Susan Janet Ballion (born 27 May 1957), known as Siouxsie Sioux (, ), is an English singer. She came to prominence as the vocalist and main lyricist of the rock band Siouxsie and the Banshees. They released 11 studio albums from 1978 to 1995, and had several UK top twenty singles including "Hong Kong Garden" (1978), "Happy House" (1980) and "Peek-a-Boo" (1988), plus a top 25 single in the US Billboard Hot 100 with "Kiss Them for Me" (1991).
Siouxsie also formed a second group, the Creatures, in 1981. With the Creatures, she released four studio albums, and achieved a UK top-twenty single "Right Now" (1983). In the mid-2000s, she has continued as a solo artist, using the name Siouxsie, and released the critically acclaimed album Mantaray (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 BallionPaytress, Mark. p.3 on 27 May 1957 at Guy's Hospital in Southwark, England.Johns, Brian. p. 8 Her older sister and brother were born while the family lived in the Belgian Congo. Her parents met there and worked for a few years. Her mother, Elizabeth, was of Scottish and English descent and was a secretary who spoke both French and English. Her father, Marc, 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, being unable to invite friends to her house because of her alcoholic, unemployed father.Paytress, Mark. P.19 Despite his issues, Siouxsie regarded him as intelligent and well-read, and sympathised with his inability to fit in with a "rigid, middle-class society".Paytress, Mark. P.19 During moments of sobriety, her father shared with her his love for books. Siouxsie was aware that her family was different. Her mother was in control of the household and did everything. "She didn't really have the choice. I grew up thinking it normal that women went out to work, mended fuses or mowed the lawn". Siouxsie saw her mother as a strong woman; "she kept the family together".Queens of British Pop. BBC One. Air Date: 1 April 2009. However, 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." At the age of nine, she and a friend were sexually assaulted by a neighbour.Paytress, Mark. P.20 The assault was reported to the police but the incident was quickly swept under the carpet by her family, and was not spoken of again. The incident and the way it was treated led Siouxsie to distrust adults.Shaw, William (September 2005). "In at the Deep End". The Word. Years later, she stated: I grew up having no faith in adults as responsible people. And being the youngest in the family I was isolated – I had no one to confide in. So I invented my own world, my own reality. It was my own way of defending myself – protecting myself from the outside world. The only way I could deal with how to survive was to get some strong armour.
Her father died of alcoholism-related illness 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.Paytress, Mark. P.23 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 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.Paytress, Mark. P.30 In the following months, journalist Caroline Coon coined the term "Bromley Contingent" to describe this group of eccentric teenagers devoted to the Sex Pistols.Paytress, Mark. P.42
Siouxsie became well known in the London club scene for her glam, fetish- and bondage-inspired 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 older generation, not to make a political statement.Paytress, p. 32 She later wrote the song "Metal Postcard (Mittageisen)" (in memory of the anti-Nazi artist John Heartfield).Paytress, p. 104
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".Paytress, pp 49, 53-54
For critic Jon Savage, Siouxsie was "unlike any female singer before or since, commanding yet aloof, entirely modern". Viv Albertine from the Slits said: 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.
One of Siouxsie's first public appearances was with the Sex Pistols on Bill Grundy's television show, on Thames Television in December 1976. Standing next to the band, Siouxsie made fun of the presenter when he asked her how she was doing. She responded: "I've always wanted to meet you, Bill." Grundy, who later claimed he was drunk, suggested a meeting after the show, which provoked guitarist Steve Jones to respond with a series of expletives inappropriate for prime-time television.Paytress, Mark. pp 45–46 This episode created a media furore on the front covers of several tabloids, including the Daily Mirror, which published the headline "Siouxsie's a Punk Shocker". The event had a major impact on the Sex Pistols' subsequent career, and they became a household name overnight.
Aware of the press surrounding both herself and the Sex Pistols, Siouxsie began to distance herself from the scene and stopped seeing the 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.Paytress, Mark. pp 47–48
Siouxsie and the Banshees, and the Creatures (1977–2003)
In 1977, Siouxsie and the Banshees toured the UK, with Severin on bass, Kenny Morris on drums and John McKay on guitar.Paytress, Mark. p 56 One year later, their first single, "Hong Kong Garden" reached number 7 in the UK Singles Chart.Johns, Brian. p. 94 With its oriental-inflected xylophone motif, Melody Maker deemed it "a glorious debut [...] All the elements come together with remarkable effect. The song is strident and powerful with tantalising oriental guitar riffs plus words and vocals that are the result of anger, disdain and isolation. No-one will be singled out because everyone is part and parcel of the whole. It might even be a hit".
Their debut album, The Scream (1978), 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 retrospectively praised by Don Watson in NME as one of the best debut albums of all time.Watson, Don. "Siouxsie's Sombrero Bolero". NME. 15 December 1984. "After Patti Smith's 'Horses', 'The Scream' is the best debut LP of all time. Was it 1978 or ten years on? From the underwater claustrophobia of its cover, through the fractured monochrome scenarios to the morbid fascination of 'Switch's' final flickers, its poetry in sound and splinters." Join Hands followed in 1979, with war as the lyrical theme.
The 1980 album Kaleidoscope marked the arrival of John McGeoch, considered "one of the most innovative and influential guitarists" by The Guardian, and drummer Budgie. 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 Albums Chart. Juju followed in 1981, reaching number 7; the singles "Spellbound" and "Arabian Knights" were described as "pop marvels" by The Guardian.Petridis, Alexis. "The Guardian, 1000 albums to hear before you die" . Guardian.co.uk.21 November 2007. "Perennial masters of brooding suspense, the Banshees honed their trademark aloof art-rock to its hardest and darkest pitch on Juju. With their musical alchemy at its peak and Siouxsie at her most imperious, pop marvels such as Spellbound and Arabian Knights were poised, peerless exercises in magic realism that you could dance to." During recording sessions for Juju, Siouxsie and Budgie formed a second band the Creatures, a duo characterized by a stripped-down sound focused on vocals and drums; their first record, the EP Wild Things, was a commercial success. Record Mirror reviewed it as an "astonishingly successful exercise. Several Siouxsie voices over Budgie's quite magnificent drums and percussion make up the entire fabric but it never sounds sparse... A surprise and a triumph."
In 1982, the Siouxsie and the Banshees' album A Kiss in the Dreamhouse was widely acclaimed by critics.Sutherland, Steve. "Awakening Dreams" [A Kiss in the Dreamhouse review]. Melody Maker. 6 November 1982. "The Banshees achieve an awesome, effective new pop without so much as a theory or qualm. "Dreamhouse" is an intoxicating achievement." 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. The recording sessions took their toll, and McGeoch was forced to quit the band.