MANSON WORLD
Alternative Press [Kwiecień 1999]
by John Pecorelli

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He's drawn serious fire this time, but Marilyn's far from ready for the heap.

John Pecorelli tracks the Mechanical Animal and discovers it's not Marilyn's circuitry that's smoking, it's his blazing guns.

"Who was that fuckin' girl?"

The voice, obscured by a tarpaulin-covered chain-link fence protecting three trailers, is unmistakably Marilyn Manson's. This is his band's sanctuary at Australia's Big Day Out rock fest, and with 40,000 sweat-soaked fans just a few hundred feet away, it's no wonder Manson's got a few bodyguards prowling the perimeter. This is where the band members are cooling down after a scorching set, taking off their make-up, letting their hair down, relaxing with a beer or whatever else is available before shooting back out into the world of press, fans, band sluts and other potential enemies.

"Who was that girl?!" howls Marilyn, just as a young fan shoots out from behind the tarpauling at cheetah speed, panic-stricken. A large bottle of bactine lotion flies over the fence, about 50 feet through the air, in the direction of the fleeing fan. "I'll crack her fuckin' skull open!"

An hour later, Marilyn emerges, smiling. "That girl just barged into my trailer while I was changing--she saw my anus," he says, and soon enough we're being whisked away from the joint in one of the bands big, white vans. Marilyn is by now in jovial spirits--he just turned 40,000 or so Australians onto some primo rock-and-roll decadence, after all. Jovial, that is, until he learns that Scott Putesky (a.k.a. Daisy Berkowitz) was in the house. The former Manson guitarist had apparently won a trip to Australia in a radio concert.

"What?" Marilyn asks. "Who saw him? How come nobody told me? John!" Marilyn yells at his assistant, a wiry, soft-spoken kid who's perennially tied to a cell phone. "Find him. Find out what hotel he's in. I want him brought to me, or you're fired. And I want a big pile of drugs waiting for me in my hotel room by the time we get back there. I may not even want to do them; just make sure that they're there, or you're fired. And come out of the closet, for Christ's sake." John gets back on his cell phone, an impossibly good-natured grin crossing his face.

"Scott Putesky is a pussy vulture," Marilyn says to me. "He had to gall to come here! Get him on the phone, John! Call every hotel in Sydney and ask for someone with a lot of acne; ask for a big-boil faced monkey--with a lot of my money. And come out of the closet! See," Marilyn says, looking back at me, "John alleges to be heterosexual. But there's nothing remotely hetero about him. Not only does he do hair and make-up, but he likes Girls Against Boys. And he defended [Manson guitarist] John5 for eating sperm.

"Note to self," Rose McGowan, movie vixen and Marilyn's girlfriend, instructs me politely. "He defended John5 for eating sperm."

Say what? "It's true, says Marilyn, almost dejectedly. "John5 likes to eat his own cum off of groupies' chests. But he doesn't do drugs or drink." (John5, meanwhile, has no recourse to defend himself; he's riding back to the hotel in another band van.) "John!" Marilyn yells again at his assistant, who's still on the cell phone, "we gotta find Scott Putesky. That guy's nothing but a boil with legs--and I wanna pop him."

"Note to self," says a smiling McGowan as I scribble in my notebook. "A boil with legs."

Back at Sydney's swank Inter-Continental Hotel, the whole band, including the recently defamed John5, are riding the elevator up to their rooms. A middle-aged Aussie couple are trapped in there with us. They try to make the best of it.

"How was the Big Day Out?" the man, clad in a casual t-shirt and shorts, asks politely.

"Fine," shoots back Marilyn, "except for this guy." Marilyn points at John5.

"How's that?" says the Australian. "He looks a decent sort."

"Look, I don't want to offend you people," Marilyn says, turning his six-foot frame toward the couple. "But this guys eats his own semen off hookers' tits."

The couple positively wither.

From some press accounts, recent Manson gigs look more like a city-by-city Viking pillaging than a rock-and-roll revue: The band were alleged to have set fire to a dressing room at the Poughkeepsie Civiv Center, and they supposedly trashed four hotel rooms at the local Sheraton later that night. At a Las Vegas New Year's Eve gig a rowdy audience member was singled out of the crowd by Marilyn and reportedly spit upon by dozens of fans--at Marilyn's request--then verbally berated by the star and forcibly ejected from the venue. In Perth, Australia, Marilyn reportedly told bottle-hurling fans that he would kill them and their families, and then he cut the set drastically short. As a result of the projectile-flinging onslaught, a Manson guitar tech reportedly required five cranial stitches.

That's not all. There is a nasty allegation (and a $24 million lawsuit) that Manson had bodyguards rough up former Spin editor Craig Marks after the publication reneged on a promised cover story--a story that was rumored to preclude much other press in the bargain.

It may be nothing more than grand rock-and-roll excess. It's certainly not premeditated media publicity, as some detractors continually charge--the band hardly want more journalistic intrusion; ask any of them. It might just be simple, old-fashioned circling of the wagons. And there's good reason for war.

First off, there's treachery at the paws of photographer Richard Kern, who sold nude shots of Marilyn to a gay porno magazine without so much as a thank-you note to his subject. And lest we forget, Courtney Love has been firing verbal salvoes at Manson for months. And of course there are the Christians, always a source of irritation for Marilyn. It's no longer isolated instances of fundamentalist wackos foaming at the mouth in church papers and leaflets. It's almost organized. Even in Australia, where Christian fanaticism is respectably low, zealots (most notably the Reverend and Australian Parliament member of Fred Nile) have been working diligently to prevent Manson performances.

And there may be some tension over Mechanical Animals, itself too. While it's easily the band's greatest album in terms of artistic vision, quality of songwriting and commercial accessibility, sales have been disappointing--partially due to a nationwide ban from such massive retailers as KMart, Wal-Mart and Target.

Lord. Sooner or later, all of this demands a reaction. Australia seems as good a place as any to get started.

Alternative Press: I was surprised that you filed a suit against the American Family Association (AFA). The stuff that their Web site was alleging--that you kill animals and sodomize one another onstage--seems like a pretty good press.

Marilyn Manson: Well, I was just standing up for reality. I don't mind people trying to protest me. But it got to the point where they actually made it difficult for me to find a hotel or place to play with all their lies. Just don't ask me if I was on The Wonder Years.

AP: Say what?

MM: That's the most popular question I get in South America and Australia, honestly. And it's all over the Internet. I can understand if people thought that Courtney Love was [Family Ties actress] Tina Yothers; I could piece that together. But I'm not old enough to have been on that show. Maybe Willis from Diff'rent Strokes--only because his criminal record is admirable.

AP: True, he shot someone and got away with it. Anyway, if the AFA lies are affecting you practically, that's one thing. But I figure the more bad press you get from Christians, the better.

MM: It was affecting us. Buildings wouldn't let us perform; we had to play a lot of fucked-up venues we didn't wanna play at. It actually cost us more money than people would imagine. It was everywhere. Surprisingly, even like Giants Stadium--New York, of all places, trying to keep us out. It was probably one of the most controversial tours of all time. I'm sure Ozzy had his problems in the past, but I don't think he ever had as many death threats as we did.

AP: Death threats?

MM: Hundreds of them. Usually threatening to blow the building up.

AP: That has to take its toll. You know there are so many wacko right-winger out there...

MM: That's probably why I shut myself off so much, and it made it a big drive for destruction. Not really saying anything beyond that, kinda just going for it all. But from the opposite end of the spectrum, I heard Fred Nile say that if I had a record called Antijew Superstar or Antimuslim Superstar, people would have reacted differently. But Christianity is very optional--it's not a race, it's not so much a way of life. It's just a Western hat that people wear if they wanna look good. Next thing you know he's gonna compare being Christian to being a woman or being black, or being gay, or something like that.

Nile was dealt efficiently. Upon his arrival in Australia, Marilyn denigrated the parliament member before the media, then scuttled away, saying, "Well, now I'm heading over to Mr. Nile's house because he's having a big sex orgy and he invited me." At the Big Day Out on the Gold Coast, Marilyn told an estimated crowd of 38,000 that after the orgy Nile had told him that Jesus Christ invented drugs. It was a classic Marilyn rope-a-dope suckering, and the Reverend swallowed the bait whole. "I'm very upset about it," blurted the reverend to The Age newspaper the following day. "But nothing has been done to stop him coming to Australia...I would have thought that [Australian Prime Minister John] Howard would have given more moral leadership. I'm very disappointed that he has let us down."

Nile had even written the Federal Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock, claiming Marilyn posed a more serious threat to Aussie values than the subject of a national Aussie ban last year--holocaust-revisionist writer David Irving.

"Really? Wow! That's cool," says bassist Twiggy Ramirez. Perched on the sofa of his 12th-story room overlooking Sydney's scenic Circular Quay, Twiggy offers me some very good cocaine and a very bad vodka and tonic, then lets loose with the quotes, Ice Cube's Death Certificate blaring in the background.

AP: Doesn't all this negativity from the right wing--even here on the other side of the world--ever bother you?

MM: I don't really think about it all that much. It's not something that really bothers me. If anything, it helps us out. But it's not like we go out of our way to piss them off. I don't know what they're so pissed off about, actually.

AP: What about the bomb threats and death threats, though? I mean, what are you thinking during all that?

MM: I'm thinking, "Here come the bomb dogs--hide the drugs!" Pretty much it gets to that, eventually. After like the 10th one, it seems like a cry-wolf thing. But that's the time you get blown up, you know? When you least expect it.

AP: How long do you see yourself doing this rock-and-roll thing?

MM: I would like to do this forever. Whether it's music or some other Marilyn Manson thing or whatever. But I can't predict the future; I don't know what's gonna happen tomorrow. My plans right now are to do it until it makes me miserable--more miserable.

AP: Miserable? It's pretty good overall, isn't it?

MM: Yeah, but it's great to complain about it.

[Twiggy stands up and switches the CD to Judas Priest's Unleashed In The East. He draws a few more lines of cocaine and continues with the interview, pining for the days of old "when there were no Radioheads" and when bands like Iron Maiden could consistently sell out giant arenas and hold huge rock shows.]

It's all stuff like that from my childhood, and a lot more, that we're mimicking now. Great bands.

AP: But have you ever met any bands, or anyone famous, that just truly sucked?

MM: No one that sticks out enough for me to say something bad about. Well, he's not really famous, but I got in a fight with Liam Gallagher once--and we ended up doing drugs all night. Anyway, I always liked his attitude and the stories I heard about him, so I was like, "Cool. It's nice to meet you," and stuck my hand out. And he turned around and walked away. So I told him to fuck off. And we started yelling at each other, and drinks were thrown. Next thing you know it's a big cocaine festival. Drugs bring people together!

Having just finished a film-crew interview at the Big Day Out grounds, Marilyn is greeted by a young fan, no more than 10, who wants an autograph.

"Can you name one song off my new album?" Marilyn asks, using his traditional method of trying to separate the wheat from the chaff, fanwise.

"Uh..." the kid stammers, a bit nonplused, "I Like The Drugs (But They Don't Like Me)'?"

"Wrong, you little bastard," says Marilyn, but he signs the kid's card anyway. Another fan, much older, thrusts his own bit of paper Marilyn's way. "Get lost," the signer tells him, strolling back to the secured area.

As Marilyn disappears behind the trap-covered fences that surround the band's trailers, objects begin to fly over the fences. First a two-liter water bottle (full); some sort of travel bag is next, and finally, a giant plastic garbage can. Marilyn appears with Rose by his side, and motions my way with a mischievous grin. Craig Marks briefly comes to mind, and I decide it's a good time to check out Korn, whose distant rumble can be felt from a quarter-mile away.

When Marilyn Manson do finally take the stage, it's mayhem. Ripping into "The Reflecting God," Marilyn paces the stage in a grotesque, transparent body suit of sheer black pantyhose material, and a large set of angel wings constructed of black raven's feathers (which one Sydney paper will describe the next day as giving him the appearance of a "satanic turkey"). Twiggy goes formal, sporting a sleeveless purple evening dress, while John5's stellar crunch-metal guitar playing and hyperactive stage presence nearly eclipse his gold lame gown, accessorized pink boa notwithstanding. After a few unflattering words about the fans way off in the grandstands, as well as about the Gold Coast crowd, as well as about Fred Nile, Marilyn leads the crowd in a pep chant: "Give me a 'D'! Give me an 'R'! Give me a 'U'! Give me a 'G'! Give me an 'S'! What does that spell?" Whereupon a 30-foot casino-style sign flashing the word descends to the stage and the boys dive-bomb straight into "I Don't Like The Drugs (But The Drugs Like Me)."

Though a few projectiles fly during the set, the gig goes off without a hitch. Even local detractors would have to admit that Manson's live show is at the top of its game these days, equal parts gruesome theatricality and blistering rock and roll.

Back in Marilyn's room after the gig, after the Bactine incident, after the dreadful elevator humiliation of John5 and the repeated threats to Scott Putesky's well-being, Marilyn is winding down. Far from the frenzied crowd, in his quiet hotel suite, he seems a different man entirely, offering up cocaine and drinks like the most gracious of hosts, and speaking in even, calm tones about the artistic triumph that is Mechanical Animals

AP: What are the defining characteristics of Omega as opposed to Antichrist Superstar?

MM: Making Mechanical Animals was, for me, like stepping foot into the world for the first time. I felt very vulnerable. I got involved in a relationship and fell in love, I think for the first time. And I started to feel empathy for other people. It wasn't so much I found God or became a pussy or decided to start giving money to vagrants; nothing like that. I just started to find the balance that I'd always preached about, you know? In the past I always talked about finding a place in my life where I combined extremes. But everything was very much more "Manson," for lack of a better word. And with Mechanical Animals, it became more "Marilyn." I think I've got a real dynamic now, not just in music but in life.

AP: But some people are loath to let go of the old you--the son-of-Satan thing that seems a little old hat for you now.

MM: Well, it's not something that I've forsaken or grown out of. I think it's just now another dimension. Some people are just so used to things either being an act, or things being one-dimensional and easily defined. But I've always felt that rather than being just one thing, why not be many? That's the way I look at the performance--it makes the performance so much more exciting to open up different parts of my head. Antichrist Superstar was just the extreme. It just seems, um...Well, it probably seems like a multiple personality disorder. To me it seems normal. I think it is normal, and I think everybody has that in them. People are just often afraid to...to let lose.

AP: I think some of the public is a little reluctant to accept the move to glam and fashion from the purely demonic image. And the Omega character seems a bit more complex than the Antichrist Superstar character, which was very easy to read. Any connection?

MM: Yeah, I think so. I think because this album was inspired by the movie that I want to make, I probably didn't fill in all the blanks on the record. But I really just mirrored my own lifestyle at the time. And Omega's not really a character, by the way--I wouldn't create something that's not me. But I think a lot of people expected me to continue to speak about religion, even the people who hated me for it, as well as the fans who loved me for it. But I felt like I had said everything I had to say-- and making Antichrist Superstar changed my life, made me into something stronger. What I didn't realize was that to be stronger I needed to have emotions, and that was something I had shut off to make the record. So Mechanical Animals was like being born again. I guess the image on the album cover was about the alienation. And having an image that is hard to understand was probably what I was trying to say. That people didn't understand was kind of what I was saying on the album.

There's a rap on the door. It opens and a voice warns, "Large black man." It's Manson's bodyguard.

"What's up? Did you find Putesky?" asks Marilyn.

"No, but when I do I'll give him a kiss for you," says the bodyguard.

"Need some of this?" Marilyn asks, motioning at the cocaine. "We're not gonna use it all."

"No," he says flatly. "I'm going out tonight." He leaves the room.

"That's Franklin," explains Marilyn. "I call him Snowflake."

"To do with that?" I ask, motioning at the coke.

"No, just the irony of it," says Marilyn, chuckling. "He likes it very much."

This is one of Marilyn's defining characteristics, and one that hardly anyone---not the press, not the public, not even some of the fans---seems to get: the humor. Even the Sydney newspaper's remarks about Marilyn resembling a satanic turkey were cause for a chuckle.

"See, Rose and I went to the zoo yesterday. By the way, the best part was watching this ape eat its own shit--and I'm not talking about Courtney Love. But anyway, at the zoo, these four turkeys started chasing me, and we thought they were going to attack or something. Then I remembered that 'satanic turkey' business from the paper, and I realized that these turkeys were following me, not chasing me. Because I was their God."

At this point Korn's Jonathan Davis rings up Marilyn in his hotel room. After drawing an impressive array of vulgar verbiage from Davis by briefly putting him on the speaker phone, Marilyn instructs him thusly: "You come over to the hotel now, or I stab you. And I stab your child." Davis apparently agrees, but he refuses to show up until some time after noon the following day. Marilyn comes back to the table, draws up another few lines of blow and speculates.

"You know, I like Jonathan," he says. "But he's pretending to be rehabilitated from drugs and alcohol in order to be a more appropriate father for his bastard child and his Family Values tour. However, I see it's just a matter of hours now before I drag him down into my crystal-meth hell."

In Marilyn Manson's world, there's a time for everything these days: humor, love, cocaine--and when it's convenient, war. Not that he cares all that much about opportunists, critics or ex-bandmates. But he's not likely to squander a good opportunity for some return fire, either.

AP: So what's up with this ongoing press battle with Courtney Love?

MM: She was just talking nonsense, and I've been dismissing it. But after a while, certain elements began to piss me off. Whatever friendship we kind of had. I just dismissed. I wasn't gonna talk to her anymore. Then I thought, what a great idea for a tour--how can I let my personal feelings get in the way of this? So we made up, and that was it. I think, if anything, my capitalist heart outweighs any of my feelings. The tour--it's kind of legendary; it's kind of important. Right now we're the two most controversial celebrities in rock. So as a fan of music, too, I couldn't see something like this not happening...But Courtney wants to be a good parent, just like Jonathan. I predict that she won't get through this tour intact. We sure as hell ain't gonna be a good influence on her. I liked her shows better before anyway, when she could hardly stand up onstage.

AP: You two are almost a celebrity couple, and couples fight...

MM: I haven't really taken the gloves off yet. If I did it would get real ugly, because I've seen things that we cannot even discuss. [Laughs.] Specifically the height of her bikini line--up to here [points at lower chest].

AP: There was a much-publicized feud between yourself and Trent Reznor, too. What's happening there?

MM: It was never actually a feud. But there was a breakdown in the relationship because I felt that the label--which was predominantly Trent--kinda underestimated the potential for what we were gonna be. I had a lot more envisioned that I wanted to do. Just a difference of opinion on that. I still have a great amount of respect for him and what he does. Personally, he's like a brother to me. I'm excited about his new record. I'm sure one day we'll sit down and talk, and it'll be great. But it was a matter of saving pride on both parts...That's the bottom line. Anyway, I think he and I will work things out. And I'm sure he's very pleased about what I'm doing with Courtney, because they love each other a lot. By the way, any band that has a number in their name, you gotta look out for: 311, Third Eye Blind, Matchbox 20--these are all bands that hurt music, hurt style, hurt what kids look up to. I'm very concerned. I think we should eschew all bands with numbers in their names. Unless they spell it out, like Nine Inch Nails. If you just have a number and don't spell it out, then God bless you, because you are doomed.

AP: People are talking about a dreaded "Manson guitarist curse." What happened with Zim Zum?

MM: When we were making Antichrist, I thought he was very creative in the songwriting process--he helped out on about half of the songs. But he became part of what I was criticizing in one part of my mind, because he really got sucked into the bullshit and the drugs and everything. And don't get me wrong-- everybody was glad to do drugs when they were around, but it was in a much different way. I think I changed my personality to the point where I was much more in control of what I was doing. It became just the decadence of Hollywood. He just got sucked in. I couldn't really call it betrayal; I just felt like he became someone that I didn't know.

AP: Now Scott Putesky keeps coming up. I saw him in Hollywood last year, playing with Jack Off Jill.

MM: He got fired [from Jack Off Jill]. I can't say that I wasn't somewhat responsible [Smiles.]

AP: How? What did you do?

MM: Well, I didn't really do anything. I patched up my friendship with Jessicka, the lead signer, and I basically said that because we weren't friends, having Scott in her band was like a middle finger to me. And I said, "No one's really laughing. It's just making you look stupid; it's not right for your band." I just gave her the advice; she did what she had to do--it's her band. I can't say I'm responsible. But Satan works in mysterious ways.

AP: Last I read Putesky was on his way back to Florida to record a solo album.

MM: Yeah, I mean, he took me for a couple bucks in the lawsuit. It's strange; he had these real asshole lawyers. We had reached a settlement when he was fired. I had no problem, I just want everyone to know--especially the fans--that I never tried to cheat him out of anything. I said, "Here's everything. Sorry it didn't work out, but let's go our ways." And we were just about to finish it our and he got some ambulance-chaser who said, "These guys are millionaires! Let's sue the shit out of them."

AP: Speaking of lawsuits, can you give me anything on the Craig Marks case?

MM: Just about him getting fired--like I've always said, when it comes to karma or magic or whatever you want to call it, it always kind of works out that way for people who fuck me over.

AP: Very handy.

MM: If I say anything at all, it's that it's kind of ridiculous. Just because I told somebody that I didn't want to be involved with them anymore due to the fact that I don't like the way they do business, they wanna create this lie that he was beaten. Nonsense.

And that was it for the night. Marilyn and Rose were off to have dinner. But as a personal request, I asked Marilyn to sign an autograph for a friend named Kim. Marilyn was more than happy to oblige, as expected, but he wanted to know what Kim looked like. Easy on the eyes, I said. He wrote, "Dear Kim: Please fuck John so I can stop. Marilyn." I laughed.

"Hey," he said as I got up to leave. "Let me know how it goes."

PSYCHO ANALYSIS
A.P. read Marilyn Manson a list of certain words designed to elicit illuminating emotional and psychosexual responses. The following are his responses.

KHMER ROUGE: My dad was in 'Nam, you know. And Pogo only dates Asian women. So I'm always worried that when Pogo's around with a date my dad might have one of his bizarre flashbacks and sink back into his Viet Cong mode. I have to keep them separated.

ROSE McGOWAN: Probably the most peculiar person I know. And my best friend in the world. Probably I wouldn't say fate, but someone that I had planned on meeting when I moved to Hollywood. Things happen for a reason. Since I met her I really haven't looked back.

HEROIN: The only drug that I'm fortunate enough not to be involved with, because I think it's too much of a lifestyle choice. It has inspired a lot of interesting music, so there might be something good about it.

OHIO: It is the home of Alternative Press--but I did lose my virginity there, and my parents now live there. So I guess I still have some sort of connection to it. Luckily I've been able to cut Florida out altogether. But I don't mind Ohio--I embrace my white-trash roots.

BILL GATES: I respect him in some ways. Probably the most satanic capitalist in America right now. Luckily he's not religious, because a man of his wealth and power could do a lot of damage if he were to start talking about Jesus or something. But as long as he just talks about Windows, no problem.

EXTINCTION: I think that man is making himself less and less relevant through his creations. Technology takes us further and further away from the individual. Cell phones, tape recorders, VCRs, laptops--the more that we create, the less we think for ourselves, and eventually these things will be thinking for us. We'll disappear eventually.