesson with her and thought, well, OK...

I have to say, your live performance is a revelation. You look like you’re going through some kind of transformation.

I love touring and playing live. To be able to really go for it and not have any restraints, physical or otherwise. And the subtleties as well, all the control of it. It’s so liberating.

You mentioned your early-80s guitarist John McGeoch before.

Easily the best guitarist of that era. A lot of younger musicians like Radiohead and Johnny Marr are citing him.

He’d been brilliant in Magazine, and later in Nick Cave’s band. How do you write songs with a guitarist like that. Lyrics first?

The way we worked was much more gregarious. First we’d play together in the same room, very tactile. And I’d describe things. I’d have a vocal melody, and he’d come up with something. McGeoch was adaptable and imaginative, but I don’t think he’d worked in that kind of open way before.

So wait, the Banshees were a jam band?

Yeah, it was fairly open. Even onstage we liked to play material that wasn’t properly worked out.

You were known for your B-sides being extemporaneous.

We pretty much released an album every year and we were touring a lot as well. So I’d look forward to the B-side session because it was a way of getting back to how we worked initially. We’d just have a studio for two or three days and see what we came up with. And it could be anything. Usually it was me, Severin, and Budgie, and whatever was in the studio, maybe just a piano. “OK, we’ve got three days and we’ve gotta do two songs. Let’s see what happens.” Some of the B-sides I prefer to the album tracks, actually, especially with the later albums. “Peek-a-Boo” started out as a B-side.

OK, different subject. I’ve always thought of the Banshees as a “film band.”

Definitely. From The Scream on, you can hear it. The Bernard Herrmann-ish tracks on there, and Shostakovich. We were all into our films and loved soundtracks.

Who do you like in film these days?

Tarantino loves his music. I like the way he uses contrast. For a heavy scene he’ll use something quite light. And of course David Lynch.

How’d you feel about Inland Empire?

That was the first one I didn’t really rave about. Usually it’s such a feast to get your eyes on, but he was using the digital and it didn’t grab me. But I see quite a lot of English and American films here.

No French.

I speak French, but it’s too fast to take it in. I’d probably do better with French subtitles. I have to say in general I don’t check out French film directors. But the guy who did Delicatessen, what was his name?

Jean-Pierre Jeunet.

He did a string of films, and I loved that. And do you remember La Haine?

The skinhead film?

Yes. Vincent Cassel was brilliant. As he was in the latest Cronenberg as well, Eastern Promises. He’s the spoiled brat. Cronenberg is up and down. I’ve seen a few I didn’t like at all. Remember Existenz? [laughs]

Well, given the fact that you were once in a John Maybury film and have hired directors like John Hillcoat to shoot your videos, why aren’t there any Siouxsie features?

Honestly, I haven’t been asked. Ages ago they wanted me to star in Breaking Glass.

That 80s new-wave nonsense? Weird.

I’m so glad I had the sense to say no. If I’m going to be in a film, the last thing I want to do is be a singer. I have just done something for a new John Maybury film, The Edge of Love. It’s about Dylan Thomas. Angelo Badalamenti did the music and I worked with him on one song. But no, I’ve never been offered a role. I’d even love to do a cameo character in a good movie.

I’ve been hearing about that Dylan Thomas biopic. Are you a big reader?

Books are one of the few things I collect. I always want to read more and more, and that’s something I miss, living in France. I can’t just go to the bookshop and browse around. Although there are a lot of French authors I love. Sartre, Camus. I also love Samuel Beckett and Eastern European writers like Patrick Süskind.

You mentioned Burroughs before.

If you remember, Bowie was always citing Burroughs in the 70s. It was through being fans of music that we got hints at literary things.

And then had to go out and find somewhere that sold such books.

Yes. It was more social and that’s how you tried to connect with other people. Of course back then you thought you were totally isolated and the only freak in the whole world. Going out there and meeting people, whether it was at concerts or getting the books, those friends that I made were important ones. I still know some of them.

Steve Severin?

Severin and his friend at the time, Faio, I met them at a Roxy Music concert. 1975. The one with Ferry and the backup girls in air-force uniforms.

The Siren shows. All right, let’s talk about clothes and costuming. What’s happening to teenage style?

Hmm, well. I do think it’s the whole internet thing, the accessibility and the ease with which people can have this or get that information. It’s just made people really lazy. It’s taken away a lot of hunger and individuality. More than ever, people are very much in a fret about having the latest fashion and are being dictated to. I’m pretty perplexed by it. But I truly think the answer is getting out of the house! [laughs] Leave the virtual world. You cannot do better than to have the real thing.

Technology worries you?

Well, we’re talking about a generation that has grown up with computers. My big worry is that the need to connect with the actual is slowly getting eroded.

Can you as an artist really expect to affect anything?

You can only inspire someone to do something they wouldn’t have before. With me it was getting into music, and specifically the type of music it was had a big effect. Especially at that age—14, 15, 16—when you’re starting to form opinions and notions of where you want to go. The music that you find then can create a life change. And again, the key is to be able to connect with other people.

You’re big on that.

Because for me it was where things began to change and happen. You can’t choose your family, but you can make a new one with soulmates. The connections that you make first off are really strong ones. You’ll create something with those people.

How is it being 50?

I’m enjoying it. There are a lot of things where I say, “Oh, that makes sense now.” And then I can finally forget about them.

Steve Lafreniere 06/08

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If You Knew Siouxsie

It took Siouxsie 30 years to get around to her solo debut. The goth beauty tells Paul Byrne that she didn't want to rush it.

Of all the freaks, geeks and dreamers to find themselves at the centre of a cultural phenomenon as punk broke through in 1977, Siouxsie Sioux always seemed slightly removed from the spit and grime of the times.

It was there, right from her very first public appearance, looking coy and domineering on the Today show, back on December 1, 1976, that middle-aged TV presenter Bill Grundy pushed the Sex Pistols to shock him after his awkward flirtation with the teenage Siouxsie. The interview, and following outbursts, made TV history and put the Sex Pistols on the road to stardom.

The following 12 months would be eventful for these Bromley Contingent friends who were so intent on upsetting Middle England, Siouxsie & The Banshees seeing their drummer, Simon John Ritchie, become the Sex Pistols' new bass player, Sid Vicious, just as the latter became every teenager's -- and tabloid editor's -- favourite band. As for Siouxsie and her boys, success was theirs not long after too, with the Banshee's debut single, Hong Kong Garden hitting the top 10 in August 1978.

Eighteen years -- and quite a few more top 10 hits, including Spellbound and Happy House -- later, the band called it a day, Siouxsie going on to form The Creatures with the band's drummer -- and her hubby -- Budgie.

The couple's recent divorce sparked Siouxsie's solo debut, last October's MantaRay, which garnered glowing reviews, but so-so sales. As the woman formerly known as Susan Janet Ballion comes to Ireland for the first time in a decade, she's plainly happy to be starting a new chapter in her life. . .

Paul Byrne: At this stage, I'm guessing you don't exactly stress yourself over interviews.

Siouxsie Sioux: Well, I'm never anxious about interviews, otherwise, I wouldn't do any ...

Oh, good, because I was going to ask you about drugs, and any homosexual experiences. I thought we could go deep. . .

Well, I haven't had any homosexual experiences. Not that I remember. . .

This is your first time touring Ireland in nine years -- too busy? Indifferent? Lazy?

Oh, never lazy. That's cropped up with Spain, with Italy, Greece -- there's been quite a few places that we haven't played in a while. It's been the promoters; blame the promoters.

Your solo debut, MantaRay, was welcomed by the critics -- is that important to you?

Yeah, that's nice, but if they had all slammed it, that wouldn't have daunted me. I would have rolled my eyes and said, 'What's new?' I wish the music would get more airplay on the radio. Get listed on the radio. Radio is so conservative.

It took 30 years for you to release a solo album. Was being single again after such a long time part of the inspiration?

Lots of things conspired to make it the right time. In the early days, there were shouts for me to do a solo album and I just felt that it was something I didn't need to do. With The Banshees, we were always changing our lead guitarist, so it meant I was working with new people all the time anyway. And I really wanted to establish that I was the leader of a band.

You've said there's some anger on the album -- is there still fire in your belly these days?

When you first start, you're dealing with what's on the surface, and as you grow, you find new strengths, new depths, so to just live a life where you're relying on the past, that's not very healthy.

Punk was all about burning out rather than fading away, which makes the current crop of reunions -- The Sex Pistols, The Stooges, etc -- seem like something close to betrayal. Is it never say never for the Banshees?

Well, I don't have to consider getting the band back together. Nobody has to; no one's got a gun at their heads.

How does it feel, to have an official biography out there, and to be accepting Icon awards?

It's all rubbish. I mean, I've only had one award, and that was a great excuse for a piss-up. That's the positive thing that comes out of that; some free drinks, and maybe some interesting artists.

You seem pretty removed from the rock'n'roll life, living in your 18th-century stone house just outside Toulouse with your cats ...

I've been down here for 16 years, and it's a stark contrast to going to London or New York, but I think there's a homing device that has a strong pull at certain times. So, London's looking attractive to me once again. . .

Looking back on those early years in London, home life was pretty chaotic around then. Have you made your peace with that?

I think everyone has something from their childhood that leaves some kind of scar and everyone has to try to come to terms with, and face it. You see, you've always got to look for the positive. And although you wouldn't wish it on yourself, you can look back and say, well, I didn't enjoy it at the time, but I learnt from it.

Paul Byrne 16/06/08

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Robert O'Connor 10/06/08

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Is the solo experience proving very different, more lonely, to being part of a band?
That’s true to an extent but I’d also say that being a lead singer is a pretty lonely experience anyway. You’re very separate from the musicians in that you have to look after your instrument, your voice. That takes a while to figure out. Being the arrowhead on the spear you tend to get the extreme ups and downs.

Did the Banshees have the same gang mentality of some of the other punk bands?
It was definitely a gang, especially in the earlier days, but I think that even for Joe Strummer or John Lydon, you do feel different fronting a band. It comes with the territory. Also I was a woman amongst a whole bunch of guys as well. There are differences in gender when you’re working day to day.

Even though the punk bands brought female musicians to the fore, the industry itself seemed to be lagging behind.
Definitely. That’s born out by the fact that, out of all those bands getting signed up, we were one of the last. They had no idea how they were going to market us. The mentality of the people who were running the companies couldn’t deal with that. I don’t think that much has changed. Now they maybe see a female as a positive commodity but when it comes to breaking down stereotypes or barriers, I don’t think the guys in the record company give a toss. In hindsight, though, getting signed last was a great thing to happen, although it certainly didn’t feel like that at the time. It gave us a chance to really get strong. When people get elevated out of nowhere it really messes with their heads. Doing all those tours and the Peel sessions meant that by the time we did our first album, we had enough songs for a second. Bands need to be nurtured, which doesn’t happen in the music industry.

You seemed to have an exit strategy from punk worked out from the start, a way to escape when two chords and some attitude stopped being enough.
Whenever things looked too safe, my instinct was to go where there weren’t any spotlights and start exploring. That can be very positive but have its downside as well, but you can’t let yourself get stuck in a rut.

Hence the gap before starting a solo career? In the meantime a lot of people have been name checking and queuing up to work with you.
I was able to be a long leash and try different things. I was pretty much shut off from whatever influence we may have had on other artists. As far as what was going on and who was hip and who wasn’t, I don’t know how important that it is. I don’t go out looking for new music but of it comes my way, fine. The media seems have taken over everything and the idea of celebrity has reached its nadir. I find that is distracting everyone from the actual content. People don’t seem to care, it’s what they expect from an artist.

As a recognisable cultural figure, has that world ever come calling?
I have been approached to do various things but I’ve knocked them back straight away. They asked me to do the one in the jungle and ‘The Weakest Link’, stuff like that. I’ve never had the desire to be a TV personality, some people have and work really well. What Lydon did on ‘I’m A Celebrity…’, messing it up, was really good but often it’s a disaster.

Phil Udell 25/06/08

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Siouxsie Sioux is still a vital force

Siouxsie Sioux, ultimate Banshee and queen of punk, reckons that age has mellowed her. But our correspondent isn’t so sure.

No other punk band evolved quite like Siouxise and the Banshees. Siouxsie’s caterwauling 20-minute interpretation of The Lord’s Prayer at the 100 Club Punk Festival in 1976 was little indication of what was to come. The Banshees combined the energy of punk with a thirst for experimentation that produced hits as diverse as Hong Kong Garden, Dear Prudence and Kiss Them for Me and earned the admiration of everyone from Tricky and Massive Attack to Shirley Manson.

Few other female performers have spawned as many adoring imitators, all those black-haired, black-eyed Siouxsies, frozen reminders of a past she is eager to shake off. There’s certainly something of Siouxsie the ice queen as she makes her entrance today, a little late and a little brittle, shielded behind huge sunglasses.

These days she’s flying solo, both professionally and personally (her marriage to Budgie, the drummer with the Banshees, ended in 2007). Her first album, Mantaray (2007), was well received, and last year’s Mantaray and More tour proved that Siouxsie at 50 is every bit as exciting a performer as Siouxsie at 30. The final show at Koko in Camden was filmed for a DVD release, which is why she’s here today.

The DVD opens with a sepia-tinted intro, in which she’s shown leaving her hotel and heading for the venue in a tongue-in-cheek homage to the screen sirens of the silent age. It’s funny and self-deprecating, not qualities always associated with her. “I have many expressions,” she purrs. “And life’s too short. I couldn’t keep up being fierce and severe all the time. I don’t think anyone could. It’s funny. People assume things about you based on your stage persona, and don’t see you as a real person.”

After living in a French farmhouse for years, home is now London. “I felt drawn back. Where I lived in France it was very remote. In the winter everything shuts down and no one can hear you scream.”

The move back to London certainly seems to have suited her. “That’s why I wanted to do the DVD. I really enjoyed the shows, and I wanted to let people know what a happy bunny I am.” She laughs, a slightly demented cackle. “And I love Koko. It was neglected for a while, but it’s been done up now and it’s got a great tradition to it. I like things that have a history and are still here and still vital.”

Like the venue, she’s still a vital force. But she has a history, and for years she seemed unwilling to embrace her past and perform old material. Yet on the Mantaray tour she sang everything from Hong Kong Garden to Spellbound. “Yes, because it wasn’t distant enough before. And the Banshees did an album a year, so it was always about promoting the new material.”

Singing the old songs triggered old memories. “It’s odd. These are young Siouxsie’s lyrics, definitely. But it’s fun to dip into the past. I do that with old diaries, to see where I’m at now compared to where I was then.”

She was born Susan Janet Ballion, the youngest of three children, and attended an all-girls school in Kent. It was a very suburban, working class upbringing. Her mother was a secretary; her father a lab technician who milked serum from posionous snakes. A loner and devoted Bowie fan, she hung around gay discos before falling into the punk scene and becoming part of the so-called Bromley Contingent, which also included Billy Idol and Steve Severin.

It’s more than 30 years since the Banshees formed and a blonde Siouxsie appeared — alongside other members of the Contingent — on the TV programme Today, larking about with the Sex Pistols. It was the presenter Bill Grundy’s attempt to flirt with her that prompted the Pistols guitarist Steve Jones to call him, among other things, “a f****ing rotter”. The incident made front-page headlines, most notably “The Filth and the Fury” in the Daily Mirror. Does she look back at that time fondly? “Yes, it was a very lucky time to be around. There was the shock-horror element, and it was fun to have that effect on people. But there was a serious side to it too. If you got off your arse and did something it was there for the taking. And not just music, but fashion, art, film-making. The punk ethos was to have an open mind. It was very creative and industrious.

“Now it’s all labels and consumerism. I think it’s harder for women now than it was 30 years ago. When you look at the pressures on women to never age and always look physically perfect, and in a very traditional, Barbie, male-oriented way, you’d think that punk never happened. Punk was very empowering for women. And now it’s all gone back to finding a rich footballer .”

Are there any younger female artists she regards as strong role models? “Well, there’s Lily Allen or Amy Winehouse. It’s just sad that Amy’s career has gone the way it has with the — yawn! — drugs. That the focus should be on that is just tragic. But that’s the tabloids for you. I don’t take much notice of it all to be honest. I’m too busy sorting my own life out. It’s just me and my babies now.” Ah yes, her cats. How are they? “Well I’ve only got two now,” she says. “They’ve got their own pet passports with their little photos. One of them got ill and now he won’t eat cat food. I’m a vegetarian and now I have to go to Waitrose and get corn-fed free-range chicken for the little f***er. That’s all he’ll eat. I’m just waiting for the day when he decides he’s off the chicken and it’s got to be duck! My next goal is to get them to use the Litter Kwitter. It’s this thing you put over the toilet, to train your cat to use the loo.”

By now a crowd has gathered outside the window, noticing that the woman inside looks an awful lot like Siouxsie Sioux. We are in the Freedom Bar on Wardour Street, a venue once associated with Marc Almond, with whom Siouxsie recorded a duet, Threat of Love, a decade ago. She also recorded Interlude with Morrissey and, more recently, she sang Cish Cash with Basement Jaxx, a track included on the DVD. Among the extras is an interview. One scene shows Siouxsie sitting in front of a mirror, half of her face made up and the other half blank, almost as if she has a split personality. Is that how she regards fame?

“Yes. When I’m performing there’s a transformation and I become this character. This will sound quite insane, but actually I’m quite shy and quiet. I’m a very private person. I like the odd party, as long as it’s not in a goldfish bowl.”

So she doesn’t do the celebrity party circuit? She pulls a face. “God, no! Some friends threw a party for me and Debbie Harry, so I went along. And there were all these professional partygoers. Who’s that dreadful creature, Paris Hilton? I told her to shut her f***ing mobile off. There were all these girls and they’d run up to you whenever they saw a photographer. And they’re all midgets! So I started bending my legs and walking around trying to look short. There’s me towering over everybody trying to hide my hundred chins!”

So, with Mantaray under her belt, and having survived a stampede of lesser celebrities, what does the future hold? “Who knows? The album was fun and I felt comfortable playing live. In the past there were always internal struggles going on. When you’re the singer you tend to get all the attention, and that can breed resentment.” So she won’t be re-forming the Banshees? “No,” she says emphatically. “Never.”

Was she aware that Adam Ant was back on the road? She looks slightly alarmed. “Really? Poor Adam. I knew him in the early days. He was what we called ‘a weekend punk’. As soon as the make-up came off he was just your average Joe. And then years later you discover that he had all these mental health issues.” She pauses. “I guess that’s what fame does to you.”

So how come she’s not gone the same way? She grins. “Sense of humour, dear.”

Paul Burston 15/05/09

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Siouxsie Sioux dashes Banshees reunion hope

Siouxsie Sioux, 51, came to fame in 1976 in the infamous Sex Pistols interview with Bill Grundy before becoming a star with Siouxsie & The Banshees. The band split in 1996 and she has just finished touring her solo album, Mantaray. A DVD of the last gig, Finale, is out today

Does it seem weird to play Banshees songs without them being there?

On the tour, it was just great seeing the reaction from the crowd. Although they are lyrics I wrote a long time ago, thankfully, I am not choking on the words and saying: ‘Oh my God, did I really write that?’ They are more naive but I still stand by them.

How do you still manage the scissor kicks?

I’ve always been a bit bendy. When I was a kid, I wanted to be a ballet dancer and in those days if you got too tall that was it. Now, it’s less strict. Ballet got knocked on the head and I found myself in a band. Even at school I was very active; I always wanted to be in any team that ever was.

I wouldn’t have expected you to be enthusiastic about anything at school.

Oh, yes I was. Art, English and games. I’ve been doing yoga for quite a long time. I was in hospital when I was 15 [with ulcerative colitis] and when I got out, my spine was sticking out. I’d just seen The Devils, a film where Vanessa Redgrave played a hunchbacked nun. I thought: ‘That’s me, or it will be if I don’t do something.’ So I got a book on yoga and have been doing it since. I went to Sri Lanka in 2008 and did yoga and sun and moon salutations; it set me up for the tour.

It all sounds very zen. How rock’n’roll is a tour with Siouxsie now?

Fantastic. I was on the road with a lot of young guys who had not been on tour before so I enjoyed watching them with their wide eyes.

Were some in awe of being on tour with a legend?

I’d met them all before in the studio and that breaks down barriers – more so than seeing someone as a cartoon. Once people see you day to day, those high expectations get crushed pretty quickly. The boys had fun on tour but compared to how it was in my day, it was all quite harmless.

Just how bad was it in your day?

Well that would be telling. But me and the keyboard player, Amanda, would cackle away at the side. We called them ‘the bunnies’ as they would hop off into the night.

I asked some friends for help with questions. One ageing old punk said he would be too scared. Do men find you intimidating?

Yes. I didn’t even have to think about that one. I don’t know why it is. They must be lily-livered. I think men have more to conquer. As much as women have been kept down, men have been kept in a place where they find it hard to adapt to anything different.

Did the Bill Grundy interview seem as seismic as it was?

God no. It was in the afternoon, no one gave it a second thought. It was just: ‘Back to the green room and more drinks and sandwiches.’ For us, it was just an afternoon out.

How did the next day’s ‘Siouxsie the punk shocker’ headline go down?

We were all incredulous. It seemed hilarious. Then it got a bit nasty when we were branded ‘the filth and the fury’. One paper said: ‘These are the people who wreck society’ or something. It seemed strange that people could get so upset about a few four-letter words – which, really, is all it was. There were more upsetting things going on in the world.

Do you ever just slob around in normal clothes?

Yes. I hate doing photo shoots and TV appearances. Doing shows at night is one thing, putting make-up on during the day… I’d hate to do an early show like GMTV, it would have to be the natural look – which would still be very unnatural to me.

Have you had shedloads of cash thrown at you to jump on the reunion bandwagon?

No.

Would you welcome an offer?

Nooooo.

James Ellis 17/05/09

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Still Sioux good to be on road

“DON’T box Siouxsie or she’ll box you back!” This was the stern warning the iconic hellraiser gave when I dared ask where she fell in the punk/goth debate.
Siouxsie Sioux may not like labels, but she’s earned a lot of them. And for good reason – in her long career, she’s waded into a fair few scrapes and confrontations.
She spent a night in Holloway prison after squaring up to some “heavy” cops and she was once told “never to darken the door” of Camden’s Dingwalls after sacking her guitarist.

Right now Siouxie is promoting her DVD Siouxsie Finale: The Last Mantaray and More Show, which is out on May 18, and documents the final show of her Mantaray tour at Camden’s Koko last September.

Siouxsie and Koko, aka The Music Machine, aka Camden Palace, go way back.

She says: “I knew the tour was coming to an end. We were going to go to South America and were thinking of filming up the Amazon, which would have been fantastic, and then the Mexican leg fell through, which meant the whole tour fell through. I realised we hadn’t documented everything. Siouxsie up the Amazon had a nice ring about it. We were going to play the Amazonia, which is this famous theatre on the Amazon where Carmen Miranda performed.”

She says she was “gutted” when it didn’t happen, but instead decided to add a final London date, to be filmed at Koko.

Siouxsie says: “I thought, ‘We’ve got to have a document because the tour has been going really great’. I hadn’t played Koko and it had a great sense of history for me, going full circle. I played the Music Machine before we were signed. It’s not up the Amazon, but it’s up Camden.

“In the 1970s it was quite popular. They had pool halls right in the gods, the stage was really high and the audience could go under it. It was a really weird set-up backstage, pretty crappy. It hadn’t really been looked after for a long time. Koko is the place renovated to its original glory as an old music hall theatre. It was 1977, we had our audience and we were blazing our trail.”

In the same year, Siouxsie recalls a “disastrous” set at Dingwalls with the original Banshees. She says: “I had a fight with the guitarist and sacked him onstage.”

The dispute was over “his guitar playing and having an orange lead,” she explains. “I was trying to pull the guitar off him, shouting, giving him daggers and pushing him and backstage it was all pandemonium. We left and he never played with us again.”

In the same year, she says: “I was arrested outside the Rainbow in Finsbury Park after a show with the Heartbreakers. We were just waiting for our car to pick us up and the police and the meatwagon pulled up.

“They started picking on the drummer from 999. They started getting really heavy so I just steamed in. I spent the night in Holloway jail – that was fun. I had a gig the next day and I appeared in court and was found guilty of obstructing the highway.”

The Banshees played their first ever gig at the 100 Club in Oxford Street.

Siouxsie adds: “I was thinking it would last as long as the show would last. I didn’t realise I would be doing it over 30 years later.”

Rolsin Gadelrab 07/05/09

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Siouxsie Sioux, 51, is a British singer-songwriter. Her new box set, Siouxsie and the Banshees at the BBC, is out on June 1. She is divorced and lives alone in the south of France and London

My upbringing was pretty unorthodox. My father was an alcoholic and my mother went out to work — she was the strong one. I grew up with a less clichéd view of life. Punk was a natural extension of that.

Punk can’t happen again — it’s like chemistry, created by the artistic and social elements in the air. It was able to shock because of the societal norms of the day. But life has changed a lot since then.

Divorce after a relationship of 25 years [with fellow band member Budgie] was a huge upheaval. At first, I was frightened of being free: it was like a bereavement without the funeral. Once the turmoil subsides, though, there’s a new optimism.

I’m not into technology — much of it is a way of not communicating. E-mails are like hit-and-runs. For clarity, an actual conversation is invaluable.

I love being in the middle of a storm — it’s humbling to be among unconstrained nature. I hate the arrogance of modern life that sees itself as all-important. For all man’s puny struggles, the weather can change and wipe them all out.

I do think women are better than men. They have had to put up with discrimination for so long, they are more tolerant. They are more emotionally developed and less afraid of expression. It’s a cause for concern that the male ego has to be impenetrable. Those feelings have to come out, and the way they do is usually destructive and violent.

I recently went on holiday alone for the first time. Travelling was a nightmare. But a bit of fear is healthy. All my key moments have been born out of a sense of adventure and not knowing who to turn to.

24/05/09

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