Siouxsie Sioux facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Siouxsie Sioux
Siouxsie Sioux performing in 1980
Background information
Birth name	Susan Janet Ballion
Born	(1957-05-27) 27 May 1957 (age 67) Southwark, London, England
Genres	Post-punk new wave gothic rock alternative rock exotica
Occupation(s)	Singer songwriter musician record producer
Instruments	Vocals guitar
Years active	1976–present
Labels	Polydor Geffen Sioux Records W14 Universal Decca

Susan Janet Ballion (born 27 May 1957), known professionally as Siouxsie Sioux ( soo-ZEE-soo), is an English singer, songwriter, musician and record producer. She came to prominence as the leader and main lyricist of the rock band Siouxsie and the Banshees, who were active from 1976 to 1996. They released 11 studio albums, and had several UK Top 20 singles including "Hong Kong Garden", "Happy House" and "Peek-a-Boo", plus a US Top 25 single in the Billboard Hot 100, with "Kiss Them for Me".

Siouxsie also formed a second group, the Creatures in 1981. With the Creatures, she released four studio albums and singles such as "Right Now". After disbanding the Creatures in the mid-2000s, she has continued as a solo artist, using just the name Siouxsie, and released the album Mantaray to critical acclaim in 2007.

AllMusic named Siouxsie as "one of the most influential British singers of the rock era". Her songs have been covered by Jeff Buckley ("Killing Time"), Tricky ("Tattoo") and LCD Soundsystem ("Slowdive") and sampled by Massive Attack ("Metal Postcard") and the Weeknd ("Happy House"). In 2011, she was awarded for Outstanding Contribution to Music at the Q Awards and in 2012, she received the Inspiration Award at the Ivor Novello Awards.

Biography

Early life (1957–1976)

Siouxsie was born Susan Janet Ballion on 27 May 1957 at Guy's Hospital in Southwark, England. She is ten years younger than her two siblings. Her brother and sister were born while the family was in the Belgian Congo. Her parents met in that colony and worked there for a few years. Her mother, Betty, was of Scottish and English descent and was a secretary who spoke both French and English. Her father was a bacteriologist who milked venom from snakes, and came from Wallonia, the French-speaking part of Belgium. In the mid-1950s, before Siouxsie's birth, the family moved to England.

The Ballions lived in a suburban district in Chislehurst, Kent. Siouxsie was an isolated child. Despite having issues with her father, Siouxsie regarded him as intelligent and well-read, and sympathised with his inability to fit in with a "rigid, middle-class society". Her father shared with her his love for books. Siouxsie was aware that her family was different; the Ballions were not involved in the local community and Siouxsie, aware that her family's house differed from the neighbours', would later state that "the suburbs inspired intense hatred."

Her father died when Siouxsie was 14 years old, resulting in a decline in her health. Siouxsie lost a great deal of weight and failed to attend school. After several misdiagnoses, she was operated on and survived a bout of ulcerative colitis. During the weeks of recovery in mid-1972, she watched television in the hospital and saw David Bowie on Top of the Pops.

At 17, she left school. During this period she began visiting the local gay discos frequented by her sister's friends. She later introduced her own friends to that scene. In November 1975, the Sex Pistols performed at the local art college in Chislehurst. Siouxsie did not attend, but one of her friends told her how they sounded like the Stooges, and that singer Johnny Rotten had threatened students attending the gig. In February 1976, Siouxsie and her friend Steven Severin went to see the Sex Pistols play in London. After chatting with members of the band, Siouxsie and Severin decided to follow them regularly. In the following months, journalist Caroline Coon coined the term "Bromley Contingent" to describe this group of eccentric teenagers devoted to the Sex Pistols.

Siouxsie became well known in the London club scene for her glam attire, which later became part of punk fashion. She would also heavily influence the later development of gothic fashion with her signature cat-eye makeup, deep red lipstick, spiky dyed-black hair, and black clothing. In early September 1976, the Bromley Contingent followed the Sex Pistols to France, where Siouxsie was beaten up for wearing a cupless bra and 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 song "Metal Postcard (Mittageisen)" (in memory of the anti-Nazi artist John Heartfield).

Following the DIY ethos and the idea that the people in the audience could be the people on stage, Siouxsie and Severin decided to form a band. When a support slot at the 100 Club Punk Festival (organised by Malcolm McLaren) opened up, they decided to make an attempt at performing, although at that time they did not know how to play any songs. On 20 September 1976, the band improvised 20 minutes of music while Siouxsie sang the "Lord's Prayer".

For critic Jon Savage, Siouxsie was "unlike any female singer before or since, commanding yet aloof, entirely modern".

Aware of the press surrounding both herself and the Sex Pistols, Siouxsie began to distance herself from the scene and stopped seeing Sex Pistols after the 15 December 1976 gig at Notre Dame Hall. From then, she focused her energy on her own band, Siouxsie and the Banshees.

Siouxsie and the Banshees, and the Creatures (1977–2003)

Siouxsie Sioux in 1980

In February 1977, Siouxsie began touring in England as Siouxsie and the Banshees. One year later, their first single, "Hong Kong Garden", reached number 7 in the UK Singles Chart.

Their debut album, The Scream, was one of the first post-punk records released. It received 5-star reviews in Sounds and Record Mirror. The latter said that the record "points to the future, real music for the new age". The music was different from the single; it was angular, dark and jagged. The Scream was later hailed by NME as one of the best debut albums of all time along with Patti Smith's Horses. Join Hands followed in 1979 with war as the lyrical theme.

The 1980 album Kaleidoscope marked a change in musical direction with the arrival of John McGeoch, considered "one of the most innovative and influential guitarists" by The Guardian, and drummer Budgie, the latter of whom would continue to perform and record with Siouxsie throughout her career until 2004. 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 Siouxsie's audience, reaching the top 5 in the UK charts. Juju followed in 1981, reaching number 7; the singles "Spellbound" and "Arabian Knights" were described as "pop marvels" by The Guardian. During recording sessions for Juju, Siouxsie and Budgie formed a percussion-oriented duo called the Creatures, characterized by a stripped-down sound focused on vocals and drums; their first record, the EP Wild Things, was a commercial success.

In 1982, the Siouxsie and the Banshees' album A Kiss in the Dreamhouse was widely acclaimed by critics. Richard Cook of NME depicted it as "a feat of imagination scarcely ever recorded". The single "Slowdive" was "a violin-colored dance beat number". They included strings for the first time on several songs. However, the recording sessions took their toll, and McGeoch was forced to quit the band.

In 1983, Siouxsie went to Hawaii to record the Creatures' first album, Feast, which included the hit single "Miss the Girl". It was her first incursion into exotica, incorporating sounds of waves, local Hawaiian choirs and local percussions. Later that year, Siouxsie and Budgie released "Right Now", a song from Mel Tormé's repertoire that the Creatures re-orchestrated with brass arrangements; "Right Now" soon became a top 20 hit single in the UK. Then, with the Banshees (including guitarist Robert Smith of the Cure), she covered the Beatles' "Dear Prudence", which reached number 3 on the UK Singles Chart. Two albums followed with Smith: Nocturne, recorded live in London in 1983, and 1984's Hyæna. In 1985, the single "Cities in Dust" was recorded with sequencers; it climbed to number 21 in the UK charts. Entertainment Weekly noted that it was the first of a handful of Alternative rock radio hits in the U.S. 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, anticipating hip hop-inspired rock with the use of samples. Her new album received a five star review in Q magazine. The ballad "The Last Beat of My Heart" issued as a single, saw her exploring new ground with accordion and strings.

Siouxsie and Budgie then went to Andalusia in Spain to record the second Creatures album, Boomerang. The songs took a different direction from previous Creatures works, with backing music ranging from flamenco to jazz and blues styles. It featured brass on most of the songs. The first single was "Standing There". NME hailed Boomerang as "a rich and unsettling landscape of exotica". Anton Corbijn visited the group during the recording near Jerez de la Frontera, and Siouxsie convinced him to take photographs in color, unlike his prior work which was in black-and-white: the photos used for the promotion showed Siouxsie and Budgie in fields surrounded with sunflowers. In 1990, she toured for the first time with the Creatures, in Europe and North America.

On 1991's dance-oriented "Kiss Them for Me" single, Siouxsie and the Banshees used South Asian instrumentation, which had become popular in the UK club scene with the growth of bhangra. Indian tabla player Talvin Singh (who was later Björk's percussionist on her 1993 Debut album) took part in the session and provided vocals for the bridge. With "Kiss Them for Me", the Banshees scored a hit on the US Billboard Hot 100 peaking at number 23. After the release of Superstition which received enthusiastic reviews, the group co-headlined the first Lollapalooza tour, further increasing their American following.

Siouxsie at the first Lollapalooza in Irvine, California, 1991

In 1992, film director Tim Burton requested that she write a song for Batman Returns, and the Banshees composed the single "Face to Face".

In the mid-1990s, Siouxsie started to do one-off collaborations with other artists. Suede invited her to a benefit concert for the Red Hot Organization. With guitarist Bernard Butler, she performed a version of Lou Reed's "Caroline Says". Spin reviewed it as "haughty and stately". Morrissey, ex-lead singer of the Smiths, recorded a duet with Siouxsie 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. "Interlude" was released under the name of "Morrissey and Siouxsie".

The last Banshees studio album, The Rapture, was released in 1995; it was written partly in the Toulouse area of France, where she had recently moved. After the accompanying tour, the Banshees announced their split during a press conference called "20 Minutes into 20 Years". The Creatures de facto became her only band. At the same time, she released the song "The Lighthouse" on French producer Hector Zazou's album Chansons des mers froides (which translates to Songs from the Cold Seas), with jazz trumpetist Mark Isham. Siouxsie and Zazou adapted the poem "Flannan Isle" by English poet Wilfred Wilson Gibson.

Her first live performance in three years was in February 1998 when former Velvet Underground member John Cale invited her to a festival called "With a Little Help From My Friends" at the Paradiso in Amsterdam. The concert was shown on Dutch national television and featured an unreleased Creatures composition, sung as a duet with Cale. The collaboration between the two artists worked so well that they decided to tour the US from June until August.

The following year, Siouxsie and Budgie released Anima Animus, the first Creatures album since the split of the Banshees. It included the singles "2nd Floor" and "Prettiest Thing". The material diverged from their former work, with a more urban sound blending art rock and electronica. Anima Animus was described by The Times as "hypnotic and inventive". Also in 1999, Siouxsie collaborated with Marc Almond on the track "Threat of Love".

In 2002, she was rated as one of the 10 best female rock artists by Q. That same year, Universal released The Best of Siouxsie and the Banshees as the first reissue of her back catalogue.

In 2003, Siouxsie and Budgie released the last Creatures album, Hái!, which was in part recorded in Japan, collaborating with taiko player Leonard Eto (previously of the Kodo Drummers). 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". He termed the record a "spine-tingling achievement". Hái! was preceded by the single "Godzilla!". That year, Siouxsie was featured on the track "Cish Cash" by Basement Jaxx, from their album Kish Kash, which later won Best Electronic/Dance Album at the Grammy Awards.

Solo (2004–present)

2004 was a pivotal year for the singer. She toured for the first time as a solo act combining Banshees and Creatures songs. A live DVD called Dreamshow was recorded at the last London concert, in which she and her musicians were accompanied by a 16-piece orchestra, the Millennia Ensemble. Released in August 2005, this DVD reached the number 1 position in the UK music DVD charts.

Her first solo album, Mantaray, received rave reviews upon release in September 2007. Pitchfork wrote, "She really is pop", before finishing the review by declaring, "It's a success". Mojo stated: "a thirst for sonic adventure radiates from each track". Mantaray included three singles: "Into a Swan", "Here Comes That Day" and "About to Happen". In 2008, Siouxsie recorded vocals for the track "Careless Love" on The Edge of Love soundtrack by composer Angelo Badalamenti. She performed it with 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 2008. A live DVD of this performance, Finale: The Last Mantaray & More Show, was released in 2009.

In June 2013, after a hiatus of five years, Siouxsie played two nights at the Royal Festival Hall in London during Yoko Ono's Meltdown festival. She performed 1980's Kaleidoscope album live in its entirety, along with other works from her back catalogue, and her performance was praised by the press. She also appeared at Ono's Double Fantasy concert, to sing the final song, "Walking on Thin Ice".

In October 2014, she and fellow Banshee Steven Severin compiled a CD titled It's a Wonderfull Life for the November 2014 issue of Mojo magazine, in which she appeared on the cover. The disc included 15 tracks that inspired the Banshees.

"Love Crime", her first song in eight years, was featured in the finale of the TV series Hannibal, broadcast in August 2015. Series creator Bryan Fuller called it "epic".

In 2023, Siouxsie announced her return to the stage. She headlined the Cruel World Festival in Pasadena, California, in May, and the Release Athens 2023 festival in June. Her performance in Madrid at the Noches del Botánico was praised by Time Out. In August, she was in concert in Málaga at Cala Mijas.

At the same period, Mantaray was reissued with a different artwork on three different editions, translucent red vinyl (limited to 2000 copies), black vinyl and CD, through online retailers and Siouxsie's official website: the album was remastered at Abbey Road Studios for its 15-year anniversary.

Legacy

Siouxsie has been praised by artists of many genres. She has influenced bands ranging from contemporaries Joy Division, U2, and the Cure, to later acts like the Jesus and Mary Chain, Jane's Addiction and TV on the Radio.

Siouxsie has been hailed by many female singers. Female artists who have stated their admiration for Siouxsie's work include Charli XCX, Hayley Williams of Paramore, Dolores O'Riordan of the Cranberries, Jennifer Charles of Elysian Fields, Ebony Bones, Toni Halliday of Curve, Chan Marshall a.k.a. Cat Power, Gillian Gilbert of New Order, Alison Goldfrapp, Sarah Cracknell of Saint Etienne, Florence Welch of Florence + the Machine, Chelsea Wolfe, Brody Dalle of the Distillers, Dee Dee of Dum Dum Girls, Joan As Police Woman, Lou Doillon, Emel Mathlouthi, Aimee Echo of theSTART and Human Waste Project, Girlpool, Liz Phair, Billie Ray Martin, An Pierlé, Lauren Mayberry of Chvrches, Meshell Ndegeocello, St. Vincent, Anohni, Jehnny Beth of Savages, Wolf Alice, and Jenny Lee Lindberg of Warpaint.

Personal life

Siouxsie married bandmate Budgie in May 1991. The following year, they moved to the southwest of France.

In an interview with The Sunday Times in August 2007, she announced that she and Budgie had divorced.

In 2023, she teamed up with PETA to protest against animal testing. In a letter to Japanese conglomerate Ajinomoto, the world's largest manufacturer of monosodium glutamate (MSG), she wrote that the company "should be leading the way with compassion, not falling behind. Please, stop being spellbound by bad science and end these cruel tests immediately."

Awards and nominations

Discography

Studio albums

Solo singles

Collaborative singles

DVD

• 2005 Dreamshow No. 1 UK
• 2009 Finale: The Last Mantaray & More Show No. 4 UK

See also

In Spanish: Siouxsie Sioux para niños