HEART OF DARKNESS
Imperious, confrontational and bewitching, Siouxsie And The Banshees started out as the ultimate manifestation of punk’s DIY spirit, ultimately spearheading the movement into its subsequent post-punk phase. Fearlessly experimental but boasting an uncanny pop sensibility, their 20-year reign would see them invent goth while regularly enlivening the charts with edgy, classic singles.
Perhaps the most imitated British female singer of all time, Siouxsie was the UK’s Debbie Harry, using success to fulfil unpredictable visions, confuse copyists and make a stand for strong women in the music business. The massively influential records the Banshees released between 1978 and 1995 stand among the most timelessly evocative, provocative and compelling of their era, with songs tackling schizophrenia, childhood trauma, fatal compulsion, lacerated love and serial killers. I accompanied many bands through this pivotal time. None of them matched the Banshees in the uncompromising, sometimes shocking singlemindedness of their mission.
For Susan Ballion of Chislehurst, the band marked the culmination of her escape from suburban normality. She had an isolated childhood, exacerbated by an alcoholic father and sexual assault at nine, her internal world fuelled by horror stories and older siblings’ Otis Redding records. Transformed and validated when Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust album came along in 1972, Susan got her first taste of night life when accompanying her go-go dancer sister to work, flaunting provocative fetish images – self-described “armour” – as she found sanctuary in London’s underground gay clubs. She met like-minded misfit Steven Bailey from Bromley at a Roxy Music gig, and the pair started going to early Sex Pistols shows with fellow local malcontents, who were dubbed ‘the Bromley contingent’ by press.
“We just like to get people’s backs up. We’ve got a morbid sense of humour.” Siouxsie Sioux
hile Suzie (as she was initially billed) introduced the Pistols crowd to multi-sexual Soho niterie Louise’s, her and Bailey (soon to be renamed Severin) embraced the scene around Malcolm McLaren’s SEX shop,, incorporating , and for 20 minutes before getting bored and stopping. Soon after, Suzie ignited the Pistols’ outburst on Bill Grundy’s infamous TV debacle when fielding unwanted advances from the host.
