When she speaks of how it feels to be back, Berenyi says it’s
‘really quite odd actually […] I was losing sleep about having agreed to do
this. I suddenly thought, “fuck, I haven’t played in twenty years, this is
going to be a disaster.” And actually, it was really good to just go into the
studio and sing and play guitar and think, “ok, I can still do this!”’
In spite of having been out of the game for so long, there
is a clear sense of anticipation to play live again [I spoke to Berenyi before Lush’s
headline shows at the Roundhouse]. ‘It’s a bit weird cos we haven’t played yet
[…] I went on the radio and they were like “ooh so how’s it going?” and all I
can really talk about is rehearsals. I mean, I can talk about the EP a bit but
even that isn’t out yet.’
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| Image: Allmusic |
It seems strange that after such a long hiatus, Lush would
decide after all that they weren’t quite finished with the music industry;
everyone had assumed that they had hung up their guitars and called it a day.
Not so. Berenyi says the reunion had been in the pipeline for as long as eight
years, but practically just wouldn’t have worked before now. ‘I get a
sabbatical after five years, so I’ve got an extra six weeks’ holiday this
year,’ she explains. ‘I’m not giving up my job. That’s not gonna happen.’ She
has become used to the life of a civilian: ‘If I could be at home, just open a
door, play a gig and then come back and be at home, that would be great.
Playing music, playing live and recording – great. But the rest of it is a
fucking nightmare! It is a lot of hassle.’
For Miki, the separation from the music industry after
Chris’ death was total. ‘I almost left completely. I haven’t really followed
music, I wasn’t going to gigs and I haven’t played.’ She muses, ‘I don’t know
how massively comfortable I ever was in that industry.’ As a response to Chris
Acland’s death, everything music-related became a reminder. ‘I’m sure it’s the
same for anyone who’s lost someone, but for a while you sort of randomly burst
into tears, and you think you’re ready to go out and then you’re not. The music
industry is not really the place to do that. You know, you’re at a gig and
suddenly you’re really upset and people are like “ooh dear!” So I just
completely retreated from it, just cut off all ties. Chris’ aunt trained me to
become a sub-editor, and she said “ooh you should try and get work at the NME.
That’s where you should go cos you know that subject”. And I wanted to go a
million miles away from all of that. Totally turned my back on it, basically.’
So after what was a very conscious and decisive split from
music, band business became secondary. It’s more of a case of ‘why don’t we
just do this while we can’ rather than prioritising it above and beyond
anything else. ‘I can still remember a flight to Japan to go and visit my mum,
and I was sat for ten hours writing these lyrics because I just had to fit them
in when I could.’ After musing for a moment, she adds, ‘It was really good
fun!’
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| Image: David Lavine for the Guardian |
In their heyday, Lush were pigeonholed into every imaginable
genre, by the merit simply of being around. First shoegaze, then Britpop; if there’s
one label they couldn’t escape, however, it was ‘girls in a band’. ‘The tricky
thing,’ Miki explains, ‘is that the scene that we came from, which was really
small pub gigs and a whole mix of influences, didn’t have a problem with women
in bands. At grassroots level, it didn’t seem to be a problem. To be honest, it
was a lot of the journalists that were fetishizing girls in bands. Then when
you’re trying to be a professional and you’re going on tour, encountering crew
and maybe someone local who’s doing the lights and they go “oh yeah, girl band,
right I get it”. So when we were in our little enclave it was absolutely fine.
I imagine it’s probably not that different now. If you’re at college I imagine
it’s all very right-on and people would fucking dream of saying that shit.’
To explain what she means by ‘that shit’, Miki cites the
recent interview with The Last Shadow Puppets in Spin, where Miles Kane
repeatedly makes the female journalist uncomfortable by inviting her up to the
bedroom. ‘Unless I stand there and act dumb, and laugh at [the men’s] jokes,
it’s gonna irritate them, and then I’m a bitch.’
In terms of the constantly changing genre that they were
assigned by the music press, Berenyi sees a direct correlation between this and
the attitudes towards women in the industry. ‘There’s this thing in the music
press of “they’re old news”. And I felt that being a woman was a part of that.
It’s like, “there’s a new breed of women replacing you. We’re sick of
shoegazing girls: now we want Courtney Love.” It’s one thing saying it about
the music; it’s a whole other thing saying it about your gender.’
She sighs. ‘[The industry] wasn’t really created for women
of 30+. When [Lush] ended I was almost 30. It gets quite difficult. When you’re
25 and it’s all kind of exciting, but there comes a point, especially for women
where you think “actually I’m sick of being bloody patronised by guitar
roadies”. I’m sure it’s the same for any women in the entertainment industry,
but it is a bit infantile with bands.’
None of this is necessarily breaking news, of course, but
every fresh report brings to light just how unfair the music industry is for
women. ‘It is about men being allowed to behave a certain way, men being
encouraged to behave a certain way.’ But, Berenyi argues, there is a flipside.
‘Now there are quite a lot of older women in music, whether it’s Chrissy Hynde
or Debbie Harry, so for the two-steps-forward-three-steps-back that a lot of
mainstream music has taken – a lot of the flesh-revealing, bitchy,
un-sisterhood stuff that’s going on – there is a separate stream.’
In spite of their seemingly indefinite hiatus, Lush are back
and they’re bad. ‘We’d love to make an album! But it’s all about the logistics:
it’s funding it, it’s trying to find the time.’ Please find the time, Miki. I
speak for the masses. Please.
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