It’d been bothering her in fits and starts since she fell off a rotating stage in 2016. Still, the bandleader’s injury didn’t cause her consistent concern until two years ago – the last time her Wisconsin alt-rock machine Garbage rolled through Austin, as a matter of fact.
“Day one, I’m like, ‘Wow, something’s really not right,’” she recalls, referring to the band’s 2021 kickoff show to their tour with Alanis Morissette, set at the local Germania Insurance Amphitheater. “I couldn’t walk on days off.”
An untrained eye wouldn’t notice the pain. The singer – who’s spent nearly 30 years stalking her bandmates onstage like a caged leopard, purring with an understated contralto when her grunge peers would scream – continued to tour. Garbage opened for Tears for Fears, then rejoined the Jagged Little Pill singer for another round of shows last year.
“It’s a joy for me to play and to serve people. You go out, and you try and make people feel a little bit more connected than they did when they walked in.” – Shirley Manson
“It’s testament to my insanity and drive,” she says with a guffaw. By the end of 2022, however, hip replacement surgery proved the only way to ensure Manson would deliver on Garbage’s 2023 trek with Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds. The co-headline, with Metric opening, returns Manson to Circuit of the Americas on June 18, with lawn tickets starting around $30.
“It’s a huge privilege, [as] a band who emerged in the Nineties, to be here in 2023,” she says. “I wanted to get it fixed and be good at what I do. It’s important to me.”
Veteran of a rock scene marred by death and drug addiction, the famously defiant Manson’s survival doubles as a gift and a political statement. The singer’s unfuckwithable persona precedes her: On her Instagram, she proudly posts her age (56) to a world that’d rather most women disappear on their 30th birthdays.
It speaks on Garbage’s last album, No Gods No Masters, a furious rebuke of men in power that channeled the skittering electronica of 1998 career highlight Version 2.0. Still, the industry pro keeps an eye out for rising acts who can teach her something new. Manson found a kindred spirit in Austin’s Audrey Campbell, the Pleasure Venom singer who made an impression by introducing herself to the rockstar at a past South by Southwest.
“I was really charmed,” Manson recalls. “And when I started checking her out, I was like, ‘She’s a beast like me. She’s fierce, and she’s not afraid.” Garbage later enlisted Pleasure Venom as support on a 2019 tour.
Commended for using her platform to uplift the next generation, Manson clarifies: “I’m not supporting young bands because they’re young. I’m supporting them because I learned something from them. If I stumble upon a young band and they teach me something, I’m interested in following them.
“It’s not out of the kindness of my heart. I’m just not that kind.”
There’s that Scottish humility! Manson’s healthy self-deprecation permeates our conversation. “This sounds so pompous,” she wavers, before admitting to trade interest in a memoir (duh). She talks of “playing America” with the wonder of a foreigner despite living in Los Angeles for over a decade. Touring still exists as an opportunity to serve the public, and post-op, the always-bionic woman is more ready than ever.
“It’s a joy for me to play and to serve people,” Manson says. “You go out, and you try and make people feel a little bit more connected than they did when they walked in – so that they leave feeling better than when they first arrived at your show. That, to me, is like, ‘I’ve done my job.’”
This article appears in April 7 • 2023.
