Siouxsie & the Banshees Totally Explained

Everything about Siouxsie And The Banshees totally explained

Siouxsie & the Banshees were a British rock band that formed in 1976. Led by the singer Siouxsie Sioux and the bassist Steven Severin, the band's only constant members, the Banshees formed at the advent of the British punk scene and soon became one of the major bands in the post-punk era. Their music influenced a wide range of very diverse bands over the years amongst them The Cure, Massive Attack, Garbage and more recently LCD Soundsystem. The group released a total of eleven studio albums from 1978 to 1995.

Formation

The band was originally formed to appear at the first UK based "international punk rock festival". This show was organised by Malcolm McLaren at the 100 Club on London's Oxford Street on September 20, 1976. Other bands on the bill for the night's performances included Subway Sect, The Clash and the Sex Pistols.
"Bromley Contingent" members Siouxsie Sioux and Steven Severin wanted to be exemplars of a fleeting punk purism. With two borrowed musicians, Marco Pirroni on guitars and John Simon Ritchie, later famous as Sid Vicious of the Sex Pistols, on drums, they got up on stage by taking the punk ethos to its literal conclusion: creating a conflict with the audience. Their set consisted of a lengthy and chaotic improvisation based around "The Lord's Prayer", which also included lines from songs such as "Deutschland, Deutschland über alles", "Knockin' on Heaven's Door", "Smoke on the Water" and "Twist and Shout". The number lasted twenty minutes and the band split up at the end of the night.

History

By February 1977, Siouxsie and Steven Severin, the remaining Banshees recruited the drummer Kenny Morris and the guitarist Pete Fenton to their line up, which was by now gigging regularly and had attracted a solid fan base. Fenton was subsequently replaced in July by John McKay. It wasn't until June 1978 that they obtained a record contract with Polydor Records, whereupon they released their first single "Hong Kong Garden" (which reached the top ten in the UK), followed in November by their first album. Nick Kent wrote in the NME about The Scream: "the band sounds like some unique hybrid of the Velvet Underground mated with much of the ingenuity of Tago Mago-era Can, if any parallel can be drawn." At the end of the article, he added this remark : "Certainly, the traditional three-piece sound has never been used in a more unorthodox fashion with such stunning results." The band had managed in one year to forge a particularly new style. "Pure", one of the most original songs of the record, definitely placed them as pioneer of the post-punk movement. Nick Kent pointed it in the following way : "Pure takes the sound to its ultimate juncture, leaving spaces that say as much as the notes being played."
   Their second album, Join Hands, was released in 1979, and included a version of "The Lord's Prayer". Two days into a tour promoting this album, Morris and McKay quit the band. They were replaced by Robert Smith (whose band The Cure were supporting the Banshees during the tour) on guitar and Budgie (real name Peter Clarke, formerly of The Slits) on drums. After the completion of the tour, Budgie stayed on as the Banshees' permanent drummer, whilst John McGeoch, formerly of Magazine, joined as guitarist.
   McGeoch played on the albums Kaleidoscope including the singles "Happy house" and "Christine" singles and in 1981 on Juju. His third album with the band was 1982's A Kiss in the Dreamhouse. The British press greeted it enthusiastically.
   Richard Cook in the NME finished his review with this sentence: "I promise. This music will take your breath away." But the guitarist, worn by the recording process of these songs, was hospitalized on his return to a promotional trip to Madrid. He was replaced on tour by Robert Smith, who became a full-time member between 1982 and 1984. Smith contributed to the live album and DVD Nocturne and to the studio album Hyæna as co-composer, but quit early the following year to concentrate on The Cure.
   Ex-Clock DVA guitarist John Valentine Carruthers replaced Smith. The Banshees then reworked four numbers of their repertoire with a section of strings for The Thorn EP. The NME praised the project at its release : "The power of a classical orchestra is the perfect foil for the band's grindingly insistent sounds".
   1986 saw the release of Tinderbox and the single "Cities in Dust", followed in 1987 by the covers album Through the Looking Glass. Carruthers relinquished his job as guitarist, emphasising a point once made by the band : "We’re like ‘The Picture Of Dorian Gray’. We continue unblemished while the guitarists we discard bear all the scars."
   Following a lengthy break, the rest of the band recruited McCarrick and the ex-Specimen guitarist Jon Klein and recorded Peepshow in 1988. The first single "Peek-a-Boo" used harsh hip-hop sounds over a pop texture : it was their first real breakthrough in the United States. After the most impressive tour of their career, the band stopped for a while and the second band of Siouxsie & Budgie The Creatures reappeared with another album, the critically acclaimed Boomerang. One of the most languorous songs from this record, "Killing Time", was covered live by Jeff Buckley a few years later .
   In 1991, the Banshees returned with the single "Kiss Them for Me", mixing Beatles strings over a dance rhythm. This single peaked in the U.S. singles charts at number 23, allowing them to reach a new audience. Melody Maker praised the last two studio albums Superstition and The Rapture. For their last tour in 1995, Klein left and was replaced by ex-Psychedelic Furs guitarist Knox Chandler. Morrissey recorded a duet with Siouxsie called "Interlude" during that period of time : this one-off single was published under the banner of the two artists names.
   The band finally called it a day in 1996 but Siouxsie & Budgie carried on recording as The Creatures. They released Anima Animus, an album that PJ Harvey selected in her top ten favourite albums of year 1999.
   In 2002, Sioux, Steve Severin and Budgie reunited briefly for the Seven Year Itch tour, which spawned the 2003 Seven Year Itch live album and DVD. The year after was published the long awaited Downside Up boxset which reunited all their B-sides and the out-of print "The Thorn" EP.
   The group's 1978 single "Hong Kong Garden" featured on the soundtrack of Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette : for that occasion, the introduction of the song was re-recorded with an orchestra to suit with the ballroom's sequence in the middle of the film.
   In July 2006, it was announced that Sioux had signed a record deal as a solo artist with Universal. Her first solo album MantaRay was released on September 10, 2007 in the UK and in the U.S. on October 2.

Influence on other artists

The band in their twenty years influenced many musicians of all kinds and genres.
They had a strong impact on trip hop acts :

Tricky covered "Tattoo" to open his second solo album Nearly God. The original version of "Tattoo" was recorded in 1983 and is available on the Banshees Downside Up box set.
Massive Attack covered and sampled "Metal Postcard" on their song "Superpredators (Metal Postcard)" for the movie soundtrack The Jackal

The band also inspired the following artists :

Lcd Soundsystem covered "Slowdive" for a compilation in 2006

Jeff Buckley covered live a Siouxsie / The Creatures song called "Killing Time", originally composed in 1989 on the album Boomerang.

The Cure leader Robert Smith declared in 2003 in Mark Paytress's Siouxsie biography : "Siouxsie and The Banshees and Wire were the two bands I really admired. They meant something." He also pinpointed what the Join Hands tour brought him musically. "On stage that first night with the Banshees, I was Blown away by how powerful I felt playing that kind of music. It was so different to what we were doing with The Cure. Before that, I'd wanted us to be like The Buzzcocks or Elvis Costello, the punk Beatles. Being a Banshee really changed my attitude to what I was doing." He also talked about the band to Steve Sutherland in 1985 to describe "The Head On the Door" : "It reminds me of the Kaleidoscope album, the idea of having lots of different sounding things, different colors."

Morrissey stated this in 1994 : "None of them are as good as Siouxsie and the Banshees at full pelt. That's not dusty nostalgia, that's fact."

Johnny Marr from The Smiths stated on the BBC radio 2 in february'2008 that he rated McGeoch very highly for his work on "Spellbound".

Shirley Manson of Garbage wrote in the foreword of the official Siouxsie and the Banshees biography in 2003 by Mojo magazine journalist Mark Paytress : "I learned how to sing listening to The Scream and Kaleidoscope." She also stated that her all-time favourite singers are Siouxsie and Frank Sinatra. Manson also told the Melody Maker that she's a special liking for the first Siouxsie album.

Radiohead bassist Colin Greenwood claims that while recording their song "There There", producer Nigel Godrich tried to get guitarist Jonny Greenwood to sound like the Banshees' John McGeoch..

PJ Harvey selected in her top ten favourite albums of year 1999. One of them was "Anima Animus" by The Creatures aka Siouxsie.

Dave Navarro of Jane's Addiction also makes a parallel between his band and the Banshees in Siouxsie's official biography: "There are so many similar threads : melody, use of sound, attitude, sex-appeal. I always saw Jane's Addiction as the masculine Siouxsie & the Banshees."

The Beta Band sampled "Painted Bird" on their track "Liquid Bird" from the Heroes to Zeros album

U2 are also fans of the band and The Edge presented an award to Siouxsie at a Mojo ceremony in 2005.

Red Hot Chili Peppers covered "Christine" live at the V2001 festival. In 2002, their guitarist John Frusciante stated in an article featured on Total Guitar Magazine "He’s just a great guitar player, full stop. I wanted to listen to these people who weren’t just about technique but more about textures. People like John McGeoch. People who used good chords." also declaring that John McGeoch was an influence for the sound on the Red Hot Chili Peppers album By The Way.

The Mars Volta covered "Pulled to Bits" for the 'Wax Simulacra' single.

Arcade Fire singer Win Butler suggested to the band Devotchka to cover the 1988 Siouxsie song : "The Last Beat Of My Heart".

Ana Matronic of Scissor Sisters said at the 2005 Brit Awards that she wouldn't be a singer without Siouxsie. She also stated in Metro that the Banshees are her all time favourite band.

Musical Genre

Shirley Manson of Garbage explained how she considered the band musically. Shirley Manson, excerpt of the Foreword of the Siouxsie & The Banshees biography by Mark Paytress (2003)

Discography

For a complete list of albums, EPs, singles and videos see Siouxsie & the Banshees discography.

Studio albums

The Scream (1978)

Join Hands (1979)

Kaleidoscope (1980)

Juju (1981)

A Kiss in the Dreamhouse (1982)

Hyæna (1984)

Tinderbox (1986)

Through the Looking Glass (1987)

Peepshow (1988)

Superstition (1991)

The Rapture (1995)Further Information

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