On Friday (May 30), the Madison, Wisconsin-born rock band Garbage will release their newest LP, Let All That We Imagine Be The Light. The music on the record is a testament to seeing the world with new eyes. Eyes that want to see more.

Garbage frontwoman Shirley Manson took us through her life, from punk rocker in her teens to the woman who wouldn’t hurt an ant today. Like so many of us, Manson struggles with how to keep a peaceful head as the world changes all around her.

But she has a way to navigate the madness: new music that comes from a new outlook on the world. Never before has she so chosen to examine the moment she’s in. To not look back or ahead, but to just feel the now. Because it could all go away soon.

VICE: When the prospect of a new album comes up, what makes you say yes, what makes you want to dive in, what makes you know it’s the right time, because I imagine it must feel like a big lift?

SHIRLEY MANSON: Yeah, that’s a really good question. I’ve never even thought about that before. I don’t know. It’s funny, the rhythms of a band are like Arcadian rhythms. They dictate your forward momentum one way or another, whether you like it or not. Eventually, schedules just get formed and deadlines arrive, and before you know it, you’ve made a new record. Every time we go into making a new record, I say to the band, “I don’t remember how we—how the fuck do we do this?”

I’ve been party to a lot of records at this point in my career, not just with Garbage but with previous bands and a band before that. You’re just always like, “How do we do this? Where do we start?” So, you have day one in the studio, and something gets done, and before you know it, you’re off to the races.

VICE: Can you talk about the chemistry between you and Butch Vig? I live in Seattle, and he’s got a long-standing association with Nirvana. So, why do you think it works so well between you two?

SM: Well, I mean, I think of the band as the three men that I work with. Not just Butch. And the chemistry exists between all four of us. I don’t really know what else to say. We have chemistry, and they are very good at things that I’m not, and I’m very good at things that they’re not. And so it’s kind of incredible that we have been able to stumble forward in our career for 30 years, particularly when you bear in mind how we came together, which was not the most organic of beginnings. That was just literally good fortune. That we were compatible. Emotionally compatible, intellectually compatible. And so here we are. Nobody would have guessed it, least of all ourselves. Obviously, the specter of Kurt Cobain has sat on our shoulders because of Butch’s association with Seattle and with Nirvana and with all the other bands he’s worked with from that area, Portland, the Bay Area and the Northwest.

VICE: There were several interesting quotes from you in the press materials for your new album. One was, “I’m a fierce character. I’ve never moved through the world feeling particularly scared of anything.” Where did this mentality come from?

SM: Well, I think it comes mostly from my father. As someone who challenged me a lot intellectually and spiritually as a child. He’s an academic, and he pushed me really hard to justify my position on a lot of things. I also inherited the Viking genes, which I am not necessarily proud of, but it’s the reality. My city did a genealogy tracking and discovered, much to everybody’s horror, that I was 100% Viking, which is highly unusual. Most people are a mix of something. To get someone who’s pure Viking is highly unusual [Laughs]. So, I think I’ve got a bit of that, whatever that genetic makeup is. And also, I’m just a very outspoken person and always have been. I’ve had a lot of pushback in my life because I’m outspoken. And you’ve got to stand your ground eventually. Because you’re opening your mouth and you hold your position. I’m used to holding my position, so I’m not scared of being challenged, really.

I also don’t think I’m right all the time. I’m always interested in being set right. I’m not always concerned about being wrong, which I think scares a lot of people, stops a lot of people in their tracks. They feel they have to be right all the time. I don’t feel that way. And then finally, I was in a punk band in my teens into my early 20s with Big John Duncan, famously from The Exploited, one of Scotland’s most famous punk bands. And he was hard as fuck and he basically trained us all into how to hold our ground. So, I’m just not intimidated by people. I don’t care what people think about me. And I think that’s where fear comes from with a lot of people.

VICE: Okay, there’s one more quote from you that I wanted to ask you about. You said, “When I was young, I tended towards the destruction of things. Now that I’m older, I believe it’s vitally important to build and create things instead… I want to do no harm.” When did this shift happen in you?

SM: Yeah, obviously, it’s been a slow dawning. I’m nearly 58, I’m going to turn 58 this year. And of course, it’s been a slow dawning. As I said earlier, I grew up in a punk band. And everything was—I was a rebellious teen, and I just wanted to cause chaos and smash things. It’s difficult to explain how and where and when I came to these conclusions but over the last couple of years in particular, seeing so much unbelievable wanton destruction take place in the world, whether it’s in Gaze, whether it’s in Ukraine, I’ve become more and more obsessed with the idea of salvaging and saving and loving and caring and bridging.

I’ve become more and more obsessed with those kinds of concepts, which when I was younger, they didn’t—religion and faith and love, these big themes meant nothing to me at all. I was much more interested in rebellion and rage, and now I’ve become obsessed. I think, actually, you know what, it was when my mom died. That’s when everything shifted for me.

VICE: Wow.

SM: I started wanting to save spiders in the house rather than kill them, as a random example. Stuff like that. And that has just become more and more, like, urgent to me as the years progress. I guess because I felt like my mom was snuffed out. It felt like my mom was snuffed out like an ant. So, now when I see tiny, tiny little creatures, I want to preserve them. Because I think, well, that’s somebody’s mom! [Laughs] Things change when people who mean everything to you die.

VICE: You talked about the idea of bridging. I know that while you and the band were making this new album, you were going through some health issues. At the same time, the subject matter on the record is all about the external world being broken. Did you find yourself weaving those two things together on the album, like DNA? Or is that reading too much into it?

SM: Oh, definitely. No, no. Absolutely 100 percent. But I didn’t have health problems. I was broken, physically broken. There’s a big difference, right? And so yeah, my physical state and the state of the world definitely came to—they were clashing together at the time. And I was sort of forced to think differently about my position in the world. Because I was bed-bound for months. And back in July, in particular, but this had been going on for two years. It will send you crazy after a while if you don’t force your mind to expand and range elsewhere and start looking at things differently, from a different perspective, a different angle. I think I would have gone mad.

I was so affected by what I was seeing on my stupid phone. Every morning I was waking crying. It was awful. And some of that was my own physical pain, and some of that was what I was seeing unfold on my phone. So, I really did have to employ a different way of looking at the world and thinking about it.

VICE: Can you go into that a little bit more?

SM: I was bed-bound, so of course I was looking at my phone 24 hours a day, right? I’m being a bit dramatic, but it was just constant doom-scrolling. I don’t know if you’ve ever experienced any severe mobility issue but when you are unable to walk and you’re learning how to walk again, the lessons are profound. You are literally having to put every single ounce of your physical power into lifting a leg or a foot, or straightening a leg, or stepping up onto pavement. It’s like everything is sucked into these tiny, tiny little micro-achievements. And as someone who has no patience and also has been physically blessed her whole life—I’ve been blessed physically. Never had a problem, and I’ve been athletic my whole life—to suddenly slow everything down into these tiny little moments and triumphs was a really fascinating experience.

I’m also really grateful for it. It was actually a real gift in the end. But I didn’t know it was a gift at the time. I was depressed and defeated and scared that I was never going to regain my physicality, which is a horrible place to be. But that did affect the writing of the record, for which I’m eternally grateful. When you’ve been in a band for 30 years and you’re suddenly given an entirely different perspective and entirely different subject matter to write about or explore, that’s a gift.

VICE: Doom-scrolling. There is something about the psyche of so many of us where we obsess and follow all the horrible things as if it’s valuable. It’s so bad that it becomes our mental state. I’m drawn to it, too. It’s difficult to separate yourself from the news headlines and your phone. But what is it about my brain that wants to digest it more? And whatever that is causes the balloon of disgustingness to stay in the air.

SM: [Laughs] I totally understand what you’re saying, and I don’t mean to laugh because it’s awful.

VICE: No, no, of course!

SM: But I totally understand where you’re coming from. I think we all do. I don’t know anyone who is not under this black cloud of concern. It’s very frightening and very depressing, and it really does feel like we’re living in an upside-down world. Nothing is making sense. Those who are fighting for peace are literally being portrayed as criminals, and those who are slaughtering people or stealing money from people or stuffing people in concentration camps or foreign jails are being glorified by the media. I don’t understand it. And watching the media be silent is so frightening. Because we’ve relied on journalists for 100 years to speak out in outrage. And we’re finding these voices silent, and so I think we’re all terrified. It’s not a good feeling.

VICE: You’ve been through this physical trial, and now you’ve created this album with this important band that’s important to you. What are you most pleased about right now, most grateful for?

SM: I realize that I was so scared of aging. And now that I have aged, I realize there’s a freedom that comes with that. A great feeling of liberation. I’m also aware that in the history of the world, there are very few records made by aging women. There are subjects open to me that have not yet been written about, you know? And that is a very exciting realization. So, that’s thrilling to me. I also think I’m getting better as a writer, getting better as a musician. As a performer. As a daughter, as a wife. As an animal lover, as a nature appreciator. All these things I’ve gotten so much have just exploded for me. The possibilities have exploded for me, and I find that amazing. And to go back to what you were saying—there’s a phrase my Granny used to use, which is Gather ye rosebuds whilst ye may. This idea that you are alive, you are alive. You are okay today, right now. So, fucking enjoy it because it might not be that way tomorrow. And that I find a liberating and thrilling engine to get through my life. To try and stay in the absolute now. And I’ve never been like that. So, to be that way now is truly amazing.