NOTE: This biography is simply a record of the bands career. Many personal events, with a few exceptions have been omitted. For more information on that, I suggest purchasing Mansons biography "The Long Hard Road Out of Hell".

Marilyn Manson is a band that over the past few years has been one of the bands that has captured the eye of the music world. A strange blend of theatre, fashion, politics, and thought provoking lyrics have fueled many fans AND many protesters who would like to see Manson and his crew banned from many cities, and in some cases are successful.

Around 1990 in Ft. Lauderdale FL, Manson (aka Brian Warner) formed "Marilyn Manson and the Spooky Kids", who included Daisy Berkowitz (aka Scott Putesky) on guitars, Olivia Newton Bundy (aka Brian Tututnik) on bass, Zsa Zsa Speck (Perry ?) on Keyboards, and a drum machine. Bundy was soon removed from the band simply cause he couldn't play base if his life depended on it, and Speck was kicked out as well. Bundy was replaced with Gidget Gein (Brad Stewart), and Madonna Wayne Gacy/Pogo (aka Stephen ?) who eventually played keyboards but initially just played with toy soldiers on stage. A drummer was later found and named Sara Lee Lucas (aka Freddy Streithorst). With this lineup they began to create the material that was later to become their major label debut, "Portrait of an American Family". After meeting and exchanging phone numbers with Nine Inch Nails creator Trent Reznor, the band was signed to Reznor's Nothing Records label and shortened their name to just Marilyn Manson. The record almost didn't get released because of some dispute over the song "My Monkey" which was adapted from the Charles Manson song "Mechanical Man". Around the time of the album completion, Gein's heroine addiction became too much for the rest of the band to handle and he was fired, even though he had co-written many of the songs on the album. He was replaced with Manson's longtime friend Twiggy Ramirez (aka Jeordie White).

Manson then had a stint on the NIN "Self Destruct Tour". While on the tour in 1994 in San Fransisco, Manson arranged a meeting with the late Anton Szandor LaVey, the high priest of the Chuch of Satan, who deemed Manson a Reverend.

The group then decided to fire Sara Lee Lucas, because of the mutual feeling among the band that he well... just couldn't play. So on the night in question Manson lit the drum kit on fire during the set and it spread to Lucas. With that all said and done they then found a new drummer by the name of Ginger Fish aka (Frank Kenny Wilson).

Their next release was entitled "Smells Like Children" and it feature some experiments, remixes, and covers including the breakthrough mainstream hit cover of the Eurythmics "Sweet Dreams".

In 1996 "Antichrist Superstar" was released with Reznor in the producers seat again but this time he directed the album a lot more and co-wrote the music for three of the songs on the album. It debuted at #3 on the Billboard charts and went platinum in the USA and Canada. During the recording of the album Manson had a falling out with Reznor, and Berkowitz also parted from the band over creative differences, however no one in the band had been getting along with Berkowitz for a while. He was replaced by a guitarist from Chicago named Zim Zum.

During the "Dead to the World Tour", the band met up with much resistance from family and religious groups claiming the show to be the place of satanic acts and sacrifices. In many cases the band was banned from many cities.

Manson has now made up with Reznor but his latest disc, "Mechanical Animals" is the first without Reznor at the helm. However Manson seems to be doing fine on his own. He released an autobiograpy called "The Long Hard Road Out of Hell" which topped the New York Times best sellers list, and has appeared on such shows as "Pollitically Incorrect" and "The Late Show with David Letterman", and was featured on CNN.

Recently, Zim Zum was fired because as Manson put it he wasn't showing up to rehearsals, and appointments. He didn't seem like he cared, and he just got too caught up in the lifestyle. The new guitar player is John 5 (aka John Lowlry) formerly of the band "Two" with Rod Halford. He also played for David Lee Roth and K.D. Lang.

When Mecanical Animals came out on September 15th 1998, it debuted at #1 on Billboard and Manson craced the cover of Rolling Stone for a second time. Recently the band was nominated for a Grammy for best hard rock song for "The Dope Show". The band then embarked on a North American tour that went well with not as much pressure from various right-wing groups as there had been before. The next plan was to tour with Hole, however Hole dropped out after only nine shows, the reason being that there was too much Manson fan support and not enough Hole fans attending the shows. Plus it seems that the drug use in the Manson camp bothered Courtney Love because of her former heroine addiction. Although Manson and Dave Wyndorf (of Monster Magnet, who was touring with them as well), say she wasn't exposed in any way to drug use during the tour.

On a brighter note Manson became engaged to be married to his girlfriend, actress Rose McGowan (The Doom Generation, Scream). He also made a brief cameo appearence in her latest film Jawbreaker, sporting no makeup and a mustache. This was his second film appearance as he made a cameo in David Lynch's Lost Highway with Twiggy.

On the further subject of a film, Manson revealed that he had made a deal with New Line Cinema for the production and release of his own film entitled Holy Wood. The press release read:

The soundtrack for the film was to be off Manson's upcoming album entitled "In The Shadow of The Valley of Death", which was to be out in the spring of 2000.

At the time Manson fans were tied over with a live album called "The Last Tour On Earth" which featured the new studio track "Astonishing Panorama of the Endtimes."

Time went on and there was silence for a time. But then in early August of 2000, the details were revealed. The album was now called "Holy Wood (In the Shadow of the Valley of Death)", and it is to be released on November 14th, 2000. Not being able to find a suitable agreement in which to produce the Holy Wood film, it has been changed into a novel which will be released shortly after the album. A coffee table-style book of art will follow after that.

In the meantime Manson made a guest appearance in an Eminem video entitled "The Way I Am". In the song Eminem makes reference to Manson: "When a dude's gettin' bullied and shoots up his school, and they blame it on Marilyn, and the heroine, where were the parents at?". Manson said that Eminem "was an exception in rap" and that his album would play an important part in the fight for free speech.

But soon afterward it was announced the Marilyn Manson's "Guns, God, and Government Tour" would kick off October 27th of that year.

The tour was met with a tremendous response, and soon afterwards the album was released and debuted at number 13 on the Billboard charts. This was a dissapointment considering the success of the previous two records, but a predicatable one considering the climate of the teeny-pop loving music industry, and the fact that Marilyn Manson will not edit any of their recordings for sale at such outlets as Wal-Mart, where a significant amount of music buying is done in the U.S.

In late January 2001, many fans were upset over the announcement that Manson and Rose had ended their engagement, but most tended to downplay the incident, save the usual media outlets.

As the tour headed to Europe there was talk of a joint tour with Slipknot in the spring of 2001, but only time will tell.

That's all for now but there's still...