11/17/1984 Record Mirror
Fangs, Film And Fat Ties
Siouxsie a Weathergirls fan?
Siouxsie a celluloid surf punk?
Siouxsie a corpse slitter?
Surely not? Eleanor Levy begs to differ.
Fatter, shorter, spottier - when you meet pop legends 'in the flesh', there's
usually SOMETHING different about them. Personal contact equals shattered
illusions on a good many occasions.
Siouxsie, on the other hand, looks exactly like you imagine she will. Swathed
in black lace, hair gleaming like she's been giving it a good rub down with
Pledge, Siouxsie plays her part as the 'black lady' with teeth-grinding relish.
As she remarks pleasantly:
"People always pay more attention to the Wicked Queen than Snow White. I
certainly find it a lot easier than being a simpering, cow-eyed little thing."
1984 has been a funny year for Siouxsie And The Banshees. An album 'Hyaena',
an EP 'The Thorn' made up of reworkings of old Banshee favourites... but no top
40 hit to follow the success of 'Dear Prudence'. Add the departure of Robert
Smith - currently replaced by John 'Valentine' Carruthers of Clock DVA - and
it's not been an uneventful year.
But first, the decision to leave his Banshees days behind him by the man
Siouxsie described in her last RM interview as "fat boy".
GOODBYE MR. SMITH
"It's really funny," she says. "when I called Robert that there were lots of
letters saying 'how dare that Siouxsie! Who DOES she think she is?'. He calls
me... well, we all have unflattering names we use. We're just cartoon
characters when we're all together. But it's all nasty fun really. When I'm
being nice I tend to bear-hug people, so I don't know which is worse.
"I'll tell you what happened with Robert. He kept being pissed off with
things because he didn't have time to spend on them - but it was his choice to
work with two things at one time. We knew it was ludicrous and I'm sure he did
too, but he wore himself out.
"There was nothing you could say," (taking on warm, friendly voice of your
local 'concerned' social worker). "We'd go 'Robert, see sense. Now it's either
one thing or the other' and he'd say 'I can do both, honest, honest, I can do
10 things at a time'. He paid for it in the end... didn't spend enough time on
any one thing.
"Actually, he turned up at Budgie's birthday party out of the blue, so no,
there's no antagonism... and no, he wasn't wearing his make up. He was
incognito I think."
WHERE HAVE ALL THE BIG STARS GONE?
"There are a lot of stars who are only stars because they've read they are,
whereas I think a lot of 'stars' didn't have to read about it in the press. The
Weather Girls are stars. I saw them ages ago when they were the backing
singers for Sylvester. They were called Two Tons Of Fun or something and were
brilliant.
"They were just BIG, with barrels of voice. Amazing. You'd never go up to
them and say 'Oh shut up you fat old cow'. They draw attention to it. No one
would have a dig at them for being big because they're saying it with arrows."
SIOUXSIE GOES TO THE MOVIES
"We've been offered films but they're so unimaginative - the pressures on a
rock star when she's driven TOO far. We got offered 'The Howling II', which at
first made us all think 'urghh' because it was so typecast and we'd just
released an album called 'Hyaena', but we were offered the music to do, and
that sounded good because no matter how much it's 'oh, bloody horror films
again', I still find a charm in Vincent Price and I'll always love those films
in a comic way.
"Trouble is, these things are offered and then 'A Deal' has to be struck.
Part of this deal was that we appeared in the film - as surf punks. And it all
took place in a Los Angeles bar. Oh dear."
BLOOD AND GUTS AND THINGS
"I had ambitions to be other things once. But they're all professions that
try to put you off by having to do a lot of studying - like a pathologist.
Pathology reports at trials are fascinating.
"You know, there's a victim and it could be ANYONE, so they find out who it
is by the fact that it was a left-hand upward stroke that caused the final
blow, or one of the murderer's hairs is on the body or the person's jacket. Or
there's a spot of blood and it's not the dead person's!
"I wanted to be a make-up artist too - the mucky type. It's quite scientific
really, especially the effects they employ in the films, like hanging eyeballs.
Fascinating. I could spend my life making sores."
