Twiggy Stardust


GW: Compared to Antichrist Superstar, this new record seems more "Marilyn" than "Manson". It's fun and seductive.

Twiggy Ramirez: Definitely. We pretty much wrote every song to be a single. We weren't thinking about that on Antichrist Superstar. That music held a lot of anger. This one is a little prettier. There are a lot more emotions involved in this than just anger. The last one was a lot harder. but really there's no point in doing that over and over again. It was time to reinvent ourselves. 'Cause if you listen to our records before Antichrist Superstar, they're all different too.

GW: What triggered this change of style?

Ramirez: A lot of this record is a reflection of us moving to Hollywood. We wanted to have a California record. I'd never lived in California. So we said, "Let's move out to LA." We rented a house and started writing songs. Nothing was really written before then. So the Hollywood vibe definitely shines through on the songs. Just living up in the Hollywood Hills, you look out on Los Angeles at night time and it's almost like outer space or something, because of all the city lights. And you feel like you're on top of the world. But you're kind of alone. And that has to do with stardom, too: the loneliness thing. Before, we felt we were alone because nobody knew who we were. Now we feel alone because everybody knows who we are. You actually feel more alone when everybody knows who you are than you do when nobody does. Being popular is just a different kind of isolation.

GW:People perceive you as an icon, not a person.

Ramirez: It's bizzare: everybody just automatically assumes you're being an asshole or a dick because you're being yourself. You start to question your own happiness. Do i have to sacrifice my own happiness just to be perceived a certain way by other people? When people automatically think you're a dick, you have to be extra nice to everyone just to be an alright guy. But they kind of accep you more here in Hollywood.

GW: There are a lot of dope songs on the new album.

Ramirez: Yeah, the drug use while making this record was more fun than it was when we recorded the last album. Antichrist Superstar was a lot more painful, I think, just recording the album. Everyone was on drugs and it wasn't necessarily a fun thing. This was definitely more positive. Although some of the songs are actually darker, lyrically.

GW: What exactly is "The Dope Show"?

Ramirez: That one is the most Hollywood song. It's kind of a reflection of how you'll be at home here, and suddenly you'll find yourself hanging out with Scott Baio and the guys from Iron Maiden, all in one place. And the next thing you know, Corey Feldman's knocking on your door to sing karaoke in your house. Coming here and hanging out with people who were your icons when you were growing up. The crazy experiences you go through with them. You see how they view stardom after it has already passed.

GW: So is it dope as in "stupid", or as in "drugs"? Is it hip-hop slang, like "that's really dope"?

Ramirez: Personally, i see it as drugs. "The Dope Show." The music and entertainment business are highly fueled on drugs and Flavor-of-the-Month and stuff like that. Who's popular at the moment. And how many people want to be around you because it makes them feel good about themselves, 'cause you're famous or important or whatever. It's amazing how many people in the movie industry want to hang out with rock stars or be rock stars. So you get immense respect from people who you thought were more famous than you. Johnny Depp gave me this guitar worth about four or five thousand dollars, this Valeno from the mid-Seventies that's made out of airplane aluminum. It's really cool.

GW: Sean Beavan was telling me how you started writing up at the house, using sequencers and Pro Tools and things like that. And how you moved them down to Conway to finish the record with more live playing.

Ramirez: Yeah. On the last album, a lot of what was great about the demos was lost when we went into the studios and did the record. With this one, we were able to save some of the parts from the demos. A lot of songs are hybrids of stuff from the demos and live performances in the studio. This is the most live record we've ever done. Before, a lot of stuff was cut and made perfect, with all the guitar and bass parts playing exactly the same thing, really tight and perfect. But this one's a lot looser. All the performances are pretty much live, like one pass through on the guitar and bass. But then that's edited together with more mechanical stuff. It's a real mixture of mechanical and real playing.

GW: Mechanical and Animal.

Ramirez: Yeah. This record has a lot more flesh to it than the last one--It's more human. And that has to do with the fact that we're more human now, I think.

GW: Is the world ready for a more human Marilyn Manson?

Ramirez: I think the Marilyn side is actually a little scarier than the Manson side. With Antichrist, we created these personas and, in a Ziggy Stardust kind of way, just told everyone we were going to be these big rock stars. And we just became that. And now this record is kind of dealing with our personas more in terms of who we really are. Twiggy kind of devoured who I really was. But it helped me to find myself more.

GW: Actors often say that about roles they play.

Ramirez: It's definitely a role-playing thing. But I can't say it's being fake. In playing a part, you learn more about yourself.

GW: You discover a part of yourself that you might not have otherwise.

Ramirez: Yeah; i feel I'm really fortunate. Because a lot of people get trapped into just one identity. And that limits your mind. I've escaped that kind of trap. Plus you can get away with a lot of stuff, too. "Oh it wasn't me who did that, it was the other guy i've become."

GW: Some of the songs on the album sound more personal than others.

Ramirez: That's because there's a human side to the record, but there's also this fictitious glam band that we created on this album. On Antichrist Superstar, there was Antichrist Superstar. Now there's Omega and the Mechanical Animals, as we're gonna call it. It's this other entity that the band evolved into, which is portrayed on a certain part of the record. And that's where I think the two different emotions come from. There's a truthful human side and there's a...not really make-believe...but more of a rock star, rock and roll vibe there too.

GW: Listening to the record for the first time does feel kind of like checking out a brand new band. There's a sense of "Who are these guys?"

Ramirez: We're lucky in the fact that we're more of an art project than an actual musical band. I mean, we are a band. But this allows us to be schizophrenic in our sound. 'Cause we're not trapped in this one certain sound that people expect to hear from us every time. The fact that the entity of Marilyn Manson is more important than the music has actually benefited us, I think. Because it has allowed us more room to do different things. GW: Some of the tunes have a Seventies-era Bowie kind of vibe to them.

Ramirez: Definitely. A lot of our influences are in there. I think this is the most collective of our records. It's also the most diverse, because there's lots of different styles of songs. I wouldn't say we were ripping anyone off. It's more certain eras of music that we wanted to capture on tape now, but done in a more modern way. That's where you see some of the debt to Bowie or Pink Floyd or whoever.

GW: There's an early Eighties, Gary Numan thing happening on the record too, which is pretty cool. Like the song "New Model": That riff, those drum machine hand claps!

Ramirez: Thank you. Yeah, it's very Gary Numan.

GW: Are you, Manson and the others alike in your musical tastes, or are you each bringing in really different influences?

Ramirez: I think we're pretty much alike. I can write a million songs. But, as far as Marilyn Manson goes, it comes out the way it does because of Marilyn--our working relationship and how we write our songs. I mold myself to be whatever the song needs. I really don't think of putting in my playing style on bass or guitar. It's not important to me for that to be put on a record. I see myself more as a songwriter than an actual player. I don't really care about guitar playing or bass playing. I care about songs. So when we go to write a song, whether it's on guitar or bass, I try to pretend I'm a different person, depending on whether we want an early Eighties sound, a mid Nineties sound--whatever we're looking for.

GW: How does it typically work when you and Marilyn write together? Give me a scenario.

Ramirez: It's all different. Sometimes it'll start with an idea for a song and we'll write everything around the idea. Other times, we'll just have a couple of chords that make sense to us and we'll build a song around that. For instance, "The Dope Show" was written in about 5 minutes. That's why it's my favorite. Other songs on the record, like "Great Big White World" and "Mechanical Animals", went through several different changes. But "The Dope Show" was a lot like "The Beautiful People". It was written in pretty much the same form as the final recording. "I Want To Disappear" was written quickly, too. I like the songs that come out really quickly. They have a sense of honesty and truth.

GW: What was it like to make a record with Trent Reznor for the first time?

Ramirez: We learned a lot from him in the past and took it with us. I think people are deceived into thinking he had a lot to do with our songwriting. He had a lot to do with the sound of Antichrist Superstar because he was almost like a member of the band on that record. But the fact that people think he had a lot to do with our songwriting really pushed us to prove ourselves as songwriters on this record. That's why there are more real songs on this one. I'm happy with the last record, but I'm happier with this one.

GW: So what did Michael Beinhorn bring to the party?

Ramirez: He really taught me how to play a little ahead of the beat on bass and a little behind the beat on guitar. Almost like a Led Zepplin type of thing. I'd never noticed that before in music. I think that's why this record has more of a live feel. He got me to love music again. Before, I was starting to hate it and not be interested anymore.

GW: There were reports that Billy Corgan was involved in the making of your new record. Did you work with him very much?

Ramirez: Billy's participation on the record was more in the way of friendship than actual songwriting. He was doing his record around the same time we were doing ours. We'd spend days in the swimming pool over his house doing weird shit. He'd listen to our songs, I'd listen to his songs. It was more his friendship that had an impression on some of the songs than any actual work he did. He didn't really tell us to change parts or play things a certain way. His influence was more personal.

GW: How did you and Zim Zum divide up the guitar playing duties on this album?

Ramirez: The songs that are mine, I don't trust anyone else with. I pretty much want to do everything, when it comes down to it. If I wrote it, I feel like I should play it. I mean, Zim Zum played only a couple leads here and there, because he couldn't do his job.

GW: What happened there?

Ramirez: He just couldn't do his job, pretty much.

GW: Musically?

Ramirez: In general, I don't want to get into it. He just couldn't do his job.

GW: There is a pattern here. After a studio album, the guitarist leaves. First it was Daisy Berkowitz, now it's Zim Zum.

Ramirez: Yeah. That's usually because I intimidate those people into not doing anything. And when they don't do anything, we have a reason to let them go.

GW: So it's a tough job being the other guitar player in Marilyn Manson.

Ramirez: Yeah. Because Marilyn and I have a working relationship. It's not that I'm better or anything. 'Cause I don't think talent is about being a technically good guitar player. I think it's about having good taste in music. Because the best guitar players have ads in the back of Guitar World plugging their guitar methods. They're not in bands. And they're not songwriters. So ability and technique are really irrelevant. It's songs that matter.

GW: Who played the guitar solo in "Fundamentally Loathsome"?

Ramirez: That was Zimmy. I never learned how to play guitar solos. The guitar solos I do are pretty much little melodies. Beatles melodies or whatever.

GW: Does this album have anything like the 29 tracks of guitar that are on "Antichrist Superstar"?

Ramirez: Not really. There's more acoustic guitar and things like that. There's a lot more space on this record. Like you said, on the last album there were 29 guitars on "Antichrist Superstar" and that really made everything else irrelevant. Although it sounded great. With this album, there's one bass sound that's louder an heavier than all those 29 guitars together. The bass was going through a gigantic P.A. that we had hooked up to the live room. The subwoofers made it so low that the whole building would shake.

GW: What kind of bass was it?

Ramirez: Either a Gibson EDO or a Fender Precision Bass. Most of the guitar parts were done on a Les Paul. Before recording this record, I didn't own a guitar. Now I have 25. Before, I just picked up anything. I recorded a lot of soundtrack stuff before this record just on a little Fernandes with a speaker built inside--a little tiny toy guitar hooked up to a guitar processor. But since then, I've just developed a love for guitars. I went out and bought a shitload of them. So now i just have a bunch of fuckin' wood.

GW: But Les Pauls, you say, are the core of the sound?

Ramirez: Yeah. I used just one Les Paul for most of the record. And some SGs here and there. On the last record, I detuned the guitar to E flat or D for several songs. But the songs on ths album were written more in the keys that pop songs are written in. So there are a few different tunings on this record, but not as much as on the last record. I moved the guitar around my playing on the last record, and on this one I moved my playing around the guitar more.

GW: I like the fuzz sound in "I Want to Disappear".

Ramirez: Oh yeah. That's a good example of computer and live feel together. The rythm and bass are all live. But there's also a computer bass and a mixture of miked guitars and direct guitars.

GW: Sean Beavan also told me you blew up a lot of amps.

Ramirez: Oh yeah. The recording process was: take 2 days to set up something, then 5 minutes to play the part and blow up something. The playing was the easy part.

GW: Did things get pretty wild in the studio?

Ramirez: One time we had black backup singer girls and porn star backup singers. They all came the same day. And my friend Dave Navarro was playing the solo at the end of "I Don't Like The Drugs [But The Drugs Like Me]." And Leif Garrett walked in the room. So to see the backup singers, the porn stars, Dave Navarro, and Leif Garrett all in one room at the same time was pretty weird.

GW: "I Don't Like The Drugs" has a total disco beat. It's like K.C. and The Sunshine Band. Brilliant!

Ramirez: We wanted to do a song that captured that era: that Seventies disco rock cocaine music, with Bowie and the Stones. When all the rock bands went disco. Aerosmith did it. Kiss' Dynasty. It was a weird era of Studio 54, cocaine, "boogie nights" and rock music turning disco that i remember growing up in.

GW: What a hook, too. If that song doesn't become a huge hit, there's something really wrong with the world. Although i guess half the radio stations in America won't play it.

Ramirez: In the past we've never had any big radio songs. But we've already gotten a lot of attention from "The Dope Show."

GW: Was that your intent--to go after radio this time?

Ramirez: Not really. If we were going after radio, we'd probably sound like Sugar Ray right now. And then we'd quit.

GW: I heard there's going to be a Marilyn Manson movie.

Ramirez: There are plans. I wouldn't say it's at a stage to be talked about yet. We wanted to do a movie with Antichrist Superstar, but I'm glad we didn't, in a way. Because this album will be a lot more relevant.

GW: Kiss are making a movie, you know.

Ramirez: What, Kiss meets the Phantom of the Park, Part II? You know, Gene Simmons once said, "we're here to show Marilyn Manson what it's all about." How flattering. People said, "Aren't you mad that he said that?" No. That's the biggest flattery you can get. Kiss came back just for me! Gene Simmons saying, "We're here to show you guys what it's all about. You have to wear some makeup so everyone cares." They should go back to their Animalize days. That's what they should do. They should do "Heaven's on Fire" again. Lick It Up and Animalize.

GW: How did you start playing the guitar?

Ramirez: I was sitting home one day listening to my first Van Halen album or something like that. Motley Crue's Shout at the Devil and Iron Maiden's Piece of Mind are the records that made me want to be a rock star. But then when I was 13, my mom walked into my room and said, "Do you want me to buy you a guitar or a drum set?" And I said guitar, thank God. I never really took any lessons or anything. But I always had a guitar around the house and I would mimic Judas Priest, Maiden, Motley Crue or early Metallica. By the time I was 15, I was playingin bands at my friends houses. We'd just play our favorite songs. And from there, I eventually just started a band.

GW: Prior to joining Marilyn Manson, you played guitar, rather than bass, in Amboog-A-Lard, right?

Ramirez: Yeah, which was basically a heavy metal band. I'd play bass on a couple independent records before I joined Marilyn Manson. But I didn't own a bass until I joined the band. Technically, I was a guitar player.

GW: Are you from Florida originally?

Ramirez: No. I moved around a lot growing up. Which was kind of to my benifit, because I move around a lot now. So that shaped me to what I'm doing. You get used to relocating and losing friends all of the time. And having to make new friends and meet new people.

GW: Speaking of meeting new people, what was it like working with the original Twiggy on "I Only Wanna Be With You" from the Dead Man on Campus soundtrack?

Ramirez: It was really neat. That had a lot to do with shaping my personality--meeting my namesake. I'm the only one in the band that got to do that. Marilyn Monroe is dead, obviously. Madonna sucks, and everyone else in the band who had the name of a beauty icon has been kicked out. So Twiggy was really beautiful and cool. I talked to her on the phone and asked her what song she wanted to do. She was a big Dusty Springfield fan, so she picked that one. My idea was to put a lot of mean guitars alongside her pretty voice. The Ramirez/Manson side next to the Twiggy/Marilyn side. She's actually a really good singer. She came in and did the vocal in just a couple of takes. I got to hang out with her, too. We went out a couple of times. It was a bit odd, you know, Twiggy and Twiggy. Somehow I knew it was gonna happen. The stars aligned.

GW: Did you choose that name out of admiration for her?

Ramirez: I have a lot of English family and it was just something I grew up with. I always saw her image. There was the Beatles and there was Twiggy. She was one of the first people who actually sold a product just by being a personage, you know? So she's actually one of the first icons of modern times. Plus, she was skinny. I always kind of called her Twig anyway, because of my body structure. It's interesting how nowadays we have a waif model again. Although we're getting out of that now.

GW: Do you and Manson have similar tastes in women?

Ramirez: No. He only likes certain girls. I pretty much like all girls. Anybody with a pulse, or even without. Anybody who's in the right place at the right time. When you can have anybody you want, you become a prostitute.

GW: At this point in your life, are there any fantasies yet to be fulfilled?

Ramirez: Good question. Of course there are. But I can't think of any right now. I've just finished a big album project and I'm just relaxing.

Back to interviews page
Back To Main Page