Marilyn Manson says the “n” word in the song “Irresponsible Hate Anthem” he says, “Everybody’s someone else’s nigger. I know you are, so what am I.” and when he sings “I am the idiot who will not be himself — fuck it,” kids love it.
During a show at Washington’s 9:30 Club you can’t tell Manson is abnormally pissed, because that’s his shtick: doling out a thorny brand of hard rock that has chucked this black-vomit, let’s-take-prisoners band into the swill of superstardom. Several of the group’s offerings — 1994’s Portrait of an American Family and the E.P. (extended-play) Get Your Gunn, and 1995 E.P.’s Lunchbox and Smells Like Children —have sold way into the millions, and the current Antichrist Superstar is a major commercial and critical success. (In an impressive three-and-a-half-star review, Rolling Stone wrote, “Marilyn Manson packs all the right ingredients — offensive antics, a groovy image, and musical sensory overload — into Antichrist Superstar, the album that could make the group rock’s next billion-dollar babies.”
Onstage, the rangy Canton, Ohio, kid formerly known as Brian Warner works his dusky teenage disciples into manic endorphinites who rarely show signs of weakening. In fact the howling Mr. Manson pushes them completely over his jagged edge, then demands, “Spit, motherfuckers,” and they graciously oblige with a rain of phlegm that soaks the stage and the near-naked rock star. During the downpour he belts, “Beautiful people, beautiful people, it’s all relative to the size of your steeple,” as if it were his demented swan song.
There are others in the Manson brigade — bassist Twiggy Ramirez, keyboardist Madonna Wayne Gacy, drummer Ginger Fish, and guitarist Zim Zurn — a group of self-proclaimed freakazoids named for sex symbols and various mass murderers. Back in Florida they all mixed forces and things sort of clicked. Soon the nursling version of Manson was born, eventually catching the eye of Goth-god Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails. For his Nothing label, a division of the controversial Interscope Records (launchpad of IceT’s “Cop Killer”). Reznor was scouting talent to bring aboard, and there wasn’t a doubt in his dark little mind that Manson was the ticket.
At first Interscope’s coat-and-tie brass were circumspect about signing a bunch of unpredictable hooligans who, looking like they’d walked off the set of Night of the Living Dead, had been kicked out of Utah for ripping up a Bible, banned from MTV for being too creepy, and arrested in Miami for getting more naked than Jim Morrison did ages ago. The bigwigs just didn’t want to put stock in a band of misfits whose towering ringleader had a habit of breaking beer bottles onstage, Ginsu-ing himself, and inviting the audience to hit him with their best shot.
But Sir Trent flexed some salvation muscle, and the deal was ultimately done; America soon learned just what a Marilyn Manson was. Now it’s your turn.
Do you have any idea how popular Marilyn Manson is?
I don’t really notice. I don’t watch MTV, because we don’t get it in hotels. I mean, I go into a store and I see the band on the cover of magazines and things like that. It’s kind of surreal. If you take time to think about it. it can really fuck you up, so I don’t.
Are people taking you seriously now?
Yeah, people are starting to respect what we do.
Your new album, Antichrist Superstar, has received tremendous reviews.
Yeah, that definitely makes me happy. I’ve never felt like I needed anybody else to justify me, but at the same time it is a reward.
Have you ever wrecked a hotel room?
Ah, more than one.
Less than five?
Less than five, more than one. I remember one time it was out of being pissed off. Another time it was while making a pornographic film.
Do you remember your first kiss?
Yes. I was involved with a girl who had really bad crooked buck teeth and was the daughter of a preacher. This was, I believe, third grade, and it was on the playground. She had that pure-white blonde hair, unbleached — born that way. Scandinavian looking. I remember I was in love with her up to the time she got braces.
The Southern author Reynolds Price wrote that “the artist’s work explains creation back to God.”
What do you think God hears from you?
It would be hard to say, because the only ideas of God are the ones we’ve gotten from Christianity, Judaism, and all the established religions. It’s hard to form your own opinions on God’s ideals, because we’ve been kind of brainwashed. If I believed in an outside force that we wanted to call God — and I believe that there is one, maybe it’s not necessarily supposed to be worshiped — I think it would appreciate what I say, because I can’t see God wanting to create a world full of idiots and followers.
Can you be a decent card-carrying Satanist without acknowledging the existence of God?
The word “Satanist” might be too limited for me. Satanism is one of the things that I agree with, along with many other philosophies. Like I said before, I am a lot bigger than Satan. More people believe in me than believe in him.
The Dalai Lama said, “My religion is kindness. “ What’s yours?
Selfishness. You know, self-preservation and doing things to make yourself happy, not feeling guilty for wanting to be yourself or wanting to do things for yourself. We live in a society of victimization, where people are much more comfortable being victimized than actually standing up for themselves.
Are you happy?
[Laughs] I’m happy when I’m getting to do what I do, and I’m only unhappy when I don’t get to do what I want and how I want.
Okay, let’s get evil. Let’s diss Hootie and the Blowfish, just for the sake of doing it.
Well, if people want to blame me for all the bad things happening in the world, blame my music, then I’m going to sue Hootie and the Blowfish for boring the fuck out of me.
Did you vote?
No, I didn’t vote. The only way I’d vote was if I was running. People could spend more valuable time buying rock albums, because it’s obvious that music is more powerful than politics, or else the President wouldn’t have to go on MTV to address anyone.
Would you be surprised to discover that the F.B.I. has a file on Marilyn Manson?
I’m almost positive that they do, not only because of the subversiveness of a lot of things that I do, but I know that anybody who has any affiliation of any sort with Charles Manson has a file. Also, my connection with The Church of Satan and organizations like that. Sometimes, late at night when I’m in my hotel room I leave my curtain open in hopes of someone watching me. I put on a little show for them.
Have you ever been contacted by militia or skin-head groups?
No.
You’ve said that Antichrist Superstar was going to change the world, the way that the Manson murders did during the Summer of Love. Has it?
I think it is, and will continue to do that. The media and politics really made [Charles] Manson the scapegoat for a whole generation, and I see that tag being placed on me. And it’s a tag I’ve almost accepted with Antichrist Superstar.
Are you as effective as the original Manson?
That whole incident in ’69 kind of brought an end to the Summer of Love. Today, with a similar political climate — with this pseudo-revival of family values, and everybody pretending to love everybody, and we all want to hold hands and get along — I think I’m awakening in impressionable people the reality that this is just a bunch of bullshit, that it’s just another reason to sell a T-shirt, just as much as I have another reason to sell a T-shirt.
If it’s true that you sold your soul to the devil, how much did you get for it?
It was kind of tax-deductible. You sell your soul to yourself, you can’t lose that way. So when people always mistake us for devil worshipers, I try to explain to them that that’s very narcissist. You can’t worship something you already are, unless you want to stand in front of the mirror, which I do while masturbating.
Where does an Antichrist like you get his makeup?
Usually at your local drugstore.
You shop?!
Sometimes. I sneak around. I used to shoplift a lot.
Not because I needed to. I always had the money, but it was always the thrill of being able to get away with it. Anybody who gets caught shoplifting should be put to death, because it’s real easy to do.
Once you did an America Online interview with MTV and someone asked, “Is your dick bigger than your ego?” But, unfortunately, AOL censored it. Care to set the record straight?
I think that anything my dick does is purely fueled by my ego. In fact I don’t even need to have a dick; I’m so comfortable with my sexuality that it’s not even necessary. At this point I could just stare at a girl’s crotch and satisfy her. That’s how big my ego is. I’m being sarcastic, if you can put that in italics. [Manson is being sarcastic.]
What do you think anti-rock/rap crusader C. Delores Tucker does for kicks?
She probably puts on Smells Like Children and masturbates. It’s quite obvious. She said it was the dirtiest, nastiest porno record directed at youth that has ever hit the market, so she must have done her research. Things are only as sick as you see them, and she was the first one to point that out, so she must have a great taste for porn. And I’m sure she’s reading this right now, because I’m sure she subscribes to Penthouse; otherwise she wouldn’t be able to be on top of what’s dirty. And I’m sure she likes to be on top, for that matter.
Do you ever watch wrestling?
No. I do like the aspect that there’s some fake violence and the guys are wearing makeup and they all walk around in underwear. It’s very homoerotic, but I don’t watch it because it’s a sport. That, for me, would be a sin, to watch sports.
What are your hobbies?
I collect prosthetic limbs and other archaic medical devices. Other than that I don’t have any hobbies.
Why do you put backward maskings in your songs?
Mostly because I like to see how far people really want to look into it, but I feel like the messages that are forward are blatant enough and important enough that I wouldn’t have to hide anything. Whenever I put anything backwards it’s just for the novelty of it. It’s very rock-and-roll.
”There is a generation that is pure in its own eyes, and yet is not washed from its filthiness.” What do you think of that?
I know it. Where is it from?
Romans 30: 12.
It’s a good description of America.
People are so desensitized that they don’t realize or appreciate taboos anymore. I am always in constant search of my own innocence, because when you see so much it doesn’t mean much anymore. Americans are not so dumb that they think they can live in a taboo-less society. People try to make themselves feel better by taking on this false ideal of conservatism.
That’s anti-Christian in that it assumes a degree of sins.
Right. It’s the idea of forgiveness and the whole mentality that your sins can be washed away if you ask for forgiveness. That’s about control. It’s about making people feel guilty for being human beings. It’s about making people feel like they’re constantly needing to answer to somebody, some higher power. It’s a matter of believing in yourself and you don’t feel obligated to live that way anymore. What Antichrist Superstar will do in the next five years, you know, to my generation, is that it will make people realize the old ways are dead and there’s time to be strong and stop living under a weak God.
Did you say your prayers when you were a little kid?
Up to a certain point, but I always felt embarrassed, like someone else was listening besides God. I was even told to not let the devil know you’re afraid, because he can hear your prayers also. That scared and excited me at the same time.
Do you think you’ll mellow out one day?
Sure, I’ll probably run out of energy.
In the past you’ve said that you were a good rock star, that you do that very well. Today it seems a trend among rock musicians, especially with the Eddie Vedder camp, to deny this fact.
I think that that’s starting to change, now that image is coming back to music. I even see a lot of bands now that are influenced by what we do. I think that in the next few years a new life will be given to rock-and-roll and it’ll be like the seventies.
You say that you like being a rock star, like the money, the chicks, the drugs.
It’s everything you’ve worked for. This album deals with that whole idea. The last line is: “When all of your wishes are granted, many of your dreams will be destroyed.” So there’s a double-edged sword. That’s what makes it exciting. If it was easy, why would I want it? What’s fun about something that’s easy?
