Profile of Siouxsie Sioux on Famous Like Me

Susan Janet Ballion (born May 27, 1957) is better known by her stage name, Siouxsie Sioux (pronounced "Suzy Sue"). Born in London, Siouxsie was the lead singer of Siouxsie & the Banshees, an influential, London-based punk/goth band. She is also the lead singer of another band, The Creatures. Siouxsie often uses the assumed name Susan Dallion so that her mother won't get so many telephone calls from fans.

Siouxsie was one of a group of bored, suburban teenagers known as the Bromley Contingent, a group devoted to the Sex Pistols that included fellow Banshees founder Steven Severin, Billy Idol, Sue Catwoman, Adam Ant, John Simon Ritchie (a pre-Sex Pistols Sid Vicious) and others.

Early life

Siouxsie Sioux, was born Susan Janet Ballion, the youngest of three children, at Guy's Hospital, in South London to a bilingual mother and alcoholic father. She attended Mottingham Secondary Modern School for Girls in Kent.

The Ballions had met in the Belgian Congo. She was a French-speaking secretary; he a laboratory technician who milked serum from poisonous snakes.

When Susan was 14 her father died from alcoholism. At age 15, she survived a life-threatening illness known as ulcerative colitis, an experience she described later as "surreal." Later she stated that "it completely de-romanticised the body for me," which possibly added to her attraction to bondage type outfits.

While growing up, Susan was often left to look after herself as best as she was able in an undisciplined atmosphere. Even before his death, her father's alcoholism kept him incapacitated, forcing her mother to work full time. Homelife was wild and untamed. Even the garden at their home north of Petts Wood grew into a jungle, with high hedges and rambling roses, until the neighbours ganged up and complained, insisting the Ballions prune their hedges.

Professional career

Siouxsie's first gig was as an unrehearsed fill-in band at the 100 Club's "Punk Rock Festival", two nights in September, 1976 organised by Malcolm McLaren.

In 1976 The Bromley Contingent followed the Sex Pistols to France and Siouxsie was punched by an Arab. She was wearing a cupless bra, black vinyl stockings and a black armband with a swastika on it. She liked Salon Kitty and disliked those who banged on about being in the war; the swastika was intended as a campy joke and she did not, then, appreciate the panorama of implications. "The Nazis were not only anti-Semitic but anti-anyone different, anti-anyone like me." The regalia backfired. The National Front started to pay attention and she was horrified.

Grundy interview

One of Siouxsie's first public appearances was with the Sex Pistols on Bill Grundy's television show. It was on that show that the Pistols garnered attention for releasing a stream of expletives in reaction to Bill Grundy's provocation. In the course of Grundy's interview with the members of the Sex Pistols, he tried to flirt with Siouxsie:

Grundy: "Are you worried, or are you just enjoying yourself?"

Siouxsie: Enjoying myself.

Grundy: "Are you?"

Siouxsie: Yeah.

Grundy: "Ah, that's what I thought you were doing."

Siouxsie: I always wanted to meet you.

Grundy: "Did you really?"

Siouxsie: Yeah.

Grundy: "We'll meet afterwards, shall we?"

It was to this that Steve Jones reacted by calling Grundy a "dirty sod" and a "dirty old man," and the interview went downhill from there.

More recent years

Siouxsie married Siouxsie & the Banshees' drummer, Budgie in 1991.

Siouxsie is the featured vocalist on the title track to Basement Jaxx's 2003 album Kish Kash. (Strangely the track is spelled "Cish Cash")

16/6/2005 10:14:13 PM ( Source: PA) Siouxsie won the Icon Award at the Mojo Honours in London, June 2005.

Current lifestyle

Siouxsie lives a comparatively quiet life nowadays. Fed up with fans staring through the windows of their basement flat in west London, she and Budgie moved to France in 1992. Now they live in a converted farmhouse in a small village between Toulouse and Bordeaux where they have a garden, cats and mountains of books. A few years ago they set up their own label, Sioux Records, and have just finished building a studio in their house.

Albums

Siouxsie & the Banshees

• The Scream 1978
• Join Hands 1979
• Kaleidoscope 1980
• Juju 1981
• Once Upon a Time/The Singles 1981
• A Kiss in the Dreamhouse 1982
• Nocturne (Live) 1983
• Hyaena 1984
• Tinderbox 1986
• The Peel Sessions 1987
• Through the Looking Glass 1987
• Peepshow 1988
• Superstition 1991
• Twice Upon a Time/The Singles 1992
• The Rapture 1995
• The Best Of 2002
• Seven Year Itch Live 2003

Film appearances include The Punk Rock Movie (Don Letts, 1977); Jubilee (Derek Jarman, 1977); Out of Bounds (Richard Tuggle, 1986); Showgirls (Paul Verhoeven, 1995); The Craft (Andrew Fleming, 1996); The Filth and the Fury (Julien Temple, 2000); 24 Hour Party People (Michael Winterbottom, 2002).

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