Marilyn Manson worked hard for the title in 1996, recording their vehicle
for world domination, taking their fascist freakshow on the road and
offending conservatives along the way. John Pecorelli returns to the Manson
camp to discuss the concept behind the new album, people's increasingly
distorted view of Marilyn Manson and the band's uncertain future. Plus a
surprise appearence by Marilyn's dad.
Last year I spent the holidays with so-called "shock-rock" troupe Marilyn
Manson. Never having met the boys, but well aware of their penchant for all
things debauched, I expected to part their company with my head shaved and
my ass bleeding -and not at all happy about it.
Sure, they gobbled every drug in sight (acid, tuinal, coke,
ruhipnol, X, etc) and fucked pretty much everything they couldn't gobble,
all the while espousing Social Darwinism, world destruction and general
misanthropy. They made me watch Jeffrey Dahlmer vido footage, incessantly
played King Diamond (whom they found amusing), repeatedly grabbed my ass,
and forced me to shake hands with MTV VJ Kennedy.
They were vile, pessimistic, completely irresponsible -and a blast
to accompany. Easy story, I figured. Angle: satanic holiday sleazefest.
But as I was transcribing the interviews later, a darker side of the
band, especially of their singer, Marilyn, emerged. Marilyn's sincerity is
often called into question by pundits, but I was startled by his honesty
regarding some unflattering issues. And it seemed clear from listening to
those tapes that this is more than just a rock-and-roll act to Marilyn.
Aside from battling conservatives (be it in politics, religion, or rock
journalism) Marilyn was also enmeshed in a personal fight: whether to use
his newfound power to try to improve a few things, or just flush it away
and contribute to society's general decline.
Now, with a shit-hot-selling new album (Antichrist Superstar) and a
much-expanded fan base that has certain long-time fans screaming "sellout!"
Marilyn Manson's situation is more poignant than ever. Meeting up with
Marilyn in Cleveland near the start of the band's international tour, I
found the man completely gracious, and 100-percent candid -as always.
Pretty nice guy, the Antichrist.
"If someone wants to kill himself -fine, you know?" chuckles Marilyn,
reclining on his dressing-room sofa with his 3rd glass of red wine.
Outside the room is chaos: roadies, band managers, security crew and
publicists scrambling to get everything in place for Manson's elaborate live
show this evening at Cleveland's sold out Agora Theater. Oblivious to the
ruckus, Manson continues. "Suicide is that person's option. But you can find
enjoyment in life; you've just got to have an outlet. And I wouldn't know
what to do after I was dead anyway," he laughs, pausing for another swig of
red. "Where would I go? Who am I going to piss off next? I guess if I was
clever, my ultimate goal would be to become a born-again Christian, earn my
way back into heaven, kill myself, go to heaven, fuck everything up, then
invite Lucifer back up and have a good party. That's my only happy outlook
on suicide." Marilyn offers some wine.
"But they won't let you into heaven if you kill yourself, right?" I
ask, sticking with my Red Hook ale.
"I guess not," Marilyn says with a shrug. "But I could always callKevorkian."
"What book is it that has a character who kills himself to make
some sort of political point hoping to create a mass movement of suicides?"
I mumble. "I think it was..." "Something by Kurt Cobain," he wryly cuts me off.
"Well, the problem there is that supposedly only one guy copied
Cobain," I pointed out. "You know, a friend of mine said he preferred the
Sid Vicious suicide to the Cobain suicide because Sid had the sense to kill
his irritating girlfriend first."
Marilyn laughs. "The ironic thing is that Courtney Love was in [the
movie] "Sid and Nancy".
There is a loud knock on the dressing-room door. Earlier, Manson
keyboardist Madonna Wayne Gacy, then 48 hours into a "hygiene strike" to
protest the lack of shower-equipped motel rooms in his travel-package (and
none too happy about it, stuck in East German military wool for 2 days), had
tried to get in so we're a bit leery. The knocking persists. Finally,
Marilyn puts his wine down and cautiously cracks the door. In struts a
middle-aged man wearing a two-piece blue suit, lizard-skin cowboy boots, and
a mawkish grin. Under his suit jacket is a black shirt with a collar,
complete with the new Manson lightning-bolt logo. "Hey Pops," Marilyn says.
Marilyn introduces me to his honest-to-God biological father, Hugh
Warner, a Florida furniture salesman who's at the Cleveland gig to check
out his son in action -again. Last time the Warner family showed up at a
Manson gig, you'll recall, Marilyn fellated Nine Inch Nails guitarist
Robin Finch on stage. It's too good, I ask Marilyn if I'd mind having a few
words with the old man for the story -a potentially damaging career move for
the Antichrist Superstar, you know. As always, Marilyn is fully accommodating.
"I'm very curious what YOU think of the whole phenomenon your son
is involved in," I ask Hugh.
"I love it," he says quietly, but without hesitation. There is a long pause.
"Yeah?" I finally mumble, a bit nonplused. Marilyn bursts out laughing.
"He's my pride," says Hugh, full of fatherly conviction, "and I
think its absolutely wonderful."
"You have to understand," Marilyn cuts in, "my dad was not only
sprayed with Agent Orange while in Veitnam, but I think abducted by aliens,
too." Marilyn laughs, while Hugh merely nods, smiling.
"Did you ever forsee this level of notoriety with Marilyn, er,
Brian?" I continue.
"I knew he was going to be great, whatever he did," Hugh says
warmly while Marilyn fidgets at the hors d'oeurves table. "He's very
dedicated, he does 100 percent. And I'm very proud of him -he's the
'God of Fuck'" Marilyn laughs. "Okay, Pops, time to go."
Personally, no family member has ever called me "God of Fuck" (but
then I never wrote a song about it either). Ward and Beaver they ain't, but
it's still an almost touching display of familial camaraderie -enough to
make me wonder what the American Family Association (AFA) would make of it.
The Fundamentalist Christian organization, based in Elvis' birthplace of
Tupelo, Mississippi, had issued a dire-sounding press release within days
of Antichrist Superstar's hitting the charts -sounding the alarm for middle
America to watch out for this new satanic menace. But I guess you can't
really blame the AFA for flipping out. Most people, Christian zealots or
not, figured the runaway success of Manson's take on "Sweet Dreams" last
year, and the resulting platinum sales of the EP from which it was taken,
for some freak hit. It was just one song. after all, not even a Manson
original. After hearing the EP, those who bought Smells Like Children for
"Sweet Dreams" would certainly not be back for more, and Marilyn, along
with his gaggle of satanic troubadours, would be jettisoned back from
whence they came: cult status. Conservative America heaved a collective sigh
of relief -for a few months anyway, until Antichrist Superstar debuted at
Number 3 on Billoards Top 200.
"This should serve as a wakeup call for parents everywhere," the
AFA release declared, outlining the organization's plan to prosecute major
retailers, from Blockbuster to Walmart, to "do the responsible thing." In
other words, to pretend the CD doesn't exist.
Marilyn, of course, ain't exactly quaking in his jackboots. To him
and the band, this sort of thing is a matter of simple routine. In the past,
everyone from People For the Ethical Treatment of Animals, the Christian
Coalition, and members of the British Parliament has attempted the strong-
arm approach to silencing Manson, and only contributed to the band's record
sales in the process. That irony certainly isn't lost on Marilyn, who looks
at his antagonistic relationship with the censorhappy Right as a strange
sort of symbiosis. "We kind of keep eachother in business," he told me lastyear.
That doesn't mean the band are immune to pocketbook pressures -or
threatened by the possible inability to get their word to the masses (the
motive depends on who you ask). As bassist Twiggy Ramirez put it last year,
"Compromise is inevitable sometimes. I mean, if your banned in 23 states,
you're not accomplishing much. No one's going to hear your message."
And Antichrist Superstar is rife with message, which is part of the
reason groups such as the AFA are frothing. Manson admits to a heavy
influence from 70s concept albums sucn as Pink Floyd's "The Wall" (not just
in the autobiographical similarities, but in the exploration of the fascism
of mass appeal -something with which Manson has been toying with for years)
and David Bowie's Ziggy Stardust. Couple this with the imposing, costly stage show and
you've got all the hallmarks of (gulp) 70s arena rock. But Marilyn doesn'tmind.
"Marilyn Manson would have fit just fine alongside Ziggy Stardust,
Alice Cooper, the Stooges, T. Rex -any of that back then. And apparently,
I'm gonna be the one that has to break my back to make rock music
exciting again, because not too many people are making the effort," he chuckles.
"I think it's a result of the grunge era of the early 90s, which
made the rock star a bad thing," he continues quietly. "But when I was a
kid, you looked up to rock stars. And being a rock star doesn't mean you're
an asshole. People expect me to be an asshole, so they treat me as if I
were, which in turn makes me act like one. That's why I detach myself so
much; It's because I can't win alot of times... I bring this up because
recently people have been acting A LOT differently around me than in the
past. Maybe as you become more popular, people get more fanatical. As an
example, a girl tried to put out a cigarette in my eye a couple weeks ago.
She was wearing a Marilyn Manson shirt," he says, smiling, "which I found
slightly confusing."
"There's the other side of the equation, too," I offer. "Apparently,
certain longtime Manson fans feel a little betrayed by your current level of
success." "Yeah," Marilyn groans, finishing off the wine. "Obviously, all our
fans felt like "Sweet Dreams" was a big sell-out. But to me it was just a
clever piece of cheese on a rat-trap! A lot of innocuous mall shoppers
bought "Sweet Dreams" and were then introduced to this whole new world of
Marilyn Manson they didn't expect. And ultimately, that's the most devious
thing you could ever pull off, and I don't think some of our fans appreciate
the irony of that. I've never done anything that I felt compromised what the
band was about to succeed -I feel like I've always UTILIZED what the band
was about in order to succeed," Marilyn continues. "Its not just about me
making money; that's the last thing I care about. This band has always been
about pulling one over on the mainstream, about being a real-life joy
buzzer or whoopie cushion, just to f*ck with things because they need to be
f*cked with. Our fans should realize that, not get pissed off at us."
"Are you hearing that from the majority of your fans?" I ask.
"I guess not," Marilyn concedes, "just the die-hards. But if they
really believe in it, they should be out on the street corner playing the
album for people. It's about changing what music is about, its about
changing society. You don't wanna keep it a secret; it should be shouted off
the f*cking rooftops. In that sense its not unlike Christianity. I remember
hearing the same thing when I was a kid, that I should be out witnessing to
other people. And it is the same. The only way that we're going to make a
change is if we fight fire with fire."
No coincidence that Christianity pops up here in the "social change"
section. Along with cigarette smokers (me) and Hootie and the Blowfish (nice
to be lumped in with THAT ilk, thanks), Christianity is at the top of
Marilyn's laundry list. And Antichrist Superstar, he says, is not only a
direct indictment of Christianity's "weak value system", but a direct
attempt to demolish the old structure, to "Bring on the apocalypse."
Now don't get me wrong: bringing on the apocalypse is good work if
you can get it. But the notion that it can be done with a single album
strikes me as a bit, er, ambitious. I mean, its only rock and roll, right?
"How do you respond to the people who say you might be taking this all too
seriously?" I ask.
"I'd say that's perfect, too," answers Marilyn, not affronted in the
slightest. "That's the Marilyn and the Manson side of it, you know. It's
only as serious as you want it to be. And if you want it to be serious,
there's alot to look into. But if you wanna just put the CD on and f*ck your
girlfriend, then that works too. It's both.
"Besides," he continues, "I see the Antichrist mythology different
than Christians do. They see it as a literal apocalypse, the world being
destroyed, you know, a rapture with Jesus coming to save them. But I see the
Antichrist as an element that exists within everybody's personality. It's
their rebellious side; It's their belief in themselves; it's their disbelief
in the status quo of morality, it's their disbelief in God and Christianity.
And I feel like its my job to spur that antichristian element. There have
been many other people -Caesar, Nero, Napolean, Hitler, Mussoulini, Aleister
Crowley, Anton LaVey -who have cracked open the mythical gateways to the end
of the world. I feel like the end of the world I speak of is on a mental
level; I see the apocalypse being the old-world mentality of Christianity
dying off and something new being born -new individuality. In many ways that
is just as terrible as an actual physical destruction for Christianity;
either way it puts them out of business. That's really my goal, just to make
people believe in themselves."
"That doesn't sound quite as nihilistic as some of the press you've
been getting..." I start.
"That's the battle that I kind of go through, even on the album. I
wanted this record to be my autobiography. You can even break it down into
3 personalities: the transformation from the vulnerable worm into this angel
that the world sees as more of a devil -which is really alot like the
Lucifer character in the Bible: the fallen angel. And," he pauses. "There's
where the element of chaos exists and the uncertainty of whether I'm right:
Am I really the bad guy or am I not? And the Antichrist Superstar to me is
the very nihilistic, hopeless element of my personality that decides, 'Okay,
I'm gonna take this power. I'm not going to try and help anybody. I'm just
gonna bring it all down."
It does seem a philosophy we can all, at one point or another,
understand: F*ck all and f*ckology. But for Marilyn and his band it may
have fairly immediate consequences: He told a reporter in June that
Antichrist Superstar would either result in the end of the world or the end
of his band. I'd say the latter is more probable (note: Manson usually now
says that the band WILL stay together after this record; that all the "weak
links have been removed" i.e. Daisy is gone so everything is ok)
-especially given the similar sentiments voiced by Twiggy, wearing that
fancy floral sun dress of his, last year. "I'd like to get as big as we
possibly can -then destroy [the band]," he said.
"What would you do after?" I asked him, a bit thrown. "Become a waitress."
I think he was serious, strangely enough. Which would be a damn
shame: aside from the musical loss that a Manson-breakup would entail, the
bottom line is that somebody has to be here to give the right-wing zealots
hell (literally). And while Smells Like Children going platinum (it's still
on the charts by the way) and Antichrist Superstar debuting at Number 3 are
marvelous achievements -we shouldn't forget that the Number Two slot that
same week was occupied by Kenny G. In other words, Marilyn, there is still
work to be done. ALT