Garbage Reflect On 8th Studio Album ‘Let All That We Imagine Be The Light’
Influential alternative rock band Garbage have today released their highly anticipated and critically acclaimed new album, Let All That We Imagine Be The Light. The new album follows the release of tracks There’s No Future In Optimism, which is currently playlisted on BBC 6 Music and Get Out My Face AKA Bad Kitty.
Let All That We Imagine Be The Light is the follow-up to 2021’s critically acclaimed No Gods No Masters, which charted at Number 5 on the UK album charts and led to some of the best reviews of Garbage’s career. Let All That We Imagine Be The Light was recorded at Red Razor Sounds in Los Angeles, Butch Vig’s studio Grunge Is Dead, and Shirley Manson’s bedroom. The record was produced by the band and longtime engineer Billy Bush.
The album is unmistakably Garbage and all the hallmarks and signatures for which they are known are present. Big angular guitars, precise, propulsive beats and cinematic soundscapes all lurk beneath Shirley Manson’s unmistakable voice, her lyrics bristling with attitude. This is the sound of a group at the peak of their creative powers – characteristically harnessing sonic juxtapositions and moods to create an album that thrums equally with both light and shade.
Garbage consists of all four original band members, Shirley Manson, Duke Erikson, Steve Marker and Butch Vig. Over the thirty years since their inception in 1995 they have sold over twenty million albums. Their unique sound, songwriting and electric live performances have inspired worldwide adoration, chart success and critical acclaim. They are considered one of the most influential bands of their generation. Butch Vig talks to Hi Fi Way about the album.
Congratulations on album number eight. On reflection, do they get any easier?
That’s a good question. I would say yes and no. As a band, we’ve been together for thirty years, and we still love writing together. We want to keep making music, especially since we know we’re at the end of our career, every gig, every tour, we don’t know how long it’ll last. But Garbage is a difficult beast. All four of us are producers, all opinionated, all songwriters, so it’s a process, but we’re still here after thirty years. later, we’re still here, so obviously we have some sort of rapport going that allows us to keep moving forward.
The challenges leading up to this album must make the final result even sweeter.
Yeah, we played a bunch of shows last summer, a tour in Europe and the UK. Some were big, like Wembley Arena, which sold out. But Shirley had hip surgery in early 2024, and the rehab on that was bad. Then we went on tour, but it really didn’t take, we played a show in Wembley and coming out of the hotel, Shirley was on crutches, in a wheelchair, having to take painkillers to get through the show. I have to say she was amazing in the shows, but we cancelled a bunch of tour dates later in the year of 2024 so she could go have a full hip replacement.
We realised that there’s no taking anything for granted. So, we’re very lucky that we’re still here. I’m psyched about the new record and we’re all really jazzed about it. We’re going to start a big North American tour in September and then we’re hoping to come to Australia and Japan and go back to Europe next year. Fingers crossed, we keep ramping it up.
Sounds great. Did you have a vision for what you wanted to do with this album, especially in terms of sound?
We wanted a record that reflects where we are as a band. I’m backtracking to No Gods No Masters, which was by far our most socio-political record we’ve made. A lot of that’s because of Shirley’s lyrics, but that record, we really started tailoring the music to fit Shirley’s vocals, and we did that on this album too.
The interesting thing is, Duke, Steve and I, in my home studio, we wrote a lot of the jams on the new record while Shirley was recovering from full hip replacement. We would send her these instrumentals and then she sang the vocals in her bed at home with a handheld mic and thinking, oh, this is just a scratch vocal that I’m just going to record and we’ll come back and do it later. But then we all fell in love with it and I realised now much like we did on this record. On No Gods No Masters, once Shirley sings, Duke, Steve and I change the music to fit her vocals, if that makes sense. We never record a track now where Shirley sings and that’s it. Once she sings, we go back and change the music to fit the mood of her vocal. I don’t know many bands that do that, but that’s how we have operated on the last two records, and we really did that a lot on this record. There’s actually a lot of of synths and sound is design on this record where we tried to make it more cinematic.
Do you think you’d have gotten the same result if Shirley had recorded with you in the studio?
It would’ve been different, but still good. We learned to work remotely during COVID like everyone else, and the technology makes it possible, but I prefer being in a room with my band mates. Instant feedback is the best thing when collaborating, especially as a producer. If Shirley had been in the studio, I think she’d have sung the songs differently.
Since she was recovering from surgery and recording alone at home, the songs feel more intimate and vulnerable. A lot of her vocals, like on The Day I Met God and Radical, were first takes, recorded with a handheld mic. That gave the album a sense of intimacy and immediacy that wouldn’t have been the same if we’d recorded together. It would have been great, but different.
It’s a really optimistic record. Was that a deliberate move away from the more political tone of the last album?
Yes, very conscious. Even the first single, No Future in Optimism, has a misleading title. It makes you think there’s no reason to hope, but the song is actually about taking charge of your life. If you sit there saying there’s no future in optimism, that’s one thing. But if you get up and do something, that’s something to build on.
Even though some songs have dystopian tones in their atmosphere, we wanted hope to come through.
Especially with the way the world is going, it seems to get crazier every week. Sometimes the only way to find optimism is to focus on small things, your band, your family, rather than worrying about the big picture. What’s the president doing? What are other countries doing? It’s overwhelming. If you just focus on what you can be a part of in your community, that’s where optimism starts.
Did the album start coming together quickly once you found your groove with Shirley recording vocals remotely, you guys working together in the studio?
Some of the songs were recorded here with Duke, Steve, and me. We had long day sessions, drinking a lot of wine or, when Duke felt like it, pulling out the tequila. We let the sessions flow, then the next morning, I’d edit a thirty-minute jam down to five or six minutes. We’d send it to Shirley, and she’d write lyrics almost immediately, sometimes by the next day. Since she was home recovering, she’d email us an MP3 with a song idea overnight.
It kept us energised. Garbage isn’t really a jam band, we play, we record, and sometimes we don’t know if it’s good or if it sucks. So we’d trim it down, send it to Shirley, and boom, she’d write lyrics right away. Then we’d take that foundation and expand it into a full Garbage song. The process was really inspiring.
There was talk about missing deadlines, did that create pressure within the band, or did you feel confident enough that it didn’t matter?
At this point, we don’t really care much about deadlines. They’re always there, sure, schedules, touring, and getting records done, but the recording process in Garbage is unique. From a producer’s perspective, I’ve seen a lot of bands go through writing and recording, but Garbage works differently. All four of us write. We record, Shirley sings, then we completely change the background. It’s like throwing paint at a wall, seeing what sticks and letting the drips create the final picture. Every song follows its own path, but the creative process in Garbage is fascinating. I love it.
Shirley said that when she listened to the album start to finish for the first time, she felt overwhelming gratitude. Did the rest of the band feel something similar?
For me, coming from more of a production and engineering mindset, my first listen is always filled with little things I want to change. Maybe the backing vocals could be louder, maybe I can’t hear the percussion fills well enough, maybe the bass is too boomy, there’s always something. In Garbage, every time we finish a record, it’s hard for me to let go. Usually, I don’t listen to the finished album for six months.
But this time, I’ve been playing it for people. I’ll have friends over, open a bottle of wine, and play a couple of tracks. They always end up wanting to hear more, and we go through the whole album. I crank the speakers to stun volume, let people sit back and experience it, then I step out of the room and listen from the hallway. It’s cool to see how other people react to what we’ve created.
Did you have just enough songs, or were there extras that didn’t make the final cut?
We had around twenty to twenty two songs, but they got distilled down quickly once Shirley sang. Sometimes we’d play her a track and she wouldn’t connect with it, or she’d sing but it wouldn’t lead anywhere. Everything in our process morphs around how Shirley grabs a track and sings on it.
You’ve produced some of the greatest albums of all time, are you even tougher on yourself now when deciding what makes the cut?
That’s a good question. I don’t know if I’m tougher, but I’m very cognisant of everything I’ve done in the past. Right before this interview I am working on mixing a new record for The Silversun Pickups which I produced. I’m cognisant of the choices that I make in the production that it can go this way or it can be more rock or it can be more spacey or whatever. I’m always like trying to make a decision that’s the smartest thing for the band, for the artist. But I’m also well aware that I have all these choices and I have a tendency to like certain things, the way drums sound, the way guitars sound, and I gravitate towards those. I have to trust myself that I think that’s a good thing that the way I like things to sound is a plus. So I have to follow my instincts and that goes not only as a producer, but also with Garbage, otherwise I wouldn’t be myself if I deliberately made choices that didn’t feel right to me, they might be cool choices, but the record wouldn’t sound to me like it needs to sound. So I trust my instincts.
Is the studio your happy place?
Uh, man, the studio is my happy place now. I love playing live. I like being, no, I love being on stage, but I’m really getting a hate touring because of the travel. I just, you know, you’re getting your butt dragged from point A to point B. Touring is like ninety percent of the time just traveling. You’re only on stage for a couple hours every night. The other twenty two hours you’re going from point A to point B and it’s a young man’s game, but I’m an old man but I’m still rocking!
Is the studio your happy place, or do you still love playing live just as much? Are there tour plans for Australia?
The studio is my happy place now. I love being on stage, but I hate touring because of the travel. You’re getting your butt dragged from point A to point B. Touring is ninety percent travel. You’re only on stage for a couple of hours a night. The other twenty two hours you’re going from point A to point B. It’s a young person’s game, but I’m an old man, and I’m still rocking.
Plans for Australia are in the works, likely late November to early December. Nothing confirmed yet, but it’s what we’re aiming for. The North American tour starts at the end of August and wraps up around October 20. After that, we’re hoping to head to Australia. It’s been too long, and we know we have a killer fan base there. I love Australia, so fingers crossed we’ll be there at the end of the year.
Fingers crossed for Adelaide, international acts tend to skip us too often.
Are you in Adelaide?
Yeah, in Adelaide. I still remember the very first show you played at the Entertainment Centre with Ash. Was that 1995? Oh my God, yeah, talking thirty years ago. If we make it to Adelaide, we’ll be playing songs from eight albums now. Yeah, we’ll be mixing and matching a lot of songs in the set, it’s gonna be cool.
Interview By Rob Lyon
Let All That We Imagine Be The Light is out now. Buy/ Stream HERE
