Q&A: Garbage’s Shirley Manson On Suicide Prevention And The Importance Of Opening Up

Garbage, along with Alanis Morissette, Weezer, Halsey, OneRepublic and Tate McRae, will take the Hollywood Bowl stage this Saturday night (October 22), as part of Audacy’s ninth annual We Can Survive benefit concert.

The show benefits I’m Listening and the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, a cause that is sadly more important now than ever Garbage frontwoman Shirley Manson points out with the suicide numbers for young people “skyrocketing,” as she puts it.

Manson, like many others, believes shows like this are important to open up the conversation and about mental health treatment and encourage people to get help. “These are taboo subjects. Nobody really wants to talk in our society currently about death, it is still very difficult for people to even say the word died, death, dying,” she says. “And I see value in concerts like this because it does bring into the mainstream conversation topics that most people really want to turn away from.”

Thankfully there are people like Manson, unafraid of anything taboo, and willing to encourage dialogue regardless of how difficult the subject. As always, as you can see here, Manson is one of the great conversationalists in music, opening up on everything from suicide and greed to 30 years of Garbage.

Steve Baltin: Now that the world is open again, has it been crazy?

Shirley Manson: I’m not sure we’ve got time to go into right now. I think you’ve been seeing all over the press the concerns that working musicians have about the state of live music, and obviously streaming service issues, with payment and so on and so forth. So nothing has gone back to normal for musicians at all and far from it. And our expenses have tripled. The venues are few and far between. There’s so much competition for venues and so it’s difficult for musicians and we are some of the lucky ones. I mean, we can pick a hit or two, but a whole young generation of musicians are getting royally screwed. So that’s how I guess I would have to answer that question.

Baltin: Talk about doing a show like We Can Survive, where you can play with friends like Alanis who you’ve done tours with and also most importantly give back.

Manson: First of all, any day playing the Hollywood Bowl is a good day, right? So for us it’s a fantastic gift to be invited to play a show like this, with a great bill and with people of like minds. That’s a great start. I have had a lot of experience. My life has been touched a lot by suicide since I was a child, and it’s a subject that’s very close to me. And I’m very grateful to be given this opportunity to highlight along with this great group of other artists the issues that so many people face who struggle with just day to day.

Baltin: Do you feel like a show like this, that both raises awareness and opens the conversation becomes even more important in 2022?

Manson: I think in 2022, post-COVID, the numbers of suicides have skyrocketed, particularly amongst the young. These are taboo subjects. Nobody really wants to talk in our society currently about death, it is still very difficult for people to even say the word died, death, dying. And I see value in concerts like this because it does bring into the mainstream conversation topics that most people really want to turn away from. And it is imperative, I think, as a healthy society to address this petrifying upswing in statistics regarding youth suicide and suicide in general. I think people have really taken a battering over COVID, but I don’t think it’s just specifically as a result of COVID. I think it’s a result of this strange peculiar, still very new world that we all live in in which we are all strangely tied via the Internet and social media. But there is a breakdown of community services, organized religions, etcetera, etcetera. There’s a fragmentation of society and I think we’re seeing the reparations of that, and the pressures that come with social media and people seeing these weird presentations of so-called life on Instagram, for a random example, or on TikTok. And believing that somehow they’re feeling or falling short of the mark because their lives are not full of private jets and diamonds and endless bottomless amount of cash.We haven’t even started on actual natural mental illness, so there’s all kinds of tiers to this conversation.

Baltin: For you, talk about what can be done to open up the conversation to make people more comfortable to admit they need help.

Manson: Look, if I have the answers to that question, I would win the Nobel Peace Prize. I am but a lowly singer and a lowly alternative rock band I am not professing to have any answers whatsoever. However, I do believe in, and always have, in dialogue. I think people become very isolated, very lonely, very unhappy, very quickly, and conversations with people, even strangers sometimes can set you right for 24 hours, I think when you’re suffering from mental health episodes. If you can tie 24 hours together one day after another, then you find that you continue to exist. So therefore, I am a big fan of talking about taboo topics. And I believe in talking about how we feel. I know that’s not very fashionable, you’re supposed to like, pretend everything’s great, put a smile on your face, suffer through another day, and I just don’t hold to that. I wish I had an answer, I really don’t know. But I think removing the stigma around depression, removing the stigma around fragility and failure is of paramount importance. We’re living in a society that’s obsessed with success and accruing wealth. And I really think it’s a road to nowhere ultimately. Sure we need money to afford to buy a home to house ourselves and remain safe from the elements, sure we want a decent job so we can provide food for our children, but there’s a pervasive greed that has attacked our society at the cost of absolutely everything else. And I think that’s bewildering to most people and I think that’s why we’re seeing skyrocketing numbers of people who are suffering from mental health problems and or getting to the end of their tethers and reaching the last resort. And that’s a terrible tragedy.

Baltin: Who are those artists that you feel like are important for people to listen to as solace?

Manson: The thing is, you can’t recommend artists to any other person because each person’s journey is so different and so personal. But I think it’s a proven fact that music provides solace for loneliness and happiness for that matter. It provides a soundtrack to your life, and if you are lucky enough to stumble into the right artists that talk to you in your language, then you will probably be elevated by that experience. Now I would love to listen to “Avalanche,” by Leonard Cohen for a random example. That makes me feel better but that may make someone else feel absolutely desolate, and they might prefer Pharrell Williams “Happy,” that might make them elevate but it’s different for all of us. And that’s why, thank God music is so diverse, because there are so many people out there that need art, whether it’s music. whether it’s dance, whether it’s visual arts and so on and so forth. That’s the beauty of creativity, everyone’s got someone out there that can help.

Baltin: I spoke to Halsey earlier today and they talked about being very open about their suicide attempt at 17. But also Halsey is obviously someone who’s had a lot of pop success. Alanis is a queen of being able to just open the dialogue about everything. So how much does it inspire you to be around successful, like-minded people?

Manson: I think any day you get to share the stage with accomplished artists is a great day, it’s inspiring for us all and it never stops feeling like a privilege for me. Watching all the different kind of artists harness their talents to forge through their careers is, I think marvelous and very difficult. And any artist that is currently able to function has my undying respect. I do love the fact that we’re gonna be on a bill with you mentioned Halsey, you mentioned Alanis two artists who speak the same language as we do for sure. And that’s always a great feeling when you feel you’re amongst family, especially on a gig like this which requires some tenderness. It’s not a macho, balls to the wall kind of rat fest. It’s definitely rooted, I think in tenderness. And as I’m getting older and older and older, that’s a role that I feel is drastically important to fulfill as an artist in the world, as an elder someone who’s been around for 30 years. I think if I can’t find kindness in myself, then I feel like I’ve failed as an artist in a funny way. I think that comes from getting older. You realize the responsibility actually does lie on your own shoulders. You look at the world, you want it to change, and you suddenly realize there’s nothing you can do to change it, except perhaps change yourself. And that’s the only option available to you, ’cause otherwise you’re just beating your head up against a bloody wall.

Baltin: What do you hope others take from this show in terms of being more understanding and compassionate?

Manson: I think you just have to be willing to have a conversation with whomever you may know that may be struggling. And so many people suffer silently and often it can just be a willingness to actually ask, “How are you doing?” And be willing to sit in the answer that you perhaps weren’t hoping for, to be willing to sit in a difficult conversation. To me, that’s sort of the purpose of what we’re trying to do next week, is just to encourage dialogue and conversation and comfort. We live in a very hard society currently with this very little comfort. Everyone is so busy trying to make things happen for themselves, accrue wealth. We’ve forgotten like I said, the tenderness I guess of being human and being in nature and being around animals and living a like a assertive, a softer existence where we don’t all have to be super successful, super famous, super rich, that you can have an amazing life on very simple terms most of the time.

Baltin: The internet is both the best and the worst thing that ever happened to the world. Because everybody has this idea that everybody is supposed to be famous. No, not everybody is supposed to be famous or special.

Manson: Yeah, I agree. Nobody is any more special than anybody else. Even those who have phenomenal talent, they are still at the end of the day, regular people. They just might be doing some extraordinary things, but they will end up the same as everybody else. We all end up the same, and our lives are as equally important as that of the next person. I really, really strongly believe that. And I’m very fed up of all this.” I’m so special. God chose me.” No, God didn’t choose you. You just got f**king lucky kid.

Baltin: What can we do about it?

Manson: We’re encouraged to act that way. I don’t blame the individual. I blame the society we’re currently living in. We really have forgotten what’s so wonderful and spectacular about the world that we’re living and the planet, that we’re blessed to be on. I think we all just need to slow down a little, take a breath, step outside, watch the winds, move through the trees, have a cup of coffee, pet the dog, I don’t know, read a newspaper in the sunshine. Simple s**t is generally speaking a wiser way of living than running yourself ragged trying to like run up a ladder.

Baltin: What’s happening musically?

Manson: We are about to go back into the studio actually after this gig, which will be our last show of 2022. We’re gonna go in and have a week writing session. For records. So it will be our second record for BMG and we’re again f**king extraordinarily lucky to be at this point in our career. We’re almost 30 years in, to get the opportunity to make music together. It’s really kind of obscenely fantastic. [laughter] So that’s our plan. And of course we’re just about to release an anthology of three decades of working together, which is mind blowing, just absolutely mind blowing. ‘Cause I still feel like I’m fresh off the boat from Scotland, but you know, no, I’ve been here for 30 years, and what a lucky bitch.