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‘I’ve pulled myself out of a very dark abyss’: Garbage’s Shirley Manson on depression, sexism, dodgy hips and happiness

The press loved her – but also hated her. Her band was huge – and then it fractured. She started two tours – and had to abandon them. The singer talks about 30 years of heaven and hell

I’ll leave that image just there; I don’t need to embellish that.” Between the pain and the painkillers, though, she had terrible brain fog and Garbage ended up writing the album remotely, the rest of the band – Butch Vig, Duke Erikson and Steve Marker – sending her musical ideas. Photograph: Katja Ogrin/RedfernsOnly Happy When It Rains wasn’t technically the breakthrough Garbage single – that was Stupid Girl – but both were released in 1995 and became the soundtrack to the year: caustic, self-aware, catchy but not in a people-pleasing way. “Perhaps some other bands might have done well living in different continents,” she says, “but I don’t think it was on the cards for us.” By 2001, they were still flying high – Version 2.0 in 1998 had sold well, Beautiful Garbage did fine – but “we have to touch on the devastation wreaked by September 11 in the States,” she says.

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