Zak Starkey and Sshh Liguz are the perfect couple. And I don’t mean that in a creepy, jealous, Emily Blunt-in-Girl On the Train sort of way. What makes Liguz and Starkey so appealing is how they lovingly pat each other on the knee or give the other a back rub a split second after bickering about something silly. Or the way Starkey, who is the son of Ringo Starr and has played percussion for major acts like Oasis and The Who, keeps touching Liguz’s shoulder, which is sore from a round of shots. (She’s still recovering from a case of whiplash when we meet in New York on a chilly day in October.) Or how Starkey tends to impulsively jump in while Liguz is mid-thought, which finds them literally finishing each other’s sentences.
It makes sense that they’d have an old married-couple rapport—Starkey and Liguz (who are actually engaged) have been together, romantically and musically, for 10 years. After meeting at an MC5 concert in London, the pair traded contact information and eventually playlists, bonding over songs like Roxy Music’s “In Every Dream Home a Heartache.” After a few name changes, they were performing together under the name Pengu!ns. “When we’d do a live show, we’d get these quite terrifying, actually, plastic penguin heads,” Liguz describes. “I’d put it on and become this evil character and try and kill Zak. It was quite rough and chaotic. We would literally have a fight onstage. We’d do a tune and there’d be a storyline to it and I’d put a penguin head on and become the devil, basically.”
Eventually, though, they changed their name to SSHH. “I always wanted to be called that,” says Starkey. “I always thought it was a great name. I wanted it to be about her.”
“…Which is really not like me at all,” argues Liguz. “Because I’m called ‘Sshh’ [pronounced “Shush”], I didn’t want people to assume it was a solo project.”
Though they have minimal original music released under the glam-punk moniker (Starkey and Liguz have recorded at least three albums’ worth of material but are currently sorting out some label difficulties), the duo are about to release an all-covers charity album with the proceeds going to Roger Daltrey’s Teen Cancer Trust. Titled ISSUES (“Because everyone’s got ‘em,” according to Liguz), the record arrives on November 11 and features 10 tracks by bands who’ve influenced Starkey and his partner: Blondie’s “One Way or Another,” The Sex Pistols’ “Problems,” The Big Pink’s “Dominos,” and Bob Marley’s iconic call to action “Get Up, Stand Up,” among others.
Even more authentic, SSHH rallied a number of members from the bands themselves to play on ISSUES: Blondie drummer Clem Burke, The Sex Pistols’ drummer Paul Cook and bassist Glen Matlock, Primal Scream’s drummer Darrin Mooney and bassist Simone Butler, Marilyn Manson’s drummer Gil Sharone and bassist Twiggy Ramirez, The Big Pink frontman Robbie Furze, drummer Santa Davis of Bob Marley & The Wailers and even Pearl Jam leader Eddie Vedder. When they perform material from the record on Friday, November 4 in Los Angeles, they’ll have Davis, bassist Fully Fullwood and guitarist Tony Chin with them onstage.
“We did it all,” says Starkey. “We didn’t have an assistant or a manager or anything. We just called people up. First we called people we knew, like the Sex Pistols. And they knew that I was an obsessive fan, and they put up with that for years [laughs]. And then we called Clem. And he said, ‘The Pistols are doing it? Yeah, I’ll do it.’”
But the material Starkey and Liguz are the proudest of is their crashing take on Marley’s famed 1975 protest anthem, which was co-written by fellow Wailer and reggae trailblazer Peter Tosh. The pair speak avidly about visiting the Peter Tosh Museum in Jamaica, where they were invited to speak and perform at its opening. “Peter Tosh is a really big part of our [lives],” says Starkey. “He’s so uncompromising,” agrees Liguz. “Uncompromising, unbending. Revolutionary,” counters Starkey. “Stylish,” Liguz finishes.
But not all artists and their teams were so in favor of being covered on ISSUES. Originally, SSHH had talked about performing a glam-rock rendition of Marilyn Manson’s 1996 single “The Beautiful People” in honor of its 20th anniversary. They even would’ve had two members of the band on board. So what would a Marilyn Manson cover sound like? “Well, it would’ve sounded like Marilyn on the phone going, ‘You ain’t doing my tune.’ ‘Cause that’s what happened,” laughs Starkey.
Even when being told “no,” Starkey and Liguz remain endearingly positive and undramatic about their project, their partnership, and, well, just about everything we discuss. They even joke about how the album’s title applies to the recording process itself. “The people we worked with—they’ve all got [issues] with other guys in their bands,” shrugs Starkey, who himself can’t be immune to inter-band tensions, given his years spent touring and recording with Oasis. Because it’s so topical, I break down and ask: Does Starkey have any idea why Liam’s always calling Noel a potato? Starkey just chuckles. “I think it’s just Liam being daft, you know? They’re the funniest people I’ve ever met. It’s not an act, that’s just what they’re like.”
”[Liam] says shit that people are thinking,” Liguz adds. “They both do. I think a lot of it is to stir up and cause trouble. They are mischievous Mancunians. But they do say what everyone else is thinking.”
Liguz and Starkey themselves may not resort to name-calling, but they are similarly forthright and appear to value that quality in others. “We want to be as real as possible,” Liguz maintains. “You have these artists like Marilyn Manson or Beyoncé who become these characters when they perform. I get it, don’t get me wrong, and I can dig it for sure. But for me, I’m pretty much the same on and off stage… Just up there, I can turn up the volume a bit! There’s a reason why I’m called Sshh. I don’t shut up!”