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Garbage have spoken out on progress on their upcoming new album - telling Gigwise that the album will be 'romantic', but 'free' in its sound.
Speaking to Gigwise as part of our Garbage takeover, frontwoman Shirley Manson said that the mood of the long-awaited follow-up to 2012's Not Your Kind Of People was somewhat of an adventure and departure for the band.
"In some ways the new record, which is yet to be finished, it's sort of a romantic record in a way," Manson told Gigwise. "I don't feel like any of our records yet are 'romantic' - I don't really think in terms of romance, ever, but this is probably the closest I'll get to being romantic."
When quizzed on the potential sound of the record, Manson replied: "Until things are mixed, you never really know where it's going to go, sonically. I'm not really sure that I'm in the right place to answer that necessarily. I think we got a little bit fed up as a band of 'the sound' becoming the big talking point. It became a cage for us in some ways, because we didn't want to end up playing the game of 'chasing that sound' every new record. I think we felt like that would seem inauthentic, for lack of a better term.
"It felt phoney for who we were as a band - to spend our time worrying about being pioneers or this or that. We wanted to just be free and not have to worry about 'sound' so much. Obviously because Butch is a producer, that's a big part of his identity. That's a much larger concern for him than it is for me."
Watch Shirley Manson talking to Gigwise about Garbage's fans below
Now, on what will be six albums into their career, what keeps pushing Garbage and do they have anything left to prove?
"I don't feel that we have anything to prove to the world - just ourselves. The best moments are when we come up with an idea as a band, that's the driver behind doing this. One thing that I really, really love about this band, is that no one is very cynical or jaded. I enjoy that. We pay no mind to what's new or what's hip - everybody really, really just wants to write a great song. That's really all that we're concerned with at this point, it's really simplistic."
Speaking of why the LP was taking so long, Manson laughed that there was 'something mentally wrong' with the band in their working process.
"We've been working on this record for over 18 months, and all of my friends who are all very accomplished musicians, like Brody Dalle are like 'what the fuck is wrong with you? Why are you still working on this record?'" she said. "But there's something mentally wrong with us - we are incredibly slow. I can't even articulate why this is the case, but there's something very wrong with Garbage and our ability to get things finished and accomplished. It's a miracle that we've had the career that we've had."
The 20th anniversary re-release of Garbage's self-tited debut is out now.
Check out the rest of our Garbage takeover of Gigwise below
We talk to Manson about the impact of their debut, culture in the 90s and how she 'hated' fame
Watch Manson talk us through what went in to each and every track on this classic record
Watch Manson discuss how she's 'not so tough' and her deep connection with fans
Manson tells us about her favourite new + classic bands, as well as 'the power' of female artists
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