biography

Shock rock star Marilyn Manson and his band of the same name are the nemesis of Middle America.

Seemingly sane people foam at the mouth at their antics - whether it's their music, live shows, videos or just Manson opening his mouth. Their record titles say it all. Songs called 'Antichrist Superstar', 'I Don't Like The Drugs (But The Drugs Like Me)', 'Coma White', Dope Show' and 'Long Hard Road Out Of Hell' are just guaranteed to incense puritanical commentators everywhere.

Luckily for them, American rock band Marilyn Manson gives them plenty to worry about. Spurred on by its eponymous frontman, who is famed for his strange clothes and even weirder make up, the Florida-born but L.A. based quintet is not just a controversial act, it goes out of its way to court controversy.

Born Brian Warner on January 5 1969 in Ohio, Manson moved to Florida in his teens and, after a spell as a journalist, formed Marilyn Manson And The Spooky Kids in the late-80s. The band, like Manson, made up their names by matching the first names of female icons to the surnames of some of America's most notorious criminals.

Early band members included Zsa Zsa Speck and Olivia Newton-Bundy but the definitive Spooky Kids line-up saw Manson joined by Daisy Berkowitz (guitar), Gidget Gein (bass) and Madonna Wayne Gacy (keyboards). In 1990, drummer Sara Lee Lucas replaced their drum machine and the band began recording demos. Produced on cassettes and sold at their live shows, they included early versions of tracks like 'Cake And Sodomy', 'Meat For A Queen' and 'Lunchbox'.

By 1992, the band was just known as Marilyn Manson and had attracted a sizeable following around Florida. The following year Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor offered the band a record deal with his label and a tour support slot. They signed, despite being courted by Madonna's Maverick label. Twiggy Ramirez replaced Gein on bass and the controversy began.

Their 1994 debut, the wryly entitled 'Portrait Of An American Family', was a heady mix of industrial metal and glam. The band became known and loved by its fans for its iconoclastic live show and gory, gothic videos and this adoration propelled Marilyn Manson into a million selling album act.

But things do go a little too far for some. Manson has supposedly confessed to committing a pretty full-on sexual act with a musician from Nine Inch Nails while onstage, and he has been charged with indecent exposure by a number of states who said his stage outfit left little to the imagination. Then four US states tried to ban the band from playing concerts. All the charges were eventually dropped and the band retaliated by suing one New Jersey authority for the ban. A case they won.

They followed this by filing a lawsuit against Christian organisation The American Family Association which distributed leaflets accusing Marilyn Manson of advocating Satanism and human sacrifice. Manson hit back by saying this kind of attitude causes more controversy than he does.

The mass hysteria that results from Manson's music and outrageous antics mean he is an intense source of fascination for the press. Of course calling himself things like the anti-Christ and citing Lucifer as a hero figure doesn't help. Even so, he says the press takes it all too far and finds dark and devious meanings in his songs and concerts that just aren't there. His view is that he is continually misquoted, misunderstood and mis-cast as an evil figure.

In an interview with Rolling Stone he explained how his songs are misinterpreted. He cited 'Lunchbox', which journalists interpret as being about guns but which he said was about being picked on in the playground at school and fighting back with his Kiss lunchbox; and 'Get Your Gunn', about the murder of Dr David Gunn who was killed in Florida by pro-life activists. Manson said this was the "ultimate hypocrisy".

In 1995, drummer Lucas left, to be replaced by Ginger Fish, while Daisy Berkowitz's place was taken by Zim Zum. Manson himself went up in the world, being made a 'Reverend' by the Church of Satan. Their big breakthrough came with the release of the 'Smells Like Children' EP, which contained a cover of Eurythmics' 'Sweet Dreams'. Suddenly, the band, and in particular their frontman, was everywhere, staring out of every magazine and constantly rotated on MTV.

The video for the single 'The Beautiful People' featured a carnival of freaks to accompany what was in actuality a pretty accessible heavy metal-inspired track. Needless to say, TV exposure for the track was minimal. The MTV premier of the controversial video for 'Coma White' was delayed twice. 'Coma', which can be seen on the band's official website, is a re-enactment of the assassination of US President John F Kennedy.

It features Manson's former girlfriend, actress Rose McGowan, as the late Jackie Kennedy and was delayed once because of virulent public attacks on Manson's music following the Columbine High School massacre and then again because of the death of John F Kennedy Jr in a plane crash in July of 1999.

However, Manson says the film is actually an attack on violent imagery in the media and America's obsession with violence. He blamed America's gun laws for the school massacre and feels the press looked for someone to blame, went on a witch hunt and picked him as an easy target

June '99 saw the band release the single 'Rock Is Dead'. Featured on the soundtrack of The Matrix, that summer's smash movie, the thundering glam-metal romp further propelled Manson into the view of an increasingly wide-eyed public. Marilyn Manson also brought his shocking, iconoclastic live show to Europe that autumn, a series of shows that included a legendary support slot with Metallica at Milton Keynes.

The 13-track live album 'The Last Tour On Earth' came out in November '99, followed by a 13-clip video 'God Is In The TV'. The album was recorded during Manson's 'Mechanical Animals' 1998 tour in America's Midwest to promote the album of the same name.

Containing songs from Manson's entire catalogue dating back to 1994's 'Portrait Of An American Family', it includes 'Get Your Gunn' from 'Portrait'; 1996's 'Antichrist Superstar' and some of the band's best-known singles including 'I Don't Like The Drugs (But The Drugs Like Me) and 'Last Day On Earth.'

After a supporting role in the film Jawbreaker, where he once again featured alongside Rose McGowan, most of 2000 was spent recording a new album in a house that formerly belonged to Harry Houdini and where The Rolling Stones recorded their 1969 classic 'Let It Bleed'.

The new dark masterpiece, 'Holy Wood (In The Shadow Of The Valley Of Death)', is the final part of a triptych that encompasses 'Antichrist Superstar' and 'Mechanical Animals'. Manson himself promises a return to the heavier sound of 'Antichrist' and the accompanying 'Guns, God and Government' tour will no doubt have 'right-thinking' society in apoplexy again.

Other projects currently in progress include a novel, to be published in January 2001, which will elaborate on the themes behind the trio of albums, and a documentary centred around the recent US Presidential elections.

Manson's articulate and profound response to the public witch-hunt that followed in the wake of the Columbine High School massacre proved this is no dumb schlock'n'roll show. Marilyn Manson continue to challenge conformity, to break down barriers, and, more importantly, to make great music...

Sarah Davis & Simon Ward