For Shirley Manson, the ’90s was a time of excitement, newness, opportunity, and relentless work. She auditioned for Garbage in 1994 after spending 10 years slogging away in indie bands in her home country of Scotland. She’d infamously never written a song on her own, but that fact quickly changed with the band’s self-titled 1995 album and its 1998 follow up, Version 2.0, both which went platinum, catapulting the band—Butch Vig, Steve Marker, Duke Erikson, and Manson—into the stratosphere. Garbage became one of the premiere bands of the ’90s. But it didn’t start out that way.
“One of the standout moments for me was going to see R.E.M. play in Chicago,” says Manson. “Butch and I had travelled down from Madison] to see the show. We met some of the members of R.E.M. and I was like, ‘Holy shit, I’ve crossed over to the other side, the side that seems so untouchable.’ Then we got back in the car to drive back to Madison and we switched on the radio, and they were playing ‘Vow’ by Garbage. That was the beginning of the ’90s for me.”
