Local grunge rock quartet Garbage of ’90s fame will make its way back to Madison as part of the Pondamonium music festival Aug. 9. We caught up with them during the European leg of their 2012 tour to discuss their past, their present tour and their upcoming Madison date where they’ll be joined by The Flaming Lips, Dum Dum Girls and a few other acts.
Garbage guitarist Steve Marker admitted feeling just a little nervous about returning to Madison, where the group first formed back in 1994.
“Madison really is our home,” he said in an email interview with The Badger Herald. “It’s probably the most intimidating place for us to play, because we know so many people there and they know us all too well too.”
Despite his worries about living up to the city’s expectations, Marker was still unmistakably excited for the show, which will take place at Warner Park.
“I really think the Madison show is going to be a celebration – a homecoming,” he said. The group has not played a show in Madison since 2005.
Right now, however, the group is performing everywhere from Rome to Portugual to Switzerland, and they’ll make a few stops in the U.S. in August before heading out for performances in Taiwan, Japan and Singapore.
Garbage has evidently seen a huge amount of both national and international success throughout its roughly fifteen-year existence. Marker credits the Madison community, more than anything else, with shaping the band into what it is today.
“This band wouldn’t exist without Madison,” he said. “We wouldn’t be who we are as people, and we wouldn’t have been able to do all the things we have done.”
Marker said he’s also looking forward to performing with fellow headliners The Flaming Lips and Dum Dum Girls at the show. He and other band members were able to watch the former group perform in Hollywood under the full lunar eclipse – an experience he called “absolutely unbelievable.”
Garbage tries to mix up its own lineup as much as possible during live performances, he said. They usually play tracks from across their discography, sometimes to their own detriment.
“The last two nights here in Italy, Shirley took requests from the crowd, which meant that we ended up playing obscure Garbage songs that none of us really remembered the chords to, or most of the words to either,” he said. “But it was wicked fun.”
Not Your Kind of People, the group’s latest album since Bleed Like Me was released in 2005, is certainly not the last stop for Garbage. Marker didn’t discuss any specific plans for the future, but he seemed confident that the band would continue to work together.
“We’re going to keep on going,” he said. “I can’t say how, because we’ve never had a plan and we never really talk about it, but the four of us work together in a way that is meaningful to each of us… and I can see that extending far out into the future.”
For the moment, however, Marker said he’s just feeling content with how well the album has been received.
“In a way we’ve already exceeded what we thought this record could do,” he said. “We put it out on our own label, StunVolume, and it’s done really well. … We didn’t know that anyone would care – turns out they did.”
Garbage will play at Warner Park on Thursday, Aug. 9, at 6:30 p.m. The Flaming Lips, Dum Dum Girls, Royal Bangs and The Congregation will also perform as part of the Madison Mallards’ “Pondamonium.” Tickets can be purchased in advance for $45 or at the gate for $50. For more information, visit pondamonium.com.
