ON MUSIC INDUSTRY POLITICS
We’d had basically done our first two records by ourselves, but on Beautiful Garbage we had all of the managers and record label heads from all over the world came over to Madison. We presented it to them and they broke into applause. The feedback was good and we were all really excited. We booked tickets to go to the UK and we wake up in the morning and see planes flying into the World Trade Center. We didn’t know it then, but in that moment our career got hit by a juggernaut, like the whole world was, but we never really recovered as a result. We didn’t go to the UK and didn’t do the press, and by the time we did go there the radio had stopped playing women. When the world gets scared, the first people they punish are the women. It happened everywhere, but particularly in America. You couldn’t get a woman on the radio in alternative rock. Our managers said, ‘Sorry, but they’re not playing women anymore.