Currently on the road with friend and mentor Debbie Harry, Shirley Manson of Garbage has always been a striking person on stage, going back to her days as the keyboardist for Scottish alt-rockers Goodbye Mr. Mackenzie or fronting the band’s side project Angelfish. Influenced early on by her mother’s jazz collection, Manson has never been one to shy away from talking up influences that include the aforementioned Harry along with the likes of Patti Smith and Chrissie Hynde, Here are three more artists who’ve resonated with the Edinburgh native on so many levels.
Nina Simone
“I heard Nina Simone sing and something in my very young body connected with this voice, attitude and cadence. Nina Simone has been someone that I have constantly gone back to listen to. As I’ve gotten older, my appreciation for her has grown even more as I discover how active she was in the Civil Rights Movement. How political she was and plagued with difficulties she was and yet, she still sang for me, with the voice of God. She was just extraordinary.”
David Bowie
“He was arguably the most influential on my career from a male perspective. He’s probably the dominating male figure in my musical development. I’m still grateful that at a young age, I gravitated to artists of not only great talent, but an ability to endure and make astounding records while being real pioneers. My love for him is endless.”
Siouxsie Sioux
“She’s another person, who when I was really young, set fire to my imagination because she felt genderless to me in a funny way. She was not female nor male. She didn’t seem very conventional. She seemed like she had arrived from space. She had a real strength about her that up until that point of discovering her, I wasn’t aware a woman could embody. She taught me that women could stand on equal footing with men, be as fierce, be as courageous and be as rebellious ad infinitum. She changed the way I viewed my own gender.”
Garbage appears with Blondie on Aug. 1 at the Beacon Theatre, 74th Street & Broadway. NYC. For more information, visit www.beacontheatre.com or call 866-858-0008.
