Garbage recently reissued their divisive 2005 album Bleed Like Me, and during an interview with NME, Shirley Manson discussed her complicated relationship with the project and the "devastating" confession that the band's label decided to invest in No Doubt instead of them.
“To be frank, I never had a particularly good relationship with that record until relatively recently,” the singer admitted. “We released it at a time of immense strife within the band, and dwindling interest from our record label and the general public.”
Manson then opened up about “a fortunate or unfortunate incident” she had on a flight from Los Angeles to London, when “a really famous rockstar” she was sitting next to her divulged that her label was putting more money into No Doubt than Garbage.
“I shan’t name [said rockstar] because I don’t want to cause too many ruptures,” she said. “He’s really gorgeous and I love this person, but we got drunk together and he told me that he’d been present at an Interscope meeting where our future as a band had been discussed and there was a vote taken at the table where they decided if they were going to spend money on No Doubt or on Garbage. They decided to invest in No Doubt."
“No Doubt are friends of ours, we love them dearly and this has no bearing on them whatsoever," Manson clarified, "but to hear that from a well-known and highly regarded rockstar was devastating. He told me this story, and then it was war. I wasn’t going to do f**k all for that record label ever again.”
The external and internal turmoil led to a hiatus, but it didn't last long. Garbage got back together in 2007 and are currently working on their eighth studio album.