Siobhan Fahey and Marcella Detroit are picking over the disintegration of Shakespears Sister in 1993. It quickly turns into a grim game of word association. ‘Mutual resentment,’ says Fahey. ‘Great insecurity. Lack of communication.’ Detroit nods. ‘Insecurities. Conflicting desires.’ There’s an awkward pause. ‘We don’t want to dig up the nitty-gritty of all that now,’ says Fahey. ‘It wouldn’t be constructive or healthy in any way.’
Twenty-six years after one of the most acrimonious partings in pop, Shakespears Sister have reunited, releasing a single, All The Queen’s Horses and announcing a tour.
It’s an unlikely second act. Former Bananarama singer Fahey and American session musician and songwriter Detroit (born Marcella Levy) first teamed up in 1989. Their hits included You’re History, I Don’t Care and the gothic-pop psychodrama Stay, which stayed at No 1 for eight weeks in 1992. Their second album, Hormonally Yours, sold a million copies.
Twenty-six years after one of the most acrimonious partings in pop, Marcella Detroit and Siobhan Fahey, aka Shakespears Sister (above), have reunited
Beneath the surface, however, all was not well. Fahey suffered mental health setbacks, while the pair grew estranged. When Fahey spoke of the end of the band at the Ivor Novello Awards in 1993, Detroit was caught off guard. ‘No one ever said to me officially, it’s over,’ she says. ‘Yeah, but I assumed that you understood it was over,’ says Fahey. ‘We hadn’t spoken for six months. It was pretty obvious!’
Fahey, 60, is wild-eyed, intense, a little jittery. Detroit, 66, is calmer and more reflective, but clearly no pushover. Though they have worked hard on their relationship, there remains an underlying edge.
After splitting, they did not speak for 25 years, a situation that ‘niggled’ them both. ‘I didn’t like that there was no resolution,’ says Detroit. ‘I reached out to Siobhan over the years.’ Fahey says: ‘I’m not the best at communicating, frankly. I prefer the stiff upper lip. I’d park it for a few years, and the decades rolled past. Then I started doing some serious work on myself in 2012. I wanted to evolve beyond my immature side.’
Last year Fahey sent out feelers, via her manager, to Detroit’s husband. In 2018, the pair met in Los Angeles. There were apologies on both sides. ‘We realised that we had many misconceptions about each other, and a lot of situations were clarified,’ says Detroit.
After Shakespears Sister split, Fahey was thrown a lifeline when her old band, Bananarama (above in 1984), invited her to reform the original trio and tour in 2017
They always were an odd couple. Their more famous song, Stay, played on the tension between Fahey’s growling, kohl-eyed menace and Detroit’s operatic flourishes. Despite the single’s huge success, they seem ambivalent about it. ‘Stay is a bit of an anomaly,’ says Fahey. ‘It was a Trojan horse that brought that album to a million people, but it definitely did overshadow everything else.’
Following her departure from Shakespears Sister, Detroit made a string of solo albums. Fahey, meanwhile, went through what she refers to as her ‘wilderness years’. When her marriage to Eurythmic Dave Stewart ended in 1996, she had two young sons, Sam and Django, to raise and a career to resurrect.
It was a difficult time. She talked about her mental health issues, which at one point led to hospitalisation. ‘I owned up publicly to the fact that I suffered from depression, and I know I’ve met people over the years who have found that very helpful,’ she says.
Her candour was many years ahead of the curve. ‘Nowadays, of course, people are much more publicly confessional, almost to too much of a degree, where it becomes like a trademark or a trend.’ Detroit jumps in. ‘But for those people who really do suffer from it, it’s no joke.’
Since 2012 Fahey has spent most of her time in LA, where kundalini yoga keeps her depression at bay. ‘I do my kundalini class every morning. It’s like going to church and primary school at the same time.’
During those ‘wilderness years’, Fahey made two further albums as Shakespears Sister, but they were largely ignored. In 2017, her old band, Bananarama, threw Fahey a lifeline, inviting her to reform the original trio and tour.
‘Bananarama was absolutely unfinished business,’ she says. ‘It was wonderful to come back. I’d been trying to walk through life on one leg, and now I felt whole again. But I desperately wanted us to make new music together. I was disappointed it ended up being just a retro exercise. I thought, I’ve got to make another record.’
This renewed creative urge spurred Fahey to make overtures to Detroit. Hatchet buried, last summer they wrote a bunch of new songs in the Californian desert. Two are included on the forthcoming best of album, while an EP of new material will be released to coincide with their UK tour later this year.
‘It was always a magical union, us two as writers,’ says Fahey. ‘It was always the easiest part of our relationship.’ Detroit smiles. ‘We’re picking up where we left off, but with more of an understanding of each other. It’s really exciting.’
‘Singles Party – The Best Of Shakespears Sister’ is out on July 19. They’re touring October/November