Shakespear's Sister Articles
Lone Justice: When Siobhan Fahey quit Bananarama, married Eurythmic Dave Stewart and had a baby, many thought that was the last we'd see of her, but here she is with a new band, single and album, talking to Caroline Sullivan about new found confidence and overcoming the pressures of success.
For some, there will be no forgiving Siobhan Fahey. The schism that developed in Bananarama following her marriage and subsequent departure from the group has never been fully healed. Bananarama are now as integral a part of pop's living history as Jonathan King's leer or Billy Idol's sneer. They're consumate practitioners of the art of being artless. But their allure relied, in the main, on the sense of boozy solidarity exuded by Shuv, Keren, and Sarah, and the magic of their togetherness began to erode the day Siobhan married Dave Stewart. When she walked out of the group six months later, for some that was it. Jacquie just isn't the same, is she?
"Whenever I speak to someone it's always, 'Why did you leave?' because they're very fond of the group. I'm still that person, I've still got the same sort of attitude I had in Bananarama."
Siobhan could have retired into motherhood (her son was born just before she quit the 'Rams) and the privileged lifestyle afforded by her immensely wealthy husband. We might have never seen her again, save for the ubiquitous airport-arrival shots on page five of the Sun. It must have been a temptation for her.
Certainly, we didn't expect this. This voice, this new album, this...Shakespear's (sic) Sister is Siobhan's new musical identity. It's a name expressly selected to irritate all the right people ("And for the irony of me coming from Bananarama and associating myself with the greatest writer in English literature"). The music, too, will irritate the same stuffy sensibilities outraged by Siobhan's audacity in co-opting a Morrisey song title. Vituperation, sarcasm, sheer spleen-venting...the songs drip with it, with the sense of finally breaking free, avenging herself.
"You're history, no use to me, my enemy," goes the sweetly poisonous single "You're History". Siobhan has discovered a singing voice to match; low, contemplative, closer to Tanita Tikaram than to Sarah and Keren. You'll think it's sexy when you hear it.
"I don't really like explaining my lyrics, it sounds so pompous and naff. Let people derive their own meaning. I must say, though, that on my first single, 'Break My Heart' (released late last year) I think the deep sarcasm was lost on most people. 'You really break my heart.' They didn't get it at all."
On the album "Sacred Heart", Siobhan is complemented -- perhaps overshadowed -- by vocalist Marcella Detroit. Detroit's contribution was soundly reviled by MM's Bob Stanley in a live review last week; her squeaky soul vamping is an acquired taste. At any rate she, Siobhan, and a hitherto unknown lyricist, Richard Feldman, are the nucleus of Shakespear's Sister.
"Richard lived across the street from me in Los Angeles when I was preggers. I wasn't doing anything except the odd video. He was a songwriter and he says, 'Do you fancy writing with me?' I was delighted because I had a total lack of confidence as a result of working as one of three for so long and being related to a third of a whole. When somebody got into what my ideas were and really liked writing with me, I was very shy about expressing myself at first. The idea of working with people who were very accomplished musically had always intimidated me in the past, which was why I hid in Bananarama. Working with Richard and Marcella, having them respect my ideas and let me take the lead was...an awakening experience."
You'd like Siobhan. No matter how much you may despise Bananarama, you'd like Siobhan a lot. Tiny, fragile ("It comes from having a nervous constitution," she laughs tentatively) extraordinarily lucid, she has an un-popstarish knack of appearing more interested in you than you are in her. Consequently, you immediately want to be on her side.
When did it start to go wrong in the 'Rams?
"About halfway through. You knew what the records were going to be like before you'd even written them. It (the music) was locked into a format. I was really frustrated because I knew then that I'd never be able to make the kind of music I'd always wanted to. In Bananarama we started out rough, ready and raw. It very quickly changed and moved away from that before we knew what was happening. We became part of the sausage factory. I started to ask myself why I was doing it. I don't want to say anything detrimental about the band because the girls really enjoy it, but it was never what I set out to do."
"I was very lonely in the band. Bananarama were completely insular, and you couldn't make friends outside the band because you were never in one place long enough to get a sense of your own identity. I think the three of us really clung to each other because we were very insecure."
Is that why you drank a lot?
"It was probably. I'm still fond of a drink and enjoy the feeling of release that one too many gives you, but I don't need that, where I did before because I had a lot of unresolved tensions. I get much more cheerful when I'm drunk now. I used to get really violent. If you drink for release, the release it gives you is so extreme, and the anger and rage come out. That's the problem with this country -- we're so repressed, and the only release we're offered is alcohol. The brain is not encouraged to develop. There's this snobbery against being intelligent."
There was this News Of The World interview...
"Oh, the classic one that was printed the day after I was married?"
No. That one was a stunner, even by Fleet Street standards, an "expose" whose gratuitous nastiness repelled even hardened Sun-journal types. The one I mean was the "sympathetic" account of your emotional deterioration prior to meeting Dave Stewart.
"Oh, that one. It's completely true. I was really f**ked up. Desperately f**ked up when I met Dave. I think it's really hard for a girl to be a girl now, particularly in modern times. I know a lot of girls who've been destroyed by London and what it does to you. I found it very hard being on my own, very lonely. I couldn't be alone for an hour."
"Since we've been together, I've become a much calmer, more confident person because I have someone to share my life with who's my best friend and that frees you to be whoever you are."
What's it like going from being comfortably moneyed to extremely rich?
"The good part is that I don't have to worry about bills or the practical side of life, but I never did. I was always hopeless. I always lived off takeaways, I don't wallow in wealth, I don't go out shopping and do the 'Hollywood Wives' syndrome."
Instead she's barefoot, ponytailed, grubbily jeaned, and she only eats half her room- service cheese-on-toast before pushing it aside.
You've also moved from one level of fame to quite another. What's your new circle of household- name friends like?
"I am very much an appendage in Dave's rock circle. I don't take much notice of my status in other people's eyes. I don't care whether they see me as Siobhan, ex- Bananarama, or Mrs. Dave Stewart or Shakespear's Sister. But at first it was intimidating meeting certain people. I am very shy, and if I meet a personal hero I'm even more so. I have met a few now. No, I can't say who, it's too cringeful. I just kind of hid. I happened to be walking out of the room as they were walking in."
"The greatest thing about married to Dave is that he attracts people who are very strong centered and locked into who they are and that helps you to be the same."
Will these changes in you be lasting ones?
"I'm a different person now. I'm very excited about my life. I enjoy everything I do."
So how do you define yourself now? Siobhan is...
"Siobhan is...I'm me. At last I'm myself. I broke free of the slavery of the industry and its impositions. It's taken me a long time, but at last I'm myself."
Reprinted w/o permission.
