GARBAGE'S first long-player was reissued this month and is now regarded as a classic album with a string of hits, including Only Happy When It Rains and Stupid Girl.
The band's front woman Shirley Manson wasn't so impressed at the time with a band that would soon help define the 90s around the world. The Edinburgh-born singer was going through something of a lockdown back in 1994 during a bleak mid-western winter, wondering why she had even bothered to try out for a group who "just didn't cut the mustard".
Now 27 years and 17 million worldwide album sales later she admits, "it was my own immaturity; I was looking at it from a superficial standpoint".
"I felt we weren't going to make a record good enough to transcend how we all looked," she says.
"I had grown up in a band (Goodbye Mr Mackenzie) where we were looking at the coolest rock stars like David Bowie, Iggy Pop and Nick Cave thinking there is no way we can compete with that legacy."
It didn't help that Manson was left to her own devices, "in a lonely mid-western hotel unable to drive or go anywhere while the band went home to their families", but like many over the last year, she found being stuck indoors had its advantages.
"I fell in love with the San Antonio Spurs and learned a lot about how they handled themselves in triumph and defeat," she explains.
"I love basketball and baseball and it got me through the recording. The Spurs coach, Gregg Popovich is arguably the greatest coach in sports history."
Manson describes last year's lockdown at her home in LA as "a ghastly experience" before adding: "I'm married to an incredible husband who brought good cheer and made incredible cocktails every day, we would sit and listen to a piece of vinyl and study it; that has kept me alive."
Her seventh album with Garbage, No Gods No Masters, features a photograph taken by Manson in an Edinburgh necropolis.
"I happened to be in the Dean Cemetery and these two sister angels appeared out of nowhere, I was like 'that's it'. I sent the picture to our graphic artist and he used one of the iconic angels," she says.
"I fought with the record company, who didn't want the vinyl to be neon green. I wondered why they had such a bee in their bonnet until I found out green is the most expensive, at which point I said to my manager, 'This is a hill I will die on'; she said, 'Don't worry; we'll get you the green'."
The daughter of a theologian, Manson grew up in a Church of Scotland family being taught at Sunday school by her father. Since her early teens, she has distanced herself from organised religion but says that people have pointed out "God is all over this record".
"It never occurred to me before, for some inexplicable reason," she says.
"I don't know why, other than I'm middle-aged, I'm questioning everyone, I'm challenging everything and I guess I'm frustrated at how organised religion is shoring up this patriarchal system that isn't benefiting anyone apart from old white men."
The album's opening cut, The Men Who Rule The World, is an arresting listen, lyrically her target is firmly fixed: "The men who rule the world/Have made a f***ing mess/The history of power/The worship of success."
She describes it as "a futurist modern retelling of Noah's ark where I am Noah on George Clinton's Mothership".
"I come down to save everything beautiful, divine and worth saving while leaving everything that's wretched, cruel and violent behind," she explains.
"The band just really killed it and met the energy of the song; all of us were laughing... what a weird song."
I suggest the track's jagged and funky riffs recall Bowie's Fame, as well as a hint of his maligned 90s output - "We're such big fans, his name thrills any time we can get close to that genius."
Manson struggled when the band quickly hit a zeitgeist moment around the globe; she soon became an alternative pin-up and covergirl not long after the band released their 1995 debut, which was followed by Version 2.0 three years later.
Both albums went on to shift four million copies apiece but fame proved to be a demanding mistress.
"We found ourselves in some ludicrous situations," she recalls.
"I think one that strikes me and that also highlights the ludicrousness of the industry was Bob Dylan - can I underline that... Bob Dylan - was going on before Garbage.
"It was on a festival stage, also Patti Smith and Nick Cave. We were mortified that these three amazing icons of songwriting and artistry were going on before a relatively new band.
"How come festival organisers and so on are not noticing how disrespectful and outrageous that is? At what point as a culture are we going to value things of depth and importance? Why are we valuing money and ten-a-penny artists that will be never remembered? Some of these artists are struggling to get on the page; that's a joke."
Sexual misconduct allegations have been rife in the music industry, including the Garbage singer's namesake Marilyn Manson, with whom she recorded a duet with in 2005.
He is one among a number who are now being dropped as part of the #MeToo movement.
"I don't know one single artist that is without sin," says Manson of musicians being cancelled.
"There's no-one without failings as human beings, for us to expect perfection from artists in particular but humans in general is naive and sort of unrealistic.
"If a human being makes a beautiful or essential piece art that brings you joy, that art exists whether the person behind it is flawed or not and if we were to cancel anyone who has ever done anything wrong we would end up with sh**e music, movies and sh**e everything; it would be the blandest world you could imagine.
"You could cancel the great David Bowie if you care to for numerous things or Iggy Pop... the list is endless and they are all capable of great mistakes as are we all."
Another case in point is Oscar winner Sean Connery, who died last year, and his most famous on-screen character, James Bond. Manson shares the same city of birth with the actor who was a significant inspiration when she was growing up in the 1970s.
"I was very moved by Sean Connery's death, he was the representation of dreams for a lot of Scottish people; we didn't have anyone at that level or in Hollywood, and there was Sean in this incredible iconic role representing Scotland on the world stage," she says.
With Garbage, Manson was also the third Scottish female after Lulu and Sheena Easton to sing a Bond theme, recording The World Is Not Enough for the 19th 007 film in 1999.
"It makes sense that Scottish singers would be well represented in the litany of Bond themes because of course Ian Fleming, the writer was a Scotsman (by descent)," she says.
"There's an inherent understanding of what that franchise is trying to do and does, so to get invited to be part of the longest and most important film franchise in the history of cinema was spectacular. I'm very proud of that, it's a glorious part of our history."
Garbage's self-titled debut and Version 2.0 are reissued on vinyl and CD. A 20th anniversary edition of Beautiful Garbage is released on October 1.
