When Peter Clarke, aka legendary Siouxsie and the Banshees/Creatures percussionist Budgie, has done recent in-store events promoting his gripping new autobiography, The Absence – Memoirs of a Banshee Drummer, he has recited the two passages that open and close the book: witnessing, at age 12, the sudden death of his fragile and ailing mother in the Clarkes’ St. Helens family home, and, at age 49, parting personally and professionally with the other major female power-figure in his life, bandmate/ex-wife Siouxsie Sioux, who he’d been with since age 22.
“I think that sets the mood and tone — for me, anyway,” explains Budgie, speaking from Berlin, where he now contentedly resides with his current wife and their two children. “And those [passages] were the most challenging [to write], as I thought they would be. I was thinking about how I am going to get in there as this young boy, sitting and observing everything, and how I am going to go into character to describe the two people at the end.”
Budgie admits that he pondered, “Oh gosh, is this even the right thing to do?” when he decided to write so forthrightly about his complicated relationship with Sioux (including the power imbalances within the band’s ranks and within their marriage, and the slow, sad way that their partnership came to an end) and his struggles with alcoholism, codependency, and lifelong attempts to fill the unfillable void (or absence, if you will) left by his mother. And it should be noted that The Absence is hardly some salacious, mudslinging, scandalous tell-all. Post-punk nerds will be delighted by Budgie’s tales of working with the Slits and short-lived Liverpool supergroup Big in Japan; recording classic Banshees records like Kaleidoscope, A Kiss in the Dreamhouse, and the Robert Smith-assisted Hyæna; crafting the Creatures’ landmark debut album in Hawaii; and making alt-rock history on the first-ever Lollapalooza tour in 1991. However, it is The Absence’s universally relatable recollections of loss, redemption, and midlife reinvention that will likely resonate most with readers, regardless of their musical tastes.
In the Q&A below (which has been considerably edited for brevity and clarity) and the full, 83-minute video interview above (which features many amusing tangents and in-jokes), Budgie, now age 67, talks about being a member of basically the post-punk Fleetwood Mac, the grieving process, the writing process, and what he learned about himself along the way.
LYNDSANITY: Your book opens very heavily, with the death of your mother. That’s literally the first passage. And the book is titled The Absence. I am assuming that refers to the absence of your mother.
BUDGIE: Yeah, it’s very much what primed me, what set me on the trajectory. I had no idea where I was going, but it really kind of fired me out. I thought, “Well, there’s nothing here for me now.” And also, there was that undercurrent feeling of, “And my mom will never know, anyway.” I could feel somewhere there was a feeling of, yes, sadness and anger, but just kind of, “Who cares”? And that kind of did fuel every turning point, I suppose. … The first night of the book tour I was in Glasgow and it was a very low-key start to the tour, very intimate, one those vinyl bars selling booze down at one end and burgers at the other end, and I was sitting with most of the people that were coming along. And I thought, “What do I read?” And so, I just thought, “Well, I’ll read the beginning and the end,” without really thinking too much about it.
Wow. In the beginning, you are only 12 years old, and your mother dies in a sudden, shocking way. And the book concludes with you and Siouxsie breaking up. To read those passages in front of a live audience, that must be intense.
I think that sets the mood and tone — for me, anyway. And those were the most challenging, as I thought they would be. I was thinking about how I am going to get in there, as this young boy, sitting and observing everything, and how I am going to go into character to describe the two people at the end.
You just touched on this, but in the book you say you might not have even had a music career if your mother had not died — because she would have been disciplining and chaperoning you, saying, “You’re not going on tour, you’re not playing this late-night gig, you’re not hanging out with this much older crowd in town,” et cetera. It must be a weird sliding-doors realization — because obviously you’ve had an amazing life and career, but it was a traumatic loss that set it in motion. Your life could’ve been very different in so many ways, good and bad, if that hadn’t happened.
The question has been asked, “Would your mom have let young Peter at age 12 be out at the weekend, sometimes as late as 2 or 3 AM?” … My sister answered that for me. She heard this on a podcast and went, “No, she wouldn’t!” And I thought, “Of course not.” It is funny how you remember your childhood. I remember coming home late, having been out with my friends all day. It was raining all day. We’d been playing in a muddy wood, and I came home around about 6 in the evening. And my mom just cuffed me around the side of the head. That’s all I remember — the one time, probably — but she was really upset, worried. … It took all these years later, with my sister sitting in the car park outside the pub where my grandmother’s house was just across the street, when she said, “Of course your mom loved you.” My brother was 10 years older than me, and my sister was six years older than me, and I kind of popped out in 1957. So, that combined with losing her at such a young age — she was only 45 — I didn’t really know her. Because illness had changed her. I didn’t know she was ill. She wasn’t bedridden. But my brother remembers a young woman who played tennis and liked golfing, who was much more active and sporty. When we were going on holidays together, just me and my mom and dad and sometimes my sister, she was a very quiet woman. I remember her laugh, but not much more.
You wrote that the loss of your mother at such a young age affected your adult romantic relationships because it made you pursue unavailable, strong women. And of course, that ties into one of the other formative women in your life, Siouxsie. I don’t know if the title The Absence relates to that too. I think you and Siouxsie were considered “couple goals” back in the ‘80s, like some sort of Goth power-couple, so it was interesting and surprising to read something was missing in your dynamic. You had a connection, and yet something was always absent.
We were, as we were called in the British Press, the “Richard and Judy of punk”! That was when we were on the cover of Smash Hits and stuff like that. … It’s a lot to do with where I came from, what happened. And if we’re talking about Siouxsie, of course, then there’s a lot happened in her early life. It was very similar. We were born in the same year. We lost a significant other — her father, my mother — around the same age. It turned my life on its head, and it wouldn’t surprise me if somewhere that [is where the] connection was. I mean, I kind of met Siouxsie before I did…
Yes — your anecdote about when you saw her onstage from afar and were in so awe of her as a performer that you made a wax doll of her! It’s crazy that that happened before you were bandmates, friends, or a couple. And seeing her that night was another thing that set you on your musical path. Do you still have that doll?
I don’t know what happened to the doll. A lot of things survived in a little box that I actually found in London and took back to Liverpool. There were things in there that it literally was like Pandora’s box. All my sketchbooks are there, all those little photo-booth photographs which really cataloged my hairdos: short, long, black, blonde. But yes, I went home [that night I first saw Siouxsie] and made a little effigy, a tiny little thing, about 12 inches tall. I don’t know what happened to it. I didn’t do anything more like that. It was like, “OK, [music is] what I’m going to be doing.” I don’t know; as I say in the book, I didn’t even put pins in it! I didn’t go, “One day, you will be mine, in my power!” [laughs]
Well, it seems the initial attraction was beyond just thinking Siouxsie was hot or beautiful. And it was beyond a romantic thing. You first saw her as a larger-than-life rock star.
She sort of was somebody from the Magnificent Four, like, “Watch out, don’t mess with that person.” They’re sort of on another track, parallel. They seem to have a power, and yet a disregard. And maybe I recognized that that drive and yet that disregard for the consequences, almost. I don’t think Siouxsie ever really thought, “This could be dangerous”; I think she acted quicker than that. But the compulsive/impulsive [can be] infuriating, if you are trying to carefully manufacture a career out of certain talents.
Obviously, you eventually became bandmates, and then lovers. There’s much more about your relationship with her in your book than I anticipated. You really went there. Did you set out to write this story, or did the book take a shape you hadn’t expected?
Well, I knew I didn’t want to write an album-by-album [account]. … Of course, by the time our relationship ended, we’d spent half of our lives together, and I think it’s difficult to extricate yourself from that. We were never apart. And so, there was no, “I’m leaving, I’ll see you later” kind of thing. I always thought, what would it be like to go to work and come home in the evening? Would the house be empty, or would dinner be on the table? These things were never a question, never considered. But also, the downside was we were never apart, so there was no downtime. And so, you experience every aspect of every flaw, every wondrous part of your beautiful character.
I mentioned earlier that, despite all your years together, there was some kind of disconnect. One thing you did share was surviving the early death of a parent, and yet, you two never actually talked about that. I would’ve assumed that sharing such a traumatic, unique experience would have been something you’d have a heart-to heart-about. Or that it would have at least come up. Is this a British thing, like a “Keep Calm Carry On” thing, that you suppressed it?
I think Siouxsie mentioned somewhere that we had that in common, and of course we did. But we never took it further. It was never, as you say, just few drinks in the evening, maybe sit down and say, “So, how did that make you feel? What was it like for you? What happened to your family?” I saw Siouxsie’s family probably every Christmas when we went around there, and if I remember correctly, it was like [her father] was still around. … And my family, in comparison, was very quiet and seemed to be lacking a kind of compassion for each other. It certainly wasn’t cold; it was concern, but expressed in a different way. … The Banshees felt like a family sometimes. And certainly, when Robert Smith joined that family, it was a “mental family” — I think that was a term coined by Robert. And of course, the Cure were very much in our lives. It wasn’t until Lollapalooza that we saw bands at work and the way that they operated, because we didn’t hang out with bands. But what brings all these crazy characters together, quite often, is something has triggered them to run away to the circus. … And I think when my mom died, it was like, go find the circus.
You write in your book that there was a weird friction between Robert Smith and Siouxsie that you witnessed.
Yeah, Robert was the only person that called Siouxsie “Janet” — her second name. And I thought, “Wow, that’s really forward and familiar.” But she loved it and took it. So, she was “Janet” to Robert, and Robert was “Wabbit” to her, as in Elmer Fudd.
Did that make you jealous, like maybe there was some kind of emotional affair going on?
Oh gosh, I could just as easily be jealous of a crew member. Like, somebody was maybe getting too much attention, because we can’t show that much affection or it might disturb the equilibrium or something, the balance within the band. And so, in many ways, perhaps there was a game of distracting. When Robert was part of the four-piece, it gave a kind of a distraction, and also it was a new flattery as well. There was a new dynamic emerging in many ways, and perhaps that’s the way a band survives. It’s always slightly altering the depth of field, if you’re talking in camera terms of who’s in focus and who’s not. And in a way it really works, because you need revitalization, maybe in yourself as a person. Say, for instance, Siouxsie needed somebody new who isn’t playing the role that is already established. … And [Robert] wasn’t the pillar of emerging Goth [at that time]; he was a character in waiting, really.
There’s a lot to unpack with these band dynamics. It’s almost a post-punk Fleetwood Mac situation! Because Siouxsie had been involved with [Banshees bassist] Steve Severin before, and then you came into the picture and you were the cute new guy. And there was this flirtation between you and Siouxsie, and then you two went from being a secret couple to an official couple — and also an official couple that had a side-project, the Creatures. It seems that’d be a recipe for some fraught band dynamics, with people getting jealous or trying to mark their territory or battle for dominance. And of course, there was a power imbalance between you and Siouxsie, because you were dating the figurehead of the band…
In a way, Siouxsie would be seen as the figurehead, even though she didn’t want that. … I could have played more on that “my position’s safe” kind of thinking, but also it was suffused with, “I’m just one of the band,” as well. Very much my role would always be the oil on troubled waters, making sure the crew were OK, kind of acting as a go-between. I had that inner connection to, as you say, the figurehead, but also I was below decks, flitting between the upstairs and downstairs of the Banshee household.
Did the dynamics between either you and Siouxsie, or between you and Steve or the other Banshees, shift once you and Siouxsie were no longer keeping your romance on the DL and everyone knew you were a couple?
You said it with the Fleetwood Mac reference! [laughs] … I sort of saw two sides. I could see my duty and my role in assisting Siouxsie and then also passing on her feelings to management, but then also not wanting to step on the much longer-established relationship with Steven and Siouxsie, or with whoever might’ve been around. Nils Stevenson, who was the manager when I joined, and was Siouxsie’s partner after Steve, you know. So, there was a lot of very close-circle intimacy. And I did step into a very close circle.
It seems that even after the romantic passion fizzled out, you and Siouxsie were always great musical partners. The Creatures kept going after the Banshees ended, but I don’t think they ever got their proper due; that music was so creative and innovative. I don’t know if you ever hoped for or imagined a reunion — not a romantic reunion, but professional one. A few other bands with former couples have made it work, like X, the White Stripes, No Doubt, Blondie, Eurythmics. Even if your marriage had run its course, is it possible that the music, which is what brought you together in the first place, could have continued?
It deteriorated. Our world was coming apart during the last little Creatures episode that we were promoting. We were playing the songs from [2003’s] Hai!, but we ended up doing a kind of a Siouxsie Dreamshow, as it was called at the end, which was embracing every aspect of Siouxsie and the Banshees and the Creatures over the years. I think we’d really run out of… not ideas, which sounds like we were bereft, but just the will, really. … There was a long period of really, I suppose, the slow realization that this had all come to an end. And that’s when the real feelings came up. Every day, every week, we were getting further and further apart from the thing that had held us together for the longest time. The Banshees finished in ’95, and we went back to [live in] France and continued as the Creatures. It wasn’t until actually 2002 when we did The Seven Year Itch [Banshees reunion] tour that we thought maybe that was the resurrection of possibly a new life for Siouxsie and the Banshees. … But that didn’t happen, and really that was the point where it’s the Creatures or nothing. But I think our life’s path was… I changed as well. I’d quit drinking after the Banshees, in ’95, and so for that next 10-year period, 2002 included, I was a quite different person, the way I tried to conduct myself and be around different situations. Whereas nothing else had changed, really. And so, the dynamic between us was different, and that was becoming more and more difficult to sustain. Unless there is a mutual desire to change together, I think that’s how relationships need to go in order to deal with things. And we’d never been very good at dealing with things. We were great at getting on with the next thing, so as to not have to deal with that thing.
I really do think we achieved such a lot. When the Creatures became the main vehicle for a good 10 years and we just toured and toured and toured, there was a lot of fun, but it really took its toll. It gets to the point where you think you shouldn’t be together, but it’s easier not to rock the boat, to just to kind of dig in and go, “Well, just one more, one more.” I was not suddenly filled with courage and conviction, but I thought perhaps I needed to sort myself out first and then see what happens [regarding any possible reunions] during the course of that.
You mentioned that about half of your life had been spent with Siouxsie by the time you split up. You were almost age 50 at that point, you’d been in this life-shaping relationship for a long time, and you were so identified with the Banshees. When that all ended and you had to start over, how did you do that? It’s an inspiring tale, because so many people have to grapple with that, whether they lose a job they’ve had their whole life or get divorced from their high school sweetheart after decades. And you were doing it in the public eye.
I think I had to decide who I was going to be. “Am I Peter? Am I Budgie?”
And what is the difference between Peter and Budgie? Is there a difference?
I doubt it, really. I suppose it’s easier to explain some things by saying, “Of course, that’s the character I adopted.” … I suppose it gave me a mask, to hide behind a little, by adopting a character. I’m not sure what the character exactly was — it was underdeveloped! [laughs] But I think part of the reason for writing is to go back to when Peter did get left behind and shouldered the weight of that trauma. The character I became didn’t want to go back there. But by really getting honest, I had to become who I am, who Peter is, and then realize that of course Peter doesn’t have to be just one version. Change is internal, and perhaps that’s the hardest part — that you are the same person, but you’ve not allowed every aspect of [yourself] to be fully available.
I think it’s about communication and being honest to oneself, and also releasing the self from the all-consuming ego. I mean, one of the first things that happened after everything stopped with Siouxsie was an old friend appeared and said, “Come and play with my band!” And so, I was suddenly the drummer [in Juno Reactor]. Suddenly I was introduced to another camp of music, the alternative dancing scene around Eastern Europe. … And I really loved it. And I was sober, so I only had the music. …. I was freed up from a lot of responsibility as well. I had burned out on Creatures before Siouxsie did, trying to run everything because I thought that was my role. And I really couldn’t do it anymore, but I had no plan B. So, it was nice stepping into that — and certainly with John Grant, just being the drummer in his band.
I want to make clear that despite the focus of this interview, there is a lot of nerdy music stuff in your book. It chronicles a very special era. For instance, one chapter that I loved, that’s not even related to any of the stuff we’ve been discussing, is your stint in Big in Japan. Just the fact that there were all these connections between the bands like Banshees and the Sex Pistols and the Slits and the Cure, that was such an exciting time to read about.
I think there’s more than one book I could have written! That’s what the thrust of it was, and [music] felt like a booster rocket that fired me away from situations that made me uncomfortable to deal with. I put the photographs together [for the book printing], and there’s a photograph image of the family, and then I just had them remove my mum from the center of that shot. That was difficult in itself, as is reading the passage, because it pictorially illustrated what had just happened: The photograph was taken two years before she died, and we never took another family photograph. That was it. End of family. And I suppose we always called our band a family, and perhaps if you’ve lost a key member of a family, you don’t want the next family you adopt to end in a similar way. You want a longevity, maybe. But we knew pretty much with Big in Japan [that it would end quickly]. It felt like a lifetime, but we tried and tried and couldn’t make it work beyond the edges of Liverpool.
What was the hardest part of writing The Absence?
I suppose it would be the end. I had to dramatize it. … It’s second-person, present-tense, where I’m addressing myself as “you,” and it somehow… gave me enough distance from it to observe what was happening to me and the other person. And in that sense it didn’t… how do I put this? It didn’t feel one-sided. It felt like this event was happening and I couldn’t do anything about it. It gave me the opportunity to treat it as such, like a point of view, like what are the angles, what was the lighting, what did it smell like, how are we going to film this difficult topic and make the music stand up and support this? I felt that’s where I was getting closer to the difficult part of writing a memoir. … It’s truth, it’s real, and it’s neither good nor bad. It just is.
In parts of the book, Siouxsie does not come off as a perfect person, but neither do you. You’re very honest and transparent about your foibles, which I think readers will appreciate.
Of course, that’s the dilemma. It has to be an honest version, and understandable, and hopefully clear away some obstacles to my own wellbeing. And maybe somebody reading it could also relate. … That dilemma is what we face when we are holding onto something that is precious and we don’t want it to end, but we can’t escape how we feel, but we don’t know what to do — which takes me right back to when my mum went. It is the main thing in life, and now it is vanished, it’s gone, and yet you don’t want to even mention it for fear of, “I don’t want to embarrass you, I don’t want to make you feel uncomfortable. Don’t mention that.” It creates a terrible inability to really experience things. You go about it a different way, rather than just letting it come into you and going, “OK, I can deal with this.”
I don’t know if you and Siouxsie communicate at all. She must be aware that this autobiography exists. Do you have any idea of how she’d react to it?
I can’t speak for her. … My response and reaction to things is very different; it even surprises me. So, I have no idea where Siouxsie is in her position now. … I mean, I could go out there and think somebody’s going to come along and go, “You shouldn’t have put this thing out!” But enough people have said, “Thank you for just being yourself.” I’m not getting any closer to answering your question, though… [laughs]
Well, I didn’t mean to turn this interview into such a therapy session! But I truly think that even if people aren’t familiar or interested in your music, The Absence is relatable just as a personal saga. What did you learn about yourself while writing it? You revisited parts of your life that you’d put aside, hadn’t thought about, or had avoided thinking about.
Gosh, it’s not the first time that’s been asked, and it’s certainly a question I’ve asked myself. … What I have found is that there was a lot of feeling and consideration going on back in the day, but there was just no time to really feel it and allow it to come through and express itself fully. Because I could have. And I still do feel terribly sad about people like John McGeoch, our guitarist only for three albums in the beginning of the ‘80s. John went on to great things as well, but it was just the way our particular relationship came to an end and because he’s no longer with us, that perhaps I could have [reached out]. He certainly tried to. I mentioned that in my writing. And that’s not to let me off the hook, but I’ve realized that I couldn’t have done anything much more than I did, because I was just not fully capable. I didn’t have all the tools in the kit at that point. And only through the writing, I think, do I understand that compassion for myself. It like me going back to the little boy I left back in St. Helens and saying, “It’s OK. It wasn’t your fault.”
Oh, wow. I think that’s a good way to end this interview. That’s profound.
Thank you, Lyndsey, for just giving me a moment. I thought this would be a different interview — and it was.
In a good way?
In a good way.
