The Art Of Garbage

The Art Of Garbage

An Interview with Steve Marker of Garbage

by Sarah Watson

It seems like such a long time since we first heardof Garbage, way back in 1995. Truthfully, I was not a huge fan of the self-titled debutalbum when it hit its peak. I think that it was mainly because of the degree it wasoverplayed on the visual / audio media. I do have fond memories of it though; I had afriend who was a fan of the band and who just so happened to have fiery red hair. She willeternally remind me of Garbage front woman, Shirley Manson. Now doesn’t it feel goodto say, "front woman" for once? Who cares how the band got together orany other thing like that, as long as they’re together now and are making their musicbetter then ever. (I’m certain the recent album, Version 2.0 far exceeds thelast). Frankly, it’s nice to have a band with a strong woman in the front. Her skirtsare short, she wears too much eyeliner and she’s intelligent; she can kick the crapout of any "girl bands" any day. But I must admit, even though it’s greatto have such a striking female in the front, we must not forget the men that create themusic and who tend to stand behind. Besides Shirley, there are Duke Erikson, Butch Vig andSteve Marker, three musician/producer types from Wisconsin. Butch is probably the mostfamous, known for producing albums for such bands as Sonic Youth and Smashing Pumpkins.

I myself was able to speak to the very charmingSteve Marker. I was not to interested in talking to him about how the band met or how therecording process goes because I’ve been far more infatuated with their music / videocombination than your basic bio information. I’m really one for a band that takes thetime to make a great video now and then and design their album sleeves with love andinnovation. But don’t get me wrong, these traits in no way ever make up for the musicportion of being a brilliant band. You still have to sound good. It’s just notparticularly lovely when Joe Camera Man gets out the "gun" and shoots threeminutes of dizzy blur that could make even grandfather’s home videos look steady. Orwhen they’re just so plain that they’re dull. 99 percent of MTV’s airedvideos are neither classy nor avant-garde (you have to give Marilyn Manson credit there).Sadly, at MTV’s latest video awards, the musicians with the best directors [Radiohead with Jonathan Glazer and Garbage with Andrea Giacobbe] did not win, and Madonna provedthat schizophrenic convulsions are considered the best of the year a multitude of times.Interesting nonetheless.

As far as Garbage goes, their videos have alwaysstood out against the rest of MTV’s blur, and especially when they released the videofor the song "Push It" from their current album. "Push It," which wasdirected by Parisian photographer Andrea Giacobbe, is a crazy mix of oddball characters,infra-red looking film and lots of production editing to give it a very surreal look. Thisvideo, like the rest of Andrea’s work, proved astounding to me, and so before I cancarry on to my discussion with Steve Marker it helps to know who Andrea Giacobbe is. Hiswork is becoming not as difficult to find anymore since he’s just starting to getmore recognition for his dreamlike and almost sinister portraits. Just keep that in mind.

To be able to talk to someone else who recognizessome of the better directors in the world and has even chosen them to work with was quitea treat. Below, I talk to Steve Marker (Very casual. I still don’t really considermyself a "journalist.") about Garbage’s art and a little bit about visitingJapan. Don’t forget to check them out in Davis on September 24, since it promises tobe a pretty good show. Also here’s an interesting tidbit that Steve mentioned,"We’re actually looking forward to coming to Davis because Shirley’s Dadwent to school there for a year or something when he was a kid." I’m sure youdidn’t know that...

So how’s your touring going?

We’ve had a good year so far. We’ve beenin Europe all summer and basically, what were doing now is, we’re holed up here inDenver rehearsing for the United States tour that starts this Thursday (9/17). So wereally haven’t played here in the States for a while, so we’ll find out in a fewdays how it’s going. Up till now it’s been going really well.

How many dates are you doing in the States?

Really a lot. Something like fifty. Were going up‘till the end of the year basically. Through the next few months we will do as manydates as we can possibly handle all over the country.

Yeah, my friend is really surprised and ecstatic tosee you because he’s from Fresno and it just seemed funny to him that you were goingto play such small towns. A lot of people are excited about that.

That’s cool. It’s important to not just goto the four big cities in the States. A lot of times the most fun for us and the mostenthusiastic audiences are not in LA or New York. A lot of times when you go to LA or NewYork it’s all music critics and record company people and that sort of thing. Thenyou get outside those big places and you get the true people who want to see the band, thereal music fans. A lot of times it’s a better show.

Speaking of shows, I was going to ask you about TheFuji Rock Festival in Japan. How did you like that? I was actually there the same weekendas that but by the time I found out I was going to Tokyo, the show was sold out.

So you were in Tokyo but you did not go to the show?It was really exciting. We had been over there once before and played about four dates inJapan. No one really knew who we were at the time. It was first album and we played reallysmall places. It was fun but it was really cool to go back and the records done muchbetter this time. All of a sudden there’s all these kids hanging out at the hotel andall this hubbub. It’s really exciting to reach an audience like that—one thatyou didn’t expect. It’s really a thrill. The show was great. It was a hugeamount of people in this immense landfill by the water of Tokyo Bay. Unfortunately it wasabout 500 degrees out, blazing sun. I could not believe how hot it was.

Oh, and the humidity is so bad.

Yeah. Especially for us having a singer who’sfrom Scotland and not used to being in the bright sunshine. I think we went on atbasically the height when the sun was the hottest, like early afternoon. Usually they facethe stage away from where the sun’s coming from but this time it was in right full ofsun. We thought we were going to die basically.

Were you able spend any time in Tokyo at all?

Yeah, we were there for, like, a week. We did a lotof press stuff and got to walk around a little bit. It’s like an amusement park justto walk around. I never really got a good sense of the geography really well. But I sawthe Rupungi and Shibuya districts.

Shibuya’s crazy! There so many surf kids withbleached out hair. Wait, where’s the surf?

(Laughs) Were all sort of fans of Japanese food.It’s kind of a treat. Especially Shirley, who is a sushi addict. It’s ideal forher.

Actually, to be frank, the reason why I reallywanted to do this interview is because your artistic movements as a band. You know how MTVis consistently playing really, really bad videos? Well Garbage seems to put out some ofthe more brilliant videos when it comes to artistic taste?How articulate are you when it comes to makingvideos? How much of the final project can you see, before you even hire a director?

I guess our attitude is that it would be sort oflimiting. We choose these directors because we really respect other stuff they’vedone. It would almost be kind of insulting to get too involved with sort of directingthem. It’s more fun for us to let them go nuts and see what happens. We chose thembecause we like other videos that they’ve made or just like them as people. Usuallyyou pick a couple of people who you think might be good for a song to do a video and havethem come up with some ideas. You go over those and try to decide if that’s what youwant to do. After we sort of agree on that, we tend to let them do their own thing andtell us what to do. It’s interesting to see someone else’s visual take on whatwe do sound-wise, and sort of reinterpret what the song is about. Like the "PushIt" video—that song means certain things to us, but it’s not just onething. And then the guy who made that video, Andrea Giacobbe, and the weird stuff that hecame up with that he thought it was about was pretty amazing. It’s not necessarilywhat we had in mind but it’s as valid as anything else.

Yeah, that’s what I was going to ask you about.I was really excited that he [Andrea Giacobbe] directed that video since I’m a fan ofhis work such as in The Face and Spin magazines and whatnot. How did it comeabout that you worked with him, and what was it like?

Well we’d seen his stuff in The Facelike you said, so we kind of knew his name. I think "Push It" was only thesecond or third videos he’s ever done. The one that we saw that we really liked wasby Death In Vegas, "Dirt" was the song. I just thought it was a really coollooking video. It was cool imagery, sort of surreal and artistic as you said, in a goodway. We all kind of agreed that it would probably work well for that song. Maybe hisapproach might not necessarily work for every one of our songs, but for that one it seemedappropriate. Like I said, we had him see if he could come up with any ideas and the stuffhe sent was... If you could imagine that video in the form of a two page written synopsisit was pretty astounding. "Then the nuns and the children with light bulbs for headswill emerge from the van..." Oh my God this guy is nuts! We like people who are nutsso that’s what attracted us to him I think.

He’s very innovative.

Yeah, I think he’s going to do some really goodstuff in the future. He’s really young, in his mid-twenties or something.

I’m quite impressed with his work and he’sranked as one of my favorite photographers at the moment.

That’s cool. You don’t talk to that manypeople—or at least we don’t—who know about all those people or have heardthe names at least. That’s kind of interesting.

What was it like seeing the initial idea of thevideo compared to the final cut? I know Andrea uses a lot of computer manipulation andcreates multilayered productions.

In the treatment it was really hard to figure outwhat he was getting at. We really had to throw our cross in the wind and you just have totrust somebody that they have a vision and they can get it done. So then we showup—it’s like this deserted supermarket with all these crazy six- toseven-foot-tall nuns walking around, and these animal trainers with chickens and frogs andstuff that they’re putting on the shelves. It was a pretty weird scene and you knowthe girls with their heads glued together... It’s pretty amazing, you have no ideawhat it’s going to look like or how it’s all going to go together and you justhave to trust the guy. The first cut of it was without all the treatment. I think he goesthrough and hand treats each frame like scratching on the film, and I suppose some of itis computer as well. Although we were not even really there for that. I think he went backto Paris and did that actually. He was just sending us cuts of it as it goes on. The firstone had none of that [treatment] and it was just all really plain looking. It waskinda’ weird ‘cause you have to imagine what it’s going to look like and hewas saying, "Don’t judge it just on what it looks like here ‘causeit’s going to look completely different when it’s done." He was right.It’s all a matter of trust and this guy’s crazy, but he knows how do it.

Who was the director for "I Think I’mParanoid"?

That was another photographer, Matthew Ralston.He’s actually doing a lot of videos now but I think his main thing was fashionphotography type stuff. We wanted something that would be completely different from the"Push It" video, which was very complicated and had all the symbolism andvisually, there was a lot going on. We wanted to make something that was really simple. Wefinished another video for the song "Special," which we just did in London abouttwo weeks ago. We have not seen the final results for that yet but it’s prettydifferent as well. It’s got a lot of animation and the band members are flying aroundin space in Star Wars fighter plane type things. It’s pretty strange.

Who did you get to direct that?

We finally got to work with a woman named DawnChadforth. We saw this one video that was playing over in Europe a lot this summer forthis band called the All Seeing Eye. It’s sort of this weird techno dance song thingand it was just really simple, her photographing a party sort of thing. We thought herediting was really, really good and for some reason, it seemed like she had a really goodfeel for that song. We liked the treatment she gave us [her ideal] because it was sodifferent from anything else we’ve done. We’ll see, I dunno what it’s goingto look like yet. That’s another example of an awful lot of computer work done afterour bit is done, so it’s hard to say what it looks like. Well it better look good; weput a lot of work into it!

That’s pretty much what I want to get into thewhole photography, video, media arts kind of thing.

It’s really, really fun. It’s not the mainthing we do, it’s kind of weird cause were mainly a band, but it’s somethingwere all interested in. Butch and I went to film studies at the University of Wisconsinand it’s kind of how we met so we all sort of have this visual interest. Youdon’t normally go get to spend a whole bunch of somebody else’s money makinglittle movies like that, so it’s a good perk for being in a band I guess. We get toplay around in the video and things a little bit.

What were your studying and producing in filmschool?

Mainly cutting class. Just basic stuff. This was afew years ago and it was mostly history and film criticism stuff more than the actualgoing out and filming stuff. Butch did some of that. We both made some really awfulexperimental films—you know, very arty and pretentious—that I’m sure wethought were really wonderful at the time. If anybody saw them now I’d just diebecause they were just really silly stuff. It was good training. Even though it was notwhat we ended up doing after school, it is really how we met, so in someway it led toGarbage.

Has your education in film effected the bandschoices as far as video direction?

I think so. The education, as well as enjoying filmin general. Everybody in the band is a big fan of movies. Some bands look at videos justas an advertisement for their record and they hate doing it, they don’t understandwhy they have to do it, they don’t want to, they don’t like it and it’sjust a drag. I definitely know people like that—"We’re just musicians andyou shouldn’t have to make videos." It’s too much fun for us to take thatsort of attitude. We don’t just let someone tell us what to do in anything, butespecially in that. We’re very involved in picking the directors and working withthem on what it will look like and what we’re going to have to do in it. Maybe itlet’s us take a little more control on what goes on. Maybe they’re not allsuccessful but some of them, we’re pretty proud of. They’re not so experimentalthat they are necessarily the Citizen Cane of videos or anything, but all of themall have something about them that’s a little bit different than what other peopleare doing and that’s important. We don’t want to do in anything to be totalcommercial whores. We just want to be partial commercial whores.

What is the art and culture scene in Wisconsin like?I’m kind of from a timbucktu-ish town and I find artistically, I want to be closer toSan Francisco. What is it like for you guys?

It’s not too bad. It’s not like a culturalwasteland or anything. It’s a huge university so anytime you have a big stateuniversity like that you have a lot of, obviously, students [laughs].

That’s a culture unto it’s self.

Yeah, and so it stays young that way. It was a bigstudent protest place in the 60s and early 70s. There’s a pretty good music scene butmost of it doesn’t really make it to the national scene; that doesn’t meanit’s any less good. Butch and I have a small recording studio there and we work witha lot of local punk bands. That’s kind of how we grew up was working with local punkbands who had, like, fifty dollars to make and album with. That’s how we learned torecord, and we still try to stay in touch with that. I think that we actually enjoy beingaway from New York and LA and all the pressures of the business that you find there;it’s really fun just to visit there. When we made this album we just locked ourselvesin the studio for months at a time and didn’t really come out very much. I thinkthat’s really good for our music because we were really working very hard on it andconcentrating and trying lots of different things, and there are really no distractions‘cause there really isn’t much else to do. So in some ways it’s good. Youdon’t really have to be in New York or San Francisco to make a good record or a goodvideo. I think people, especially on the coasts, sort of have a prejudice attitude towardMid-Western towns or smaller places, and that really pisses me off quite a bit because Ithink it’s really ignorant.

Even living here in the North valley of Californiawe get that as well.

How far away are you from San Francisco, about 2hours?

Yeah about that. Were actually north of Davis (whereyou’re playing), in Chico. It’s a University town as well, surrounded byagriculture. There’s a lot of fraternity and sorority stuff, but we do have a smallart scene and a decent music scene. It’s all a matter of taking what you’ve gotand making something of it.

Yeah, I have lots of friends who are painters orsculptors or photographers or something like that. And a lot of them are sort of hidingout in the Mid-West in a smaller town and they’re really focused on their own thing.They don’t really care what anybody else thinks and they do really great stuff.They’re not necessarily in People magazine every week or going to dinnerparties like you see artists do in New York, but they’re doing fantastic stuff.There’s definitely something to be said about isolation I think.

Garbage will be appearing on campus at U.C.Davis’ Freeborn Hall this Thursday, September 24 at 7:30 PM.

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