The Stool Pigeon features Marilyn Manson - June 25th 2009

The Stool Pigeon has posted an interview they recently conducted with Marilyn Manson. Although some of their blurb seems unsympathetic to Manson, his answers make this a very enjoyable article to read.

MARILYN MANSON promised us champagne and caviar, but now he’s only capable of delivering cola and crisps. To JOHN DORAN, he’s become little more than the God Of Fucking About.

Today the God Of Fuck is merely the Petty Officer Of Fucking About; the Local Ombudsman Of Mildly Irritating Behaviour. He’s locked in his suitably grand room at a Park Lane hotel with plenty of absinthe and ‘a young lady friend’. A wide-eyed reporter from a London free title eventually comes down the stairs declaring him to be “leathered”; saying that the lanky industro-goth was striding round his room with the girl tossed over his shoulder chatting bare nonsense. Seasoned veterans of idiotic American rock star behaviour, we pack up and go home leaving a business-like but inexperienced guy from the BBC alone in the foyer waiting dutifully for an interview. Predictably, his copy, when it appears online a few days later, is a riot of non-sequiturs; a throbbing psychedelic grotto of drunken nonsense. It isn’t the poor hack’s fault. Simply, the God Of Fucking Can’t Be Arsed. He’s become the Bursar Of Talent Seepage; the Heir Of Nothing In Particular.

A few days later, he blows out the rearranged Stool Pigeon interview as well, and not only has he sacked us off, he hasn’t even turned up to his pre-tour rehearsals in Germany. “No one knows where he is,” says his PR guy. The world tour starts in 48 hours.

Of course, none of this would be remarkable if it wasn’t for sheer weight of ‘I can’t be arsed’ emanating from Brian Warner’s seventh long player, The High End Of The Low. His albums have been patchy efforts for some time now - since 2000’s Holy Wood (In The Shadow Of The Valley Of Death) to be precise - and apart from the occasional mint single (‘mOBSCENE’ springs to mind), Manson has made little effort to change things. If it weren’t for his distinctively battered, shlocky and operatic brogue, some of the songs on The High End Of The Low wouldn’t be out of place on a Nickelback album, or a recent outing by Oasis.

The album was written after some young actress or other left him. He can’t have thought much of her if this is his elegy to their relationship. He certainly doesn’t think much of you, if you’re still one of his fans. In fact, he must think you’re a clueless and tasteless idiot.

Even Trent Reznor, his former mentor, recently called him a “dopey clown” in Spinner magazine: “He is a malicious guy and will step on anybody’s face to succeed and cross any line of decency. Seeing him now, drugs and alcohol now rule his life and he’s become a dopey clown. He used to be the smartest guy in the room. And as a fan of his talents, I hope he gets his shit together. During the [Downward] Spiral tour [in 1994-95] we propped them up to get our audience turned on to them and at that time a lot of the people in my circle were pretty far down the road as alcoholics. Not Manson. His drive for success and self-preservation was so high, he pretended to be fucked up a lot when he wasn’t.”

When we eventually catch up with Manson the next day, it’s clear he has indeed been putting in a lot of time at the coke face, hoofing lines of chisel up his prodigious nose; belting fat slugs of Charleston straight up his nozzle until he can’t hear what anyone else around him is saying. It’s hard to tell from a straight transcript, but he motor-mouths, runny-nosed and sniffing, at 100mph through the interview like a long-faced jabberwocky competing in a verbal Wacky Races, either oblivious to or unconcerned with the questions that are being asked.

It wasn’t always thus. After an almost painfully normal and nerdy childhood in the 1970s and 1980s, Brian Warner moulded himself into goth provocateur Marilyn Manson (named by combining the first name of an iconic beauty and the last name of a notorious killer - a formula that has served other collaborators such as Twiggy Ramirez well). He formed The Spooky Kids (the original incarnation of the act still surviving today) in 1989 influenced by industrial bands such as Ministry and Nine Inch Nails, but with a much heavier emphasis on the glam and the grotesque. In fact, they took the industrial metal blueprint and amped up both the image and the transgressive nature of the lyrics but, importantly, added a pop accessibility to the music. The combination was dynamite. He went on to sell 44 million albums worldwide and was arguably the most iconic figure in rock of the 1990s; the evil Elvis to Eminem’s Sinatra.

And this is what makes his failure to climb out of his artistic slump depressing; this fallow period of the not-so naughty noughties. Because even after fighting his way through a snowstorm, he’s still one of the most interesting and intelligent people this newspaper has ever had the privilege of speaking to, and his off-the-cuff gibbering would put the faux-intellectualism of most musicians to shame. The trouble is, Manson has turned out to be our generation’s Alice Cooper and not our David Bowie. And you only have to talk to him for a few minutes to realise that he could still be so much more... if he had the inclination.

The Stool Pigeon: I want to ask you about the role of transgression in rock music, where transgression is going, and even if the outrageous, controversial rock star of the late 20th Century might be redundant.

Marilyn Manson: I think by its nature it’s redundant. You can’t really ever make any art without getting someone’s attention... constantly. You have to say something differently, constantly. Dali said that anyone who doesn’t steal isn’t an artist and you have to take things and make them your own, and then when you’ve done that, you have to realise how not to cannibalise yourself, but how to transform constantly. This record I’ve just made allows people to witness that I’ve made a transformation. All music comes from heartache and all music comes from pain and suffering. That’s never going to go away, so it’s how do we learn to adapt to the fact that the whole world is able to talk really loud now? You know, everyone’s a journalist now - everyone’s got an opinion - and I think that just levels the playing field. Andy Warhol told us that everyone would be famous for 15 minutes and he was very accurate. So we have to invent new ways to make it interesting to other people because we’re trying to appeal to other people. You have to make this conversation interesting to someone else who wants to read it.

SP: One of the last things Plato wrote was - and I’m paraphrasing - what’s got into the kids? The kids have gone fucking mental. So that thing of fearing what the next generation is up to has always been with us. But I’m also talking about the hyper-acceleration of culture. Say, for example, if you had written a song like your new single ‘Arma-Goddamn-Motherfuckin-Geddon’ as the follow up to ‘Lunchbox’ at the start of your career, people would have found it a lot more shocking than they do now.

MM: Oh, I think it is completely unshocking and completely intentionally redundant and that was the whole point of it. I really go out of my way to make that fit into the record. In the context of the record, it refers to something I said that day going to the studio. It was my commentary on how shameless and hopeless and uninteresting things are now. When you have to put ‘goddamn’ and ‘motherfucking’ into a title that already has ‘Armageddon’ in it... you know! I was just making a point. Anyway, I didn’t write it - the Bible wrote it - I just added a couple of new words to it. If it were Scrabble and I just threw the letters down and they came up that way, would it be my fault that they ended up in that sequence? [laughs] Not really. I just pushed the button. Queue applause. And people clapped. Canned laughter. You know what the worst thing about canned laughter is? That everyone on the tapes for canned laughter is dead now. So it’s a room full of dead people laughing at me.

SP: What is the primary role of the transgressive rock star? Is it to provide a safe space for kids to rebel in? Is it to hold up a mirror to society?

MM: No, it’s for girls. It’s so you can get girls. Perhaps not everyone should be simplified in rock’n’roll or art. It’s not a girl in everyone’s case. But I think the only reason anyone makes anything is because they want to connect with somebody. And I think with rock’n’roll it comes down to being a rock star. It’s not oversimplifying what I do to say that; it would be simplifying the reason why I do it. I’ve said it right from the beginning: that I wanted to share the same feeling that I think everybody has. And I wanted to be a rock star because you get away with doing and saying things and not having to do other things. You sidestep the thing you see in front of you - this horrible future of 9-to-5. Slavery dressed up in the form of a pay cheque. Right now if I had to do something else, or if I was not able to do what I do, I don’t think there would be a point. That’s not being cynical - it’s just that I’ve seen so much. I couldn’t work like an everyday person. I think I work harder than anyone I know - it’s just that sometimes my work is doing drugs, drinking and taking my pants off in front of girls. Sometimes it’s writing words that get me to the point where I can take my pants off in front of girls; sometimes it’s writing a melody; sometimes it’s getting back together with my best friend [Twiggy Ramirez] and taking his pants off while he is playing guitar.

SP: Was there much mutual uncloaking of trouser regions going on between you and Twiggy now that you’re making music together again?

MM: [laughs] Well, I think there was, really. I made that comment metaphorically, but I guess I’ve spent 10 years saying: ‘Why can’t we find the right guitarist to play the guitar parts that Twiggy wrote?’ And it was right there in front of my face. The guitar is like the microphone and it has to be played with... feeling. Sometimes you play from your dick and sometimes you play from your heart, but not from your wallet or not from your head. It has to be instinctual. The stuff that he played on this record was how I felt inside. We were going through the same things emotionally, even though you can never compare these things. I never say to someone, ‘Oh, I know how you feel.’ You never know how someone feels. I write a song and say, ‘This is how I feel.’ And if people can relate to it, they can put themselves into it.

SP: You’re known, in the terms of American rock and alternative music, as the most far-out person going. You’re the God Of Fuck...

MM: I did like it when the NME... and the NME have shat upon some of the greatest artists. I saw an anniversary issue where they said ‘Diamond Dogs: The End Of Bowie’... So they called me the God Of Fuck-All and I liked that. I thought that was pretty good.

SP: It’s not even a dis to you, is it? It’s a bald statement of nihilism...

MM: No, I think it’s pretty funny. I think it’s pretty funny because it’s someone not realising that you can’t be me without having a pretty good sense of humour. That’s the point. My name’s Marilyn Manson. People think I’m going to come across all serious. Do I have to go to work and be all serious and be aggressive and the God Of Fuck and whatever? I have to laugh about it, really.

SP: This is relatively serious: I was thinking about the fall of Rome. Contrary to this idea of wailing and gnashing of teeth, the overall theme was one of boredom. If you’re public enemy number one of American society - which you are to some, I guess - what happens when people become bored of you? What happens when people aren’t shocked by you anymore?

MM: “Well, I think journalism is in a sad state when I know that it is the proper thing to say that Marilyn Manson is not shocking. It’s been like that from the beginning; it’s never been proper to say that I’m shocking. Jane’s Addiction recorded one of the most influential records in my life, Nothing’s Shocking. Were we ever shocked as kids? No, we were fascinated. When in Rome, get a caesarean section. They invented that you know. On this album, I feel like I can hear myself when I listen back to it, almost becoming Nero at the end of it and saying, ‘You know what? If I can’t have love I’ll burn everything down.’ But that is a cliché. I think this record is about the fact that we all give up something because we want to have the thing we cannot have. And for most of us it’s always love or someone to understand us - not to fit in, but it is to fit in. People try and fit into a pair of jeans - fit in with the crowd. Some people try to fit into a porn star. And it’s trying to connect. Someone always gives up their wings to be mortal - to try and obtain that unobtainable thing. But it’s when you give up the wings... that’s when you don’t get it. So I have to be reminded the hard way that I was the person who spent the later part of my earlier life saying, ‘Don’t afraid to be yourself.’ And I think I started being afraid of being myself because I was worried that being myself wasn’t what I should be any more, because, as a person who is so critical of everything, being me wasn’t going to be interesting enough anymore. I had to just let go. Do you know what I mean?

SP: No.

MM: A kid shot his teacher last week and said, ‘Hail Marilyn Manson.’ If that keeps on happening and I keep getting blamed for it... and I suppose I should be blamed for something if my name is included in a sentence that ends with a bullet instead of a full stop. But is it my fault? Is it the world’s fault? Whose fault is it? I don’t know. Is anyone else saying my name?

SP: Well...

MM: Is anyone else saying my name and shooting people? Or are people saying I believe in Jesus Christ: ‘Bang!’ I believe in Islam: ‘Bam!’ I believe in America: ‘Boom!’

SP: But that’s not...

MM: So it is sadly impressive that something like that happens. But, at the same time, as a critic of the world, I think it doesn’t really matter what I say or do anymore. Apparently it does, though. Maybe it’s mattering in the wrong way sometimes, but I don’t think I’m being irresponsible.

SP: Rewind for a second. I’ve read about the case that you’re talking about. [Fifteen-year-old Justin Doucet who, during a recent tooled-up rampage, managed to kill no one, despite shooting at his teacher at point blank range and then himself in the head.] Doesn’t the blame for this lie squarely at the feet of those opposing change to gun law? Doesn’t the blame lie with the gun industry in the United States?

MM: Mmmm. You could, I guess, start with that, but do you think that kid would have stopped with that train of thought just because he couldn’t get a gun?

SP: Of course he would have!

MM: That if there wasn’t a gun, he wouldn’t have done it with a pencil? I don’t mean writing! Obviously it would have been great if he had done the same thing with a pencil! Which is fortunately what I chose to do, if we’re speaking in broad brushstrokes and metaphors. There is a very fine line between artists and killers. That’s what separates art from commerce. Art and spirituality go hand in hand. But politics and religion are not spiritual - they take things out of the world. That’s not to say that you can’t believe in God. For me, God is the concept of making something. If you don’t have hope for the future, then you can’t be an artist - there’s no point. Everyone thinks I’m a nihilist or a fatalist and I came dangerously close to thinking like that over the past few years. It was when I started to think that I don’t have any feelings any more, so why bother? That is the end. Boredom. Boredom leads to drugs. Boredom leads to, ‘Let’s invent new things because we’ve done them all.’ It’s funny that you bring up the Roman Empire because the kids have always been too cynical and grown up too fast. Kids are senile now. They forget. They have no history . It’s Twitter, Twitter, download, download. I don’t care about any of that. What are you saying? What do you have to say? Can you say something? Can you say something that is passionate? And sometimes, yeah, do I want to shoot some of these people? Sure. You should be worried about what I’d do, if you’re worried about what my music does. There’s gonna be a day when I shoot someone and it’s gonna be myself or someone who says the wrong thing to me and I’m not afraid to do it. I don’t want to go to jail and right now I don’t want to die, so you have to make that choice. Are you stupid or are you passionate? Pick between the two. And sadly, when kids go wild, it’s stupid. ‘When Kids Go Wild!’ It’s a new TV show and they’re going to put my music on the soundtrack!

SP: I genuinely think kids from pretty much any country in the world would go mad and kill people if they were allowed to. And by allowed to, I mean if there were guns in the family home or local shop that were easy to get to.

MM: Well, I agree. I agree. In fact I instruct everyone who works for me to not allow me to have a firearm [laughs]. Because if I’m getting into obvious trouble, that’s where it starts. If you have a lethal weapon near you, that’s the beginning of stupidity - it’s always the temptation. It’s the Garden Of Eden; it’s the fall from grace. If you see the way to destroy something, you’re going to destroy it because you see how it’s all been created and you get frustrated. I’m getting riled up by this conversation! You’re getting transgression out of me!” It’s the story that will never end because there are not enough ways to shake everybody in the entire world. You can’t grab everyone and shake all of them.

SP: But what about...

MM: With stuff that I said on Antichrist Superstar [second album]... I’m glad I said that stuff. At the time it was a great cum shot in the face of people. They were shocked and were like, ‘Woah, that tasted terrible and I didn’t really like that.’ I’m not saying the same thing on ‘Arma-Goddamn-Motherfuckin-Geddon’. I’m not even getting close to it.

SP: I’m going to change the subject here and quite cravenly appeal to your intellect by asking you to again look at transgression, not just as it applies to you but to the history of pop and rock...

MM: Okay.

SP: In the beginning rock’n’roll was a hotbed of subversiveness, whether that was underage sex (Jerry Lee Lewis); homosexuality, or the suggestion of it when that was an absolute no-no (Little Richard); and what I guess would have been called, negrophilia (Elvis Presley).

MM: Er, did you just say negrophilia or necrophilia?

SP: Negrophilia.

MM: Yeah, you’re correct. I’m sitting in Berlin doing this interview. I was very fascinated with Berlin because of the birth of expressionism when artists would be killed for saying, ‘I’m going to paint the sky purple,’ and at the same time they [Nazis] were cursing and damning swing dancing and using expressions like that [‘negrophilia’] and they were using expressions like ‘the downfall of society’. They weren’t around long enough to point at rock’n’roll, but they were there to point at what it came from. Last night I was stuck watching television and saw the new Eminem video in which he makes a parody of ‘Jailhouse Rock’ and I started thinking how relevant ‘Jailhouse Rock’ was to modern imagery in modern society... So I’m sitting here thinking about ‘Jailhouse Rock’ and thinking, ‘Wow, if this video were done today it would still be unbelievably offensive. I can’t imagine what it would have been like then.

SP: Yeah, the thing about...

MM: It’s all criminals, rapists, murderers etc. dancing to this guy with a hairdo and fucking hips. It’s unbelievable to me. And if you think about what is the downfall of the world - what destroyed everything - rock’n’roll did. That’s where it started. Well, it is and it isn’t. Rock’n’roll is the soundtrack. When they started putting it on television, that’s when it became a real problem. When you combine visuals with audio it’s a very powerful medium.

SP: What about...

MM: It’s propaganda. It’s Triumph Of The Will [Leni Riefenstahl 1934 Nazi propaganda film]. It’s where Wagner made opera productions that had swastikas and Hitler, who had a homosexual obsession with Wagner, said: ‘I love the way that looks, I’m going to do something with that. I’m pissed off because I’m a bad watercolour artist.’ Everything is about transgression. Every war. Think about nature where you have a female peacock...

SP: Peahen.

MM: Whatever, pick an animal. They go with a male from another tribe and then they run back to the male from theirs and he is like, ‘I will defend you and I will kill everyone.’ That is the central transgression, so everything is about relationships and everything is about girlfriends, and rock’n’roll defined it because rock’n’roll happened at exactly the same time as media transformed. Rock’n’roll happened when colour television was invented. Ironically, JFK was killed the week after colour television came out. Or was it ironic? I would say not. If you want to have a million-hour long conversation with me, go and look up [multinational aerospace manufacturer] Lockheed Martin on the internet. You will be so shocked. They also invented the LP record, and the colour television. They also invented satellite, and every bomb ever dropped. They invented the black box. They owned the twin towers, and the plane that flew into them. Then you become very cynical and angry about the fact that it’s not a coincidence and everybody since the Roman empire has figured out: ‘Let’s cause people to fight each other and let’s sell them ways to do it.’ And rock’n’roll became the one thing that really fucked it up for them because they weren’t in charge of it. So they became in charge of it. And don’t think that it’s a coincidence that the people who invented all of the control invented the way to hear rock’n’roll.

SP: Who are the most important transgressive figures?

MM: Citing them? Number one: Elvis Presley. Number two: Jim Morrison. Number three: Sex Pistols. Number four: David Bowie. And that’s just in my life growing up as a kid...

SP: You’ve just hit on something important there. When rock’n’roll started it was an assault on all fronts - underage sex, violence, death, crossing the racial divide, sexuality - but only some of these things got taken to the full extent. Why on one hand did Mötley Crüe get to take the heterosexual sex thing to its logical conclusion and...

MM: They didn’t do a good enough job...

SP: ...and artists like yourself have explored fully the interface between totalitarianism and the rock show, but no one really has even muddied the waters of incest or underage sex or even homosexuality to any great extent? I mean, in 10 years time, will we have a rock group comprised of openly paedophilic men? They could be called The Paedos In Speedos...

MM: [laughs] It’s funny you should say that because I have a [1995] record called Smells Like Children, you know? And I had a conversation prior to its release where I was told to take the song called ‘Pretty Little Swastika’ off my album. I did and this was not pandering to censorship [the track is now called ‘Pretty Little $’]. Their censorship choice was made purely because of money. They said, ‘Take that song off your record because there are two things you can’t do in music - you can never say anything anti-Semitic, and you can never say anything about paedophilia.’ I said, ‘Thanks for telling me that. I’m going to go ahead and combine them for you on a song and then I’m going to shave a swastika into my girlfriend’s pubic hair and make her wear pigtails.’ But it’s not advocating either one. They’re hateful! It’s a statement. I didn’t invent the words and symbols that everyone associates with me, and I didn’t invent any sort of profanity. I wish I could make up a new curse word, but they’ve all been made up already. Can you blame a kid for taking building blocks with letters on them, throwing them down and having them they spell out ‘fuck a kid’ or ‘kill your parents’? No, you can’t, because it’s what’s in your head. So raise your kids. Let them read books, and let them make their own choices. Don’t tell people how to think, they get mad. And then they’ll either kill themselves or kill you.

SP: Isn’t the real barrier...

MM: Listen, I have to go in a second and rehearse... they’re waiting for me.

SP: Look, isn’t the last barrier homosexuality? People run up against it all the time - people like Bowie and yourself (and you’re not even gay), and other actual homosexual rock stars...

MM: Most of them are homosexual, we just don’t know it yet.

SP: Where are all the gay rock stars? Where are all the rock stars who were supposed to come out after Rob Halford of Judas Priest? If you took all the members of Metallica, Slipknot, Machine Head, Nickelback and Anthrax, I could guarantee you that at least two of those guys have had penetrative sex with another man, and fucking enjoyed it. Surely the most rebellious thing you could do if you’re a musician now is to be gay?

MM: Yes.

SP: I like to think that one day we’ll have another Sex Pistols moment because there’s some new crunk band: four gay black rappers who perform naked with erections and then suck each off between songs.

MM: Yeah. Yeah, you’re right. It is the ultimate taboo and I think it was brought up in a film that was very well done and I recommend it, called Dahmer, about [serial killer] Jeffrey Dahmer. They were talking about what is the most rebellious thing you can do and they said homosexuality was going against nature essentially. But it’s not necessarily against nature. It only became against nature back on page 53 of the Bible or whatever. Sodom and Gomorrah: you’ve got a city named after ass-fucking, which is pretty fantastic. They burned it to the ground. I got beat up by skinheads in south Florida when I started Marilyn Manson because Nazi skinheads thought I was a Jewish homosexual; straight-edge skinheads thought I was a Jewish homosexual drug addict. It’s stupid people who have just enough intelligence to read something that someone more stupid than them wrote and then they get confused and want to fight themselves, but they end up taking it out on other people. I mean I’m not gay, but I’ve had Twiggy’s penis in my mouth. It wasn’t erect and neither was mine. Neither of us are queer.

SP: Who hasn’t had Twiggy’s penis in their mouth?

MM: Nicely said. Who hasn’t? But I’m not afraid to face that ultimate rock’n’roll thing. I like to be able to look out in the audience and see girls first and then guys. Not the reverse. But I was in the front row of a Judas Priest concert, so maybe I could have gone the other way! People, when they find out, are stupid: ‘If you suck my dick I’m gonna beat your ass!’ That’s kind of the attitude. ‘But if a gay guy sucks my dick he’s a faggot!’ It’s aggravation and fear and that does feed a great deal of rock’n’roll music: Madonna, Prince, Bowie, everyone who has toyed with sexuality. I thought that I hadn’t, but I’d forgotten all about ‘Cake and Sodomy’ on the first record, so I guess I’ve got amnesia when it comes to that. I guess I try to drink a lot so I’ll forget the bad things I do. People try and get rid of the problem, but you can’t get rid of it. I don’t understand why people keep on trying. Every religious figure likes to do those things and it’s so exposed now. Essentially that’s why people become priests - because they have homosexual desires and they want to silence them. But wearing a collar doesn’t stop you from being a cocksucker. And that’s your pull quote right there.

SPIN Q and A's with Marilyn Manson - June 24th 2009

SPIN Magazine recently had a phone call questions and answer session with Marilyn Manson.

The Candid interview covers subjects ranging from "oversharing provocateur covers ex-girlfriend Evan Rachel Wood, $200K drug budgets, self-harm, and much (much!) more."

Q&A: Marilyn Manson
Our epic chat with rock's oversharing provocateur covers ex-girlfriend Evan Rachel Wood, $200K drug budgets, self-harm, and much (much!) more.
BY WILLIAM GOODMAN 06.24.09 11:26 AM

Marilyn Manson may shave his eyebrows, down Abinsthe, consume narcotics, sing about swastikas, and feign masturbation onstage, but on the phone, the man born Brian Warner is chattier than a seventh-grade girl -- dude talks and talks and talks and talks and talks and talks and talks... without pause. And it's all wildly entertaining -- and, at times, revolting.

While we dialed Manson to discuss The High End of Low, his reunion album with bassist Twiggy Ramirez, which debuted at No. 4 on the Billboard 200 chart last month, the rocker's always got other things on his mind -- who are we to change the subject?

For nearly two hours, Manson touched on nearly every aspect of his life, from his $200,000 on-tour drug habit to being blamed for school shootings to the depression he suffered after splitting from his girlfriend, actress Evan Rachel Wood. He even crossed all lines of decency (as usual), revealing in a TMI moment that he'd been flinging semen-filled condoms at a wall right before our interview. Wholesome!

Manson moves fast and has lots to say, whether it's intelligent, disgusting, scary, insightful, ridiculous, unbelievable, or heartfelt -- so hang on tight.

Hey Marilyn. How are you doing?
It depends, are we going to make this a "shit on Manson" interview, or are we going to make it a good interview?

This is going to be the best interview ever.
Good.... I was going to email you a photograph I just took. It's of a new piece of modern art I created. Let's call this work my Jack-off Pollack, of sorts. I had two condoms -- alien things to me, I haven't seen them in 25 years -- and I threw them on the mirror, and they stuck, and they formed this piece of modern art. And I can't decide what to call it. I'm thinking about calling it "I Don't Want You to be Cursed With My Retarded Child," or "It's Not Just Love, It's a Lifestyle," because they were Lifestyle condoms.

Would the name be different if they were Magnum or Trojan condoms?
I suppose. I was just curious what I could do with a condom filled with my semen, other than the obvious damage that one could do.

Well, you know, you could be sanitary and throw it away?
It was like a piñata of disease and babies and confusion. It's literally just dripping down as we speak, two of them. I just wanted to make sure that you know that I can perform. I want to make sure that my sexual prowess is established here. I'd love this photo to be on the cover of SPIN.

What's up with your album's title, The High End of Low?
I went through a tough period over Christmas, during which I learned the difference between love and dependence, and the difference between weakness and desire. And it made a big difference in my life.

So I came back [to the studio] on January 2, and I saw my only friends, which at this point is the band, and everyone asked me, "How're you doing?" And I said, "Well, I'm at the high end of low." And automatically I knew that that's what the record was going to called.

Explain.
It really defines the record, which is about falling from grace and trying to fit in and be accepted as a mortal or as a normal person when people don't see you as that. It's also about giving up what you are to prove that you love somebody more than you love yourself. When you get to that point you're unlovable. And for me, halfway through the record, you can hear it. It went from despair to anger, it's like passing through the stages of destruction and reconstruction.

What was the recording process like? It's been over seven years since you and Twiggy worked together. Was that tough?
Well, it's the album that Twiggy and I always wanted to make. And unfortunately, or fortunately, it took us being apart to get to that place. He went and he did things on his own, and I did things on my own, and we both did things that we're proud of. He started with the music and I wrote the lyrics, and I was involved in production in a different sense. [Producer/ex-Nine Inch Nails drummer] Chris Vrenna played the role of the responsible person, although we tormented him plenty. I'm in a vocal booth, isolated, with my every breath and wheezing deviated septum and coughing and vomiting and ejaculating, whatever noises are coming out of me, I made [Vrenna] write down my lyrics. A lot of times, I went into songs with ideas only formed in the part of my head that I don't know how to operate, the subconscious.

But that doesn't mean I was improvising -- I don't even know what that means. I don't want people to ever get confused when someone says, "Oh the record sounds really raw, really unproduced." It was a clear choice in production style, and it doesn't mean that it was easy to record or produce; it means that you have to do things differently. I came off of Eat Me, Drink Me with this fantasy, a Shakespearean ideal of romance, you know, this "If the world doesn't understand us, then let's die together" thing. Which, now, I think is cowardice. And you hear that going into the first track. The songs appear on the album in the order in which I sang them. "Devour" was the first one -- and it was the hardest one to get too.

Why was that song so emotionally tough for you?
That song is about when someone said to me, "Okay, I want to be with you until I die." And then they gave up. I was at the point in my life where I was like, "Okay, let's die, but I tell you what, I'm going to kill you first, because I don't trust you." Honestly. It's hard to look back and see myself as the same person. I'm very objective now. I started to apply this really fantastic rule that they don't teach you in AA or AAA, or any other acronym: Do drugs and drink when you're happy, not when you're sad. It has a great effect. But I can't say that I did that the whole time.

When I was making Eat Me, Drink Me, I felt like the future version of me came back and saw the old version, and instead of killing the future version, the old version of me was buried with Eat Me, Drink Me. In some anomaly, if you want to look at it in a science fiction way, the Manson that exists now is not even the same person that had anything to do with the past 39 years of my life. The record, the 15th track, was finished on my birthday -- 1-5-69. The 15s are just overwhelming on the record. It's my number. It's the Devil card in the Tarot. I have it tattooed behind my ear. It's probably the new number of the beast.

You and Twiggy spent nearly a decade apart. How did you guys get back together?
It was completely fateful. I went down into the lobby of the hotel I was staying at -- much like right now I didn't have a place to stay. It was the Roosevelt Hotel, which many consider to be haunted. This was during a break on the Eat Me, Drink Me tour, right before Christmas 2007. We ran into each other completely by accident, and he looked like I felt a year before that. And I suddenly realized that he'd finally grown into that stage in your life where you take the risk of commitment and fear and loss, and that never existed before for either of us because we had each other.

We both got ourselves into a lot of relationships that were probably unfair because of our lack of one another -- we tried to have the girls in our lives fill a void that was missing in us as best friends. Looking back now I realize that played a big part. And him coming back into my life caused a great disruption in my past relationship, it just changed me in a way that initially was euphoric. I had no hesitation to tell Tim Skold, who had taken his place, "Look, this has to happen. I'm sorry, goodbye." So we just toured for about a month, and we wanted to keep going, so we started writing the record. First and foremost I'm married to what I do, every artist is. And I think that was something that didn't make sense in my past relationship. And I felt torn, like I was supposed to choose between the two. And I couldn't, it was hard. So I ended up just burning one to the ground and just trying to salvage the other one while it was happening.

It sounds like the period after you and Evan Rachel Wood broke up was really tough. What was your lowest point?

I sing about it on "Into the Fire." I say, "If you want to hit bottom, don't bother trying to take me with you." My lowest point was Christmas Day 2008, because I didn't speak to my family. My walls were covered in scrawlings of the lyrics and cocaine bags nailed to the wall. And I did have an experience where I was struggling to deal with being alone and being forsaken and being betrayed by putting your trust in one person, and making the mistake of that being the wrong person. And that's a mistake that everyone can relate to. I made the mistake of trying to, desperately, grasp on and save that and own it. And every time I called her that day -- I called 158 times -- I took a razorblade and I cut myself on my face or on my hands.

I look back and it was a really stupid thing to do. This was intentional, this was a scarification, and this was like a tattoo. I wanted to show her the pain she put me through. It was like, "I want you to physically see what you've done." It sounds made up but it's completely true and I don't give a shit if people believe it or not. I've got the scars to prove it. I didn't want people to ask me every time I did an interview, "Oh, is this record about your relationship with your ex-girlfriend?" But that damage is part of it, and the song "I Want to Kill You Like They Do in The Movies" is about my fantasies. I have fantasies every day about smashing her skull in with a sledgehammer.

Wow.
Merry Christmas.

Um, I don't think you can't wrap that up and put it under the tree.
You can wrap that up with Band-Aids. I can laugh about it now because it's a process I went through, and I need to have a sense of humor about it. That's the only way that you can be me. Everyone is so, "Marilyn Manson is so serious, so eloquent, so intelligent, because he managed to have a sentence that had more words in it than I could think of, and, you know, Bowling for Columbine." Whatever. That's a compliment and all, but the whole point of the name Marilyn Manson sums that up -- it's a contradiction, an odd pairing.

And of course, a couple weeks ago that eighth grader said, "Hail Marilyn Manson," then shot a teacher. It's surprising because on the first song on the record, "Arma-Goddamned-Motherfuckin-Geddon," I say, "Fuck the TV and the radio, I'm gonna take credit for the death toll." It's all I get blamed for. I don't get credit for anything else. So if I'm going to get blamed for it, I want credit for it. I'm not saying I agree with it, but I'm not saying I don't agree with it. I'm not going to be some kind of PC, tree-hugger. I'm the last person that causes harm in the world, and if people are worried about what my music does, why isn't anyone saying, "Hey, shouldn't we worry about what he does?" Besides throwing used rubbers on the wall.

Obviously I'm dangerous enough to make songs that are so problematic. I had my phone tapped by the FBI during Columbine. I've had more death threats than I care to remember. It's a never-ending process where I sleep at night, sometimes, but I'm never kept up by a concern for my life's safety. I can't go to sleep at night if I didn't accomplish at least something. That's the one thing that keeps me up. It's not partying; I don't even know what that word means. Partying implies that you have a hat, and it was fun… with clowns.

What's your reaction to the media scapegoating? I imagine the incident with the eighth grader brought a barrage of calls, letters, emails, etc. What was your initial reaction to the story?
Initial reaction: Where did he get the gun… and why can't I get one? It's shocking to me that it's easier to buy a gun at Wal-Mart than it is to buy my record. And it's entertainment, it's music, but that doesn't mean it has no value. In no way would I say that what I do is just entertainment. In fact, I love to insult shit that I don't like by saying, "Wow, it must be art, because it's not entertaining." But it's just ironic that they can sell a CD in a store, and they won't put the title "Pretty As a Swastika" on the cover, but at the same store they'll have Valkyrie, for example, which has a Swastika on the cover. Now, I'm not even using the symbol, I'm using the word, so the record company sort of created a new curse word, by default, for me.

So that's why I personally chose to use the dollar sign in the "Arma-Arma-Goddamned-Motherfuckin-Geddon" video, because I think that's the ultimate statement. My decisions are based on art and I have the ability to do that, and not because I can retire on a fucking island. I have nothing, I've lost everything, and I've got it back, and I'm happy to live in hotel, as long as I can feed my cat, get beautiful girls to do terrible things they shouldn't do with me, and pay for absinthe and drugs -- that's rock'n'roll. Of course, there's art to it. Of course I'm a painter, and of course I want to say things, but I'm not going to fucking sell myself out anymore. When I make a record, the music that I record and the thing I'm going to play live, that's my album. Whatever they want to put in a package, that's their product. Why would you want to censor the word "fuck" out of a song? Really, who doesn't want "fuck"? The more fuck, the better. In life, it's metaphor -- the more fucks, the more fun. Hey, it's only a couple letters off from fun.

Do you find any solace in the fact that this censorship actually gets your album into stores for kids who otherwise wouldn't have access to your music?
No, I don't. The fact that the record company says that they can't put that song on the record… crazy. So I say, "Well okay, don't put the album out." And they just don't know what to say. And it's great to be able to have that kind of attitude. When someone makes you a product and you're not in control of it anymore, you feel like a whore, like someone who's being beaten up and pushed around. But with the live show I could sing, "I want to kill you like they do in the movies" for 60 minutes. What are they going to do, leave? Go ahead, it's what I want to do.

The people that stay are going to love it, and I'm going to love it or I wouldn't do it. And the record company execs wanted me to take "Pretty As a Swastika" off the record because they thought, "Oh, the record's just so good Manson, we don't want to ruin it because there's just certain things…" And I said, "Look, what do you think this song means? Is it a compliment? Is it an insult?" It's one of my proudest moments, lyrically, because it's a love song, it's political, it's all of that -- it's me. I hope people marvel over it for years, and I know that girls like to strip dance to it, and I'm sure that people want to fight to it, and I haven't had any complaints, least of all from Jewish people, who they're so concerned it's going to offend. I'm not saying anything about Hitler, the Holocaust, or Nazis. I'm not trying to be a pussy and say, "Oh, it's a Hindu symbol." Of course I know what it means. I'm saying you're as pretty as a Swastika, art is a fucking question mark, you fill in the blanks. That's the listener's job -- that's what music is about.

There's a couple blues-influenced songs here. What were you listening to in the writing process?
Lots of Johnny Cash. But I didn't want to emulate Johnny Cash. I'm not exactly a fan of him, because I don't understand his stance. He's confusing. On one side he's spiritual, on another he's Folsom Prison. But that's what I liked about him. I liked his attitude -- he's not taking shit from anybody. This irony influenced "Four Rusted Horses"; there's irony in all placement of that song, but it's fateful the way it came out. That song really started to dictate what we were going to do on the record. Lyrically, it's almost a nursery rhyme. I realized that I was singing about the band, and everyone thinks initially that I was singing about the apocalypse, but it's more just about the four of us, my band, that managed to survive through all of this, and where do we go from here. It's me asserting myself as the hangman, the effigy, the pariah, the scapegoat.

There's a lot of talk on the record about immortality, and the last record had a very vampire centered theme to it, not in a cliché way where now people will say, "Oh, that record was inspired by Twilight." Or maybe Lost Boys, because I saw that in high school. It's about the Nosferatu concept of trying to outrace the night before the sun comes up. This album, strangely, just looking at it objectively, talks about things in the opposite sense. I see a new beginning. And I suppose Christian school hammered the Bible into me. I identify with the villain, Lucifer, which is the fallen angel. He's represented by light. Everyone wants to know, "Oh, do you consider yourself a role model?" I consider myself a role villain. A role model is a fucking mannequin. A role villain has to ruin things and break stuff and make changes. The villain has to put things in the world that cause problems and ask questions. There's no story that anyone has ever seen, read, or loved where they don't like the villain, even if they don't want to admit it. The villain is the guy that makes the change. The hero is never the star of the story.

What's up with the your next movie, Visions of Lewis Carroll? It's been in the work for a while now.
Well, I hope that I can do that after this summer tour with Slayer. There's been a series of complications, starting with that fact that it's a big commitment to invest a period of your life to having no income. I'm not looking at it as a moneymaking venture, and I have no problem with that. I initially shoved myself into that because I was running away from doing music. I felt like I had nothing left to say in music. Right now, I'm very much in love with being a rock star and making music. So it will be made when it's made. I've been filming, and when we hang up I'm going to film something else. But I don't feel like making a Hollywood-shaped movie. All of my heroes, like Dali, are people who pioneered various forms of cinema. If it's an hour long, if it's two days, if it's forever, that's what it's going to be. It'll happen when it happens. Right now my heart and my creativity are much more -- more than ever -- in music.

Your tour with Slayer is coming up fast. You've toured with them several times before -- any particularly good road stories?
First off, I bought [their 1985 album] Live Undead, and I was so terrified by it that I told my mom to return it. It's really amazing to be able to do a show with them. It's weird because I have a really difficult time getting along with other bands. There was talk early on about collaborating with different guitar players on the record. That was before Twiggy and I got back together, because once Twiggy was back, there was nobody else, and I don't care what you have to offer -- this was our record.

I like to believe that Slayer bring as much Satan on the road as we do. But Satan comes in many different forms and right now it's coming in an impending erection. But I think the anecdote to sum it up is that I haven't met anyone except Hunter S. Thompson and the guys in Slayer that can keep up with me when it comes to my intake of destructive forces. I try to make my body a place where drugs are afraid to live. Those guys are very angry, and they're very serious. But I really like Jerry [Hanneman/guitar]-- he has a sense of humor. Getting those guys to wear eyeliner is harder than getting me to wear a moustache. So there's never going to be that combination where I put on a goatee and they wear eyeliner. I don't think it's going to happen…sadly. But what we do behind closed doors we like to keep in private -- but let it be said that's it's cost me about $200,000.

 

Manson interviewed by Shockhound- June 13th 2009

Marilyn Manson: The ShockHound Interview 06-10-2009 by ShockHound

Interview by Dan Epstein (Video below)

“I was with a girl one time, and she actually asked me, ‘Do you have a condom?’” recounts Marilyn Manson, as he sits down with ShockHound at a Hollywood hotel to talk about his new album, The High End of Low. “And I said, ‘Do I look like I have a condom?’ That should be the least of your worries. I’m way worse than what you could catch from me.”
Okay, then — new year, new record, same Marilyn Manson. Then again, maybe not. In the two years since the release of his last studio album, Eat Me, Drink Me, Manson endured an ugly and well-publicized split with actress Evan Rachel Wood, and parted ways with former KMFDM bassist Tim Skold, who had been his main musical collaborator and foil since 2002. Both breakups left their mark on The High End of Low, which finds Manson reuniting with longtime partner-in-crime (musical and otherwise) Jeordie White, aka Twiggy Ramirez, who worked with a variety of other acts — including A Perfect Circle, Nine Inch Nails, and his own band Goon Moon — since leaving the Manson fold in 2002.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Manson-Twiggy reunion has created an album whose songs often seem more intent on recapturing the glam rock glories of 1998’s Mechanical Animals than breaking any new musical ground. The High End of Low has received mixed reviews from critics, some of whom have charged that Manson and his music no longer have the power to shock and provoke as they did a decade ago. And while the record debuted at #4 on the Billboard 200, its first-week sales were the lowest of any Manson album since 1999’s The Last Tour On Earth.
All the same, it seems a bit premature to consign Manson to the “has-been” bin at this point. The album's first two singles, "We're From America" and "Arma-Goddamn-Motherfuckin-Geddon," are as bracing as a beaker of acid to the face, and he certainly isn’t the first rock provocateur to be accused of having “lost it” — just ask David Bowie, one of Manson’s main influences, who has been counted out several times only to return with a new artistic lease on life. Manson's headlining stint on the upcoming Rockstar Energy Mayhem Tour still looks like one of the must-see concert events of the summer, and — as this exclusive and extensive interview with him proves — the man has clearly lost none of his wicked wit or his flair for throwing the occasional conceptual firebomb.

SHOCKHOUND: So, who the hell are you, anyway?

MARILYN MANSON: That’s probably a very expansive question. I mean, obviously if I were going through customs, there’s my Christian name, but that doesn’t really apply. I think it depends on where I’m at right now. I write and create art and make statements for people that I know, and I spend most of my life onstage or in front of a camera saying them to strangers, so it’s a little confusing. I’ve decided, rather, to separate myself from the world and live in a fantasy world — I already do. If anyone at this point is questioning whether I’m crazy or not, or if it’s an act or an act of God or a felony or whatever it is – it is. It is what it is. This is the gig, being me. I’m either directing it or acting it or watching it, but it’s just Marilyn Manson and that’s just the easy word for it. If you want the long version of it, then you’re gonna have to have anal sex with me.

SHOCKHOUND: Thanks, I’ll pass. What can people expect from your latest album, The High End of Low?

MANSON: I think people that are already fans of things that I’ve done can expect what I’ve now come to realize through a long and terrible path: That I can do things on my own and Twiggy has done things on his own — but no one can do what we do together. Everything happens for a reason, and I believe that more now than ever. He and I came back into each other’s lives at exactly the proper moment. He was experiencing, probably a year later than me, an emotional trauma related to a girl. I like to consider it science, not religion — but if God made Adam, and took his rib and made a woman, and the woman then fucked the snake, then that will just keep on repeating. You need to learn how to become the snake, that’s words of advice from me...

So I saw Twiggy, and I wish that I had had him when I was in the same place that he was in, but more than making music or being in a band together, I wanted to be there as his best friend. And it just so happens that whatever he did when we were apart, he became greater and more capable of expressing, through an instrument, his emotions. I think that I became more aware of loss. Eat Me, Drink Me is a record that’s hard for me to listen to now, not because it makes me sad, it just reminds me of an era where I was a broken person trying to repair myself. I was attaching myself to a Shakespearian concept of, “If the world can’t accept me and I’m in love, then let’s die together,” and now I look back at that as cowardice. [The High End of Low] begins with the song “Devour,” and that song was very hard to get to.
Making the record was very easy once it was flowing. We didn’t even unpack our clothes when we started writing the music. When I say we, I mean for the most part, Twiggy and [keyboardist] Chris Vrenna, who played the role as an adult in some sense because he had to operate a keyboard and he had to wrangle in the chaos that was happening. We wanted it raw. Everything was initial instinct, first takes, no second-guessing. If it happened, why question it? Why rethink it? The attitude of, What are they gonna do, return it? What are you gonna do, punish me? Is there something worse than where I’m at now that could happen? Is there a prison that’s worse than the one I’m in?
“Devour” became the first song. The album is in the order in which I sang it. For the most part, I started singing in November after my previous relationship disintegrated and it was, kind of, the birth of Twiggy and I getting back together. It was almost as if no time had expired. We still were finishing each other’s sentences. It’s not like a brother. It’s not like a life partner. It’s not like a Jonas Brothers friendship…whatever that shit is. It’s something indescribable, and it’s something that’s only manifested in music and this is the record we always wanted to make…
[At] the beginning of the record I was a person who confused love with dependence and, I guess, desire with weakness. By the end of the record, I was no longer the same person. It may be autobiographical, but it’s only because I realized I can’t create a more fucked-up story than my own — and the characters that are in my life, I don’t need to imagine or create metaphors for them.
But at the same time, I set out to tell a story that everyone can relate to. I don’t want to tell a story about my personal relationships, I want to tell a story about being a person that wants to try and be human, and I think that’s how everyone feels. I’m not trying to be the ultimate outsider…I just wanted to see, “What do I have to say anymore?” and I didn’t know. So by track “15,” if you say to me now, “I’ll love you until we die,” and you change your mind…run, or I’ll kill you, and that’s as non-metaphorical as I say it is.

SHOCKHOUND: The Rolling Stone review of The High End of Low took it to task, saying that there are elements of this record that would have been considered shocking 10 or 15 years ago, but aren’t now. But is being shocking even your intention at this point?

MANSON: I never thought it was shocking, but if they’re bothering to talk about it… What I’ve learned as a writer and why I quit being a writer — no disrespect to writers, I just chose to write fiction or write about myself — it’s much easier to take the piss out of something and sound entertaining in an article than to praise it, ‘cause [if you praise it] you sound like you’re suckin’ dick, so I understand that. As far as I know, no one’s written a song called “Pretty As A Swastika.” The record company wanted me to take it off the record… [But] to me it’s one of the more romantic, interesting things I’ve said. Is it a compliment? What is it? Is it political? I don’t know. It’s not even a symbol.
So, when they said that, I tolerated them; then, they inspired me to really get to the heart of the matter. I make something — and when I’m done making it, fortunately the way the world does work now, I can just give that to the world. What comes in a plastic box and is in a store…I don’t give a shit what that is. They can change that. They can do whatever they want. If they’re allergic to money and they don’t want it, whatever. So, no “Swastika.” I said, “Okay… Pretty As A Dollar Sign,” because that’s their fascism now. There’s nothing more fascist now than money. Everyone knows that.
They essentially wanted to create a new curse word. I wasn’t using a symbol. They tried to say, “Well for sure Germany won’t tolerate it.” I said, “Well no disrespect…” — and I love to say “no disrespect,” ‘cause you could say, “No disrespect, but you’re a cock sucker,” it’s like it’s a free [pass] — “No disrespect, but you can go fuck yourself. No disrespect, but in Germany, ‘swastika’ is an American word. It’s a totally different word there. So go fuck yourself and all that.”
But I was inspired to make the dollar sign because my choices are made artistically; their choices are made financially. They actually allowed me to make a greater statement, because initially the statement was made personally: I woke up one morning next to a girl that had black hair, red lipstick, and pale skin and I said, “You’re as pretty as a swastika,” and that was charming enough for her to perform — I wouldn’t say unspeakable acts, we know what they are…we don’t even have to say them.
So, if that works, why can’t it work for the rest of the world? Who’s the Nazi that's trying to censor me? [Laughs] Look, I made someone think. I made someone think enough to actually write a sentence [in Rolling Stone] and it was probably poorly constructed, I’m sure. Whatever the case, I’m not trying to be shocking. I’m trying to be Marilyn Manson and until somebody else does what I do, I’ll stand down… I don’t really care.
These new bands…if you wanna do what I’ve done – look, I’m doing what other people have done. I’m inspired by Bowie, Prince, Madonna, Alice Cooper…but I have no problems saying that. I just try and take that and make it my own. Salvador Dali said something along the lines of “Anyone who doesn’t steal and make it their own, isn’t an artist.” Nothing new exists under the sun, there’s only new ways to destroy what already exists. As an artist, you create things, and sometimes in creation you destroy things, and it’s just being conscious of that.
I almost gave up music because I was so annoyed and frustrated by the fact that I couldn’t handle being objectified as being a piece of product that exists in a store; not in the way like “woe is me,” just in the way that I’m sick of breaking my heart that I have to censor myself for this CD that goes into a store that sells firearms, but has a problem with me saying “fuck." Which I rarely say, but on this record I went, “Fuck it all” — I tried to use fuck more.

SHOCKHOUND: Like on “Arma-Goddamn-Motherfuckin-Geddon,” for example?

MANSON: I really was trying my hardest to make a song that they would be mad [about], because they heard the music [without the words on it] and they were like, “Oh, Manson! This is gonna be a hit!” I’m like, “Well, I’m glad that you have no consideration for what I put on top of it, so I’m gonna go ahead and give you a big bag of cocks for this one.” And then they decided to put it out, so I had some respect for them trying that.

SHOCKHOUND: Tell us about “We’re from America.”

MANSON: Everyone thinks that’s the most political song on the record. I wrote that the week that I voted, which was an incredibly enlightening experience. I don’t have a driver’s license, as I shouldn’t — at no point should I be behind the wheel of a vehicle, unless it’s parked and someone’s head is in my lap. I just went up and asked, “Can I vote?” They were like, “What’s your credentials?” I mumbled and they were like, “Alright, over there.” I filmed it and I voted. I didn’t really understand, I just knew that I wanted to vote for the President and I wanted to vote against the… look, I wouldn’t advocate marriage ‘cause I’ve had a bad experience. Doesn’t mean I won’t get married again, but I figured if gay marriage was a big issue, let them have it so they can suffer the way I did, and they’ll figure it out on their own. They won’t ever vote for it again. So I wanted to vote for those and for no extra pig shit in the farms or whatever, you know whatever the props were. Props are props. I thought props were…like, Carrot Top has props.
I just went in and I voted. I was drunk, that’s the way you should vote. Later that day I went back to the studio. I was supposed to work from 10 to 4 AM, but I usually showed up at about 3:45 AM and most of the vocals were done first takes. That doesn’t mean no thought was put into them, it just means that they were very immediate and very instinctual. I could’ve gone off on a list of, “We’re from America, we’re this, we’re this,” but I thought the most important things were the first few things I said, “Where Jesus was born, where they let you cum on their faces, where we eat our young and where we speak American.”
It wasn’t because I wanted to make a statement on America, it’s because at that point in the record, I had gotten through all these songs and I had played ‘em for all my friends and they were like, “Wow, you’re really fucked up Manson. What’s wrong?” I’m like, “I’m from America.” [Laughs] That’s more of the, I guess, impetus for the song than it being political. “We’re from America” appears late in the record because you have to hear what’s before it to really appreciate how it fits into the scheme of my mind. It's strange; I wouldn’t have picked it as the first single. My choice of the first single would have been “Four Rusted Horses” ‘cause I think that represents the record the most, and that’s what I’m gonna open the tour with. I give that away right now, for you.

See the Interview. Part one embedded - the other parts linked below

Part two: http://www.shockhound.com/videos/584-marilyn-manson--the-shockhound-interview---chapter-ii

Part three: http://www.shockhound.com/videos/585-marilyn-manson--the-shockhound-interview---chapter-iii

Part four: http://www.shockhound.com/videos/586-marilyn-manson--the-shockhound-interview---chapter-iv

Lady Gaga's Love Game remix featuring Manson on PerezHilton - June 13th 2009

Marilyn Manson has teamed up with latest pop sensation Lady Gaga for a remix of her track Love Game. Celebrity gossip bogger Perez Hilton has featured the track with images for listen on his site Perezhilton.com

Fire!!!!!!!!!

We've just gotten our hands on the most amazing remix/reworking of GaGa's new U.S. single, the Top 10 smash Love Game, which the Lady worked on with Chew Fu.

It features guest vocals by Marilyn Manson and this version is bananas. Crazy bananas!

Amazeballs!

Go to the site to listen to the track

The Guardian newspaper Q and A's Manson - June 6th 2009

Q&A Marilyn Manson, 40, singer
Interview by Rosanna Greenstreet The Guardian, Saturday 6 June 2009

Marilyn Manson, 40, was born Brian Warner in Ohio. In 1989 he formed the band Marilyn Manson And The Spooky Kids. His lyrics and lifestyle have attracted a cult following and led to him being banned from performing in some US states. His new album, The High End Of Low, is out now.

When were you happiest?

About 15 minutes ago: I'm on medication and it's starting to wear off.

What is your greatest fear?

Fear is something I instil in other people, mostly young girls.

What is your earliest memory?

When I was seven or eight, I was playing with my Scooby-Doo and Daphne toys, and had a strange feeling. It was my first sexual arousal. Now I feel that all girls with red hair are of the devil.

What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?

My shyness.

What is the trait you most deplore in others?

Fear of commitment.

Other than a property, what's the most expensive thing you've bought?

An engagement ring for Dita Von Teese. I didn't get a refund.

What is your most treasured possession?

Either Hitler's coat hanger or my bedroom walls, because I've written all my lyrics on them.

What makes you unhappy?

Not being in control of my life.

What do you most dislike about your appearance?

That it causes so many girls to cry.

What is your favourite smell?

Cocaine.

What is your favourite word?

"Etcetera."

What do you owe your parents?

I support my parents, so I think I owe them only an apology for being me.

What is your most unappealing habit?

Being very affectionate and attached to people, and not having enough time to spend with them.

What is your favourite book?

The Bible, because it causes me a lot of trouble. I memorised it as a child, and I've also burned it and stuck pages of it in terrible places.

What or who is the greatest love of your life?

Unfortunately, what has been the downfall of all relationships is that the love of my life is what I do.

What has been your biggest disappointment?

My last three relationships.

If you could edit your past, what would you change?

My underwear.

When did you last cry?

I shed a tear snorting a mysterious white powder someone gave me.

How do you relax?

Lying in bed with my cat on my chest and watching movies.

What is the closest you've come to death?

I've never had necrophilia.

What single thing would improve the quality of your life?

A brain transplant.

What do you consider your greatest achievement?

I wish I could say record sales or awards but, since I've been blamed - unjustly - for so many acts of violence in high schools, I'm going to have to go with the death toll.

What keeps you awake at night?

The fear that someone next to me is judging me while I'm sleeping.

How would you like to be remembered?

As long as I am remembered, that's sufficient for me.

What is the most important lesson life has taught you?

Never go ass to mouth.

A most bizarre encounter with Marilyn Manson - June 5th 2009

A most bizarre encounter with Marilyn Manson
A friendly, forthcoming Marilyn Manson, conspicuous by his absinthe, talks about loose women, drugs and role models - Time Newspaper

Hopeless naif that I am, I don’t immediately realise that Marilyn Manson is totally wasted on absinthe. I can see he’s drinking the stuff, but I assume it’s just for show. By the end, though, when he’s showing me the picture on his iPhone of the swastika freshly shaved into his new girlfriend’s pubic hair, I know differently.

“I drew it on,” he’s saying as his publicist ushers him from the room, “with blue eyeliner. I had to call the hotel: ‘Can I have a protractor, please?’ It was 6am. But you gotta, uh, line it up properly. You know?”

Sort of. But that was later. For now, we’re just getting started in a room at the London Metropolitan Hotel. Manson, the self-proclaimed Antichrist Superstar and God of F*** and the major reason why Americans tend to be scared of their goths and not just snigger at them as we do, has an album to promote.

He didn’t want to come in here with me. He wanted to stay next door with that statuesque blonde, the one with the enormous heels and tiny Lycra dress. I don’t know who she is. I do know that she’s not the new girlfriend, the one with the unusual pelvic topiary. I checked. Different face.

Manson was out last night, downstairs in the Met Bar. I have a hunch that last night might not have ended yet. Today he is wearing huge sunglasses, streaky make-up, black lipgloss and a black hooded top with the hood up at which he keeps pushing, as though it were hair. He has leather trousers on and black platform boots. The window behind us keeps rattling, and he keeps thinking it is gunfire. Little details of his evening filter out.

“Somebody left a knife in my room,” he growls, in that crackly, gravelly voice. “Like, a proper small knife? I almost used it. On a woman. But then I thought . . . no. I didn’t have a shovel or anything. And the airport, immigration, can’t bury her in the shower curtain . . .” Like all the horrible things that Manson says, this is said with a disarmingly sweet smile. You laugh. There’s wit here, peeking out through the aniseed haze. Later he’ll feel his side, and frown. “I caused . . . I have a bruise. It goes from here to here. I don’t know where it came from. That means I had a good night. Loose women. Intoxicated on loose women.”

Manson has his own brand of absinthe, dubbed Mansinthe. That’s not what he’s drinking at the moment. “I don’t drink my own absinthe,” he says. “I drink this. It’s Serpis. I based the taste of mine on it. It’s like black liquorice, which I f***in’ hate. Try it,” he adds, passing me the glass. “Mmmm,” I say, sniffing deeply. I pass it back.

The High End of Low is Manson’s seventh album. It’s funny, you’ll almost certainly have heard of him, but could you could name any of his songs? It’s 15 years since he burst on to the public consciousness on MTV, with the video of his death metal cover of Eurythmics’ Sweet Dreams. Remember that? Him painted black, riding a pig? “That pig,” he says, “did not want to be ridden. And I did not want to ride it. I have ridden no other pigs. That sounds like such a misogynist statement.”

Manson was born plain Brian Warner in Ohio in 1969, and was actually not, contrary to the best showbiz hoax ever, the geeky one out of The Wonder Years. What he was, briefly, was a rock journalist, before starting his first band, Marilyn Manson and the Spooky Kids. He finally emerged, all those years ago, from under the wing of the producer Trent Reznor, of Nine Inch Nails. The debut album, Portrait of an American Family (1994), sold two and a half million copies.

The next, Smells Like Children (1995), sold four million. The third, Antichrist Superstar (1996), has sold nearly eight million. Musically speaking, none were exactly ground-breaking, but look behind the bondage, Nazis, Satanism, death fetishism and long black fingernails and you’ll find a perfectly respectable sort of industrial metal, maybe halfway between Reznor himself and Guns N’ Roses. Manson, though, was always about the whole package.

“I’m not trying to be something that is simply a clown,” he rasps. “I’m a role villain. Role models are mannequins. I want to be the person who f***s shit up.” Then he flinches. “Is that guns?” he says. It’s the window, I tell him again.

Britain, I think, struggles a bit with Marilyn Manson. He’s all-American in his own way, and we don’t really get the references. Most crucially, we just don’t think he really means it. We just see a sort of zombie Boy George, pretending. He knows this, and minds it. “This has always been the most cynical and calculating country,” he says, “and the country I most want to impress. All my heroes are British, whether it’s Aleister Crowley or Bowie. All the best art has come from your godforsaken island. And it makes me mad.”

Just because we don’t get it, that doesn’t mean that there is nothing to get. In America Manson remains a poster boy for the disaffected. A fortnight ago Justin Doucet, a schoolboy in Louisiana, forced a teacher to say “Hail Marilyn Manson” before shooting at him and then shooting himself. Manson brings this up himself. “What do I say?” he says. “Thanks for hiring that kid to promote the record? No! It’s f***ed up. I didn’t say do it. But I get blamed for it.”

Ten years ago, when Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris murdered 12 fellow students and a teacher in the Columbine High School massacre in Colorado, it was swiftly reported that both were Manson fans. Two years later, when he next played in the state capital, Denver, he was still receiving death threats. “I had, like, 30 undercover cops escorting me to the stage,” he says. “Everyone was telling me not to do it. My girlfriend, my friends. I had my mother on the phone, Hunter S. Thompson going ‘F*** ’em! Come to my house! I got a tank!’ And onstage, at every moment, I thought it was the last thing I’d do.”

Fifteen minutes before going on he was being interviewed by the film-maker Michael Moore. “Boning for Concubines,” says Manson now, meaning Bowling for Columbine, Moore’s documentary about gun control. To almost everybody’s surprise, Manson came across as a calm, lucid voice, discussing the problems of a society that celebrated war and consumption. When Moore asked him what he would have said to the killers, Manson replied that he wouldn’t say anything. “I’d listen to what they had to say,” he said. “And that’s what nobody did.”

“I don’t like that movie,” he says now. “But I like the fact that it opened a window for me, to have people go, ‘Oh wow, you’re smart.’ Because they saw me in that movie and I could form two sentences. And last week . . . you hear that? Is it firecrackers?”

Window, I tell him. “Oh yeah,” he says, and carries on. Doucet, the schoolboy, is in a coma now. “And of course,” Manson says, “he was 15. Because that’s my number. Marilyn Manson, 15. Brian Hugh Warner, 15. Look.” He pulls down his T-shirt and there, below his neck, is tattooed the number 15. Why? God knows. I ask. He just says “15” again, and I count the letters in “Marilyn Manson”. That’s when I ask him how much absinthe he’s had today. He replies with a diagram, drawn on my notebook. It’s a rectangle, coloured in. “Is that glass,” I ask, “or a bottle?” “It’s life,” he says.

Marilyn Manson isn’t 15. He turned 40 in January. It looks a bit different, all this dark lord of gothic angst business, when you’re 40, doesn’t it? “The 40 part doesn’t matter,” he says, although he sounds a bit annoyed. “God decided to forsake me so I became a vampire, sold my soul to the Devil and f*** off, good luck to the rest of you.”

He says he’s not slowing down as he gets older, not at all, and still takes drugs whenever he can. “I learnt a new lesson,” he says. “Do drugs and drink when you are in a good mood, not in a bad mood. And you’ll be happier.” This failure to calm down reportedly had a lot to do with the breakup of his marriage in 2007 to Dita Von Teese, the burlesque artist.

They went to court, famously, over who was to get custody of their three cats. “I saw her two days ago,” he says. “At a bar. And I was like, ‘Hey, you’re my ex-wife!’ And we got along well. So that was nice.” And who got the cats in the end? “She got the boy cats. I got the virgin girl cat.” He pauses. “Did you know that if you say ‘in the end’ it infers anal sex?”

No, I say, and I ask him if he has a girlfriend at the moment. “No,” he says, and thinks. “Yes,” he says, “but I’m single.” After Von Teese he was involved with the actress Evan Rachel Wood, but that’s not who he is talking about. That’s when he starts hunting for the swastika picture. He won’t tell me her name out loud, but he writes it down on my notebook. Stoya. Later I Google her. She’s a Serbo-Scottish porn star, aged 22.

He’s fun to chat to, Marilyn Manson, absinthe or not. But I just don’t think the Antichrist Superstar and God of F** is in a particularly good place right now. Maybe it’s an existential panic. The corpse-in-black-lipstick look, it’s getting old. He must know that. Who wears black platforms in 2009? And also, I just keep thinking about that swastika. At a push, I can see how a certain kind of guy might find it exciting. But at 40? Still? I suppose he does really mean it, and always has. Poor guy.

The High End of Low is released by Polydor. Manson plays the Download Festival, Donington Park, Derby, on June 13

UK's Daily Mirror interviews Marilyn Manson - June 5th 2009

Interview With Marilyn Manson: Oddball Rocker Is Stirring Up Trouble
By Gavin Martin on June 5

In a hotel suite overlooking London's exclusive Park Lane, Marilyn Manson is making merry.

He has a long-legged, hot pant-clad admirer in attendance and a selection of highly intoxicating cocktails for company.

In the lobby, journalists being kept waiting to meet him are getting ever more annoyed.

Even so, a female writer who is eventually admitted to his inner sanctum claims he was very welcoming.

Three hours after our scheduled interview time, Manson appears in reception, a towering figure in biker boots with a heavily made-up face leering and grinning under a zipped-up hoodie.

"Are you sure you want to ride in the car?" he says, while swigging from a glass containing a strange luminous rust-coloured drink.

"It could be very dangerous."

I throw caution to the wind and, after MM has posed for a photo with some fans outside on the pavement, we're soon driving across London.

His latest album The High End Of Low finds Manson hauling over the ashes of relationships with young actress Evan Rachel Wood and ex-wife Dita Von Teese.

When I ask him if he's heartbroken over these relationships he just looks at me and says, "No - wallet broken."

Originally a journalist known to his mum as Brian Warner, he has sold 44 million albums since emerging from South Florida in the early 90s and rechristening himself Marilyn Manson.

Apart from his musical persona, Manson has written a highly entertaining autobiography and raked in cash from his sidelines as an artist and actor.

"I'm acting right now," he smirks. "Acting an asshole.

"Everything is acting. The new record is very centred around movies. I say on it, 'I want to kill you like they do in the movies'.

"Am I directing, acting or watching? Who cares. The point is that life for me is not going to be the way it is for everyone else. I have a fog machine and movie lights in my bedroom."

Despite the shock horror persona, Brian is a dutiful son to his parents, and his father can sometimes be found signing female fans' breasts at Manson shows.

"My dad loves what I do and I support my parents financially because they didn't have a job that gave them a pension," he says.

"It's a pretty good relationship, although it's hard to understand how to relate to your parents.

"I did pay for a lap dance for my father once, at the Crazy Horse bar in Fort Lauderdale. But I had to look away. I averted my gaze."

When did you last cry?

"About two hours ago Steve [his tour manager] wouldn't get me any drugs.

My eyes watered. Then he asks me if I am OK! It's ridiculous. It should be, 'Here's the mirror - and now are you OK?"

Manson's alcohol intake seems to be making up for the drug void. He reportedly breakfasts on absinthe, so is he an alcoholic?

"Not according to the statistics that I read," he answers. "I went to one AA meeting and I got asked for an autograph. I got p***** off.

I think you should be able to go in there wearing a mask and say I'm an alcoholic, I'm anonymous. That's a real alcoholic.

"They told me that the definition of an alcoholic is someone who drinks, screws up their life and knows it, but continues doing it. Well I screwed up my life up before I drank!"

The car slows in traffic and two striking Italian girls and a bloke go by.

Manson winds down the window to make some crude gestures at them.

In return, the guy almost manages to throw his lit cigarette right through the car window.

Manson finds it hilarious and the passers-by do too.

There's no doubt he's a real entertainer.

Marilyn Manson plays the Download Festival at Castle Donington on June 13