Siouxsie Sioux

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Siouxsie Sioux (born Susan Janet Ballion; May 27, 1957) is an English singer-songwriter. She is best known to be the lead singer of the critically acclaimed rock band Siouxsie and the Banshees (1976–1996) and of its splinter group The Creatures (1981–2005). The Banshees produced eleven studio albums and a string of hit singles including "Hong Kong Garden", "Happy House", "Peek-a-Boo" and "Kiss Them for Me". With The Creatures, Siouxsie recorded four studio albums and the hit single "Right Now".

She has also sung with artists such as Morrissey and John Cale. In the middle of the 2000s, she began a solo career and released MantaRay in 2007.

Siouxsie is considered to be "one of the most influential British singers of the rock era". Her music has been hailed by a variety of acts including Jeff Buckley, Tricky, Massive Attack, PJ Harvey, LCD Soundsystem and TV on the Radio.

Early life
Born Susan Janet Ballion at Guy's Hospital in Southwark, south east London, England. She is the youngest of three children and attended Mottingham Secondary Modern School for Girls in Bromley, Kent. Her mother was a bilingual secretary, her father was a laboratory technician who milked serum from venomous snakes in the Belgian Congo. Her father died due to cirrhosis of the liver caused by his alcoholism when Siouxsie was 14 years old. At the same age, she survived a life-threatening bout of ulcerative colitis, which she later said "completely demystified the body for me."

During her adolescence, she was a self-described "loner," who enjoyed listening to the music of David Bowie, Lou Reed, Roxy Music, T.Rex, The Velvet Underground and The Stooges. It was during this period that she began frequenting the local gay discos. She became well known in the London punk rock scene for her glam, fetish and bondage attire, which were notable of punk fashion. She also later popularized the Gothic style of dress with her trademark feline-style eye makeup, deep red lipstick, spiky dyed-black hair, and black clothing.

In the mid-1970s, journalist Caroline Coon coined the term "Bromley Contingent" to describe a group of eccentric teenagers devoted to the Sex Pistols. Siouxsie was a member of the Contingent, along with fellow Banshees founder Steven Severin.

Siouxsie's first gig was with her group Suzie and the Banshees, as an unrehearsed fill-in at the 100 Club Punk Festival organized by Malcolm McLaren in September 1976. The group did not know or play any songs; they improvised as Siouxsie recited poems and prayers she had memorized. For Jon Savage, she was "unlike any female singer before or since, commanding yet aloof, entirely modern." It opened a new era for women in music as Viv Albertine from The Slits later commented: "'Siouxsie just appeared fully made, fully in control, utterly confident. It totally blew me away. There she was doing something that I dared to dream but she took it and did it and it wiped the rest of the festival for me, that was it. I can't even remember everything else about it except that one performance.'" The same month, the Bromley Contingent followed the Sex Pistols to France, where Siouxsie was beaten up for wearing a black armband with a swastika on it. She claimed her intent was to shock the bourgeoisie, not to make a political statement. She later wrote the songs "Metal Postcard (Mittageisen)" (in memory of the anti-Nazi artist John Heartfield) and the single "Israel".

One of Siouxsie's first public appearances was with the Sex Pistols on Bill Grundy's television show in December 1976. In the course of Grundy's interview with the members of the Sex Pistols, the presenter flirted with her: in reaction, Pistols guitarist Steve Jones called him a "dirty bastard" and a "dirty fucker", which created a media furore that had a major impact on the Pistols' subsequent career.

Siouxsie and the Banshees
In 1977, she changed her stage name and extensively toured in England with her friend Steven Severin on bass guitar as Siouxsie and the Banshees. One year later, their first single, "Hong Kong Garden" with its glockenspiel motif, instantaneously reached the top 10 in the UK. It was pictured by critics as "a bright, vivid narrative, something like snapshots from the window of a speeding Japanese train, power charged by the most original, intoxicating guitar playing heard in a long, long time."

Their first album, 1978's The Scream, was described by Nick Kent in the NME in the following terms : "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 Scream was later hailed by the NME as one of the best debut album of all time with Patti Smith's Horses. Join Hands followed in 1979.

The 1980 album Kaleidoscope marked a change of musical direction with the arrival of John McGeoch, considered "one of the most innovative and influential guitarists of the past thirty years". The hit single "Happy House" was qualified as "great pop" with "liquid guitar" and other songs like "Red Light" were layered with electronic sounds. Kaleidoscope widened her audience, reaching the top 5 in the UK charts. Juju followed in 1981, reaching number 7, including the singles "Spellbound" and "Arabian Knights" qualified as "pop marvels" by the Guardian.

During the recording sessions, the singer decided to form a second act, The Creatures, with Banshees drummer Budgie, to record music more based on percussion. The first record of the duo was the EP Wild Things (EP).

In 1982, the British press greeted the Siouxsie and the Banshees' album A Kiss in the Dreamhouse enthusiastically. Richard Cook in the NME finished his review with "I promise. This music will take your breath away."

In 1983, Siouxsie went to Hawaii to record The Creatures' first album Feast, which included the hit-single "Miss the Girl". During the summer, Siouxsie and Budgie hit again the charts with "Right Now", a song of the Mel Tormé's repertoire : the Creatures re-orchestrated it with brass arrangements. Then with the Banshees and guitarist Robert Smith of The Cure, she revisited The Beatles' "Dear Prudence", reaching number three on the UK Singles Chart. Two other records followed with Smith: Nocturne, recorded live in London and Hyæna in 1984. 1986's Tinderbox and the 1987 covers album Through the Looking Glass both reached the top 15 in the UK.

In 1988, the single "Peek-a-Boo" marked a musical departure from her previous work: it anticipated hip hop-inspired rock with the use of samples. The song was praised by the NME as "oriental marching band hip hop with farting horns and catchy accordion" and hailed by the Melody Maker as "a brightly unexpected mixture of black steel and pop disturbance." The Peepshow album was considered by critics as her most successful album in years.

Siouxsie then temporarily reformed the Creatures with Budgie and went to Spain to record Boomerang. In his review, Simon Reynolds said that it was her "most inventive and invigorated music since A Kiss in the Dreamhouse.".

In 1991 with the "Kiss Them for Me" single, she used South Asian instrumentation which had become popular in the UK club scene due to the growth of bhangra. Tabla player Talvin Singh (future percussionist of Björk on her 1993's Debut album) took part in the sessions and also sang during the bridge. With Kiss Them for Me, the singer scored a hit on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 peaking at number 23. After the release of Superstition that encountered enthusiastic reviews, she co-headlined the first Lollapalooza tour further increasing her American following. In 1992, Siouxsie recorded the single "Face to Face" and marked a pause of a few years. She then released the last Banshees studio album The Rapture. After the accompanying tour, the Banshees announced their split during a press conference called "20 minutes into 20 years".

The Creatures and Collaborations (1994-2003)
In the mid-1990s, Siouxsie started to make one-off collaborations with other artists.

Morrissey recorded a duet with her in 1994. They both sang on the single "Interlude", a track that was initially performed by Timi Yuro, a female torch singer of the 1960s.

In 1995, she released the song "The Lighthouse" on the French producer Hector Zazou's album Chansons des mers froides which translates to Songs from the Cold Seas. Siouxsie and Zazou adapted the poem "Flannan Isle" by English poet Wilfred Wilson Gibson.

In February 1998, former Velvet Underground member John Cale invited her at a festival called "With a Little Help From My Friends" that took place at the Paradiso in Amsterdam. The concert was shown on Dutch national television and featured an unreleased composition of Siouxsie, "Murdering Mouth" sung in duet with Cale. The collaboration between the two artists worked so well that they later both decided to tour the USA during the summer, singing some songs together like Sioux's "Murdering Mouth" and Cale's "Gun".

The following year, Siouxsie and Budgie released the first Creatures album since the split of the Banshees. Anima Animus was described by The Times as "hypnotic and inventive". The singer later made another collaboration, making this time a duet with Marc Almond on the track "Threat Of Love".

In 2002, she was rated the number seven female rock artist by Q magazine in 2002. Universal put out shortly after The Best of Siouxsie and the Banshees as the first re-issue of her back-catalogue.

In 2003, she was asked to compose and sing the title track to Basement Jaxx's album Kish Kash: the record then received a prize at the Grammy Awards. Shortly after, Siouxsie released the last Creatures album, Hai! which was in part recorded in Japan. Peter Wratts wrote in Time Out: "her voice is the dominant instrument here, snaking and curling around the bouncing drumming backdrop, elegiac and inhuman as she chants, purrs and whispers her way around the album" and it's a "spine-tingling achievement".

Solo career (2004–present)
One year later, she toured for the first time as a solo act combining Banshees and Creatures songs: a live DVD called Dreamshow recorded the last London concert of September 2004, performed with the Millennia Ensemble. Released in August 2005, this DVD reached the number one position in the UK music DVD charts. Her first solo album MantaRay was released on September 2007. Pitchfork Media wrote "She really is pop" before finishing the review by declaring "It's a success." Mojo magazine stated "a thirst for sonic adventure radiates from each track".

In 2008, Siouxsie took part in The Edge of Love soundtrack by composer Angelo Badalamenti, frequent collaborator with director David Lynch. She sang on the title "Careless Love". She later performed another Badalamenti number "Who Will Take My Dreams Away" at the annual edition of the World Soundtrack Awards.

After a year of touring, the singer played the last show of her tour in London in September. A live DVD of this performance called Finale: The Last Mantaray And More Show was released in 2009.

Influence on other artists
Siouxsie's influence on modern music has been considerable.

Siouxsie had a strong impact on two trip-hop acts. Tricky covered the 1983's pre-trip-hop "Tattoo" to open his second album Nearly God and Massive Attack sampled "Metal Postcard" on their song "Superpredators (Metal Postcard)" for the soundtrack to the film The Jackal.

Other acts also covered Siouxsie's songs. Jeff Buckley, who took inspiration in various female singers, performed live "Killing Time", composed by Siouxsie and Budgie in 1989 for the Creatures album Boomerang: Buckley first sang it in 1992 for radio WFMU. LCD Soundsystem recorded a cover of "Slowdive" for the B-side of "Disco Infiltrator": their version was also released on Introns. Santigold based one of her tracks on the music of "Red Light" : "'My Superman' is an interpolation of a Siouxsie Sioux song, 'Red Light'". In 2003, The Beta Band sampled "Painted Bird" and changed the title in "Liquid Bird" on their Heroes to Zeros album. Red Hot Chili Peppers performed "Christine" at the V2001 festival and introduced it to their British audience as "your national anthem". DeVotchka covered "The Last Beat of My Heart" on the suggestion of Arcade Fire singer Win Butler: the musicians later considered it as the "centre-piece" of their Curse Your Little Heart EP.

Siouxsie has also been hailed by other critically acclaimed groups. Morrissey, previously of The Smiths said that "Siouxsie and the Banshees were excellent. They were one of the great groups of the late 70s, early 80s". He also stated of modern groups in 1994: "None of them are as good as Siouxsie and the Banshees at full pelt. That's not dusty nostalgia, that's fact." Another ex-member of The Smiths, Johnny Marr mentioned that he rated very high guitarist John McGeoch for his work on Siouxsie's single "Spellbound". Marr qualified it as "clever" with "really good picky thing going on which is very un-rock'n'roll." Radiohead also cited McGeoch-era Siouxsie records when mentioning the recording of "There There".

Siouxsie has influenced other bands ranging from contemporaries U2 and The Cure to later acts like Jane's Addiction and TV on the Radio. U2 Frontman Bono named her as model in the band's 2006 autobiography U2 by U2. He was inspired by her way of singing. : with his band, he selected "Christine" for a compilation made for Mojo's readers. U2 guitarist The Edge also was the presenter of an award given to Siouxsie at a Mojo ceremony in 2005. The Cure's Robert Smith declared in 2003: "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." For his record The Head on the Door in 1985, he stated : "It reminds me of the Kaleidoscope album, the idea of having lots of different sounding things, different colors". Dave Navarro of Jane's Addiction once made a parallel between his band and the Banshees: "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." From a younger generation, Dave Sitek of TV on the Radio mentioned the poppiest songs of Siouxsie for the arrangements: "I've always tried to make a song that begins like "Kiss Them for Me". I think songs like "I Was a Lover" or "Wash the Day away" came from that element of surprise mode where all of a sudden this giant drum comes in and you're like, what the fuck?! That record was the first one where I was like, okay, even my friends're going to fall for this. I feel like that transition into that record was a relief for me. Really beautiful music was always considered too weird by the normal kids and that was the first example where I thought, we've got them, they're hooked! I watched people dance to that song, people who had never heard of any of the music that I listened to, they heard that music in a club and went crazy.

Siouxsie has also been hailed by female singers. PJ Harvey selected Anima Animus album by Siouxsie's second band The Creatures in her top ten favourite albums of the year 1999. Garbage's singer, Shirley Manson cited her as an influence : "I learned how to sing listening to The Scream and Kaleidoscope." The singer of Garbage also mentioned that Siouxsie embodied everything she wanted to be as a young woman. Gossip cited her as one of their influences for their 2009's Music For Men. Ana Matronic of Scissor Sisters named Siouxsie as a source of inspiration and the Banshees as her favourite band.

Electronica female singer Santigold also said : "I keep a Rolodex of the women that vocally inspire me. There aren't that many, but she's definitely one of them. I remember one of the first times I heard "Red Light" it was at a party, and I remember going up to the DJ and being like, "Who's this?". It was that good. I kind of stopped and was like... wow. There's not a tremendous amount of women who are bold and forward thinking as artists. I feel like her music, at the time especially, was pretty unique in the way that it sort of matched her style. The freedom of experimenting with this dark place that doesn't have a place often in modern music."

Musical genre
Garbage's singer Shirley Manson said:

Personal life
Siouxsie married Budgie in 1991. The following year, they moved to the south west of France.

In June 2005, she won the Icon Award at the Mojo Honours in London.

In an interview with The Sunday Times in August 2007, she clarified that she and Budgie had divorced. In an interview with The Independent, she said, "I've never particularly said I'm hetero or I'm a lesbian. I know there are people who are definitely one way, but not really me. I suppose if I am attracted to men then they usually have more feminine qualities."

Discography
For her works with Siouxsie and the Banshees, see Siouxsie and the Banshees Discography.

For her works with The Creatures, see The Creatures discography.

DVD

 * 2005 Dreamshow #1 UK
 * 2009 Finale: The Last Mantaray and More Show #4 UK

Collaborations with other artists

 * Morrissey: "Interlude" (single recorded in duet) (1994)
 * Hector Zazou: "The Lighthouse" (song recorded as guest on the Chansons des mers froides Songs from the Cold Seas album) (1995)
 * Marc Almond: "Threat of Love" (song recorded in duet for the Open All Night album) (1999)
 * Basement Jaxx: "Cish Cash" (song recorded as guest on the Kish Kash album) (2003)
 * Angelo Badalamenti: "Careless Love" (song recorded as guest for The Edge of Love film soundtrack) (2008)

Siouxsie also performed with Suede a cover of "Carolyne Says" by Lou Reed, on 30 July 1993 at a "Red Hot & AIDS Benefit" concert.

Film appearances of songs include The Punk Rock Movie (Don Letts, 1977); Jubilee (Derek Jarman, 1977); Out of Bounds (Richard Tuggle, 1986); Batman Returns (Tim Burton,1992); Showgirls (Paul Verhoeven, 1995); The Craft (Andrew Fleming, 1996); Grosse Pointe Blank (George Armitage, 1997); The Filth and the Fury (Julien Temple, 2000); 24 Hour Party People (Michael Winterbottom, 2002); Marie Antoinette (Sofia Coppola, 2006); Monster House (Gil Kenan, 2006); Notes on a Scandal (Richard Eyre, 2006); Doomsday (Neil Marshall, 2008)