Garbage
Shirley Manson: vocals, keyboards, guitar
Butch Vig: drums, loops, samplers, keyboards, guitars
Steve Marker: guitar, bass, keyboards
Duke Erikson: guitar, bass, keyboards
album credits: garbage (grammy-nominated), almo sounds. version 2.0 (grammy-nominated).Background
Since Garbages inception in 1995, their unique blend of pop, rock and electronica has received rave critical acclaim and worldwide success. Upon taking a closer look at the foursome you will find an interesting combination of three studio wizards, including Butch Vig (whose illustrious production credits include Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins and Sonic Youth), and the sultry, outspoken pop goddess Shirley Manson. For a band whose success was almost immediate, their stranglehold on the pop music charts has proven to be exceptionally long lasting. Still touring in support of their Grammy-nominated album Version 2.0, Butch Vig took a few minutes from his busy schedule to talk shop with us.
MacDirectory: What role does the Macintosh play in your studio?
Butch Vig: Its been an integral part of our studio for quite a while now. Before we had ProTools, Steve [Marker] and I had Macs from way back and used sequencer programs, specifically Digital Performer, to arrange songs. Ive been using my PowerBook to work on song arrangements for a good ten years now.
MD: You, Steve and Duke are very involved in studio production and I understand that everyone has their own Macintoshes so you can each be editing audio at the same time.
BV: Yeah, because of the way we work we dont have song ideas when we go into the studio. Garbage will jam and record for a couple of hours, and if were lucky, well get about five minutes of something thats interesting. (Laughs.) So well cut that up and everybody puts it in their PowerBooks and further tweaks it out. Shirley uses hers mainly for working on lyrics. As shes listening to the music, shell go through and work on the lyrics and keep giving us revised versions until she thinks shes ready to sing it.
MD: Does Shirley participate in any of the actual sound editing on her Mac?
BV: Not really. She could . . . she pretty much takes what we give her and concentrates more on the lyrics. On the first record, all four of us wrote lyrics by committee and she took them and made them into her own. This time around she wrote 99 percent of the lyrics.
MD: What percentage of the songs that you come up with are eventually discarded as opposed to continually reworked?
BV: We had twenty-four song ideas at one point, and from that we narrowed it down to sixteen that sounded like they were going to develop into a really good song. We picked twelve for the album and of the four that we had left, weve since released as B-sides.
MD: How would you say that the Macintosh has influenced your creativity?
BV: Well, its definitely freed us up from having to adhere to the traditional recording process where you go in and record the drums, bass and rhythm guitars as a bed track and then put down a guide vocal. Because of the editing capabilities of computers, you can constantly update a song. And in Garbage, none of us play any particular roles. We all switch instruments. I play guitars and samplers and keyboards. Duke and Steve come up with loops, drums, bass and keyboards and Shirley plays guitar and keyboards. Im not just the drummer, Steve is not just the guitarist and Shirley is not just a singer. When you start using a system like ProTools and the Mac its just very intuitive and makes it easy to experiment a lot in the studio. As I said earlier, we dont really start with any kind of finished song. We constantly make it up and its a really exciting. It can also be a scary process, as sometimes you take wrong turns and the songs go in directions that youre not happy with. Then you have to take a step back and figure out why.
MD: That sounds like a great band arrangement with everyone contributing on several levels. Actually, this type of arrangement doesnt sound too common. Have you ever been in a situation like this before?
BV: No, most bands have very clearly defined roles and theyre actually very conservative in how they approach making their music. We just make up those roles every day. Its by far the coolest band Ive ever been in, and I can say from a production standpoint and even compared to other bands Ive produced, that I have a lot more fun working in Garbage. Theres really room to try anything. We use samplers, hip-hop, electronica, punk rock, noisy guitars and write pop melodies so we feel like we can go in any direction we want and people are going to understand that its Garbage. And, particularly with Shirleys voice. She has so much charisma and personality that shes one of the reasons weve had a lot of success. Having her front and center, shes allowed us to do a lot of things sonically because it draws the listener in.
MD: Any plans regarding the next album?
BV: Well, after the tour well probably take a few months off and then start to record again. As for specific dates, its tough to tell.
Check out Garbage at www.garbage.com
