Quotes from Siouxsie Sioux

There are some strong female performers out there. But the industry's pre-occupation with the packaging of how a woman looks has gone completely the other way, back to almost the 60s, early 70s.

It was a reaction to when I was growing up, and women were supposed to be all blonde hair, gold suntan, and pink lips. It was a real black-and-white opposite of what was considered attractive. I was kicking against something I found really oppressive.

I hate the industry even more now, no bands get nurtured anymore. Labels only spend money promoting acts they know will be Top Ten. I find it offensive spending $2 million on a video.

If we lose track when it comes to deciding when to stop, that should be a sign.

It's funny: now we're starting to do interviews, we've just begun to understand what we're doing, whereas before, without doing interviews, we never really thought about motives.

It's something that one expects after 12 years - to be eaten up by the process - but we're still very much on the outside.

Always, with any sort of politics, which is why we haven't got any, you get extremists, and once you get extremists, you get people doing great things and terrible things... for every following of some sort, you get followers who distort things.

I suppose I was interested in creating a vision; in the same way, I was very drawn to tension within cinema. Hitchcock was my other early obsession - 'Psycho' and its score. So there was the sense of trying to create an atmosphere: how a sound resonates and makes an effect.

The whole 'anniversary of punk' thing really compounded what I thought was wrong. I was so disillusioned. I remember thinking, 'I don't want anything to do with this.'

It was trying to break down the stereotypes and it was the kind of thing where, for the first time, women were on a par and not seen as just objects. Though girls were objectified still.

My dreams are of water. And my nightmares.

I think a certain amount of anger has been a fuel of mine, if you want - but also some sort of sadness, and plain mischief, of course.

There is a fun, flippant side to me, of course. But I would much rather be known as the Ice Queen.

I like a bit of eye candy like anyone but to have it solely about the eye candy and have it fall into a category so rigidly as well is wrong.

I love the ocean. I've always liked the blue, so tranquil and peaceful and gliding. And the fear of it.

I think a certain amount of anger has been a fuel of mine, if you want - but also some sort of sadness, and plain mischief, of course.

Gothic in its purest sense is actually a very powerful, twisted genre, but the way it was being used by by journalists - 'goff' with a double f - always seemed to me to be about tacky, harum-scarum horror, and I find that anything but scary. That wasn't what we were about at all.

I suppose you always look back at how easier things were being young. There's always a shame that you're not as naive as you were.

People forget the punk thing was really good for women. It motivated them to pick up a guitar rather than be a chanteuse. It allowed us to be aggressive.

My dreams are of water. And my nightmares.

Every generation has had some sort of focus for their unrest and discomfort with growing up. But today, the music that's in the charts is probably liked by their parents as well, and I think it's a part of youth that you need something that isn't liked or understood by the older generation.

What I really resent most about people sticking labels on you is that it cuts off all the other elements of what you are because it can only deal with black and white; the cartoon.

We don't like trends. We formed initially because we felt we had something of our own to say. What was happening was lacking in certain aspects - it needed a different point of view, a variant on things, but with the same attack, impact.

Pop music for me was definitely escapist, but never studious.