MUSIC: Siouxsie Sioux - Conformity is not a word which could ever apply

Feb 22 2008 by Dawn Collinson, Liverpool Daily Post

Siouxsie Sioux has done her own thing from day one – and that’s not about to change. Dawn Collinson reports

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 hey-day 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 to them, and so very much the same as she ever was.

“I’m really doing what I always do,” 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 recreation.

“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,” she says. “They are into the music that I’m doing today. I’m lucky, I suppose not a lot of artists can do that because there’s a pressure to do what they’re well known for.

“But 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.

“Having said that, even when we were having a lot of mainstream success as a band, it’s your decision how much you play that celebrity game and how much you allow yourself to become tabloid fodder.

“You can opt out if you want to, but if you’re going out and doing things where you know the press are, then you’re going to get reported on.”

Living in France has given her a different perspective, and allowed her an easy avoidance of the elements of the music industry she despises.

“Like X Factor,” she groans. “I’m appalled at the amount of that kind of programme that there seems to be. It’s so institutionalised, so formulaic and very uninteresting to me.”

Although she now leads a relatively rural life, when she’s not on the road, her own creativity is still inspired by turbulence.

“I get it when I’m travelling, and then I come back and empty it all out and have a look at it,” she smiles.

And now she’s added personal turbulence, too, since divorcing from Budgie – a one-time regular at Liverpool’s Eric’s – last year.

So, the world now has a single Siouxsie to contend with.

“I’m enjoying it feeling all quite new,” she concludes. “Let’s never say never to new experiences.”

But how does a would-be partner go about chatting up a punk icon? “Some men recognise me, some don’t,” she shrugs. “And are they sorry they approached me? That depends . . .”

* SIOUXSIE SIOUX is at the Liverpool Academy on Saturday, March 1