Garbage

Version 2.0 (Almo)
An interview with Butch Vig
by Michael McCarthy

I know you experiment with loops and so forth a lot during the writing process – at what point do lyrics come into the picture?
Well, all the songs kind of start differently, but on the new record, a lot of them started with fragments that Shirley had. Like “this is the noise that keeps me awake” was a line she had and she kept repeating it over and over in “Push It.” And for “The Trick Is To Keep Breathing,” she had a few lines, “I’m not gonna be the one to let you down.” She was basically ad-libbing while we were jamming in the studio. For about a month we holed up in Friday Harbor at a friend’s house. We basically fucked around and recorded all these different ideas and came up with about 24 “songs.” They weren’t really finished. Out of those, we’d find two bars or four bars or a chorus or verse or something and that would be the genesis of the song. It could be just a drum and bass groove, or a lot of times it was based around a melody or a lyric of Shirley’s or a guitar lick or chord progression or whatever. We started putting things on top of that. Very slowly, we add or subtract. Some of the songs ended up with a hundred tracks by the time we were finished, but eventually Shirley finishes. Kind of gets in her head where the song is going and then we’ll edit around all of the music stuff to put in more of a song structure. It ends up being more of a classic pop structure or whatever. At the end of the day, even though we don’t write songs this way, we want them to sound like they could have been written on an acoustic guitar.

With the first album, a lot of the songs did sound like they came out of experiments, like they came out of various fields, so to speak. But with Version 2.0, I would believe most of those songs were started with a singer strumming along on an acoustic guitar. The only one I wouldn’t believe started that way is “Hammering In My Head,” because that one is just a loop-fest.
I think the only song that really was written from that point of view is “Medication,” which started kind of from Shirley singing the melody, just strumming an acoustic guitar. Then Steve came in with that part at the start. There was really no chorus on that to speak of. It was all just based around those chords at the start. “Hammering” started with all these weird buzzing loops. Actually, there were quite a few guitars. For us, that song turned out a lot different than some of the other tracks because it’s, I guess, the most electronica. But most techno songs have very simple, repetitive lyrics that just loop over each other and her vocals are so human on that. It’s like a Patti Smith stream-of-consciousness, compared to something that Prodigy would do, which is, like, they have a few lines that drop in and out and then there’s a lot of music. We like that dichotomy, that it’s real and human, versus all this clattering and chattering electronics.

At what point did you decide to bring in the cellist and violinist for “Medication”?
We had talked early on about using more organic elements. There is more acoustic and piano in the tracks. And we used some samples, just to put, like, a mellotron on some of the songs. We decided it would be cool to replace them with real strings. We were lucky. We found a couple guys in Madison who were brilliant players. The University of Wisconsin is there and they have a good music department, so there are a lot of good players. Karl came in, heard the track, and the first take he did, he played it fucking perfect! It just blew us away. It sounded so amazing. Like, “Karl, just play that again because it sounds great!”

Portishead has said that they only sampled sounds they created themselves on their second album because they felt they had something to prove – perhaps critics to silence, I don’t know – and they didn’t feel they were taken as seriously as they would’ve liked the first time around because of the sampling. I know you didn’t go with that specific approach on Version 2.0, but can you relate to that feeling on some level?
Yeah. And we did more of that on this record, too. We sampled a lot more of ourselves. We recorded everything into 48 track Pro Tools, so once we had anything – whether it was drums or guitars or some sound effect – we could process it a lot easier this time out than last time. Experiment sonically with what we could do with it. There still are some outside things that we took, but instead of sampling we did what is called interpolating, which is what we did with The Beach Boys thing in “Push It,” and with Chrissie Hynde’s little vocal mannerisms. You know, the bit of an homage in there that Shirley used in “Special.” Because we used a lot of electronics in terms of processing a song, we kind of look forward in the future, but we also look back and borrow all these classic pop references. There’s all sorts of little nods in there. There’s some Marvin Gaye. There’s a little bit of Donna Summer in “Temptation” and Isaac Hayes. There’s a little bit of a nod to The Kinks in “Paranoid.” You could go through all of the songs and probably pick out two or three things that are from, you know, The Carpenters. We’re shameless, I guess, when it comes to wearing our influences on our sleeves.

There’ve been quite a few artists who’ve surfaced during the past few years who seem to have been heavily inspired by Garbage. Does that faze you? Is it flattering? Is it eerie at all?
Um, I think in a way it’s kind of flattering. It was kind of weird when we first started hearing The Sneaker Pimps or bands like Transistor. But we didn’t invent anything new. I think just because our record became successful, anytime that happens you’re going to get people who either imitate that or it influences them somehow. I guess you have to look at it in the flattering way because, as I said, we can’t copyright what we did. We’re using the same elements that anybody could use. It’s just the nature of how we did it, because we used samplers and we still try to write pop songs in a rock format. It’s funny now because I used to get a lot of different artists who wanted me to work with them as a producer and it was all bands that sounded like Nirvana or The Smashing Pumpkins. And now I’m getting all these bands fronted by women that want to sound like Garbage!

Was there any temptation, with all the various songs now surfacing as B-sides, to make Version 2.0, say, 73 minutes and squeeze in as many songs as you possibly could?
[Laughs] No way, man! If we could get it under 40 minutes, we would. The Beatles used to make the perfect pop length for an album. I still think your attention span starts to run out at about 45 minutes. I think we feel some of the songs are so dense with sonics, with layers and things, that to go further would make it hard to get through the record. We pretty much said we were just going to put 12 songs on this from the get-go. Maybe the next record, we’ll veer off, do something different, steer away from trying to write a pop song and see if we can fuck it up. But that’s where we were coming from on this album.

Were there any particular songs that didn’t make the album, such as “Afterglow” and “Deadwood,” that weren’t finished in time and might have been on there if you had more time?
No. A lot of the B-sides we end up with are things that we start and for some reason never develop into being finished. At one point “Deadwood” sounded like it was a contender, but Shirley didn’t have the lyrics finished. Then she kind of came in with a whole new set of lyrics, which were called “Deadwood,” and the song kind of changed. But it wasn’t until we were done, you know? Sometimes she’ll have an idea and we’ll have some music we put together and then nobody can come up with anything that takes the song to the next level. We just finished another B-side called “13 Times Forever,” which is the same. We had the music and a few lyric phrases that Shirl did and it just sat around for a while. We were just like, “We should just finish this for a B-side and not worry about it too much.” There’re still quite a few different things laying around in various states of disarray. But we also like to just go in and record a B-side from the get-go. It’s not like we’re going to use all the stuff that’s laying around.

Is there any desire to release a B-sides album?
Yeah. I mean, we had a bunch of fans ask for that on the last record, because they wanted to be able to get stuff that was obscure. I think we wanted to wait until we had more things to make it, to have more music to put on there. It’s possible when we finish this whole touring cycle. When we start the next record, we may release something that’s got a lot of the rare remixes and the B-sides and stuff. For the fans who are trying to find the stuff that’s been hard to get.

Do you think there will ever be a Garbage album without the trademark loops and so forth? Do you see the band deciding to make a straightforward rock record?
Yeah, I think so. One of the things that’s been great for us was to play some of these songs really stripped down and more traditional. As I said, we just did “Medication” acoustically and it sounds really cool. I think, the next album, we’ll probably go to further extremes. Maybe some songs that are extremely fucked up sounding and go even way beyond what we have right now in terms of how dense you can make something sound. It’s quite possible to do something that’s a lot more organic. Possibly even symphonic, you know, where we don’t even use guitars or drums, it’s all done with piano and strings or something. It’s hard to say. One of the things we really want to do is score a film, when we finish this tour. We’ve had a lot of directors approaching us over the past couple years. The only thing we thought made sense so far was to give “#1 Crush” to Romeo & Juliet because we thought there was a similar sensibility going on. But we take it as a compliment when they tell us that our album or our music sounds cinematic. Steve and I met at film school and we’re all huge cinema buffs. If we could find the right film and the right director to work with, I think that’s something we want to do. And that could end up being organic or very traditionally played. It might be symphonic or it might use over 100 loops again. We just don’t know.

I understand Goldie will be scoring the new Kubrick movie – if he ever finishes making it!
Wow! See, that would be amazing. We’ve met Goldie and he’s a star. He’s really cool. He has so much charisma.

I guess he’s acting now, too. Both he and Tricky are signed on for quite a few movies.
I saw Tricky in The Fifth Element. It was funny to see him because we know him and I didn’t even know he was in it. All of a sudden, I go, “Fuck! That’s Tricky!” I couldn’t help but laugh when I saw him because it shocked me so much.

I read a rumor that the guys in House of Pain approached you about producing a rock album á la the first Beastie Boys record meets Prodigy. Was there an actual approach?
As I remember, I got an inquiry from their label, but I couldn’t even really consider it, because I was pretty much full on in Garbage. The only two breaks I’ve taken outside the band were to do some remixes for Beck last year for “Jackass,” and some remixes for U2 when their album came out. Those were both very short, three or four days in the studio. We were spending so much time trying to sort through the Garbage stuff.

Do you still want to produce albums? Or does that not appeal to you anymore?
I definitely want to produce again. But I don’t know when. Again, when we finish this touring cycle, I think we’re going to take a break before we work together as a band. I’ll probably do something to clear my head and kind of get away from the band. I think that would be a healthy thing to do, but I don’t know what it is at this point. It’s a little early to figure that out. There’re a lot of acts I’m really excited about. It may be something more traditional. Maybe something acoustic and organic. Possibly someone that uses a lot of synth. I guess it would have to be someone whose music I fell in love with. I love Radiohead and The Verve. There’ve been some great rock records in the last year. I totally love the new Massive Attack record.

I’ve noticed the credits still say that Shirley appears courtesy of Radioactive. Is she still under obligation to do another Angelfish disc?
Um, I don’t think so. Technically, she’s still signed to Radioactive/MCA as a solo artist. We’ve been in the process for a long time of working something out. She’s basically able to do whatever she wants in the context of Garbage, and I think they’re getting an override. I think if we do a third Garbage record and they get a point on it, or whatever they worked out, she’s free, or basically, not obligated to do something for them. They’ve been pretty cool about it, actually. We had no idea we were going to do this full-time. That’s why she was still signed. Radioactive said, “No problem, you can go ahead and make this record with Garbage.” Then it turned into a full time endeavor, so… they’ve been actually pretty cool with us.

Also, if she did a solo album, having Garbage succeed would make that sell even better.
Totally. Because she’s got a fan base out there right now. People know who she is.

As a fan of the band, I personally find it frustrating that so many journalists seem only to want to talk sex with Shirley. Does that bother you guys at all or do you find it amusing?
Both. But there are times when it really bothers her. It’s funny because there’ve really only been a handful of interviews that she did that got a lot of attention everywhere. One was a Details piece that was meant to be kind of funny and tongue-in-cheek, but so many journalists took it literally. I mean, she’s really just being who she is. She’s pretty honest and speaks her mind. She’s very emotional and she can be a rollercoaster ride, you know? She’ll get really pissed off about something and then she’ll change her mind and decide she loves it. She’s an extremely complicated person. But she is not afraid to say what’s on her mind, so a lot of times she’ll just blurt things out and then it gets printed or taken out of context. We’ve seen so many weird things that’ve been written about us that it is kind of funny now. Nobody should believe everything that’s written, particularly now with the Internet and all the websites out there. There’s so much stuff. Who says what is accurate or not with all of the millions of digibits that are flying through webspace? You can’t tell what’s real or not real anymore. Shirley’s taking it as, the more weird shit that’s printed the better because you won’t be able to make heads or tails of anything.

I guess one positive thing about the Internet would be that fans end up fact-checking things.
Yeah. Some of the fans take it very seriously, too. You can see that they argue about it. “She wouldn’t do that.” Or, “She didn’t say that.” Which is cool. We’re really lucky because when we met Shirley, we asked her to join the band because we loved her voice. We had no idea she would blossom into this “pop diva,” you know? We told her we wanted her to join us as an equal and to produce together and write together. She took the ball and ran with it. We had no idea she had this charisma. This presence. We are not a faceless band. A lot of electronica bands are very faceless. But we’re lucky. We’ve carved out our turf. We’ve carved out our identity. And that’s very difficult to do.