the NachtKabarett
Foamm Magazine Interview 1992
Foamm Magazine | Interview 1992 by June Westerburg
A new and slightly offbeat style has recently taken over with industrial/glam/metal band Marilyn Manson and the Spooky Kids. I got a chance to speak to Mr. Manson himself over coffee and delve into this ambience of darkness and human oddity.
So, how did the show go last night? I got to catch a little bit of it at the end and you guys seemed to be doing all right...
Yeah, actually, it didn't go half bad - the sound was fucked somewhat but overall we had a great time.
Your guitarist got smoked pretty hard with something - he was bleeding...
Yeah, Daisy got hit with something thrown from the audience - I don't think it was aimed directly at him... But it hit him pretty hard.
Him and the bassist - they're the ones who write the music, right?
Mm mm and Madonna does as well. I write the lyrics, they write the music. Daisy and Gidget mostly. Mostly Daisy.
It was you and him who hooked up in the beginning, right?
It's an odd story, I think I met him at a party or something and we were both really interested in making music - he'd already had some experience with bands and stuff under his belt - like just fucked up instrumentals with a drum machine..So when we just started out, it was him on guitar and drum machine, and me on voice...Very lo-fi, which is how I'd like it to stay.
Looks like you guys are slowly climbing up the ladder of success...
Sounds like it. I'm not sure. I don't know what I want to happen. I think I'd handle stardom pretty well, eh? (laughs)
HARDCORE!
FUCK YEAH!
So, you get along with the rest of the band more or less okay?
More or less. There's a few problems but they're ones that I can overlook. You know, the everyday problems a band goes through.
I couldn't stand it. Well, maybe I could.
You probably could. It turns out great after everyone just sort of cools off, you know?
Yeah, yeah, I know... Soooo... Single?
Er. Not really. Kind of. Nooo... Well... (laughs)
Haha... Not too sure eh? Boy or girl?
Girl.
If you don't want to talk about sex, that's okay...
All right. We won't. Let's just say I'm just a curious little boy who likes to try out new things...Yeah..
Aren't we all, though. Any last words before we end?
Well, I don't want to end up being a media whore. And all that. I want to be a positive and negative symbol at the same time. Make any sense?
Of course.
RAD Magazine Oct 18 1994 | Interview
Marilyn Manson by Jeff Jolley
What is the History of Marilyn Manson
Marilyn Manson sort of started coming about in 1990--the name. It's something that sort of came to me from watching a lot of talk shows and Hollywood Babylon and those types of things and realize that Marilyn Monroe and Charles Manson were some of the most memorable people from the '60's for me. I thought--in the tradition of philosophers like Hegel--the juxtaposition of diametrically opposed archetypes: taking two extremes, putting them together, and coming up with something totally different. And that's kinda what we did with Marilyn Manson, it's male/female...good/evil...god/satan...push/pull, whatever words you want to come up with. That kind of defines my personality and represented the lyrics that I was writing. Then I met the guitar player and we wrote some songs together. And from there we just found some other people who were into what we were into.
How did you meet Trent (Reznor)?
I met Trent about four or five years ago, and over the growth of Marilyn Manson I always passed along demo tapes and things. And then when he got the opportunity to start his own label, he contacted us. It was perfect for us, because it gave
What are you about? Identifying the different parts of society--good and evil?
We're about that balance, you know. For example, this really comes into play here in Salt Lake City. It's a very moral, christian sort of environment, so we're that balance that has to go against that. We're the devil's advocate, the accuser, the opposing side, you know, the underdog. That's kind of always our goal is to be on that side of the fence. We really represent individuality. Kid's should think for themselves. Not to be like your friends who think they're individuals, but to be like you. Not to be like us, but to be what YOU are. Our music doesn't have anything to do with the way you look, or anything like that, it's what's in your head. Break out of the herd mentality and realize that it's the hear and now. That there's no afterlife that's going to justify or punish. You have to make what you've got now work for you, and realize that everything pretty much is a lie, everything's a hoax. That's why Marilyn Manson is such a beyond fake stage name, is to represent that it's so fake that it becomes real at that point. If you realize your hypocrisy, then you go past it. A lot of people in this city that have prohibited us from play are sort of cheating themselves with self-deceit, saying, "It's OK for us to do this behind closed doors, but they can't do this here." Really all it comes down to is money, and someone here was at risk of loosing money, obviously. I don't think it was ever about morals, because morals are always decided by who has the most artillery or money. It's not really about what really matters±±no body really cares about the kids here, nobody cares about exposing the kids to this obscene Marilyn Manson show, they just care about money. We, on the other hand, actually DO care about the kids, and what we're saying is a very harsh reality, and it's not diluted and wrapped up in lies like their parents wrap are giving them. That's why their parents don't like it, because we're ruining their game, their big scam.
I mean, the bottom line is that if any one does find what we do offensive, they should just turn it off. There's a lack of listener responsibility. People always want to put the responsibility on artists, or movies, or T.V. It's kind of late for that, you know. I was brought up with all of these things±±T.V. and violence and sex, drugs, rock & roll, caffeine, sugar, all these things. We've turned out a certain way and we've become accustomed to it, and now they've decided, "well, this isn't going to work. Let's use nutrasweet, let's have less violence." It's too late for that. You've made us out like this, and you have to deal with it.
It's not that bad. I'm not saying we're "bad" from our perspective. We're moral people. We're not trying to be immoral. We're just showing them that not everyone has the same morals. This is what we believe, and you believe what you want.
You're with N.I.N. on a HUGE tour. Is that great exposure? Is this the directions that Marilyn Manson wants to go with things?
We're not going to try and kid anyone and say, "we don't want to become popular, and anyone to know who we are." That's part of being a band, being entertainers. The more people that we reach, the better. I don't want to remain an underground secret. However, we still want to hang on to what we're about. We're not going to change what we're doing to fit into that. Like tonight, for example, they asked us to change what we do and we could play, and we said, "no" and they refused to let us play. This tour has been great exposure and we have no complaints at all about it.
Marilyn Manson's Church of AntiChrist Superstar October, 1995 | Marilyn Manson fanclub newsletter
Click to read Marilyn Manson's fanclub newsletter
KERRANG! #621, November 2, 1996 | Interview
KERRANG! #621, November 2, 1996 | Interview
RESIDENT EVIL.-..And so America continues to crumble as th country's sickest band take their ultra-vile "Antichrist Superstar" tour to the masses. Kevan Roberts joins MARILYN MANSON on the road in Minneapolis, and suddenly understands why everyone wants to kill their singer...
SEX, MURDER, mutilation, pornography...all the worlds evils drawn together and spat out in one filthy, sick, fucked-up American band. This is Marilyn Manson, and they're about to touch you in a a way that you've never been molested before...
Some just want the fame and fortune. Others want to write the perfect album. Many are on a mission to save the world. Not Marilyn Manson. The spindly frontman of the world's most depraved band just wants to destroy it.
"With this record we wanted to bring about the apocalypse," says Mr Manson the man, a wicked glint in his heavily blacked out eye.
Well, you've got to have goals, haven't you? IN MINNEAPOLIS, USA, there is a bus driver still under therapy, feverishly reliving the fateful day he came face to face with Mr Marilyn Manson. His 30 passengers still have nightmares.
Picture this: it's rush hour, downtown, and the bus driver is piloting his single-decker out of the city, taking his fares back to their peaceful homes in the suburbs after another grueling day in the rat-race.
Then from off another bus parked at the side of the street, out steps a vision to stop the bus drivers pulse. A painfully thin, sickly-coloured creature of indeterminate sex, wrapped in claret bondage clothing and a fur coat, walks towards the oncoming traffic. All along the street, pedestrians' heads turn. So too do all the motorists'-including the bus driver's. He stares straight at the whites of the corpse-like figure's dispassionate eyes. And all the colour drains from the bus driver's face.
The passengers look up from their evening papers and are struck similarly open-mouthed and incredulous. The driver doesn't see the red light. Neither do the passengers.
What happens next is a cacophony of car horns, of "Fuck you's" and raised middle fingers. Marilyn Manson chuckles. No cars crash, no one is hurt, and everyone goes home shaken, but not stirred.
Hello, Minneapolis. One hell of an entrance.
JUST WHEN America thought it had seen it all, out spat Marilyn Manson. To say he's shocking the nation is-so far-a little extreme. But he's already started to piss-off all the right people. Like the Mormon forefathers in Utah who offered his band $10,000 NOT to play (he did anyway, ripping pages from the Mormon Bible intoning,"They love me, they love me not"). Or the Florida police, who have arrested him several times for his onstage conduct.
But this was all before Marilyn Manson delivered his master-plan. The controversy that was sparked off by previous LPs "Portrait Of An American Family" and the fetid "Smells Like Children" are small potatoes, cartoon horror compared to the moral indignation that will come with the deliberately inflammatory "Antichrist Superstar" LP, which has debuted at the Number Three slot in the US charts.
Now the Manson Family tour bus has started its recruitment drive around the States. Expect placard waving, Bible thumping, record burnings and lynchings. Expect arrests, controversy, and outraged parents bleating on about how "Jimmy used to be such a nice young boy". Best of all, expect them in the UK soon.
"It all started when I was a kid," Manson explains, reclining on a couch in the back of his surprisingly clean tour-bus. "I was so afraid of the apocalypse, and the Anti-Christ mythology was something that completely terrified me. I worried constantly about what was going to happen to me. I also went to a private Christian school, which didn't help matters.
"As I got older, as a payback to the people that terrified me when I was a kid, I decided that I was going to be the one to bring about the end of their world-though not necessarily my own. The idea behind "Antichrist Superstar" is probably as old as the band itself. The Antichrist isn't so much a person as it is everyone's increasing, collective disbelief in God."
"And it's just a matter of each time someone plays the record, hopefully it will trigger them to take one step further from Christianity and one step further to believing in themselves and having a strong will."
"And for Christians, that IS the Armageddon...but you know, for the rest of the world it might just be a fresh beginning."
So this is your revenge on the world?
"Yeah, I see it happening," he laughs (which for someone of so pale a face he does remarkably often). "And I even see it in the way these people probably hate the way their kids dress or the fact that they buy my records. But I never specifically sit down and think up new ways to piss them off. Anyway, I'm sure my just being alive pisses them off enough as it is."
The stage hand at the Minneapolis' First Avenue Nightclub - where the Git Formerly Known As Prince got his start and filmed "Purple Rain"-is understandably nervous.
"I heard a report Manson was going to kill himself onstage tonight. Is it true?"
The workman seems more concerned that he might have to work late to clear up the mess rather than for the wellbeing of Mr. Manson. He is assured that nothing of the sort was going to happen, leading on to the subject that Manson has now been forced to hire an ex-Whitehouse Bodyguard as he needs round the clock protection from his FANS. Only the other night a girl tried to stub a cigarette out in his eyes.
Marilyn Manson's bandmates are usually no more safe than their skinny leader. In fact, they're probably at more risk than Manson himself - as they have to share a stage with the wild explosive frontman. Previous drummer Sara Lee Lucas quit the band after Manson set both him and his kit alight onstage. Replacement Ginger Fish was rushed to hospital a few weeks ago after being lamped by Manson's mike-stand. And keyboard player Madonna Wayne Gacy nearly died when he was struck with a flying mike. "He almost bled to death," offers Manson, matter-of-factly, "It hit an artery and nearly killed him.
"It does get violent up there," he ponders. "Mostly I hurt myself in the heat of the moment. I cant feel it."
In the past, he's slashed himself with bottles-the only aspect of his career he says his mum disapproves of. She was supposedly in the audience when he gave a blow-job to one of the Nine Inch Nails during a concert.
He's been arrested for his onstage conduct on several occasions, and has had his life saved by a baseball-bat swinging Glenn Danzig after being set on by security staff at one venue.
And he and bassist Twiggy Ramirez once smoked Human Bones. Really.
"We were having a party in our hotel room and there was a bunch of people there who thought they were so hip. Me and Twiggy had real human bones that we'd...liberated from a grave in New Orleans-they stick out of the ground all over the place because of the swamps."
"Anyway, we convinced these fools that they really would be hip if they'd smoke these bones with us. The result? They made my eyes red, gave me a headache and made me throw up."
Remember, kids-just say no.
The seeds for Marilyn Manson were sown in 1990 when Manson-then plain Brian Warner-decided music was the way to make an impression on the world.
"I had lots of different ideas but no real way to express them, and I decided that music would be the way to make them last forever."
And the name?
"Marilyn Manson was something that I used to what I was writing because of the dichotomy between beauty and ugliness. It perfectly described my intentions."
And those of the rest of the band too-all of whom, until recent addition Zim Zum, have been named after beautiful women and serial killers. "Since then, we've been through various phases," Manson continues. "We've been more extreme, we've been less extreme. But we've always been different..."
So too has their crowd. On the one hand , you've got the usual suspects-alternative music fans in band T-shirt, jeans and sneakers. Let's call them-just for the sake of argument-the "normal" people. Then there's the tribe of misfits that Manson would refer to as the Beautiful People. Some who are so caught up in the bands style, in Manson's image, that they could give him a run for his money in the "I just stepped out of a grave" stakes. They're young too. For this all-ages show, there's a curfew of 9.30 pm-apparently in Minneapolis all unaccompanied minors must be off the city streets by 10 pm.
It's a ruse that's helped cut down on violence and gang trouble in the city centre. But what it means tonight is at least a couple of hours before the doors of the venue open, there's a serpent-like line outside, featuring blue mohawks, cross-dressers and just some of the strangest folk you've ever clapped eyes on. This mad queue snakes its way through a downtown street, scaring the commuters and making the beggars keep a respectable distance away.
But it isn't just an image thing. There's also the small matter of Marilyn Manson's subject matter to contend with. First take a look at the T-shirts. "Kill Yourself, You're Already Dead", "The Time Is Close, It Is Quite Near, Our Antichrist Is Almost Here", This Is Your World In Which We Grow-And We Will Grow To Hate You" and the succinct "The Lord Is A Shepherd". Not so much slogans, as Marilyn Manson's declarations of intent. Next, check out the lyrics to "Antichrist..." for a slingshot of sin and pestilence not seen since... "The Bible", actually.
Manson explains: "What I decided to do is accept the role of the fallen angel-but more importantly, what I'm trying to say is that if you hear a story from a different point of view, then perhaps you might see that the Devil is not necessarily the bad guy."
Well, the Devil does seem pretty, er, satanic?
"But what if "The Bible" told the story from Lucifers point of view instead, and that God was really the bad guy? What if we've been misled all these years?"
Do you believe The Bible?
"No. It's interesting and has a lot of important values and things like that in it, but the way people use it is where the problems lie."
So where do you draw the line personally in your morality? We've all heard about what you will do, but what wouldn't you do?
"The most outrageous thing I could imagine ever doing is putting on a pair of jeans and going to the shopping mall for my lunch. That would be pretty gross."
Talking of clothes, what's that fur jacket you're wearing made of?
"It's real rabbit fur. Someone gave it to me. That's another thing I hate-political correctness-it's just Christian morality disguised. The other day, this girl gave me a hard time about wearing this coat, called me an asshole for 30 minutes, then asked for tickets to the show. That, to me, illustrates how committed these people are to their little causes."
"ANTICHRIST SUPERSTAR" isn't just the title of Marilyn Manson's new album, it's his new persona and the title of the accompanying concept concert-almost a goth opera, if you can imagine such a thing. The set's made to look like a destroyed church, featuring an organ as the centerpiece. There's a backdrop of stained glass with angels that come forward and retract. Manson himself has a podium from which he starts what is effectively the second act-following his transformation into Antichrist Superstar.
That's how the set normally looks; tonight, most of it's been left behind because the venue is not big enough to accommodate it. But the theatrical element is still in full effect. With his gruesome-looking cronies alongside him, Manson takes the stage in a flesh-coloured corset, G-string, ripped body-length stocking, knee-length boots and "Bladerunner"-style make-up. Not the kind of outfit that will ever be described as "fetching". Half-way through, as the theme switches to the Antichrist Superstar's arrival, he pops off for a brief costume change, returning in a black suit, red shirt and tie. Now rather than the fallen angel, he's looking like Jack Nicholson as The Joker.
Within a couple of songs, the suit has been discarded and we're back to the body-stocking. And Manson, still grinning like a maniac, is now covered in blood. Scarlet-stained material hangs from his arms; from a distance he looks like he's covered in entrails. He's singing "Man That You Fear", and there's 1,500 people, many of whom should be back at home in the arms of their parents in less than half-an-hour - screaming "Manson, Manson" at the top of their lungs.
It's big, it's sick, it's gross, it's foul... and its absolutely fucking riveting.
With authorities and moral crusaders standing in their way, the band's December tour may be the only chance Britain ever gets to sample Marilyn Manson's seductive charms. Abandon faith, all ye who enter here...
The Aquarian Weekly Nov 20, 1996 | Interview
The First Revolutionary Act: Being One's Self
The Aquarian Weekly, November 20, 1996 | Interview by Sean Coulter
"Our destiny exercises its influence over us even when, as yet, we have not learned its nature: it is our future that lays down the law of our today." -- Friedrich Nietzsche, 1878
"The lyrics and ideals expressed on this album are those of a character called Anitchrist Superstar, who is portrayed by me and every other person in America. Those who fail to admit and realize this are the ones who will be afraid and offended. This is what you should fear; you are what you should fear."
Marilyn Manson, whose rise to the national spotlight this year with their hellbent cover of the Eurythmics' "Sweet Dreams," have always been a band true to their heart and blackened souls. On their latest release, Antichrist Superstar, which debuted at No. 3 on the Billboard charts earlier this month, Mr. Manson and company -- bassist Twiggy Ramirez, keyboardist Madonna Wayne Gacy, drummer Ginger Fish and newest recruit, guitarist Zim Zum -- have created an introspective and real life fright show that will make you sweat and smile at the same time.
On such songs as the bludgeoning "Irresponsible Hate Anthem," the introspective ranting and raving of "Wormboy" and "Mister Superstar," and even MTV's newest buzz, "The Beautiful People," Manson's aagression and vulnerability walk hand in hand as we stroll through the psyche of the man himself. It's as if someone were ripping at Manson's very scarred seams and stretching his flesh in order to allow the darkness within to fly free and enlighten the masses.
Shedding the S&M inspired wardrobe and looking past the war-like, acutely scarred and heavily inked body of Manson, The Aquarian Weekly attempted to get into the brain of the madman behind the band. What we found was not the ranting and raving of a Satan worshipping demon that the mainstream press has made him out to be, but instead an intelligent, insightful artist, who is more interested in Nietzsche (whose book Antichrist seems to have inspired Manson), human sexuality and self-expression, than human sacrifice, voodoo, and lucifer.
In the past you have been very frank about your rejection of all forms of organized religion, especially on Antichrist Superstar. Can you speak a little about why that is?
I promote individuality and belief in yourself. Most organized religions promote weakness and blind faith in things you can't see. So Antichrist Superstar is a manifesto of self-expression much along the lines of Nietzsche and Darwin. People of that nature who promote the belief of man as his own god.
Then you believe that each person is their own creator and has the ability to control their own lives and outcomes.
Everybody has the potential to be their own god. It just takes writers, philosophers, music, and others to get them to realize that. However, I do believe there is a greater force in nature, but you don't necessarily have to worship it.
You were talking before about Darwin and Darwinism, which in theory suggests that only the strong survive. Yet in a lot of your music you take the opposite approach, usually taking up the cause of the alienated against the oppressor.
I think (the theories of Darwin and Nietzsche) promote a need and a want to be a stronger person. I think that is a lot of the underlying themes behind everything on the new album. I use the metaphor of a worm that grows into an angel and it's the same transformation from being someone who is suppressed to being someone who is no longer suppressed but rather empowered.
Was there a turning point in your life that you said, "Hey, I'm not going to take anyone's crap anymore, I'm going to be me."
I dont't think there was any one moment, I think it was a gradual building and realizing that I didn't want to fit into the status quo. I was going to make my own status quo. I would rather make my own status quo for others to have to fit into.
In a sense through your music, you are now promoting individualism. Trying to let people know that they can be different as long as they are themselves.
Yes, and I'm saying that if you want to be like me, be yourself, because that's what I'm being. So it's a group of nonjoiners, like a club with no members.
When I mentioned our interview to my sister, she asked if I was going to be afraid of you. At times, you're perceived to be the epitome of fear, you give off a violent, almost scary public persona. Are you afraid people will prejudge you by your image?
I like to look at people's fear and my own fear so that I can better understand it. So when people see things and listen to things that I do and it scares them, then they should be asking themselves why it scares them. Why does it bother them, why does it offend them, why does it scare them?
Maybe they can learn a little bit about themselves by addressing those fears. I'm not afraid of anything. If there is something I'm afraid of I do it and then I'm not afraid of it anymore.
How about the fear of failure as a musician?
That's really my only fear and it's an everyday battle to be in control and succeed with what I want to do.
As a musician, you are one part recording artist and another part stage performer. Marilyn Manson as a band seem to excel during live shows. Speak a little about why that is.
That's the most important thing to me really. An album is just a blueprint for a live performance. It's very ritualistic, very theraputic and there is a lot of energy exchanged between the audience and the band. It's a powerful thing to tap into. It's one of the oldest things in the history of man, that interchange between one person and the people that are attracted to what they are doing. That's why we enjoy touring so much.
Your live performances seem to not only be an entertaining show, but also a purging of your soul as well.
I would say that it's an exorcism, not only an exercise but an exorcism. It's getting everything out. I think that other people can enjoy that as well, because it makes them feel like they can get everything out too. It makes them feel like it's ok to be yourself and do what you want.
You mentioned before how a lot of your music is based on real life experience and self-expression, individuality and the alienation that sometimes comes attached to being an individual in a cookie cutter society. Speak a little about that.
I went to a private Christian school and I didn't really buy into the whole born again idea, so I wasn't friends with too many kids there. I wanted to go to public school, but all the kids there kicked my ass because I was the kid from private school, so I didn't fit in there either. I couldn't win either way, so I decided that instead of feeling alienated I would one day strive to create my own set of standards and the rest of the world could work around me.
Now that you are working on your own terms, is there any pressure to tone down the act because you are starting to get more mainstream radio and MTV airplay?
No, I think that now is the time to turn up the gas and make it more dangerous, push the fast forward button to the end of the world and go as far as we can go. A lot of people go most of the way, but the only way that you can reach perfection and purity is to go all the way.
And that's really what America needs. Because everything is so common and desensitized. People aren't even impressed by sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll anymore, so it needs to go as far as it can go so that people can once again appreciate the little things in life. They can re-obtain their innocence, be a kid again.
You're definitely not innocent now. Do you feel that the point where you decided to not be alienated anymore and decided to be, in a sense, the alienator was where you lost your innocence?
No, I think my loss of innocence was one of the things that helped to develop the hard shell around me. If you follow the transformation of the lyrics on the new album there is a metaphor that I use of a worm that is very vulnerable that forms this hard cocoon around it and becomes this angel which thinks it is beautiful, but the rest of the world around it thinks it is very ugly. That in itself is a bit of vulnerability and that is where I have been over the past several years. The final result is coming to terms with power and this almost other identity, the Antichrist Superstar, emerges and that's what things are developing into.
The album itself is my story, it tells the beginning to the end, but we haven't gotten to the end yet, so it's a bit of a prophecy.
Sexuality and sexual imagery are recurring themes in the music of Marilyn Manson. Why do you think that you are so fascinated with sex and why does it play such an important role in your music?
It's probably due to the way that I grew up. My first experience with sex was seeing my grandfather's collection or pornography. It was more out of the ordinary, more deviant, with photographs of women and animals, and he had a lot of lingerie and stuff that he used to wear under his clothes. So, I had a strange introduction to the world of sex. Then as a teenager there was the pressure of losing your virginity and it became a real obsession of mine.
Speak a little bit about the people who claim your music is a little too sexually explicit, or who claim it's unhealthy for kids to listen to. Speak out to the Christian Coalition and the C. Delores Tuckers of the world who try to censor the music of Marilyn Manson.
A lot of times the people who had a knee jerk reaction are not only playing into my trap but are also missing the point that I was making in the first place. A lot of the references on Smells Like Children were about my own childhood and about views on use and abuse. Those were missed by them because they interpret them on a base level and actually on more of a pornographic level than they were intended to be interpreted.
An example that I like to use is that on our first album I wanted to put a photograph of me as a child posing nude on a couch. My mother took the photograph. And I was told by the executives of Time-Warner, the company that used to distribute our albums, that it would be considered child pornography and I said, "Why? It's a perfectly innocent photograph," and they said, "Well if it can elicit some sort of sexual arousal then it is child pornography." And I said, "Well, that's the point of me putting it here. It's innocent unless you make it something else." That's a lot of the points that I try to make. If people see something as being sick, they have to have that sickness in their own head to see it as sick in the first place
So do you believe that the people who are the most outspoken and disgusted by sexuality and deviant sex are in fact the ones that are most fixated with it?
People always hate what they are afraid of, and they're usually afraid of Marilyn Manson because they see themselves in it. People who aren't willing to admit that they have these same emotions and experiences are going to be the ones that are the most offended by it. It's hard for them to accept the fact that they are just like everyone else.
Are you afraid of being pigeonholed as the next Alice Cooper, or as the next shock rocker?
If I wanted to be shocking or offensive, that would be easy, because it is such an easy thing to be. I could be so much more offensive.
I do things on my terms and sometimes they are more extreme than most people would like, but shock value is never my point. I am expressing what is on my mind and i say it like I want to say it.
In the past you have criticized television and especially talk shows for creating an unreal view of American society. Speak a little about why you feel that way.
The talk show is kind of synonymous the whole bullshit of political correctness in America. You have people on talk shows saying "I hate you because you're a racist" and that's a contradiction because they are being racist by saying that. And there are people saying "I hate this guy because he hates me." It's just a never ending circle and my point has always been that neither side is ever right and nobody wants to solve the problem and the problem is, if people were more intelligent then there wouldn't be so many arguments.
In a perfect world the criterion for anything would be intelligence. Sexism and racism are too lenient for me because I could never say that I like all men because I don't. I could never say that I like all white people because there are plenty who don't deserve to be liked. I think intelligence is really the bottom line. Often times it's the unintelligent who are the first to make snap decisions about people or music or anything for that matter. Are you afraid that those people are going to get the wrong impressions of the band because of your music and your public persona?
That's the way it has always been with the band: people need to read between the lines to get the real message. I don't ever worry about people's perceptions, because they either get it or they don't. I like more extreme reactions anyway. I want people to either love us or hate us. I don't want anything in between and over the years I found out that's where most people are.
I always used to say that there were two types of people: people who love Marilyn Manson and people who are jealous.
Where do you go from here, whats the next step?
I just plan to keep on getting bigger and bigger and just doing something real productive with our popularity. I believe that there is a real strength to utilize. The things that change society have always been art and music; they have never been politics. So we'll just continue to prove that.
The Long Hard Road Out Of Hell Autobiography, 1998
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The Long Hard Road Out Of Hell
From the worlds most controversial rock star comes his shocking, confessional and revealing life story. In The Long Hard Road Out of Hell, Marilyn Manson candidly and vividly recounts his metamorphosis from a frightened Christian schoolboy into the most feared and revered celebrity in America.
A cross-dressing grandfather, a sexually abusive neighbor, a brainwashing faith healer and a schoolteacher searching for satanic messages in rock songs are only a few of the characters who populate his bizarre childhood.
From backstage to jail cells, from recording studios to emergency rooms, from the pit of despair to the top of the charts, The Long Hard Road Out of Hell chronicles Manson's rise to fame at the price of his humanity and his descent through the circles of Dante's Inferno: Lust, Violence and Treachery.
His story is illustrated with dozens of previously unpublished photographs, and it features a behind-the-scenes account of his headline-grabbing Dead to the World Tour – vilified, banned and protested by politicians, preachers and parents alike. In his 29 years, Manson has experienced more than most people have – or would want to – in a lifetime.
"By turns moving, funny, appalling, and disturbing…There has never been anything like it." "Amusing…lots of sex, bondage, drugs, intrigue, and mental decay." Village Voice "By turns moving, funny, appalling, and disturbing…There has never been anything like it." Rolling Stone "Clipped, colorful prose that fits the author's larger-than-life personality like a pair of rubber shorts." Paper "Fascinating, sleazy account of his coming of age and ascent into damnation." Us "If the Marquis De Sade had a son in a hard-rock band who wrote a book, this would be the book."Christian Science Monitor "Makes Madonna's infamous Sex seem downright wholesome by comparison." Elle "Nothing short of captivating in all its intentional, over-the-top bad taste." Edge "Repulsive…well-written and uncommonly addictive." Chicago Sun-Times "Unimaginably perverse and demented." Newsweek
Satan Speaks! by Anton Szandor LaVeyForeword by Marilyn Manson | Sep 1, 1998
was the most righteous man I've ever known. He honored his immortality, and had more faith in his peculiar axioms than any armchair Christian vacantly reciting John 3:16 ever possessed. Yet, despite his cynicism and apocalyptic view of society, he often hoped for a better world, or at least one in which intelligence and creativity were applauded. I find more respect for humanity in his blackest humor than in the passionless zealotry that perpetuates all other
conventional religions. Even if I had never agreed with a word he said, it would be irresponsible not to appreciate the sheer brilliance with which it was spoken--not to mention his having the balls to come out and speak it. I've come to realize that the truth is most often unwanted or believed to be a lie. In a world so full of shit, Anton LaVey cut through it with the best of them.
Someone once asked me for the secret to my success. I answered that if they weren't smart enough to figure it out on their own, they didn't deserve to know; and if I told them, it wouldn't be a secret anymore. Fortunately for me and for all of us, Anton LaVey shared his magic, and I think it has made this wretched fucking planet a better place. Thank you for your support and inspiration,
Marilyn Manson
Marilyn Manson and Anton Szandor LaVey in 1994.
Marilyn Manson : Omega Web Address Sep 15, 1998 | MarilynManson.com
Marilyn Manson : Omega Web Address
Thank you for joining me in a time of desolation and fear.
This will be the only place in our known universe where we can communicate unfiltered and find what only we can call the truth. I'm sending this transmission from the space I'm in and I've watched over you like a satellite, each one of you a vein keeping me alive. But the skin is dead and glass - and I am reborn and this is my omega. As I repaired my emotions - cellular, narcotic - I began to see the dystopia before me. My dream of an apocalypse that was the Antichrist Superstar has unfolded. I could see that "they" only looked and acted like humans, but they had lost their souls, they were Mechanical Animals.
I was sent to destroy, but I believe we are the only ones who can save ourselves. Listen carefully to the digital information we have compiled on this compact disc. It is a pill which can make you anybody else. I only hope it is not me.
On The Misconceptions of Omega and The Antichrist Superstar... March 1999 | AOL Messageboards
THIS WILL BE MY ONLY POST AND I HOPE I CAN SET THE RECORD STRAIGHT.
I am not denying or defending my post addressed to STARK AND PALS,
I merely said yesterday that I wasn't involved in some of the banter that followed that. Someone had cracked my passcode and misused my bbs.
TO EXPLAIN THAT PARTICULAR POST (STARK AND PALS) I'd like to say that I've read this group from time to time and I've never minded the open discussions, in fact I particularly enjoyed some of STARK'S bitter criticisms.
I felt the need to say something because I felt there were some offensive assumptions being made here. If some fans don't like or understand this album, I'm not particularly insulted. I make music because up until today it has made me happy, although I think that is a symptom of a more serious disease. I criticized the world-- particularly Christianity and at the same time I was criticizing the equally disturbing 'US' that was growing. I just tried to reflect what you gave me--I truly hoped you would see ME as the hypocrite that YOU are.
only through criticism and memory do we avoid error.
What some of you haven't yet seen or maybe never will is that OMEGA is this right here--what we are doing. My presentation and satirization of MARILYN MANSON is exactly what I have shown you on Mechanical Animals. The story of Omega is one of an exaggerated rock star lost in fame and drugs and the isolation that follows. I know its easier for you to think I've lost my creativity or sold out,etc...ad nauseum. Or that I've become a drug addict, but the funniest irony is that I hardly touch drugs anymore and ACSS (which most of you hold up as your grading scale) was written at the height of everyone's addictions -- producers and band alike.
Just as I assumed the role of Antichrist Superstar, I have torn it apart through the role of OMEGA. That, my friends, is the only way we can overcome our fears and weaknesses. I only resent I exposed a nerve to those I thought would want to see it the most. The last conversation I had with Dr. LaVey, he told me that he too had experienced the misunderstanding of those he assumed
understood.
I know that I've said all that I wanted to say with this record and I don't care to defend it. It's too bad I didn't reach some of you. I'll be canceling this screen name (you can confirm it's really me with Jennerator if you like) that I have borrowed. Other artists I know have also discovered that this particular medium is not conducive to healthy creativity and is best suited for insecure, approval seekers and a widespread lack of self confidence in the art world.
I will enjoy living on my aesthetic pension, satisfied by every creation---and every hatred born out of ignorance. Now that you read this I know I'm still doing my job, and I know I've never turned my back on my fans. Good luck to you as this will be our last semi-conversation.
I eat my own ashes,
Marilyn Manson
"The senses have therefore become theoreticians in their immediate praxis"- KARL MARX
Columbine: Whose Fault Is It? May 28, 1999 | Rolling Stone
Marilyn Manson. Crop Failure.
Columbine: Whose Fault Is It?
It is sad to think that the first few people on earth needed no books, movies, games or music to inspire cold-blooded murder. The day that Cain bashed his brother Abel's brains in, the only motivation he needed was his own human disposition to violence. Whether you interpret the Bible as literature or as the final word of whatever God may be, Christianity has given us an image of death and sexuality that we have based our culture around. A half-naked dead man hangs in most homes and around our necks, and we have just taken that for granted all our lives. Is it a symbol of hope or hopelessness? The world's most famous murder-suicide was also the birth of the death icon — the blueprint for celebrity. Unfortunately, for all of their inspiring morality, nowhere in the Gospels is intelligence praised as a virtue.
A lot of people forget or never realize that I started my band as a criticism of these very issues of despair and hypocrisy. The name Marilyn Manson has never celebrated the sad fact that America puts killers on the cover of Time magazine, giving them as much notoriety as our favorite movie stars. From Jesse James to Charles Manson, the media, since their inception, have turned criminals into folk heroes. They just created two new ones when they plastered those dipshits Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris' pictures on the front of every newspaper. Don't be surprised if every kid who gets pushed around has two new idols.
We applaud the creation of a bomb whose sole purpose is to destroy all of mankind, and we grow up watching our president's brains splattered all over Texas. Times have not become more violent. They have just become more televised. Does anyone think the Civil War was the least bit civil? If television had existed, you could be sure they would have been there to cover it, or maybe even participate in it, like their violent car chase of Princess Di. Disgusting vultures looking for corpses, exploiting, fucking, filming and serving it up for our hungry appetites in a gluttonous display of endless human stupidity.
When it comes down to who's to blame for the high school murders in Littleton, Colorado, throw a rock and you'll hit someone who's guilty. We're the people who sit back and tolerate children owning guns, and we're the ones who tune in and watch the up-to-the-minute details of what they do with them. I think it's terrible when anyone dies, especially if it is someone you know and love. But what is more offensive is that when these tragedies happen, most people don't really care any more than they would about the season finale of Friends or The Real World. I was dumbfounded as I watched the media snake right in, not missing a teardrop, interviewing the parents of dead children, televising the funerals. Then came the witch hunt.
Man's greatest fear is chaos. It was unthinkable that these kids did not have a simple black-and-white reason for their actions. And so a scapegoat was needed. I remember hearing the initial reports from Littleton, that Harris and Klebold were wearing makeup and were dressed like Marilyn Manson, whom they obviously must worship, since they were dressed in black. Of course, speculation snowballed into making me the poster boy for everything that is bad in the world. These two idiots weren't wearing makeup, and they weren't dressed like me or like goths. Since Middle America has not heard of the music they did listen to (KMFDM and Rammstein, among others), the media picked something they thought was similar.
Responsible journalists have reported with less publicity that Harris and Klebold were not Marilyn Manson fans — that they even disliked my music. Even if they were fans, that gives them no excuse, nor does it mean that music is to blame. Did we look for James Huberty's inspiration when he gunned down people at McDonald's? What did Timothy McVeigh like to watch? What about David Koresh, Jim Jones? Do you think entertainment inspired Kip Kinkel, or should we blame the fact that his father bought him the guns he used in the Springfield, Oregon, murders? What inspires Bill Clinton to blow people up in Kosovo? Was it something that Monica Lewinsky said to him? Isn't killing just killing, regardless if it's in Vietnam or Jonesboro, Arkansas? Why do we justify one, just because it seems to be for the right reasons? Should there ever be a right reason? If a kid is old enough to drive a car or buy a gun, isn't he old enough to be held personally responsible for what he does with his car or gun? Or if he's a teenager, should someone else be blamed because he isn't as enlightened as an eighteen-year-old?
America loves to find an icon to hang its guilt on. But, admittedly, I have assumed the role of Antichrist; I am the Nineties voice of individuality, and people tend to associate anyone who looks and behaves differently with illegal or immoral activity. Deep down, most adults hate people who go against the grain. It's comical that people are naive enough to have forgotten Elvis, Jim Morrison and Ozzy so quickly. All of them were subjected to the same age-old arguments, scrutiny and prejudice. I wrote a song called "Lunchbox," and some journalists have interpreted it as a song about guns. Ironically, the song is about being picked on and fighting back with my Kiss lunch box, which I used as a weapon on the playground. In 1979, metal lunch boxes were banned because they were considered dangerous weapons in the hands of delinquents. I also wrote a song called "Get Your Gunn." The title is spelled with two n's because the song was a reaction to the murder of Dr. David Gunn, who was killed in Florida by pro-life activists while I was living there. That was the ultimate hypocrisy I witnessed growing up: that these people killed someone in the name of being "pro-life."
The somewhat positive messages of these songs are usually the ones that sensationalists misinterpret as promoting the very things I am decrying. Right now, everyone is thinking of how they can prevent things like Littleton. How do you prevent AIDS, world war, depression, car crashes? We live in a free country, but with that freedom there is a burden of personal responsibility. Rather than teaching a child what is moral and immoral, right and wrong, we first and foremost can establish what the laws that govern us are. You can always escape hell by not believing in it, but you cannot escape death and you cannot escape prison.
It is no wonder that kids are growing up more cynical; they have a lot of information in front of them. They can see that they are living in a world that's made of bullshit. In the past, there was always the idea that you could turn and run and start something better. But now America has become one big mall, and because of the Internet and all of the technology we have, there's nowhere to run. People are the same everywhere. Sometimes music, movies and books are the only things that let us feel like someone else feels like we do. I've always tried to let people know it's OK, or better, if you don't fit into the program. Use your imagination — if some geek from Ohio can become something, why can't anyone else with the willpower and creativity?
I chose not to jump into the media frenzy and defend myself, though I was begged to be on every single TV show in existence. I didn't want to contribute to these fame-seeking journalists and opportunists looking to fill their churches or to get elected because of their self-righteous finger-pointing. They want to blame entertainment? Isn't religion the first real entertainment? People dress up in costumes, sing songs and dedicate themselves in eternal fandom. Everyone will agree that nothing was more entertaining than Clinton shooting off his prick and then his bombs in true political form. And the news — that's obvious. So is entertainment to blame? I'd like media commentators to ask themselves, because their coverage of the event was some of the most gruesome entertainment any of us have seen.
I think that the National Rifle Association is far too powerful to take on, so most people choose Doom, The Basketball Diaries or yours truly. This kind of controversy does not help me sell records or tickets, and I wouldn't want it to. I'm a controversial artist, one who dares to have an opinion and bothers to create music and videos that challenge people's ideas in a world that is watered-down and hollow. In my work I examine the America we live in, and I've always tried to show people that the devil we blame our atrocities on is really just each one of us. So don't expect the end of the world to come one day out of the blue — it's been happening every day for a long time.
MARILYN MANSON
(May 28, 1999)
Omega Message 015 Jul 29, 1999 | MarilynManson.com
7.29.99
You are a slave. Do you think for a moment that you can ever really say or do what you want? You can't dream without fear of punishment, even if it is your own hypodermic guilt making you look to religion, drugs or suicide as an escape.
Modern expression in TV, movies and music is without any stimulants. It is numb and safe, easy to sell, easy to digest and easy to forget. It's not really even suitable for kindergartners or the mentally handicapped. We are treated like soulless sub-animal house pets until we are old enough to drive or buy cigarettes. When we become consumers they pretend to give us an opinion. We are constantly shoveled milky mounds of unchallenging, moronic impotence disguised as entertainment, but really only designed to lower our standards and make us passive and content on being dumbed down. Why do we watch the things they give us on MTV or Jenny Jones or the 11 0clock news? We have been conditioned to have low expectations and our standards have become less than primitive. The illiterate apes that beat your ass in highschool for being a "fag" now sell you tuneless testosterone anthems of misogyny and pretend to be outsiders to a world that they were born to wear their ADIDASS-FILGERING uniforms in. And we buy it up, helplessly.
Even Christ wouldn't kill himself for this pitiful America that hides under "christian values," and exonerates criminals when they remind the newsman that they too, beLIEve in god.
The networks, record companies and movie studios are all afraid of what we have the power to become. Unlike them we have nothing to lose, and that's what makes us pure.
It is time for their world to be destroyed. It is time for a new age, the Age of Horus. It is time for a new standard, a new canvas, and a new artist. We must forget this wasted generation and amputate it before the mind rots away with it. Paint it, record it, write it down before they kill you with their slow poisonous stupidity. Make yourself heard.
This Internet is your middle finger to the universe, don't let them break it.
Fuck their world.
Let's make our own.
The third and final Beast
Marilyn Manson
Marilyn Manson Fan Conference Jul 29, 1999 | MarilynManson.com
manson fan conference
webcast transcript, july 29th 1999
Thanks to everybody for tuning in today. So I'm going to be answering some questions from some people calling in live so the first one if you want to go ahead, tell me who you are and what's your question?
Is anybody there?
Hello?
Hello? Sorry, Who has been the biggest influence in your life and how have they changed you and made you a better person?
Well it's easy to say that I think if I wanted to list artists, you know, there would be people like Aleister Crowley, Anton Lavey, uh, Andy Warhol, uh, Alexander Yortaroski, um, David Bowie, Iggy Pop, um, but I think more than the influence that they had on me, I think, uh, since I've been making things myself, I think it's the people that hate me and try and suppress what I do that have influenced me the most because it's given me a reason to want to do it more and it's given me a reason to want my voice to be heard and want, uh, other people like me to have that opportunity also.
So...what's the next question?
Hello? Who's there?
Hey Marilyn.
Hey.
Uh, I'd like to thank you, first of all, uh, on behalf of all the fans at the Radio Revolution, we really appreciate that.
Thanks for all your help.
Yeah, and uh, my question is, Matt Pinfield, on MTV, uh, reported that you and Twiggy were working on a solo project? Is this happening?
I, I wasn't even sure that Matt Pinfield was even around, but um...Uh, Not really so much formally, I know that, uh, Twiggy is constantly writing music and he likes to collaborate with a lot of his friends. Um, I think there'll probably be something in the future, but there's nothing really slated right now. We're all concentrating very hard on, uh, composing this new album and, um, really making that our focus more than anything else.
Great.
Thanks.
What's the next question please?
Hello?
Hello.
Um, if you knew for certain when the world was going to end, what would your final grand performance be? If the world was entering into oblivion?
Well, I guess in some ways, uh, I have that attitude every time I step on stage because you never know when the world's going to end, sometimes I hope it's the next day, sometimes I hope it's uh, today. Um, Other times, you know I'd like to stay around a little bit longer when I'm feeling more idealistic and I'd like to try and make a difference if that is possible, but um, I think I'd do exactly what I do every time because that's, uh, you know, I always put my heart into it. Thanks.
Mmm-hmm.
What's the next question?
Hi Marilyn, this is Chris from Pennsylvania. Each album has, in a sense, dealt with an aspect of your life, uh, Portrait was in part family, 'Antichrist (Superstar)' was Religion, and 'Mechanical (Animals)' was today's worthless media, uh, what's your next album going to focus on?
One thing I should say first, there was, uh, a bit of misinformation when people said that our new album would be called 'Holy Wood'. Uh, That is the, the title that I've, uh, decided the movie would be called. but the album, although it's gonna be music that'll be in the film, is not called 'Holy Wood.'
But The new album, uh, in some ways, kind of completes the triptych that I started with, uh, 'Antichrist Superstar', um, the character of Omega on 'Mechanical Animals' was an ersatz rock star that is part of the story that is contained within 'Holy Wood'. A lot of people often mistook, um, this last year for being, uh, literal when it's sometimes I was trying to present them with a satire of rock stardom.
And uh, 'Antichrist Superstar', I think, is a lot closer to the basis of what the movie will be talking about and the album kind of leaves, uh, I guess kind of continues on some of the ideas that I started with 'Antichrist Superstar' and really finds a, a more defined clearer perception of ideas about Jesus Christ, about Lucifer, about Satan, about Jehovah, and all these, uh, things that we've been lied to about all of our lives.
So it's, uh, I think for us as a band, it's goin' to be probably, uh, the most aggressive and also at the same time the most dynamic thing and for me lyrically, uh, after recently, uh, spending some time in, uh, Czechoslovakia, strange enough, uh, uh, I had some very interesting revelations about what I'd was gonna be thinking and uh, some things in my mind were, were changed and I was opened up to a lot of other ideas and I'm going to try to share some of those with the world, uh, through this next record.
Thank you.
Thanks.
What's the next question, please?
Hello?
Hello.
Hey, Um, Marilyn?
Yes?
Um, I have a question for you that I think you might have some fun with...
Okay.
Um, if you were given the chance to reform or change society in any way, shape or form what do you feel you would do and accomplish?
Well, I think we have finally been given that chance and I think it's a matter of us, whether that be Marilyn Manson fans or whether you be fans of some other rock band.
Anybody who has the desire and who's smart enough to know that there needs to be a change, uh, really has the chance now with, uh, what the internet has the potential of becoming. I think it's an outlet where we cannot be censored anymore it's an outlet where, um, the people who dispense these mediocre forms of entertainment to us can be replaced, uh, by, everyone I think, uh, it would be great that if every person who ever listened to one of our albums, uh, went out and made their own music or made their own website, made their own movies, did whatever they could, I think, it's all about, uh, not relying on the technology, but using it to weed out who's going to be the real artist now, who's gonna be the person who actually has something to say, so I think, uh, I'm hoping that everyone joins together with me and, uh, tries to make their own difference.
Okay, Thank you.
Thanks. What's the next question?
Hi Marilyn?
Hi.
Hi, uh, my name's Andrew, I'm calling from Toronto. Can you give me any details about the plot and/or the possible release date on the upcoming 'Holy Wood' film?
Um, it's something that I'd like to film this year and it's something that most likely won't be seen until probably late next year. Um, Unfortunately the movie industry moves at a slower pace than the music industry does.
Um, as far as the plot goes, I don't think I'd really like to tell anybody anything other than what I've already said in my brief statement. But I think, um, it's it's something, that uh, for me was essential to write, it's something that I've been writing for ten years, it's something that I've hinted at on on every album so far so I think it's going to answer a lot of questions people have had about things I suggest often uh, with symbolism, um, and it's it's a tragedy, uh, a lot of early reports were saying something about it being a love story or it being this or that, uh, but I don't think anybody, should, uh, try and decide what it's going to be until they see it for themselves.
Thank you very much.
Alright, Thank you
Hello Marilyn.
Hello.
Hi this is Chris from Texas it's a pleasure to speak with you today.
Good to speak with you.
Alright, uh, My question is, how is your producing career going and are there any projects with you behind the console in the works?
Um, currently, uh, I haven't really worked with any other artists, um, you know I produced the 'Highway To Hell' that we did for the 'Detroit Rock City'. I produced, uh, a song called 'Astonishing Panorama Of The End Times', which, uh, supposedly will be featured, uh, in Celebrity Deathmatch if they don't find it too offensive, uh, and I recently also produced a song called 'Fun Control', um, and plan on doing a new album, you know I'd like to work with, um, a lot of people, but it's a matter of having the right time and finding the right situation.
I plan on, um, using this website in the next year, revamping it and making it a place where anybody who's interested in things that are going against the grain that are, uh, thought provoking in any way whether it be music or movies that they would come here and even beyond Marilyn Manson music, other bands, uh, other movies, I want to make my website a place where people can forsake, uh, you know the confines of regular television, the confines of regular record companies and find stuff that artists really want to show their fans, not things they have to censor.
Wow, that sounds really great, thank you very much.
Thank you.
What's the next caller?
Hi, uh, Alexander from Norway.
Hi.
Hi, um, What you see when you are performing, you look in the eyes in the audience? Uh, do you see a reflection of how you were when you were young, um, because I've been both to your concerts, your concerts, concerts here in Norway and both times our eyes are met.
Um, it's hard to say, I think, um, in a lot of way, I get from the audience, what, um, in a way, I guess it makes me feel like I did when I was, before I was a performer, and I would go see bands, um, it's unfortunate that I'll never able to to be that again, that I could never go to a show and feel the same way that I did when I was 16 or 20 even, um, but I think what I see in people's eyes is often, um, uh, sometimes hatred, sometimes fear, sometimes confusion, sometimes excitement, sometimes, uh, passion, it's uh, I, I think it's everything at once and it's never able to, it's not something I can ever define or describe, I think uh, it would be exciting for anybody to discover it on their own by by doing the same as I did. I think, you know, you should create something of your own and and see people's reaction I guess it's probably, uh, the simple way of answering it it's the best thing that I've ever seen, is what I see in peoples eyes.
Mmm, Okay.
Alright, Thanks.
Who's the next caller?
Hey Manson, this is Jenni from Minnesota.
Hello Jenni.
And um, you expand from self-knowledge and individuality, so how does being and living in superficial Hollywood affect you?
Well, I've always found the most inspiration in places that I don't belong. I think it was living in Florida that inspired me to, uh, to make aggressive music because it was such a plastic Disney land sort of place and I think Hollywood is is very similar um, but I think there's places like this where the most work needs to be done.
If I lived in a place where, I guess, if there were such a thing as a Utopia, I don't think art could exist there. I think you need uh, resistance, you need, uh, conflict to create, so...
Just on a personal level, I think for me, I don't really leave the house, so where I live is could be anywhere in the world I kind of keep to myself, and sometimes I enjoy going to a movie, or something like that but, uh, I'm not one to really go out.
Yeah, cool.
Alright, who's the next caller.
Hello.
Hello.
Hello, Hi.
Yeah, go ahead.
Oh, hi, My name's Mike from Temple Cove, Maryland. Um, now that music has really become so one dimensional, and all it really takes to become a star is, really, is like a catchy sample or sex appeal, so in spite of that, what are your hopes for the future of music?
I think actually, uh, the state of music that we're in now, which I'm sure that most people would agree is, is the most miserable of our generation, is going to devour itself.
So if anything, The more garbage I see, the happier it makes me because I know that it will force people to raise their standards. Uh, that's something I briefly touched upon in my opening statement today, um, I think there's a lot of garbage there's a lot of opportunists and record companies trying to churn out as much as they can, there's no more concern in the entertainment world for career artists or people who actually, uh, care about what they do.
That's not to say that Brittany Spears doesn't care about what she does but there's no real concern for people uh like there was in the 70s with all the great bands we grew up loving but I think there will be, I think we're in a era very similar to the end of the 70s when disco was king and lot of people found that to be very shallow and what came after that was a lot of great things. So I hope, you know, I hope the new nine inch nails album makes a difference to people, I hope our record makes a difference to people, I hope um, you know, to see stuff from all the really great artists, There's a lot of underground people that, uh, like James Hall or PJ Harvey or, uh, a lot of people that I really have respect for that I'd love to see thrive in the next few years.
Alright, Thanks.
Alright, Thanks.
Keep doing what you do.
Thank you.
Hello?
Hello?
Hi.
Hi, This is Katrina from Brooklyn.
Hi.
Hi, um, I wanted to know if you think your music has a positive or negative influence on society's youth and why?
Well I hope it has both because you can't have one without the other and I think the ignorance that we're taught when we're growing up that you have to pick, uh, the light or the dark is what makes man suffer the most and what makes man fail to evolve to his full potential, um, within the shadow is where most of the things that we identify most with, uh, comes from and, uh, the people who have this false belief and, uh, some sort of universal good and bad, uh, are the ones that are holding us back just as humans, so I hope that, uh, that that people take what they need from what I do.
I think in the end I try to put out something that's positive in my eyes, I try to put out something that makes me feel good about myself and I try to put out something that makes other people feel good and identify with it and think that they're not alone and that's the most that I can really hope to do.Hello.
Hello?
Hi, this is Shawn from Mishawaka, Indiana.
Hi.
If you were ever to do a duet with a female singer, who would it be and what would the song be about?
Uh, There's so many that I've liked over the years, um, I think the probably the most interesting thing that I've ever wanted to do uh, is has wanted to sing a song with Diamanda Galas and I'm not really sure what the song would be about, but I'm sure it would probably deal with religion, because she too, uh, focuses greatly on that in her work. I think that she, uh, If you haven't heard her, you should listen to some of her albums, she's very, very strong and very interesting.
Hello.
Hey Manson, this is Daniel.
Hey Daniel.
How do you want people to remember you after you are no longer alive?
Um, you know, I'd like to be remembered as, uh, the person who was successful in finally, uh, cracking open the gates, the metaphorical gates to the apocalypse, the person who, uh, made mankind become who he has always wanted to be but has never had the courage to be.
Um, I think a lot of great people before me have, have made efforts and have gotten us closer to that point. A lot of great artists, a lot of great writers, people like Aleister Crowley, um, and I'd like to just continue that, you know, I'd like to be remembered as someone who wasn't afraid to say what they thought and, and wasn't afraid to die for what they believed in.
That's pretty powerful, you take care man.
Thank you.
Bye.
Hello.
Hello.
Hi, Stevie from New York, um, I noticed that 'Mechanical Animals' is, uh, very Bowie influenced, Bowie's a great musician, a huge influence on my music, can you tell me what made you want to go to a more space age type Bowie sound for this record and if you were scared the fans wouldn't accept it?
I think it was a matter of because the character that I created was supposed to be a satire of rock stardom I think people uh from the glam era of music like Bowie and Alice Cooper and KISS and Queen and things like that, uh, were the most identifiable and that music, to me growing up, left such an imprint on me, it was hard to avoid being inspired by it, um, I think, uh, I guess it's hard to meant say, it was a moment in time, that record is what it is, and uh, uh, it was to evoke, uh, an era that Bowie was really king of, the glam era, because that era was probably my most favorite in rock 'n' roll, because it was a time when, when people approached music the same way others approached books or movies with a greater sense of imagination.
Alright, thanks.
Thank you.
Hello.
Hello Marilyn.
Hi.
This is Deanna from Oklahoma - uh, if you had one wish for yourself, Marilyn, what would it be and why?
Well, that's always the hardest question, um, and I think, uh, on 'Antichrist Superstar' when I, uh, ended it by saying 'when all of your wishes are granted, many of your dreams will be destroyed", I think that that really is something I have discovered over the years, you know, I wished to be a rock star, but what that took from me, my innocence, what that took from me was my, uh, I guess, anonyminity, um, I don't think I'd, I'd ever wish to go back, I think, um, I'm happy with everything I've gotten and I think If I have something I want or something I really believe in, I think it's a matter of will power that you get that, so I think that wishes can be fulfilled if you believe in yourself enough, so it sounds sort of like something, uh, the Marines would say, but to me, I think it's very true.
Okay, Thank you.
Thank you.
Um, so that was the last question, I'm really glad that everyone came here. Um, at first these conferences are a little more primitive than what they'll evolve into.
I'd like to make this website a place where um I can deliver you not only the things that I want to show you without being censored but also the things of other artists that we haven't heard before.
Um, right now to clear up a few things, uh, there was a few rumors that the video for 'Coma White' wasn't going to be played on MTV, um, that was actually a rumor that was started by SeemsLikeSalvation website, the situation with that is that it's been filmed for quite some time, uh, we've always planned on releasing it uh later down the road with our home video that's gonna contain everything we've filmed over the years uh for public consumption um starting with, uh, way back to 'Get Your Gunn', there's a video that, um, including on there for the song 'Cryptorchid' that was, uh, filmed by this uh really spectacular director named Aleis Marehi, who, uh, directed a film called 'The Begotten' and no one's actually seen that yet so that'll be something, uh, for, any of the die hard video fans that would really like to see that, the video is also going to include, um, behind the scenes footage from the Manson/Hole tour and, uh, I think it will clarify all of uh Courtney's allegations of why she left the tour, 'cause there's a really great speech she gives me about her uh insecurity and lack of fans at the concerts that although it disparages her somewhat, I find it very amusing and I believe most people will, um, the video will be called 'God is in the T.V.' and it's gonna to be one video with a bonus cassette that contains, uh, all this 'Mechanical Animals' tour footage.
We're also releasing sometime later this year 'The Last Tour On Earth', a live album, which, uh, was recorded in America, uh, on the Manson/Hole tour also. That also includes, uh, the acoustic version of 'Last Day On Earth' that we performed on New Year's Eve last year.
And, um, other than that a lot of people have been asking about my art, I haven't put anything up on the web site in quite some time, and I've been painting hundreds and hundreds of things since then, I'm going to try and update a few things. I plan on having a show later this year where everyone can actually see the things in person, um, and I'm currently also painting a set of tarot cards, uh, uh, inspired by, um, some meetings that I had.
I had the the opportunity to meet H.R. Geiger while in, uh, Zurich and, uh, it was a great meeting and it was very inspirational.
So that's really all we're working on now. Uh, I expect the next album to be done really soon, we've done, uh, probably, 13 or 14 songs, and if everyone keeps an eye here, I'm going to try and, uh, really, uh, stay updated, uh, maybe give few glimpses into the recording studio down the road and make this a place where you can come and watch things, uh, more exciting than just these fan conferences, more creative things so and I, uh, welcome anybody's creative ideas and I love when everyone sends me their poetry, their drawings, uh, I try and go through all of it so, uh, if I don't answer you that doesn't mean I didn't see it and, uh, the rest of the band wants to thank you also.
Um, a lot of people wonder why they don't do interviews, it's because mostly they're lazy and they don't like to, it's not because I don't want them to, um, and that's really it and I want to thank everybody for coming and I look forward to, uh, seeing you all again very soon.
Coma White : Video World Premiere Address Sep 10, 1999 | MarilynManson.com
Still frame from the Coma White video.
Manson on Coma White
"Over six months ago I filmed a video for the song 'Coma White,' in which I enact the 'Journey of Death.' This is a pageant where I used the assassination of JFK as a metaphor for America's obsession and worship of violence. My statement was always intended to make people think of how they view, and sometimes, participate in these events. Little did I know that the tragedy at Columbine and the accidental death of JFK, Jr. would follow. But it was telling to see the media shamelessly gorge itself on these events, which ultimately made my observations in the video even truer than I had originally imagined. This short film clip is inspired by my script 'Holywood' and it is in no way a mockery. In fact, it is a tribute to men like Jesus Christ and JFK who have died at the hands of mankind's unquenchable thirst for violence."
MARILYN MANSON 9/9/99
Is Adult Entertainment Killing Our Children? Or Is Killing Our Children Entertaining Adults? Dec 15, 1999 | MarilynManson.com
Is Adult Entertainment Killing Our Children? Or Is Killing Our Children Entertaining Adults?
The title of our forthcoming album is "In the Shadow of the Valley of Death". We have written over 100 songs that tell the story that will be presented in my upcoming film HOLY WOOD. We are recording in parts of Death Valley as well as other undisclosed residences. The band is working with seminal electronic mastermind Bon Harris (Nitzer Ebb) and Dave Sardy (Bark Market, Slayer). I am producing the album and am being assisted by these other two gentlemen.
This record finishes what ACSS began and its sound is unlike any of our other albums. I can say, however, it is the most violent, yet beautiful creation we have accomplished. My inspirations are being drawn from alchemy, my association with the O.T.O., JFK and our very own Holy Bible. This is a soundtrack for a world that is being sold to kids and then being destroyed by them. But maybe that's exactly what it deserves. I have a hope for a new, stronger humanity. An age of enlightenment, an Age of Horus. The "great" are only "great" because we are on our knees. It is time to rise and time to create. We are now the people our parents warned us about. And we should be, because they were naive. We truly sit in the shadow of death, or rather the billboard that advertises it. We're all going to die! and if enough people are taking photos, we will all be stars. But it's all really a popularity contest now.How you die.
How many people you take with you.
What your cause was.
How good is your sound byte.
We even make martyrs where others, equally and brutally
murdered fall as just statistics.
SURE.
So if this school-shooting victim had said, "No spare me, I hate
God", the deranged killer would have followed his own "Christian
values" and turned the other pimply cheek. Right, maybe on the
WB NETWORK made-for-TV version we can expect any day
now. Sadly and simply that poor girl and her classmates didn't
die for Christ or anyone else. She died because her head was
where Dylan Klebold had his rifle aimed. We can all agree these
deaths were unnecessary. So was my grandfather's and your
brother or dad or JFK or Christ himself. But let's not make
martyrdom a popularity contest based on cash, guilt and fear. I'm
sure if they could bottle every tear we've shed in these events,
they'd sell it back to us as bottled water. The crucifix is already
the highest grossing mass-market piece of merchandise sold
worldwide in the history of mankind. So where does that leave
us? I say our art. That is all that makes us worth being alive. It's
surely not what drives us to death. Each artist is a duality. On one
hand he has human feelings and on the other he is an impersonal
machine or process. But you cannot understand his psyche; you
can only understand his creative achievements. I am a vehicle.
An artist cannot be expected to interpret what he does for us. It
must change us and in the change, we become the interpretation.
The answer.
There is a thin line between psychosis and creation. Who's to say madness isn't pure enlightenment?
YOU CAN ONLY DO!Everything you do is part of a plane plummeting towards our pitiful, dying earth. But your art, what you create is stepping onto the burning wing and forgetting silly things like life and death for a moment. Just to enjoy for one second a glimpse of beauty before you are reduced to ashes.
MARILYN MANSONTHE THIRD AND FINAL BEAST
Last Poll Of The Century Dec 15, 1999 | Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone, Dec. 1999 issue
Rolling Stone's "Last Poll Of The Century."
Cultural Event
The most important events in recent history form a chain reaction. It started with the spear of destiny being passed from Hitler to Patton, which then created the atom bomb; I think America's detonation of the atom bomb was the beginning of the end of mankind. Following that, Kennedy's assassination was to modern man what Christ was to the people of his time. I like to compare Zapruder film to da Vinci's "The Last Supper" - I think it's significant in that same way. The next significant event was Charles Manson being sent to prison as what many would consider a political prisoner in some ways, a scapegoat for the "love generation," a generation that probably contained more hatred than any other. I'm not defending his crimes in any way. I don't think there's any sense in letting Charles Manson out of jail now. He's not going to get a job at Baskin-Robbins. I'm just saying that the way America handled the whole situation was a turning point. Nixon and the media declared him guilty before the trial was over; that's when the media began to contribute to decisions rather than reporting on them. That was when things started sliding down.
The next important event is my birth. I wouldn't say I'm more important than an Aleister Crowley or a John Lennon or a John the Baptist or the guy who cloned sheep, but in my eyes I'd have to count myself as a significant thing.
Hopes for Society
People have stopped thinking all together. They're always relying on someone else to tell them what they're supposed to think, and man has kind of painted himself into a corner with technology so that eventually he just becomes useless. I think there needs to be some greater event. People expect it to be associated with the turn of the millennium, but that's very predictable. I always look to art as the thing that moves and changes people the most, over politics and anything else. I have constant desire to expose people to anything, whether it be bad, good, complicated or easy to understand - just to have people thinking.
Time Capsule
To represent our society at the end of this millennium, this is what I would put into a time capsule: Frame 313 from the Zapruder film, which would be a good clip of mankind's generosity to share his violence with the world in such a cinematic way. Frame 313 is where the brain matter lifts from Kennedy's head and tries to fly away like a little bird. I would also include my father's rifle that he brought back from Vietnam that he took from the hands of a deceased Viet Cong soldier, made in Russia and very similar to the one Oswald used. I think guns exemplify man and his other limb that he wasn't born with, that he felt a need to create. And I would put my foreskin, which my parents managed to save from my circumcision; that way, if anyone wanted to clone me, they wouldn't have any problems. It lies like a crusty Life Saver in a small plastic jar; I assume they keep it next to my grandmother's dentures. I would also include the King James Bible, Nietzsche's "Anti-Christ" and the dictionary. So when the time capsule is opened up, they would read the dictionary and learn our language; they would read the Bible and would be inspired to commit terrible acts of violence; and they would learn to read the Nietzsche book and it would enrage them that they had spent so much time reading the other books. And the conclusion they would come to about our society would be that there's really no point in it - that mankind is God's worst joke.
Resolution
New Year's resolutions are for people who can't deal with their problems. If I were forced to make one, my New Year's resolution would be to stop doing press. If everyone stopped doing press, it would be good for the world. It would give mankind a moment to have to think for himself. And chances are everyone would probably commit suicide, because they wouldn't be sure what they were supposed to believe in or buy or hate or be at war with or love. So they would probably implode within themselves. And it would be what man deserves. It's neither good or bad; just God's divine justice.
Marilyn Manson
(December 15th, 1999)
Marilyn Manson : Mercury Web Address Dec 16, 1999 | MarilynManson.com
Marilyn Manson stays Marilyn Manson
We're introducing today the first in many changes on our web site, and I'd like to announce that the title of our album is going to be "In the Shadow of the Valley of Death." It contains songs that will hint at the story that will be told in my film Holy Wood, and this will all come out sometime next year. The album is being recorded in various undisclosed locations, including Death Valley. This is the final piece of a triptych that I began with Antichrist Superstar. The character of Omega has been disposed of, as he was a ruse to lure commercial mallgoers into the web of destruction that I have always planned since the beginning. That's not to say that any songs on Mechanical Animals were not sincere; those were all great songs that I love very much. So it was just, uh, the character that I personified was one that was much more of a satire that some people misinterpreted as reality.
This web site will now be used more frequently, as it will be my only contact with humanity, so I would expect to see me here on a very regular basis, and I would expect you to learn with me as we see the changes that are taking place here in the year 2000.
The new symbol that I'll be using to represent myself here on the web site and elsewhere is the symbol of Mercury. If you're not familiar with it, you'll be seeing it after this message. The symbol is most commonly used in alchemy. It represents both the androgyne and the prima materia, which has been associated with Adam, the first man. And all these things are major influences into the writing of the new album. I encourage you to do your own research on these, but from now on you'll recognize me by this symbol and this symbol alone.
Manson Speaks Dec 17, 1999 | MarilynManson.com
MANSON SPEAKS 12/17/99
I want to make a statement to clarify to those too quick to judge or too stupid to understand what I said earlier this week. The persona of "Omega" has always been a satire and an exaggeration of what "commercial America" thinks a rock star should be and act. However, my album MECHANICAL ANIMALS has never at any point been insincere. I stand by those songs and every song I've written 100% and consider each to be a piece of a greater work. If being "Omega" managed to capture the attention of a few MTV viewers during a godforsaken, rockless year of rap-metal-hip-hop bullshit and I opened their minds just a crack, my job was done. So that way of thinking and the symbol OMEGA are dead. I have adopted the symbol of MERCURY and shed my skin once again to feed the fake. My name is still Marilyn Manson and I am here to stay and make each of you that fears, doubts, laughs at or hates me suffer as much as possible. Or at least rock.
Finally, for each critic or skeptical fan that casts harsh words of hatred or misunderstanding upon my change (as you have on each change), remember those words always come back on your own head. Sometimes in insults, sometimes with fists and sometimes with guns. I look forward to a new creative process and THANK the fans who I have never forsaken. Your support is my blood.
But I'd like to give a sincere FUCK YOU to those who criticize ANYONE who dares to do something different. I've only tried to open your minds.
Time for a riot,
MARILYN MANSON
The Third and Final BeastThe Lamb Of God Jan 28, 2000 | MarilynManson.com
"THE LAMB OF GOD"
01/28/00
This self-portrait is entitled "The Lamb of God." Some may find this
picture to be a violent endorsement of guns or a suggestion of
negativity. I pity those that do, for they have a cracked ugly mirror to
look into everyday, and the ashes of burned books on their hands.
This is you, this is MARILYN MANSON and this is the youth of
America.
What you see is an image of EVOLUTION. In my hands I hold justice.
Creation and destruction, god and Satan, the animal and the machine.
We are trapped in a guilty sin and repent cycle. We must realize with
no doubt that you cannot create without destroying. We cannot deny
our true nature of violence, the law of evolution. Even cells destroy
one another. A lion isn't "evil" because she kills to feed her young.
She is what your god made her.
Can I make a pencil without cutting down and mutilating a beautiful
apple tree? Can I build a guitar or carve a spear, or use that wood to
make this rifle my father took from a Viet Cong soldier in a pretend
war? That "innocent" tree, alone in Paradise becomes the cross you
hung Christ on. The Holy Wood. Its branch was Oswald's weapon to
slay the king of Camelot and the timber to build a church for you to
sell all those poison apples and fear to your children.
Then hanging in the balance is the lamb. Is it life or death? I think the
lamb is me, it's the son of a god that had forsaken him. It is JFK and it
is your United States of Exploitation. It is your martyred dollar bills
that we use as tissues to wipe away our theatrical tears. This is a
place where you kill a horse to feed your babies bubble gum. We raise
them to aspire to be just like Abe Lincoln, Martin Luther, JFK, John
Lennon and Marilyn Monroe…dead.
American culture is drunk on the blood of its children.
But shouldn't we all just hold hands and kiss? It's certainly the
G-rated thing to do. In my opinion, peace and unity is tired rhetoric
and naive idealism. Harmony is absurd and a monkey wrench in a
wheel of evolution we did not create. However, mankind's inborn need
to destroy, compete and fight one another CAN be solved in more
powerful ways. The mind is the greatest bomb.
We must wage a war of knowledge, a war of art and a war of economics.
Maybe this can satisfy the "evil" we are born to dispense to each
other. It's time to stand upright and stop living like apes. This is in
our hands.
In Genesis god told Noah, "The end of all flesh is come before me for
the earth is filled with violence through them, and behold, I will
destroy them with the earth."
Mankind needs a god but god does not need mankind.
MARILYN MANSON THE THIRD AND FINAL BEAST
Holy Wood : Chapter 10 Feb 14, 2001 | MarilynManson.com / ThisAsValentinesDay.com
Holy Wood by Marilyn Manson
'Holy Wood'
Chapter 10
An excerpt from Marilyn Manson's unreleased novel 'Holy Wood'
It wasn't very difficult for Coma to find Adam's file that week. The casting storage room was like a mausoleum of never-to-bes and never-to-knows. The walls were lined with dusty stacks of half inch reel boxes filed by cut-out Polaroid faces on the bindings and larger b/w headshots on the lids. They were all marked REJECT AND HOLD. Everyone ended up here expecting to make it somewhere more special someday. No one ever did.
Adam has no idea that as he sits in the torn remains of his trailer inappropriately dressed for Celebritarian purposes, Coma White is staring at his photo and listening to the sterile rendition of the song he wrote right here for her. It was only "happy" that her birthday meant that she was finally a legal grey and free from this home. Even though she is incredibly smart, her idealism betrays her into thinking she would actually be allowed to leave here in any other way than a body bag.
Outside her window, klieg lights and a red carpet draw crowds of celebrating birthday mongers and the long legs of paparazzi, climing over one another for a shot of drama. FLASH!
Something shifts now like a cheap film flashback. The sound is reduced to the dubbed down rattle of a projector's plastic speaker. The voices sneak out through tiny holes from the past and Coma is just a little girl crying into the camera's P.O.V. It is the President's Bell and Howard Zoomatic, and although a fine photographic instrument it provides a somewhat grainy resolution. Her tiny, nine-year-old body is drowning in a white gown and an oversized platinum blonde wig as she is dressed like a kiddy-porn Marilyn Monroe. The handle-held cinematography is nauseating at times as the beautiful little girl dances like an adult.
"Sing," a voice off camera coaches her. "Sing for daddy." Her eyes are black waterfalls of mascara and her tiny nose drips down onto her her red smeared lips as she sings. "Happy birthday, Mr. President."
"The gun, baby." He whispers. The camera focus is disturbed and the sound of Mr. White's pants unzipping becomes quite clear, although it's hard to tell now if it's on the projection or in the room this very moment. The sound of her voice struggles to stay in synch with the image.
On the large screen in the President's private library, young Coma fellates the barrel of a shiny chrome revolver, gagging between syllables of Ha-ppy-Bir-day-to… The light from the projection reveals walls of film canisters where books might normally be. The President pinches a cigarette in one hand and his other has disappeared into the expensive cloth of his pants.
Through a crack in the door Mrs. White watches jealousy. Her reddened eyes seem more inclined to violence then self-pity though. This seems to be a scene she has stumbled upon in one form or another for the last time.
She turns away from the library and desperately searches her reflection in the halfway mirror for wrinkles or flaws. The 'mirror' is actually a video monitor in a frame that provides one with a more accurate assessment of one's looks, particularly on TV where it matters most. Mrs. White is no longer the fairest of them all. She grabs the phone sitting on the small stand beneath the TV monitor. "I need Child Safety here now! Do you hear me?"
The voice on the other line responds calmly, "Mrs. White with all do respect, we've been through this several times before. The President has sole authority over Coma and–"
She throws the phone against the wall and and runs to her room. Halfway down the hall she twists her ankle and splinters one of her high heels. This only makes her more determined.
In the Presidential suite there are seperate beds on either side of the rom. On the wall between them hangs a pristine lithograph of the same Family portrait Adam has hanging in his trailer. Mrs. White nervously reaches into her night stand. There is a Bible amidst thousands of pills resting peacefully in thin orange child-proof cylindrical coffins. She considers how sweet it must be to be as a pill, to live in such empty solitude. Sleeping softly, waiting one day to be swallowed and then digested in burning stomach acids eating you away into nothing.
She reaches for the bible instead, after all it is meant to answer any question and to solve any problem. She pulls it open and inside it is merely a hollow case containing a large black revolver. This is not a ritual handgun. This is simply used for killing.
She picks it up with both hands and sits on the edge of her bed crying.
•
Coma's bandaged arm reaches to rewind the reel of Adam's song once again. ADAM. She reads the name. This makes him real to her. The music is crude but makes her feel not so alone. If there were scientists to provide a logical explanation, they might say it contained the 'golden means' through with the human brain is satisfied, creating a feeling of completeness. To Coma it just sounded like someone who might be able to see this world like she did. It drowns out the "Happy Birthday, Coma!" chants from outside her window.
Her door is suddenly kicked in with half-assed drunken force and the President leans against the frame for support. He leers at Coma incoherently with a birthday cake in one hand. The candles make ugly shadows across his face. Coma tries to hide Adam's box and the music but her nightgown just comes open in the process. "What's that playing? That's not my song…" He loses his frame of thought for a moment staring at her pale exposed belly and thighs. "Are you too big to love daddy, now? You're all grown up my little princesss…let me see."
He stumbles toward her and with his free hand begins to grope her breasts. She resists, for what seems like the first time, and rips open his silk shirt. What she sees beneath is more disgusting than his pathetic molestation. His almost translucent skin is varicose and wrinkled. On his shoulders and chest he wears prosthetic pads that are snapped onto his skin with tiny stainless steel fasteners to augment his youthful, healthy shape. The material his fake muscles are made of looks wet and gelatinous like raw chicken meat. He is too drunk to be embarrassed, so he tears away the rest of his clothes stumbling toward her with some sort of elastic garter that holds his veiny erection upright. The cake with her face painted on it, smears down his leg onto the floor.
"Daddy, loves you. You know that's why we have to do this."
As he reaces for her arm, she pulls away and grabs a six inch tall marble statue of her father from her desk. With all her strength and eighteen years of resentment she smashes his across the forehead with it, breaking the statue and splitting open a large horizontal gash above his brow. He falls, bleeding and covered in cake. The gaping wound seems to frown above his closed eyes. She drops the statue, even though she knows he's still alive.
•
In the hallway to Coma's bedroom Mrs. White walks slowly and decisively choking back her tears with one manicured hand, carrying the black pistol in the other. When she pokes open the door with the barrel of the gun, she sees her husband sobbing pathetically. He is clutching Coma's torn nightgown and his atrophied torso is covered in his own drying brown blood. The white sheets of her bed have caught fire from the spilled candles and the bed has begun to burn behind him. The bedroom draperies flutter from an open window. Coma is gone.
It's quite obvious to Mrs. White what has happened as she enters the room. She grabs the gun with both shaky hands and points it at her husband.
"Who's going to get it up for you now?" She shrieks, looking at his still hard phallus, pinched off with a strap like a tourniquet. It twitches grotesquely in time with the short burst of blood that pulse from his head wound. "Don't come crawling to me. I married a goddamn star! Look at you now. You're just a shell. I wasted myself on you."
"Go ahead and shoot me," he taunts her, still sobbing. "I want you to. Then where would you be?" His crying is now a disgusted laughter. "You'd be nothing. You're old and worn out. You're ugly and it makes me feel dead just being near you. So do it!"
She is shaking more now and her strand of confidence is snapping. She starts crying weakly and he laughs at her, wiping the blood and tears out of his eyes.
"You're nothing, now you'll be less than nothing. Back to the ghetto for poor trash like you."
She stops the sound coming from her mouth abruptly with this realization. She opens her chapped, red lips into the shape of an 'o' and sticks the barrel in her mouth.
"You'll be worthless in hell too."
She pulls the trigger and fires. Her head explodes onto the perfect white walls. If the President had a frame of reference he would consider her blood splatter to be completely artless even by Jackson Pollack's standards.
Westmoreland and a few other secret service men arrive shortly after the gunfire. He seems more panicked than usual considering he has a neurotic personality to begin with. Valentine has accused him of being a homosexual but likes keeping him in charge because he's easy to push around. Today is no exception. When Valentine arrives seconds later, he shoves Westmoreland out of the way and start ascertaining the situation.
Valentine and Westmoreland ignore the fire and Mrs. White's corpse–the other mindless suits handle that–and they go directly to Coma's desk. Adam's reel is still spinning, although the tape has run out. Valentine notices the face on the box but doesn't bother to fill in his questionably gay counterpart out of sheer disrespect and possible plans for manipulation that could always arise for his own benefit. He stops the tape and puts it back in the box.
"What's the story here?" Westmoreland asks. He's not exactly stupid but not nearly as attentive as Valentine.
"Looks like daddy's little girl is taking this rebellion bullshit a little too far. How the fuck did she get this?" He shoves it in Westmoreland's face. "That's your job–security, you idiot. We don't need people hearing this. We give them one song. One leader. One path–Obey and consume."
Westmoreland looks over at the faceless body and the smoldering bed. "Well, what do we do about her?"
"Simple. Rebellious punk. Listening to some–what is this shit–some teenage music. She gets all fucked up over it." he's exaggeration, almost performing as he says this. "Kills mommy and runs away. Perfect. Classic even."
"I'll find this one." Westmoreland says, grabbing the tape. "Let me keep this for now." Valentine doesn't give it up. "Go do whatever you do."
Valentine walks over to the President and cleans him up like a baby with one of Coma's pink monogrammed towels. "Listen, your rating's always go up during a punk panic. Play the grieving widower. Grief is good, they love grief." He gives the President a pill. "Leave this to me. I'll get you a new daughter, the co-star you deserve."
"A pretty one?" he asks childishly.
The next day Mrs. White's funeral is held on a renovated motion picture lot still equipped with essential sound and lighting effects required for such a tragedy-inspiring media drama. This place is called the Holy Wood Memorial Cemetary and everyone is in attendance. The President wears his best mask of grief–Academy Award winning, in fact. He even adds a drop of glycerin to his eye before his eulogy. The best make-up artists available concealed his gash perfectly but a few more hours in the sun and it will get as the Gaelic say "Kennedy," which means, of course, ugly or wounded head.
Valentine cues, Infanta, the President's new daughter and she gives her best 9 year old salute as Mrs. White's coffin is lowered into an ersatz earth soundstage. After the ceremony, Valentine approaches the President.
Grief, everyone. Despair. Flash.
"We're going to need him to really take care of this little Coma situation." Valentine says matter-of-factly.
"Boniface?"
Valentine nods.
"He's such a fucking zealot. Do we have to resort to that?"
"That's just it. Religion is the best way to make people hate. And hate is what we need." Valentine makes sure no one is looking and grins, patting the President on the back. "Hate sells."
Journal 2002 - 2004 | MarilynManson.com
The Oracle 2003 | MarilynManson.com
Putting Holes Into HappinessMarch 3, 2003 | The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
"Putting Holes Into Happiness."
Kneel down humble men and become the height of our children. Let your heart crawl into your knee and realize that all knowledge lives through imagination. This is the nursery business, always get a photocopy.
Our cultures may continue to disintegrate but we just rebuild with abusement parks, filming the process and replaying it as situation comedy. We wear ribbons, hold hands, celebrate and concentrate on camps that train our kindergartens to shout out "star-spangled" banter.
We will medicate the lunacy of "degenerate" art with heavy doses of old-fashioned (original recipe) family virtues.
"Let's make sure all of these offensive forms of entertainment are shown publicly, and burned immediately as a warning to us all!"
In the meantime, try to stay conscious. We are sitting in the EMERGENCY ROOM waiting for the doctor, a newly elected aesthetician, to come and pronounce his diagnosis. The grotesque, malignant cancer that is our expressions and our views is no longer the disease. We are being told that the sounds and images of art are now the symptoms of the creator. We as the artists, are now considered unhealthy and incurable.
Let me remind you that the deformed scar of one man, is "love's pretty dimple" to me. The generation that lived through WWII accepted the concept of "total violence" as a solution to the world's problems. The mathematics of creative suffering and the milk of human violence are the formulas that our grandparents bottled and passed down to our parents.
These are the "traditional" values that have built "protective," moral walls around our children's world. And it is, indeed, a small world after all.
MM
AD
The Dead Rock Star May 15, 2003 | Rolling Stone
The Dead Rock Star
Immortals die when the eyes of the world are upon them
Jesus was the first rock star. The cross is the biggest, greatest piece of merchandise in history, bigger than any concert T-shirt. And Jesus was the first dead rock star. Like Jim Morrison and Kurt Cobain and Jimi Hendrix, he became immortal by dying. A dead rock star becomes perfect, and he'll be that forever. He'll never change, never get old, never turn into something less great than at his peak, at the moment of his death.
It's not just death that turns you into an icon. It's how many people are watching when you die, and the way the camera can turn you into a martyr. I had a song on my last record called "Lamb of God" about just that. It was inspired by Jesus, John Lennon and John Kennedy. We're not just fascinated with death. We're in love with death, because we are so afraid of it. And the people who live their lives close to death, or who die tragically, are the ones we're going to fantasize about the most. It is escapism, it's voyeurism, it's living vicariously. Or dying vicariously.
Jim Morrison had a shaman quality to him; he was a shirtless Christlike figure. He was inspiring. He brought darkness into the mainstream, right in the middle of the Summer of Love. He did and said what he wanted, and he behaved like a child, which is admirable and beautiful. I have Jim Morrison to thank for making me want to write, and for making me want to take acid, and for making me want to expose myself in Florida.
I remember reading No One Here Gets Out Alive when I was in tenth grade, and that made me want to write. I have always, since I was fourteen years old, written things in my journals, and have always been very protective of things that I put down on paper. I have a hard time committing my personal feelings and my deepest, darkest secrets to a place where someone will be able to obtain them.
Morrison's enduring strength as a historical figure is in his mystery. I think the modern, contemporary treatment of rock stars on MTV and the voyeuristic world of reality TV are a great threat to anyone who wants to retain any sort of value throughout history. My whole life, I have tried to steer clear from "behind the scenes" things. They take away from the power of what you do. If you start explaining your tricks, then you are a shitty magician. I'm watching all these other people piss away what could be great works of art by going on Cribs. You can be legendary for not doing anything because of this voyeuristic culture that we live in. You can be famous for "surviving" something, or for marrying a millionaire, or for being a victim of a crime. It's a strange time that we are in now.
With Jim Morrison, it's the dark sexual element. You want to grow up to be like him. With Kurt Cobain, it's about relating to his pain and understanding how close death's door is. When I was just about to start a band in 1989, I was still a journalist, and I got a promo pack from Sub Pop records with Bleach and a black-and-white glossy photo of Nirvana. There was something really dark and alluring about the record. And that feeling hits you every time you hear one of their songs. You can hear a tear in his voice, the pain going on there.
When Cobain died, no one was very much surprised. I was disappointed, but I think a part of me was relieved because it seemed like he was suffering so much in the last year of his life, and his suffering was over, if anything. He despised being the rock star he ended up being. But like Morrison and Hendrix, he was proof that the most amazing art comes from people who are living their lives like there is no tomorrow.
Marilyn Manson
(Rolling Stone #922, May 15, 2003)
The Doors by Marilyn Manson Apr 15, 2004 | Rolling Stone
The Doors by Marilyn Manson
Jim Morrison said it best: "All the children are insane," and he meant it like I mean it. We are children revolted by the banality of what people think is sane. When Jim rambled, quite profoundly, "Rock & roll is dead," and "Hitler is alive. . . . I slept with her last night," he knew then what we are choking on now. You can't change the world, and if you try, you just end up destroying it. We love all things to death. We leave the lights on, turn everything up to ten and fuck everything we fear.
In tenth grade I was told to read No One Here Gets Out Alive, the biography of Jim Morrison. Everything I'm interested in now got started with that book. It made me want to be a writer, and I started with poetry and short stories. We don't know what was really going on in Morrison's head, but I liked trying to piece it together. The immortality of his words, the mystery of his existence appealed to my sense of fantasy. I found "Moonlight Drive" -- particularly when accompanied by "Horse Latitudes" -- scary and sexually mystifying, like Happy Days told by Ted Bundy. I read the poem in front of my tenth-grade English class, and it was as awe-inspiring then as it is now. Words like mute nostril agony and carefully refined and sealed over always stung in the corners of my eyes.
I think the Doors still fit in because they never fit in in the first place. They didn't have a bass player. The music often had nothing to do with Morrison's words. The keyboard held everything together. Most bands can get through a show if the keyboardist breaks a finger. Not the Doors. Robbie Krieger played very odd guitar parts if you compare him to Jimmy Page or Keith Richards. Yet all this combined into something unique that grabbed people's attention.
Morrison's voice was a beautiful pond for anything to drown in. Whatever he sang became as deep as he was. He had the unnameable thing that people will always be drawn to. I've always thought of the Doors as the first punk band, even more than the Stooges or the Ramones. They didn't sound anything like punk rock, but Morrison outshined everyone else when it came to rebellion and not playing by anyone's rules. There are a lot of bands that seem to want to sound like the Doors filtered through grunge or neogrunge -- whatever it is. But it's all just ideas pasted on ideas, faded copies of copies. If you want to be like Jim Morrison, you can't be anything like Jim Morrison. It's about finding your own place in the world.
Marilyn Manson
(Rolling Stone #946, April 15, 2004)
Marilyn Manson Remembers Hunter S. Thompson Mar 24, 2005 | Rolling Stone
Marilyn Manson. The Three Legged Dog of Bangladesh
Marilyn Manson Remembers Hunter S. Thompson
MARILYN MANSON got a call five years ago from Johnny Depp, who was partying at the Viper Room in Los Angeles with Hunter. "Get down here," Depp said. "You've got to meet this guy." After that, Manson and Hunter spoke regularly in late night phone calls.
We both kept extremely odd hours, and we would talk to each other endlessly. He would leave messages referring to me with a series of names that ranged from my birth name, Brian, to Bubba, which he used on everyone. He also called me Shit Eyes. I'm not sure what it means, but it's probably the greatest thing anyone has ever said: "Call me back, Shit Eyes, because I need an audience."
One time when I called he was very quiet. I said, "What's going on?" He said, "How do I say this? I'm in a romantic moment." I said, "I'm so glad for you. Call me tomorrow." I was really happy that there was still sex going on. Hopefully, it was with a person.
Once I was going to court on a fourth-degree misdemeanor when my cell phone started ringing at 6:15 in the morning. It was Hunter. I told him I was worried I'd be drug-tested when I turned myself in. "When was the last time you did drugs?" he asked. I couldn't be certain. "Get a rental car and flee the country," he said. He was dead serious. "Thanks for the advice," I said. "I love you."
Johnny Depp once told me, "Hunter fears you." I asked why. "Because he thinks you're not afraid to go all the way, to hit bottom, to go wherever he wants to go. And he likes that." That's a good basis for friendship. Or trouble. But that's what friends are for. We were having dinner at the Chateau Marmont; I think it was Johnny's birthday. It was like the Last Supper, only with all the crazy people in Hollywood: Nick Nolte, the week of his famous hair picture, Mickey Rourke, Johnny, Benicio, myself. Hunter had a bandaged hand from punching holes in a window. After dinner we all went upstairs and he read from his book 'Kingdom of Fear'. Some drunken girl knocked on the door and he was so angry, he couldn't form a word. He just kept pointing his finger until she was removed. Then you had a roomful of rowdy fellows, very calmly sitting, listening to a bedtime story from a very cool grandfather, uncle, brother, whatever.
A day or two later he sent me 'Kingdom of Fear'. The inscription says, "Manson, beware the flag suckers. They will run you down and eat your flesh but not your heart or your brain, for they are unclean. Good luck."
Marilyn Manson
Rolling Stone
March 24, 2005
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