Quotes Collection

I am not exactly into the era-per-album thingy. I mean, it made sense back in the days, so I get it. But an era is supposed to include multiple periods or stages of development, so I think it would make more sense now to say that The Triptych was an era, if one wants to look at things from that perspective at all. Anyway, these are simply grouped into 5 year periods in a reverse chronological order. I think, that kinda fits into my own understanding of an era, but without strictly defining such. =)

2020 - 2016

INKED (09/2020)

When I’m at meet-and-greets where people pay to meet me, which is insane, I feel sometimes like Santa Claus in a weird way. I’m very conscious when signing, I don’t want it to look like shit. It’s a weird thing to have someone tattoo your signature on them. It’s flattering, of course. But it’s also odd. In some ways I feel obligated to make sure I maintain them as a fan so that they don’t feel like shit about getting the tattoo later.

I prefer silence and the ability to be alone. Admittedly, it’s been claustrophobic at some points, but not so much where I can’t... I have five cats. So that’s one part that entertains me.

FORBES (09/2020)

I found that in the past I did not embrace the qualities of Salvador Dali that I admire most, not just his paintings, but his hi-jinks and other works of insanity that he'd done. I found to be very inspiring his writings, his photography, everything that he did. And that always was something that I felt like I wanted to do, but never really did it. So I never really wanted to mix the two worlds because I wanted to be taken separately as a painter and a musician. And not have it be, "Oh, he does that as a hobby." [...] I felt like it was time to combine those two together cause I didn't want just a picture of me on the cover or something else. I wanted it to capture something that was completely different and hopefully I accomplished that. For me, I feel like I did as far as my satisfaction.

CONSEQUENCE OF SOUND (09/2020)

And if anything that I did on a record contributes to anyone’s personal mental health and happiness in some way, because I think that’s a concern that really worries me is that being locked up in a house for so long can really weigh on somebody’s mental health. And that’s something that I’ve struggled with throughout my life.

      It was more me thinking about how I can relate to the rest of the world, emotionally and mentally, and not dwelling on politics or religion so much. [...] because I wanted the record to be a book. I’ve imagined I just filled all the pages with mirrors, and you fill in your own story when you listen to it. It’s a concept record that tells a story that’s going to be different for every single person, including me, every time I hear it, but it’s definitely, there’s an arc to it. I’m still wrapping my head around it because it’s still new to me, but I always ask people, “Do you get a happy ending from it or is it a sad ending or is it tragic?”
      I wanted it to be like any movie or any great book or any painting or any poem that it becomes part of the listener’s experience, not just mine. And it just reminds me of what I got out of my favorite records growing up, [...] something where you feel like you’re a part of something bigger that you can insert yourself into. And I think escapism is an important thing to have now. I wasn’t necessarily anticipating being in lockdown when I wrote the record, but it happens to be a good escape for me to have done it and to listen to it now, and to see what people will think when it comes out. Hopefully, it will give them a way to interpret it in a way that maybe I didn’t even realize.

And now we’ve sort of painted ourselves into the end of the world as human beings, but I think there is a hope in it. And there’s always a hope in art, or you wouldn’t make art. You can’t be a nihilist and an artist at the same time, it’s not possible, but that song and the video will be something quite different than [“WE ARE CHAOS”].

ROLLING STONE ITALIA (12/2019)

It has been almost ten years since we last met. What have been the biggest changes?

Meanwhile, my cat Lily died. She was 16, still the longest relationship I've ever had with a pussy. My mother died, my father died, I had a very sad time trying to cope with this void. I'm not complaining, it happens to everybody sooner or later, but you still have to deal with it. It's okay if you hate your parents, but I loved them. My father taught me how to drive, how to be independent, how to live. When these things happen, you inevitably think about your mortality, you wonder what the meaning of life is, whether there is an afterlife. These are all themes that I began to explore for the new album. I thought not so much about alternate realities, but about the astral world, the concept of time, of infinite love. Outwardly you can change as many times as you want, you can look different because you cut your hair or dress a different way, but your love for certain things or people doesn't change. I cannot lie to myself, I would hate myself if I had to pretend to be someone else just to never change. When I get on a stage, I am always consistent with what I believe in. Maybe that's why I like acting: because I can lie and pretend to be someone else.

This record will be a new starting point to explore ideas that I have never dealt with before. After that period of suffering, I realized that I was not resurrected. I simply realized that time passes and basically means nothing. Since I last saw you, it's been eight years but it could be eight minutes, the important thing is to keep creating something in this world, without taking anything away from anyone, without taking advantage of others for your own interests. Then time doesn't matter. You have earned a bonus against the end.

As a musician, it is not easy to put your ego aside and trust another person. Sometimes, when you stay too much inside your own head, it can become a problem. But we're not saving the world: if you don't like something, the worst that can happen to you is having to start all over again. When I have a song in mind, I write everything down in notebooks. I just finished scanning them all, it was a struggle to catalog them, because my handwriting is chaotic, sometimes very precise but often erratic. Maybe I should consult a team of psychologists to analyze them, I would like to know what they think.

I'm really surprised that there are still so many fans who follow me, because tastes are ephemeral and people change all the time, and I'm not an easy person. They make me happy, they chose me instead of more popular artists who are easier to listen to. We talk a lot, I listen to their stories, and then once I've said goodbye to them, I stay by myself, I do my own makeup. I reflect on their lives, sometimes they tell me sad and painful stories. I became a musician because I didn't want to have too much interaction with people. But instead I found that my fans made me a better person, thanks to them I learned to listen, they made me understand who I am. I am not an ordinary person, but I am a real person.

I've always hated talking about myself as an artist. I have never liked people who think of themselves as artists; they just seem to me to be very pretentious. Maybe we should coin a new word to describe the feeling of being an artist. Today I am happy that I can combine three different worlds such as music, painting and acting. Sometimes I am described as a rockstar who paints. I don't like to be classified that way, I am neither a rockstar nor a painter, I am myself, and being myself means combining various interests. I think the world is falling apart because it is ruled by people who have no artistic sense. Maybe they are just arrogant, certainly they are ignorant. The world should be ruled by artists, although not all artists would be able to do that, not all of them have the right vision or the necessary talent. For me, creating is important. I know I can't change the world, sometimes I struggle to even change a pair of pants. But I believe in what I do.

NUMERO HOMME BERLIN (05/2019)

I don't want to be numb anymore. I've been through a lot of things, my parents died and also my cat, after 15 years, the love of my life. Her death really touched me. It would have been exactly the time for me to hide behind drugs, but I promised my father I wouldn't do it this time. And I kept my promise.

When I broke my leg last year, my life changed a lot. I had to focus on my recovery, which wasn't easy, but it has given me a different perspective on certain things. I now feel more able to do things that I didn't think I could handle back then. It makes me stronger, happier and braver. I used to tend to avoid things that were complicated. Because I was anxious. I didn't want to get into situations that could disappoint me. And of course, it's also very stressful to walk down the red carpet while ten million flashes are directed at your face. I can face all that crap now, with better sunglasses.

I regret that I was naive enough to let people believe that my kindness was weakness and that I allowed them to take advantage of it. A lot of people thought I was actually stupid or naive for being so kind and betrayed me. But that was my fault, not theirs. So I regret not being competent enough to understand that my desire to have companionable friendship - or whatever you want to call it - friends or a family, made me make a lot of mistakes that I wish I hadn't made. But I have learned from them and try not to repeat those mistakes.

YAHOO! MUSIC (11/2017)

The greatest inspiration for me to be an artist is to point somebody in a direction without telling them, “Hey, go read this book” or “Hey, this song’s about this.” I don’t ever want to tell people what they should think. I’d rather show people a little bit of creativity that might inspire them rather than complaining about what you can’t really change. Rock‘n’roll is not gonna change the world.

It’s not even a case of me being prophetic, it’s more just being aware of the culture that I could see developing. There’s this goldfish mentality, where you forget something every three seconds. [...] I think if you want to use any metaphor in life regarding Twitter, I think that social media is a very powerful tool. Example A: our new president. I’m not saying it’s good or bad. I’m saying it should be acknowledged as something that can be used powerfully or can be used foolishly because people have given it that power.

INTERVIEW MAGAZINE (10/2017)

I do dream — mostly in red and blue, the colors of your veins and blood. For me, the world between dreams and reality is very thin and very elusive. There’s the subconscious and the unconscious, and dreams live beneath those. Sometimes I question which part of my brain is working. Because sometimes I talk to myself in my mind, and then there’s that third narrative person, and then sometimes I have that fourth dimensional element, in my head, where I can see it all from the outside. And that’s what some of my dreams are like — I’m watching a movie of what’s happening in my life.

[...] I’m obsessed with collecting books; you’d probably need a library card to come over to my house.

I think the word [love] is far too narrow to use for a romantic like myself. I consider myself very much a romantic, or I would not make music or art. There would be no point to add something to the world if you didn’t care about the world. But I’m not trying to save the world; I’m definitely a tornado that’s trying to fuck shit up, because there needs to be chaos, or there would be no evolution.

LOUDER (2017)

I think that I wanted to make cinematic albums when I made those two [ACS & MA]. And they were both dangerous in different ways. One was in New Orleans – Antichrist Superstar – where I was completely in a state of nihilism and… well, ‘nihilism’ might not be the right word. I was in a state of wanting to make things change in the world. For Mechanical Animals I moved to Los Angeles, and I was pissed off at the fact that they were going to make me into something I wasn’t, so I wrote a record about it before it happened. This record is more of me – after making Pale Emperor, which still will be one of my favorite records because it gave me back my swagger as a singer. It gave me back my confidence as being able to sing and being able to do things and handle loss and handle things, and not let it affect my music, in a literal sense. Pale Emperor was the opening act for this record, I think, in some ways.

‘I know where you fucking live’ is a threat, for sure.

Or it is a new Uber commercial? [chuckles] If it’s ‘I know where you fucking live,’ then it would be more of a stalker; but ‘We know where you fucking live’ is just… I was very, very aware, very specific about pronouns while making this record. I was very conscious of that for the first time, 'cause I realised how important it is when you say words like that. Like in the song KILL4ME, the title has ‘me’, so it’s sort of an open-ended statement. It’s not really a commandment, but I say: ‘Let’s grab our gold switchblade, and make us a blood pact, babe.’ That’s the first time on the record where it becomes romantic. And it’s strangely a pop song which they want to put on radio, and it’s going to say ‘kill, kill, kill for me’ [chuckles] on radio. I find it to be sardonic, in the same way as Bowie and Iggy Pop when they, here in Berlin, did The Idiot and Low and these things. It has that sense of sarcasm disguised in a pop song.

And you’re not hiding behind a character or a concept?

No, it’s just me, it’s unafraid to be me. They said to make a radio clean version of it. I said fuck you. So we made one that is just: ‘We fuck, where you fucking fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck for me…’ We gave it to the record label and said go fuck yourself. 'Cause it takes away the whole beauty of the record. It’s not about profanity, it’s just about… like: why would you take something that’s pure and great and honest… And they said: [mumbling] “Well, Walmart. Walmart wants a clean version.” We all know Walmart sells guns, and I just said: “Listen, if your parents give you money to buy a record, and you want to go buy a clean version at Walmart, you should go buy a gun and purchase a clean record elsewhere with the gun on your own terms. No suggestions implied here, but I’m just saying…” [chuckles].

2015 - 2011

KERRANG! (11/2015)

[...] I can't make a proper statement other than as an objective person that is not anything other than a viewer of the world, on the news or reading the Internet. It just seems that the world has really cannibalised itself. It has regurgitated its own bullshit and it's just shitting out its own shit. It's just a zombie movie - if zombies could actually take a shit on the world we live in.

ESQUIRE (01/2015)

A whole bunch of Internet headlines have you saying you came up with the term "grunge" while writing a Nirvana review way back when. I wondered if maybe that was meant to be tongue in cheek?

Yeah, let me clarify that. I didn't say I invented the word. I said I coined it, in that I popularized it. I think I actually wrote "grungy." But it is pretty amusing that that became a headline. I'm like a Furby. You can push me, and then your sound bite comes out, and there you have your headline. So to clarify, I merely claimed that I popularized the word, which is pretty much not accurate, considering the distribution of the periodical that I wrote it in. But I like to self-aggrandize.

What do you think the headline of this article should be?

Marilyn Manson deserves to have his dick sucked for creating the word 'grunge,' and for also making rock'n'roll cool again, because he's a hooligan.

KERRANG! (01/2014)

Is that your job? Did you think the world is too calm at the moment?

It’s just too predictable. I like to be unhinged. I like to be unpredictable, I like to make people worry that worse things can happen whenever I go out to a restaurant, or act in a movie. They’re always on edge going "Shit, how's he going to ruin this?" and then I show up calmly and do my job right, but in the hope that the whole perspective gave you the opposite idea.

[...] 2014 will also mark 20 years since your debut album came out.

That’s what you say. How do I know that’s true? What if I don’t believe in calendar?

You know, someone might say "I don’t give a fuck what anyone thinks." That’s really a misappropriated version of what I believe is the statement that’s intended to be used - "I won’t be controlled by what people think." I care about putting out my thoughts a certain way, but people are going to think about them how they want to. If I let that control me, it would change how I do things. I’m not looking to end the world. I’m just looking to make it more interesting.

Everything can be construed as an error, depending on how you look at it. I don’t want to do things that prevent me from being as happy as I could be or that hurt people I care about. I don’t want to do things that are lesser than what I’m capable of and I don’t want to do things that I don’t want to fucking do. Life’s too short.

RIVERFRONT TIMES (06/2013)

I'm a tender heart, and I open it up sometimes. I think sometimes if it's a volatile relationship, it's probably love more than it's not. As long as you're not the one getting your ass kicked, emotionally. I think if you are with somebody, metaphorically - I should put that word there, and if you were to kill someone and needed to bury the body and that person would help you, that's love. If your girl is willing to carry the shovel out to the desert with you, then that's love.

REVOLVER (04/2012)

People expect me to be a "shock rocker," but there's nothing you can do anymore to be shocking. All you can do is be confusing. Don't ever empty the bucket of mystery. Never let people define what you do. It's not about zigging when you should zag. It's not about doing something unprecedented and unpredictable. It's just about never being a word, or something that is not in the process of transformation.

It took me a long time to realize that I need to come back to the core of what I was. And it wasn't so much that there was a failure that shocked me into that, or some grand single error on my part. It was just realizing that I don't have the spark that I used to have in me — why don't I have that? Why don't I have that fire? I had to admit to myself that I'm not what I was. Now, I don't want to be what I was, but I don't have the same ambition and drive, the determination, the fearlessness, the anger and relentlessness that I had when I started this. I have some of it, different elements of it, different percentages of it, and I'm not saying the stuff I did before I came to this realization was irrelevant. I had to do it to get to it. But I guess part of it was coming to terms with family things, like my mother being ill and diagnosed with dementia, being faced with that concept. Coming to terms with mortality — not of my own, because I've always been very fearless of that, and I'm never afraid to die for what I believe in. But while I'll always make jokes and deny it in a [American Psycho protagonist] Patrick Bateman sort of sense, I'm not completely devoid of human emotions. I do have feelings, and I have a lot more feelings than people probably imagine, and that's what makes me so guarded.

TRIPLE J (03/2012)

I believe that you are not stuck with a pre-destiny. I believe that there are ways to see all these things that are laid down in front of you and where you belong and to smack yourself in the face when you realize that you’ve strayed off your path and get back to where your path is. And sometimes you have to burn it all down and build it from the bottom up. And that’s what I think that I really needed to do. Instead of trying to convince myself that I’d done it before, and in different ways — musically, artistically, relationship-wise — I had to literally just strip it down to nothing and go from the bottom up.

THE BRAG (02/2012)

A lot of times, a large portion of people - especially in America - aren't interested in finding something deeper. Sure, sometimes I like the jingle on the commercial, but at the end of the day, when you go to sleep, you're locked in a moment when you remember certain images, songs, smells and sounds that stay with you forever and that's what allows me to have an attitude where I can objectify the fact that people treat what I made as a product, but not get mad and take it personally. I can treat it not as a product, but as something that comes from me. I can still be happy about making it.

I was struggling very hard to figure out where I would fit in this changing world - [as] someone that's against everything and then suddenly, they're a part of everything. And in that Warhol, Salvador Dali sense, I was just trying to make it out alive. I can't say it was simple, but it was important to go back and give myself no other options. Limitations are a very strong thing for artists to have. I moved into a place and started painting, and only gave myself one colour: black, with white paper. We started making this record, and made it with the limitations of immediacy and urgency. It wasn't so much improvisation as it was figuring out that when you only have a pencil and a guitar or a drumstick it's almost reinventing the wheel. And I like limitations. They work for me. It worked for me back when I didn't even have any songs, and I could only draw.

These labels, they love something but then they want to try something different because everyone's telling them something else to do. They get afraid of just loving something, just because. It's not the artist, they think it's the formula. But people identify with stuff that really hits them.

I've always said that I can't possibly be shocking - and believe it or not, I said that when I started out. What you can be is confusing, and interesting. It's a form of communication.

2010 - 2006

SPIN (06/2009)

I went through a tough period over Christmas, during which I learned the difference between love and dependence, and the difference between weakness and desire. And it made a big difference in my life. So I came back [to the studio] on January 2, and I saw my only friends, which at this point is the band, and everyone asked me, “How’re you doing?” And I said, “Well, I’m at the high end of low.” And automatically I knew that that’s what the record was going to called. It really defines the record, which is about falling from grace and trying to fit in and be accepted as a mortal or as a normal person when people don’t see you as that. It’s also about giving up what you are to prove that you love somebody more than you love yourself. When you get to that point you’re unlovable. And for me, halfway through the record, you can hear it. It went from despair to anger, it’s like passing through the stages of destruction and reconstruction.

I can laugh about it now because it’s a process I went through, and I need to have a sense of humor about it. That’s the only way that you can be me. Everyone is so, “Marilyn Manson is so serious, so eloquent, so intelligent, because he managed to have a sentence that had more words in it than I could think of, and, you know, Bowling for Columbine.” Whatever. That’s a compliment and all, but the whole point of the name Marilyn Manson sums that up — it’s a contradiction, an odd pairing.
      And of course, a couple weeks ago that eighth grader said, “Hail Marilyn Manson,” then shot a teacher. It’s surprising because on the first song on the record, “Arma-Goddamned-Motherfuckin-Geddon,” I say, “Fuck the TV and the radio, I’m gonna take credit for the death toll.” It’s all I get blamed for. I don’t get credit for anything else. So if I’m going to get blamed for it, I want credit for it. I’m not saying I agree with it, but I’m not saying I don’t agree with it. I’m not going to be some kind of PC, tree-hugger. I’m the last person that causes harm in the world, and if people are worried about what my music does, why isn’t anyone saying, “Hey, shouldn’t we worry about what he does?” Besides throwing used rubbers on the wall.
      Obviously I’m dangerous enough to make songs that are so problematic. I had my phone tapped by the FBI during Columbine. I’ve had more death threats than I care to remember. It’s a never-ending process where I sleep at night, sometimes, but I’m never kept up by a concern for my life’s safety. I can’t go to sleep at night if I didn’t accomplish at least something. That’s the one thing that keeps me up. It’s not partying; I don’t even know what that word means. Partying implies that you have a hat, and it was fun… with clowns.

What’s your reaction to the media scapegoating? I imagine the incident with the eighth grader brought a barrage of calls, letters, emails, etc. What was your initial reaction to the story?

Initial reaction: Where did he get the gun… and why can’t I get one? It’s shocking to me that it’s easier to buy a gun at Wal-Mart than it is to buy my record. And it’s entertainment, it’s music, but that doesn’t mean it has no value. In no way would I say that what I do is just entertainment. In fact, I love to insult shit that I don’t like by saying, “Wow, it must be art, because it’s not entertaining.” But it’s just ironic that they can sell a CD in a store, and they won’t put the title “Pretty As a Swastika” on the cover, but at the same store they’ll have "Valkyrie", for example, which has a Swastika on the cover. Now, I’m not even using the symbol, I’m using the word, so the record company sort of created a new curse word, by default, for me.
      So that’s why I personally chose to use the dollar sign in the “Arma-Arma-Goddamned-Motherfuckin-Geddon” video, because I think that’s the ultimate statement. My decisions are based on art and I have the ability to do that, and not because I can retire on a fucking island. I have nothing, I’ve lost everything, and I’ve got it back, and I’m happy to live in hotel, as long as I can feed my cat, get beautiful girls to do terrible things they shouldn’t do with me, and pay for absinthe and drugs — that’s rock’n’roll. Of course, there’s art to it. Of course I’m a painter, and of course I want to say things, but I’m not going to fucking sell myself out anymore. When I make a record, the music that I record and the thing I’m going to play live, that’s my album. Whatever they want to put in a package, that’s their product. Why would you want to censor the word “fuck” out of a song? Really, who doesn’t want “fuck”? The more fuck, the better. In life, it’s metaphor — the more fucks, the more fun. Hey, it’s only a couple letters off from fun.

Do you find any solace in the fact that this censorship actually gets your album into stores for kids who otherwise wouldn’t have access to your music?

No, I don’t. The fact that the record company says that they can’t put that song on the record… crazy. So I say, “Well okay, don’t put the album out.” And they just don’t know what to say. And it’s great to be able to have that kind of attitude. When someone makes you a product and you’re not in control of it anymore, you feel like a whore, like someone who’s being beaten up and pushed around. But with the live show I could sing, “I want to kill you like they do in the movies” for 60 minutes. What are they going to do, leave? Go ahead, it’s what I want to do.
      The people that stay are going to love it, and I’m going to love it or I wouldn’t do it. And the record company execs wanted me to take “Pretty As a Swastika” off the record because they thought, ”Oh, the record’s just so good Manson, we don’t want to ruin it because there’s just certain things…” And I said, “Look, what do you think this song means? Is it a compliment? Is it an insult?” It’s one of my proudest moments, lyrically, because it’s a love song, it’s political, it’s all of that — it’s me. I hope people marvel over it for years, and I know that girls like to strip dance to it, and I’m sure that people want to fight to it, and I haven’t had any complaints, least of all from Jewish people, who they’re so concerned it’s going to offend. I’m not saying anything about Hitler, the Holocaust, or Nazis. I’m not trying to be a pussy and say, “Oh, it’s a Hindu symbol.” Of course I know what it means. I’m saying you’re as pretty as a Swastika, art is a fucking question mark, you fill in the blanks. That’s the listener’s job — that’s what music is about.

MIAMI HERALD (01/2008)

All the sunshine and tourism and being the happiest place on Earth could do nothing but create Marilyn Manson. "Let's see if we can make the most evil person possible." Sprinkle in some drugs and some anger, knives, naked women and fire and tell him everybody wants to kill him and see what he does, and you make the 'Antichrist Superstar'.

You've turned ugliness and horror into an art form that some say is actually beautiful. Is this some sort of comment on mainstream values?

It is, and it's also probably the way someone who isn't accepted conventionally deals with it. I didn't feel like I could fit in as the "handsome guy" or the "cool guy" or the status quo. And instead of putting those feelings of isolation into something violent, I put it into music.

I think people have always misinterpreted my self-destructive nature as nihilistic, because if you don't care about the world, you can't create art. I am misanthropic and self-loathing, but never nihilistic.

I am a character, so that's the problem. There are many, many levels to how I behave. Some people might associate being Marilyn Manson as having lipstick on, but I don't really have some sort of other lifestyle. Sometimes I don't have the energy to put on clothes or even change my underwear. But there's a difference between being on- or offstage, that's not the same thing as being Marilyn Manson. I can't turn off the way I think, and that's essentially who I am, who anybody is.

Marilyn Manson has always been intended to confuse some, anger some and make some people feel at home. There's no way to misunderstand what I do — but everyone can understand it differently. That's the only way I've learned to embrace art — it has to be a question mark, not an answer.

KERRANG! (09/2007)

The worst part of being depressive is the shame. You know that you're better than what you've become but you can't change anything. Then people think that you don't love them enough and that you don't care. I couldn't explain that, if I didn't care about myself, then how could I care about anyone else?

RADIO TANGRA (06/2007)

I think that was the question I really had to face, to find out what is left to say. The world is a victim of itself and I can't really attack it. I thought that people are finally starting to acknowledge the obvious things that a lot of them are still afraid to see, so what was the hardest thing to do now was to talk about my human emotions on this record. I thought that taking the more difficult subject and ideas was gonna be the way I could prove myself. That's when I realized that being me is the hardest thing I could possibly do.

ROCK SOUND (04/2007)

I feel like it makes the record more human without it being forced. It's telling the listeners that I'm normal by any stretch of the imagination and being honest in a way that I've never been comfortable being: it's essentially stuff that I'd write in my diary if I kept one religiously. It's the most sexual and relationship-orientated record and also my darkest record without a doubt.

BBC RADIO 1 (04/2007)

Sometimes I feel that it’s a really bad double standard that I had to be blamed so much when something happened, then later when it’s talked about sometimes it's reduced to simply "I like what you said in the Michael Moore movie", I feel cheated almost. So, now for me, I didn’t think my world and what lead me to make music, when I almost not wanting to make music or not wanting to live for anything anymore, was really reduced to this world I had made for myself which had nothing and I started to creep from nothing. At that point I didn’t care about the rest of the world’s politics or the rest of the world's anything, if someone was to ask me what my opinion on America or violence and entertainment, I don’t really care. I think this record was me realizing that the world is a victim of itself and this is a point for anybody who wants to do something important as an artist, it’s a time to be introspective, it’s a time to have your personality be what makes you somebody and something that has an impact on other people, because personality and just the human element of anybody is what makes a difference, and I think when everyone suddenly thinks that everything I did on this record is more human, to me I guess, if I could be objective about myself, by saying that it's more human it's really acknowledging I’m inhuman by showing this. So I think it was an important record to make now for me, not just personally, it's my view and views in the past about the world, I think the only you can say something about the world is to say something about yourself.

HIT PARADER (2007)

The most difficult thing for me is maintaining my own beliefs while satisfying what the fans want from me, but I'm not the first performer who has faced that kind of challenge, and I'm sure I won't be the last. We're all operating in a very changeable medium. I like to view myself as the kind of performer who first inspired me when I was a kid. But I'm also the first to realize that it's not the same for me as it was when I was a fan. I mean there aren't bands today that do for me what KISS or Black Sabbath did when I was a kid.

2005 - 2000

SPIN (10/2005)

Politically speaking, how would you say the cultural climate has changed over the length of your career?

Let's see. I started during Bush I. I think I was drunk during the entire Clinton administration. And now we've got Bush II. By the way, you should put that in italics.

Why?

I always tell people when I'm being funny. Some people have a hard time figuring it out.

No matter what I do, people will always say Marilyn Manson is a shock rocker. But they miss the point. First of all, show me somebody else who can even step to the plate — I'm not even like other bands. I do something very specific and that's be a rockstar. That's why I started this band. Rockstars were gone like the dinosaurs. I'm a fan of music and icons and people who don't let you come into their houses and show you their refrigerator. The power and fear lie in mystery, and I'm always willing to be a mystery, because I don't know who I am — so there's no chance of anyone else knowing who I am. Finding out who you are is how you make art — the question mark.

KERRANG! (10/2004)

I try to be as open as I feel I need to be. It's never possible to insert your entire personality into an interview or a meeting with somebody. I've always tried to point out the same thing ever since I stared: I'm just like everybody else. The only difference is that I'm more prepared to show my flaws than most. The flaws are what make a person. People are surprised by how normal I am, how like everyone else I am.

[...] possibly because you're getting sick of being Marilyn Manson?

That's one of the questions I've been asking myself over the last six months. It's been difficult to come to terms with everything I am. Six months ago, I wanted to end it all, I wanted to say farewell to music, to not have anything to do with this anymore.

What changed?

I had to think very hard about everything I've had the chance to achieve. I had to force myself not to take those things for granted. I also had to decide not to tolerate a lot of things. I've done things that were against the way I feel - except going to jail - but sometimes you're swayed into doing more than you really want to. At times that's certainly included performing in front of an audience. There was a time when I didn't want to go out in front of an audience again. It's strange, when I started out I had nothing to lose, but now I have a lot to lose.

I've earned the platform I can speak from. It's one of the things I've worked to achieve. I have a lot to lose but now it makes me want to gamble. It makes me more and more reckless in a strange way. Six months ago I wanted to lose it all, I didn't care about any of it anymore, so I gambled, I took a chance.

Why take the gamble?

I think it's because I still have a disgust for mankind in general and more specifically myself. But I also have hope for both mankind and myself. For a while I thought I'd achieved most of what I wanted to achieve, but now I think I have more to create, more to offer. If I didn't have hope, what would be the point in creating things? Why would you want to create anything for a world you ultimately hate? There were times when I wondered whether it was worth it, though.

DELAWARE ONLINE (08/2003)

You've sometimes described yourself as shy and you're always soft-spoken and articulate during interviews. But onstage, you're up there literally creating new scars for yourself and going wild. At what point does this transformation take place?

For me, I suppose it's very exaggerated because that's the way I prefer to enjoy my life. When you interact with an audience, it can be very magical, like an invocation of something. I think that's my whole approach with art. The stuff I make isn't complete until someone else experiences it. I don't make things for myself. I can't live without creating, but I create art and music for other people to be affected by it. But the idea of what Marilyn Manson as an entity represents, it's always going to be what's in my imagination.

TASTES LIKE CHICKEN (09/2002)

Earlier you asked where my inspirations come from, and films are where everything comes from for me. It's my inspiration for everything. And that's why, I think, I find myself able to direct something with the freedom of not creating something for public consumption; not working within the demands of the consumer-- creating it for artistic purposes. That's where I'm going to be happy. That's what I like about painting. Because when I did these paintings I did not think, "I wonder if people are going to like this," or "I wonder if someone's going to buy this. Do you think I should paint more of this type because it'll be more popular?" I painted because it made me calm and entertained me. Some of the paintings were gifts to other people, and it made me feel nice to give a gift to somebody. That was a nice freedom as an artist.

As a musician you create a family of your fans, and it's like being a mother. If you start feeding your kids a certain thing every Sunday, you have to keep feeding them that, or they're going to get mad or want to go out and eat at McDonald’s. [laughs] So as a musician, in terms of music, I do have to consider the desires of my fans, but I do want them to grow with me; I want them to accept change, but I don't want to be self-indulgent and arrogant and forsake their loyalty at the same time. It's a tough, sometimes very depressing, line to walk. And for someone like me, who's always changing and a shape shifter, it's hard to keep things going, but also be developed into a fast-forward culture where things are forgotten, sometimes before they're even remembered. I'm proud to say that I've been able to exist in the music industry this long, because most people don't.

ONSTAGE (10/2001)

It's about those three words: Guns, God, and Government, I really wanted to set them up against each other. I wanted the stage, at one moment, presenting an idea of God and what people worship, and then switching that with people's thirst for violence and how they are one and the same. So we made the crucifix into guns, we were trying to throw these ideas back and forth in front of people so it would make them think and come up with their own conclusions. I don't think you can really spell something out completely. It's like preaching, so I prefer to create a bunch of strong images and let people be inspired by them or think about things differently from the way they did before the show.

I think a combination of political pressure — which inspires censorship, for example — and the never-ending idiocy of religion. And trying to blame entertainment for the way people behave. Like of course, the beating I took on Columbine. All of that combined together was kind of the boiling point. So I could either stop doing this entirely, or do it even more extreme than it was before, and with more conviction.

I think it really draws the whole crowd into what's happening to me, because if they see the protesters when they arrive, they instantly become part of what I'm a part of. And it makes the band and the crowd one big “us against them” unit — the ultimate galvanizing force that creates teen angst. The protesters are defeating their purpose every time. They would be much better off sitting at home, being perfectly still.

You've inflicted a lot of mutilation on yourself onstage over the years.

People ask me about that period of my performance, a couple years ago, when I was really kind of destroying myself. And I was getting maybe a hundred death threats a day, so it was kind of my way, looking back, of saying that I was invincible to them. I was saying it by just destroying myself. It was ironic; I was doing that to myself [as a way of saying] something to the people who would complain about what I was doing to myself. It became a vicious circle.

THE GUARDIAN (11/2000)

Oh, it's sure to start again as soon as I put my head above the parapet, simply because I don't think the people I am attacking will ever understand the satire or the irony in my work. They will react to the surface in the same old knee-jerk way and hate me, and probably want to kill me again. And that really does fuel my fire. See, I guess I need them like they need me. They don't have a living, breathing devil and I am more than happy to play that role.

I actually think I'm engaged in a revolution, in a fight worth fighting. Our generation don't have a war. This is our fight, and it is against conservatism and ignorance, whether in American politics or American Christianity.

Regret is a negative emotion, like guilt. Plus, I attract outsiders and misfits because I am one. I think I voice a lot of their alienation because for a long time I felt it. Still do, to a degree. That said, there is evolution and character growth in everyone, and things I did even a year ago, or five years ago, I wouldn't do now. It was, how shall I put it, a voyage of discovery. I had to go out there and experience it all.

That kind of reaction [Christian protesters] is kinda boring now, it's like, so preprogrammed and one dimensional and dumb in a particularly American way. The thing that bugs me most about Christians is their assumption they have a monopoly on morality; the premise they start from is that they have a literally God-given right to impose their belief systems on everyone else. It's like, those people in Africa are heathens, we need to convert them to God. I mean, c'mon, in this day and age. It's almost too easy to get them going but, in a way, it needs to be done because they do have real power, and they'd like to be able to silence anyone who differs. Religion is big business in America and it's not taxed. How morally wrong is that? I kinda see myself, among other things, as a fighter for freedom of speech. I plead the First Amendment every time.

I was approached by every media outlet in America, but I refused to be part of the charade. Then, when things died down a bit, I thought, I have to respond to this. I mean, I was upset like everyone else by what happened. I'm not some emotionless creature. I thought it was horrendous and sad. But, mostly, I was disgusted, I mean, these guys got exactly what they wanted - fame. They were on the cover of Time magazine. To me, it was grotesque. And, I was disgusted by the media sitting back there, judging and blaming everyone else for what they had helped create. I threatened to sue any media outlet that associated my name with the Columbine killings. There was no way I was going to be the fall guy for a nation.

People think I'm a monster who eats puppies, but, y'know, I don't even take that on board any more. And, despite everything that's happened, I feel strangely optimistic. I have a strange sense of idealism and even altruism. At the same time, I might just get up in the morning and spray a gallon of hairspray into the air just to destroy the ozone layer because I really believe mankind deserves nothing more than to end itself because we have behaved so idiotically for so long.

NEW YORK POST (11/2000)

I normally find myself alone a lot, and I am rather quiet. That’s why I choose entertainment, to express things that would normally stay inside me. There were also a lot of people telling me I’d never amount to anything, and I set out to prove them wrong.

Everything I was afraid of when I was growing up, I’ve become. I’ve taken on my nightmares, like the devil and the end of the world, and I’ve become those things. I am only afraid of what everyone else believes in.

Like what?

Like protecting your children from the world instead of explaining the world to them. That’s like raising your children in the Ice Age and not giving them warm clothing. Part of me would love to see it all end. You might find me outside with a can of hair spray, spraying it with the hope that the sun will burn a hole in the Earth. Another part of me hopes people will grow up and evolve and get smarter. That’s the paradox of Marilyn Manson.

ROLLING STONE (07/2000)

This story can be interpreted on a number of levels, but one of the simplest ways is about a boy who wants to become part of the world that he doesn’t feel adequate for, and the bitterness and rage becomes a revolution inside him and what happens is that the revolution becomes just another product. When he realizes it’s too late his only choice is to destroy the thing he has created, which is himself.

This is me coming out and swinging. Rather than being fucked in the ass [by the critics], I would kick their teeth in. But I want to do it a beautiful way, so that they could still be humming a tune as they held their mouths on the way to the orthodontist.

1999 - 1996

METAL EDGE (07/1999)

First of all, my theory that I've really been thinking about since I had so much interaction with Christianity after doing 'Antichrist Svperstar', is that Christ was the blue-print for celebrity. He was the first celebrity, or rock star if you want to look at it that way, and he became this image of sexuality and suffering. He's literally marketed - a crucifix is no different than a concert shirt in some ways. I think for America, in my lifetime, John F. Kennedy kind of took the place of that in some ways. He became lifted up as this icon and this Christ figure. I started to, in my weird drugged version of Hollywood, dream up a world where these dead stars are really saints. Jackie O[nassis] is kind of like Mary Immaculate. That's what I was thinking when I was writing the album, and I hinted that in a lot of songs like 'Posthuman'. The story was something that I had in my head, and that's where the songs came from. As the songs came to life the story kind of grew also. It's all really a metaphor for my own life, but the story, without giving away too much, takes place in an alternate dystopia of Hollywood where everything is taken to the extreme. It's sort of Andy Warhol's worst nightmare, combined with Scientology and communism. If you imagined everything was as far as anyone can take it, the way the movie stars are treated. There are a lot of references to the way that I see John F. Kennedy as a modern day Christ and how religion kind of sprouts from that. It's really a strange story, but in the end it's a parable about fame and love and what matters to you the most, but I can't say it's got a happy ending. The video for 'Coma White' is adapted from my script, so it will be a bit of a teaser, a hint at what people can expect... Though I'm sure they won't understand it or make it any clearer.

PROPAGANDA #024 (12/1998)

The lyrics and ideals expresed on this album are those of a character called Antichrist Superstar, who is portrayed by me. In that sense, this is an auto-biographical collection of songs. In another sense, this character is portrayed by every other person in America as well. And those who fail to realize and admit this are the ones who will be afraid of and offended by this album. THIS is what you should fear. YOU are what you should fear.

ORKUS (10/1998)

Marilyn Manson is pure sarcasm. Our fans know this, but the rest of the world is pissed and frightened. But it is okay. This way I entertain the people. It is not important what people think of me, because I still entertain them. It is just art. I never wanted people to realize who I was. As a child, for example, I often wore masks to fright the people at the Burger King drive through.

In my opinion, art doesn't need a description. People can make anything they want to make of it. I write songs because I like it. What the rest of the people do with it is not my job. Don't get me wrong! I like it if people understand my work and why I do it, and sometimes I like it when people don't understand it. That makes me laugh. Confusion is the greatest form of communication. Salvador Dalí said that and I think he is right.

Does Brian Warner still exist today?

Definitely! I personified Marilyn Manson, but I never lost my real person. Today Brian Warner is a name which people use when they don't know me. The name is something like a safing-net. I often meet people who I don't know and they call me Brian, but my friends and people who go to bed with me never have the idea to call me Brian. It's ironic.

METAL EDGE (1997)

The burden of originality is one that most people don't want to accept. They'd rather sit in front of the T.V. and let that tell them what they're suppose to like, what they're suppose to buy, and what they're suppose to laugh at. You have Beavis and Butthead telling you what music you're allowed to like and not like, and you've got sitcoms that have canned laughter that lets you know when to laugh if you're too stupid to know when the joke is. People are too lazy and too stupid to think for themselves because America has raised them like that.

There are so many different levels of things that you can say to people, and everyone's going to get something really different out of what I say, but the most I can hope for is for people to want to find some sort of truth, to be themselves, and to encourage them to think.

You have something to learn from everybody. It's not to say that you have to like what those people have done, but at least respect them in a strange way because they had the motivation and power to attempt the things they did.

HIT PARADER (10/1997)

People will have to make up their minds. We don't tell them how to think. People have to find what is going to work for them. You have to inspire people who want to do something different with their lives. There's so many people out there who don't realize that they can have the chance to be something different. If there's some people out there looking for that chance, then I hope I can point them in the right direction.

I believe nothing happens by accident. My fame has happened for a reason. My fans are my kindred spirits in revolution. If anyone chooses to ignore the message or the messenger, they do so at their own risk. Believe it or not, there are many more people out there that understand what I am trying to do than society wants to admit. The way I live my life represents a much bigger part of America than anyone would care to imagine.

KERRANG! (09/1997)

There's definitely ritual in music, it just depends if artists are smart enough to use it or not. Anything from a sporting event to a totalitarian rally to a rock concert has a lot of energy, which can be either chaotic or focused. When you focus it, it has a lot of power. A lot of people have learned to do that over the years for evil purposes, whether it be Julius Caesar, Stalin or Hitler. Others, whether it be me, Madonna or Elvis Presley have used it for positive things.

I grew up feeling like I could never fit in no matter how hard I tried. One day, I realised that I didn't want to fit in. I could make my own standards and I'd live by them. That's what I try to tell people. Don't be afraid to say what's on your mind, and if it pisses someone off that's too bad. If you make everybody happy, you're an idiot.

Because the darker element is in everything, and some people are more willing to acknowledge it than others. It's strange for me, because I live in a different world to most people. They come up to me and say, 'Why is your performance so violent, dark and hateful?', and to me it's not. To me, it's very normal. At times, I feel like I'm beyond other people's experience. Like I've been through things they'll never go through.

I think anyone who has any sense of open-mindedness can relate to a lot of what I say, because it boils down to isolation and the feeling of not being able to fit in. Some people don't ever deserve to understand, but those people are necessary. Because what Christianity started out as wasn't anything more than what we saw at the show today. It was one person getting up and saying what he felt, and a lot of people going, 'Yeah, I feel that too.' Jesus was the first rock star, the first sex symbol and the first icon.

You just have to have a personal code. A lot of people probably assume that I have no values, but I do. If anything, I'm rather conservative. I try not to judge people for what they look like. I like to get to know somebody before I form an opinion on them. I think that's almost liberal. I'm not a malicious person. But the golden rule is, 'Do unto others as they do unto you.' You always have to assume that people are generally bad by nature.

I don't think there's anything I want that I can't have, and that's the bottom line. Whether it takes a day or a year, I get what I want. It's up to you whether you want to call that magic or determination, but it's a matter of will power and self-belief. I think everybody has that ability, but mankind is too busy playing with computers and watching T.V. to tap into their own power. Why fuck with virtual reality when you can have super-reality in your own life?

I just want to be a better person, and I want other people to be better people. I want people to be strong. I'm sick of living with weak people. But with great power comes responsibility. If you're going to have the power to control other people, then you have to be responsible and act accordingly. For instance, if you had the power to read someone's mind, you'd have to deal with what you see intelligently.

I don't really have any place in my heart for stupid or weak people. I try my hardest to be a strong person. I think with anyone, the thing that they hate are their own fears, and I guess through a little bit of self-analysis, I've realized that I have a fear of being a weak person. So Marilyn Manson is a bit of a challenge to people's intelligence. It's almost a little bit of a science project to see how far I can push you, and see exactly what kind of a reaction I can get. If you listen to Marilyn Manson and you decide to go off and commit some act of violence, or you decide to kill yourself, then that's a responsibility you need to take for yourself, that's nothing you can put off on me or off on the television or anything like that. If anyone, your parents should be responsible for raising you to be an idiot, so that you will be influenced so easily by someone in a band. I've never gone out and told anyone to commit these acts, but if somebody kills themselves because of our music, then that's one less stupid person in the world. There are too many people in the world, and they need to make way for the people who actually can contribute something to society. If you've got that kind of mentality where you would so easily be swayed, then you have no contribution, you have no place to stand in my movement, if you want to call it that.

MELODY MAKER (09/1997)

Look, why do people want to be beautiful? To be loved, accepted, conquer their fear of exclusion. I finally realized after years of not being accepted — why not create your own standard and let other people be accepted or rejected by you? We've reversed the whole idea of the fascism of beauty and replaced it with our own standard. We destroyed it to create a new way.

No, all there is, is making people think for themselves. That's it. No answers. You make your choice. Fascism is precisely what I'm out to destroy but if people see our show and see fascism, it's in them already, it's a self discovery. And that's what we're here for, to make people think, enable self-discovery. I ain't here to condemn or condone. I'm here to go against the grain. I've transformed my world so that I am my own work of fiction, with no boundaries to what I can do, no limits. I'm saying anyone can do that. Anyone.

The underlying theme of all our music is ending judgement, speaking your mind, not caring about what the next guy thinks. It's about going beyond race, sex, sexuality. I want as many people, especially the kind of people who probably won't hear us, to experience our music. Quote-unquote 'normal' people can be treated like shit at our concerts and that sickens me. That's just creating an opposite version of what we're trying to destroy. We're not about monoliths and edifices, we're about exploring the ruins.

NME (08/1997)

Well, look, if my ideology is a hand then that's just two fingers. I incorporate a lot of Christian morality into what I do and in fact a lot of my beliefs are very conservative — like my desire for the world to be a better place where people use more intelligence. If you had to condense all that I believe in, it's that responsible, intelligent people should be allowed to do what they want. That artists and performers and architects, people who contribute something to the world, that actually have something to say as opposed to a business man or a politician, say, people who actually contribute to society, the power should be traded. The creators are always suppressed — other than the placebo 'fame' that they're always given. I don't really suggest any solution — that we could all kick them out of their positions of power and take over. It's just the idea that if you enjoy what you do, that's why you should do it.

It's also about everybody's need to be accepted. The idea of beauty in America is so fascist because you've got commercials constantly telling you that if you don't look this way or drive this car then you're not going to be accepted by your peers. If you grow up with that constantly it starts to affect you.

PENTHOUSE (05/1997)

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.

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.

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.

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.

”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?

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.

KERRANG! (05/1997)

It's part of finding yourself, when you can identify with an idol and find someone you can believe in. It goes beyond sexuality, it's something you feel in your heart rather than your crotch. When I was a kid, I didn't have sexual attractions to bands but I wanted to be with them all the time.

Were you popular with girls as a teenager?

No, I liked them but I didn't have much luck with them. I went through a bit of a misogynist period, because I was resentful that I didn't have any luck and I had a big heartbreak, but then I turned to writing and started the band, and that became my escape from worrying about girls. When you listen to our early songs, there are a lot of spiteful lyrics about relationships which comes from that period.

I wouldn't support having sex with a child and I can't imagine having sex with an animal. [...] Other than those things, I think most things are acceptable. There are things that I don't want to do sexually, but I don't actually morally disagree with them.

Do you like the idea of finding a significant other?

Yeah, there's a lot of worth to that idea. It's great if you can find someone to share your problems and the things you care about. It's good to find someone you can trust, but that's hard. I don't trust myself, so I find it hard to trust others.

I'm a shy person generally, but then a lot of artists and musicians are. I'm comfortable around girls, but it takes a lot for me to open up to anyone. I've found that a lot of people are afraid of me, so I have to try harder to overcome the stigma that's attached to my image.

ALTERNATIVE PRESS (1996)

I think our band is simply America at its truest. Caffeine, sugar, violence, drugs - these are all the things we were raised on. And as things start to get more and more out of hand in America, everyone's trying to take it all back and give you Nutrasweet and PG-13 and safe sex, but how can they take it away and try to start over? It's like we're listening to a cassette tape of the end of the world. I just want to fast forward it and turn it up louder.

I mean, if our music didn't matter, we wouldn't be sitting here having this conversation. I think anybody can say what I want to say. Anybody can look like I look. But if the music isn't something that people can identify with, it's not going to matter. I think in the end Marilyn Manson is definitely a band, and we like to write songs. But at the same time I think things need to be powerful, need to hit you in the face these days, because there are so many things in your face, and everyone's so desensitized. You really need to pummel them to get your point across.

Don't get me wrong, because I love paradoxes, but America's so confusing. Capitalism tells you if you work hard enough you'll be better than the next guy, but everyone's created equal. So what's it gonna be? And everyone's so down on child pornography, but then the big thing, just a year ago, was the waif model, who looked like a 14-year-old, flat-chested and skinny, dressed like a schoolgirl. I mean, they send out so many mixed messages, it's no wonder there's Ted Bundys and Jeffrey Dahmers — they don't know what else to do. It's no wonder everyone wants to kill themselves and kill everyone else.

I think a lot of people may misunderstand what type of person I might be, I consider myself actually, and this sounds almost funny, a sensitive person. I think that's why I've constructed such a hard shell around myself, because things do affect me a lot and I am pretty fragile on the inside. People think maybe that I hate everything, that there's nothing in the world that I love. But there are things that I care about enough that I would give anything for. I think it's just the fact that I'm hurt by my dissatisfaction with so many things around me. It's like, I guess, just being offended by how much everything sucks, that I can't help but to be in a bad mood all the time.

1995 - 1990

UNDERSCOPE (11/1995)

I think the people who follow Marilyn Manson are strong minded people who have decided to be individuals. They're strong enough to break away from a lot of the mentality of their classmates, fellow workers or whoever that may be. Of course it's a catch 22, someone would assert the question 'Well, yeah they not be listening to Christianity or their parents, but they're still listening to you,' meaning me, but I think that's at least a little more in the direction of individuality than the other choice. I'm not telling them to be like me, I'm telling them to be themselves. It's a group on non-joiners and I'm just trying to assert myself as some sort of leader because that's what our generation needs right now. As far as being an Antichrist, there's been many in the past. What people don't understand about the idea of an Antichrist is that it's not necessarily one person that embodies that title, I believe the Antichrist is the embodiment of disbelievers in Christianity and that's the entire secular world. Just as everyone who doesn't agree with that particular organized religion is the Antichrist as much as I am, I think the people who agree with what I'm saying are just as Marilyn Manson as I am.

I go on stage to get hurt. I often, as part of the catharsis that every show is for me, end up hurting myself. Whether that's intentional or not I don't know. It happens the way it happens. And if that translates into if I like people to hurt me, the answer is no. That's not something I'm into, but a lot of people think that.

RIP (10/1995)

After spending a brief amount of time with Mr. Manson, one thing becomes more and more apparent: He radiates sincerity. He's not ashamed to embrace darkness as well as light. Ask the soft-spoken, intelligent singer any question; he won't flinch.

I'm a pretty moody person. I spend a lot of time holding back a lot of things, so performing live is really the only way to get those things out. I know a lot of what I do on stage is over the top, but that's the only time certain things can come out and if that means I go to jail for it or I hurt myself, that's the way it's gotta be. Both onstage and off-stage, I represent everything people could be afraid of because it's everything that's taboo, whether that's sexually, religiously, morally, musically. We try to deal and create areas most people are too afraid to tread for fear of offending other people. Right now, it's real easy to be politically correct and easy to be accepted as long as you play within the MTV idea of what's acceptable. We're everything people are afraid to think about. As far as me personally, anything that I'm afraid of I just go out and do it. That way I'm not afraid of it anymore. I go right to the heart of the issue. I'm into playing by my own rules. I'll do shit all the time knowing that it's not going to be accepted, but I'm doing it for my own enjoyment. That's the bottom line. If at the end of the day you didn't do it for your own enjoyment, then what's the point in doing something? I am my own biggest hypocrite, because the things that I say and do are very irreconcilable.

Like the Dope Hat video?

Exactly. I think it's very irreconcilable to combine the elements of a childhood story like Willy Wonka with some of the other sexual, more disturbing violent images that we used. So what? I don't measure success in terms of money. Sure, I'd like to have money, but it's not a big deal to me. Making a difference in one way or another usually gives me some sort of satisfaction. I like making a dent, making a point. That's what satisfies me most about what I do.

TULSA WORLD (09/1995)

Anyone who misunderstands Marilyn Manson right off the bat and takes it for the shock value only — thinks we're glorifying anything — is just feeding into the very trap that we're all about, if you're disgusted by us, then you should be asking yourselves why you're disgusted and why you created this possibility in the first place.

I get a lot of flak from people who think that what I do isn't me, that it's just an image we put forth to get attention. I'm sorry if I'm a little more creative than Hootie and the Blowfish, but I'm not doing this for anyone else. I want to be the things that made me happy when I was a kid. Everyone has an image, even if it's a bland, regular-guy image. I make myself happy being this way. I do this for me.

ROCK OUT CENSORSHIP #019 (08/1995)

Are your performances more spontaneous than planned?

Yeah, it's all depending on what kind of mood I'm in. I'm a very moody person, so instead of making that a fault, I try to capitalize on it, and I express whatever I have to at any given moment and that's why sometime things come out offensive to some, it's because I'm just expressing myself how I feel, a lot of people are afraid to say what's on their mind, but I think if more people did, then things would be understood better.

If I can at least make people want to ask questions, at least make them want an answer, want the answer, I don't really have the answer necessarily, but if I make them want something more than what they're given on MTV, in commercial radio, then I think I've accomplished something. Because now, the idea of individuality, is just completely misinterpreted by kids growing up. They are sold individuality from MTV, they're told how to be cool, they're told what they're supposed to like and they think they're being rebellious because their parents don't agree with it, they're just being part of an anti-trend.

Well, obviously these people needed something outside of themselves to blame for their problems. That is the function of the Devil in traditional Southern Christian religions, and it seems to be the function of Marilyn Manson for these same groups, or it can be an exhilarating experience for those so inclined to a more diversified view.

Sure, Marilyn Manson is the same thing for me. I'm into that balance of positive and negative in the extremist forms, and that's why people don't really understand a lot of things I'm saying. They can't understand how I can open up the show with something from Willy Wonka and close the show with Rock'n'Roll Nigger by Patti Smith. It doesn't make sense to them. But that's what I'm about. Extremes. Extreme positive, extreme negative. I find that gray area that you find in the middle, that is what I find works for me. It's just, I'm extreme in anything I do. In America, and mostly due to part of Christianity, we're taught to have such watered down feelings, y'know, 'love thy neighbor', 'love thy enemy'. Y'know, if you love everyone around you, if you love everyone, then what does love mean? That's the kind of mentality we have. That's not the case for me, if I hate something, I despise it with all my heart, and if I love something, I would never ruin it for anything.

What's the extreme positive for Marilyn Manson?

I think by being ourselves, and saying really what's on my mind, it lets a lot of people feel like it's okay for them to do the same, and I think it gets a lot of people to let out things that they've got pent up inside of them, whether that be positive or negative, they have a chance to get it out when they listen to our CD or see us perform.

How do you interpret this mass voyeurism that is American Culture?

I think America is all a talk show, I think, right now, we're on a talk show, and the people who read the article that you write will be a part of the same talk show. It's just people find their own lives so boring that they have to live vicariously through other people's misfortunes and daytime dramas and all that, it's what America has become. People are too lazy to live their own lives, so they'd rather watch other people's lives and try to stand in judgement from their couch and judge other people for what they're doing. The talk show hosts don't even realize they're a part of it, I see shows about, like for example if they were to have me on there, they would probably have someone who's family was murdered by one of the serial killer's names who's part of Marilyn Manson, and the talk show host would probably ask me how I can capitalize off of other people's pains and make money off it, when that's what the whole talk show is about, and that's exactly what he's doing, and he's playing this part, wearing this good guy badge. What I'm saying is, they miss the point about what I'm saying just by them having a show like that is proving my point. They're not exposing me, my whole point is everyone's a hypocrite, you just decide which lie works for you best. It's just like the amusement park mentality. People see a sign that says ride at your own risk, that's what they want right away, that sense of danger.

That's the thing, if you want to be an individual, then you have to accept the responsibility of that. That goes for everyone, people in America, they all want to have the freedom to do and say and read and listen, watch whatever they want, but people don't want to accept the responsibility if they get themselves into trouble, they want to cop out and say, well, I did it because of that, I did it because of this. If our music made more stupid people kill themselves, I'd be the happiest person.

JAM (02/1995)

It happened. I didn't plan it out. It just happened. We ended up laughing about it later. Everybody seems so taken back by it. My parents were there. They weren't even shocked about it, so I don't know why anyone else is. Ever since then, people have been questioning my sexuality. Am I gay, straight, bi-sexual? To ask me that is to be ignorant to what Marilyn Manson stands for. Marilyn Manson transcends morality, and sexuality. He's a gray area. I don't like putting a label on anything. Yes, I see where they would be taken back, people's real fears start to come out when you do something like that. A lot of macho guys started calling me 'faggot,' wanted to start a fight with me. Why would they want to fight me 'cause I did that? Obviously, it scared them. I'm confident enough with my sexuality where I can do something like that. Anyone who knows me knows I like girls.

SECONDS (1994)

Do you see a race war coming?

We see the irony between the political climate now and when the whole Manson thing went down. The only thing missing is the Vietnam War. I think the problem right now is people have the whole "Free Your Mind" campaign shoved so far down their throats that it's caused a violent reaction and more racial tension. At a certain point, the campaign stopped being a positive political message and became a commercialization and it became a campaign to make money. People are always going to react against what they're told to do. "Just Say No" didn't help the drug problem. It's really weak in America that you can't get in a verbal fight with a woman without being called a sexist. You can't get in a fight with someone who's a different color than you without being called a racist. Even if the person's just an asshole regardless of what color they are, you're a racist. I think it's weak that America has become so politically correct that everything's an ism. It's gotten to the point where you have to curb your emotions. People should be allowed to hate other people if they deserve it. There's plenty of reasons to hate people other than the color of their skin or their sex. We run into assholes constantly. It's going to come crashing down and we'll be the house band in Hell. I'm not ever gonna try and compare myself to the bullshit women have gone through and people of color have gone through to get to where they are. At the same time, we get discriminated against on a daily basis because of the way we look. People won't even get in an elevator with us. I'm worrying about myself, we're worried about the kids that are like us who are freaks. They're fuckin' throwaway kids. That's who we're standing up for. We're standing up for the people no-one else is standing up for. [...] Political correctness has really fucked things up. You get assumed something that you're not just for being yourself.

What would you like people to get from your music?

I'd like them to have some sort of reaction to it whether they hate us or love us. I'd rather they had an extreme reaction rather than a lukewarm one. I'd like people to start questioning their upbringing more after hearing us. I'd like them to not feel so guilty about what they have been taught to be wrong. It seems like that we're taught that all our natural human emotions - hate, lust, greed - are all wrong. Those are the natural feelings that you're going to have and for you to feel that they're wrong is guilt that people use to control you. I think people should explore their own morality and be more individualistic and take control of their own lives.

BLACK MARKET (09/1994)

Well you know if someone says that they don't like something, I wanna find out why. Generally I found that the things I don't like are the things I'm afraid of, I don't like weak people because I'm afraid of being weak. I want to think for myself, I don't want people to tell me what to think or what I'm supposed to believe in, and I think that goes for everybody. People often gravitate towards things like Marilyn Manson because of their fears and they like their fears. People are like an amusement park ride and it's ride at your own risk. People see that sign and it makes them want to go in more because they know of that danger. I wonder why society needs something like Marilyn Manson, that's one of the questions that I'm asking. I've been raised on American culture, I'm a true product of America. So it's completely unjustified for society to consider what I'm doing wrong. I'm a symptom of a problem that they created. I came from them and they can't blame anybody but themselves.

I'm really into nostalgia and it plays a big part in what we do. Just because things are new doesn't mean that they're necessarily better and there's a lot of times in your life that, you know, certain things like Lidsville, that takes you back to that time in your life. Like with our song Lunchbox, it's kind of an autobiographical account of my childhood growing up. About five years ago I found my KISS lunchbox and I remember the time when I was in Christian school and I wasn't allowed to take it to school. They thought it was satanic, and around that same time I'd always get my ass kicked by the kids in public school because I was a sissy in private school. And then I finally got kicked out of Christian school for stealing money out of the girls purses during prayer. I thought it was kind of poetic, but they didn't agree with that. It just kinda reminded me of that, and it just reminded me of all the people who fucked with me. And I always knew someday I would have my revenge and this is my way of getting back. Because now they're probably middle-aged and have families and live in a trailer and I'm doing this. Fuck them.

Marilyn Manson is just two words, if you want to make it into something that it's not - you can. It's whatever you want to make it. It's America that makes Marilyn Manson a dirty word, because they're the ones that put Charles Manson into it. Whatever they want to do, you have to take the responsibilities for your actions. I don't want to hear any cop outs from anybody and try to blame it on an album, just because you're oppressed doesn't give you the right to oppress others. Just because you're victimized doesn't give you the right to victimize others, or if you do that, just take the rap for it.

So your view on suicide is that if somebody's going to do something, they'll do it no matter what?

It's their responsibility, it's not mine. I'm responsible for my actions so they should be for theirs, that's my attitude. It's their parents fault.

RAG (08/1994)

The death of Dr. Gunn was barely publicized, yet it proved an unnerving point, your new single, Get Your Gunn was prompted by this event, what's your take on activist groups?

It's hard to even tackle that subject. I think a lot of those people are just weak people that don't really have anything to live for. So they attach themselves to some group, some way of thinking to make themselves feel like they have some value in their lives. And they put on some good guy badge that says, 'I'm pro-life' to make them feel good about themselves. If someone were to come up to you and say they were abducted by a UFO, you're gonna think they're nuts. But if they told you they talked to Jesus, most people are going to accept that because America has embraced this mental handicap of Christianity and its way of being so acceptable that the whole Dr. Gunn incident was just brushed under the rug anyway. If it would've been Nazi Skinheads killing a Jewish doctor it would have been on Geraldo every day of the week.

Marilyn Manson for me is like a slideshow, I'm like the barker, I'm getting people's attention and I'm saying 'Come see this freakshow!' I pull back the curtain and it's just a mirror, and that terrifies people more than anything. I don't worry about sexism, racism or any other kind of 'ism, because I hate people on an individual basis. I don't generalize any kind of group because that's just unintelligent. I don't have a problem with hating a girl, or someone who is a different race than me just because they're an asshole. It has nothing to do with their gender or their skin color. I'm more worried about the discrimination that I receive on a regular basis. People make up their minds about me before ever talking to me, just by the way I look.

I think everything is just becoming more commercialized. And things do become more acceptable when they can make money for the people who are deciding what's acceptable and what's not.

Kids can see through things more honestly than adults do. They see the scariness in places where adults don't. They also see the beauty in ugly things. When you're a kid you have a dream and that means something because you really believe it can come true. That's what Marilyn Manson is all about; finding something positive out of darkness and pointing out the ugliness in things that are supposed to be beautiful. I think kids do that, kids are pretty honest - I'm trying to hold on to that. I'm trying to be Peter Pan!

Ideally I would like to make a difference and make people listen to what I'm saying, and maybe change their thinking a little bit. Even the smallest degree would make a difference to me. And then I want to make music. I want kids to realize that they don't have to fall into the program that your parents have set up for you from birth. You can think for yourself. You don't have to go to college to live your life happy. The topic of artist or listener responsibility is something that I always talk about. If kids want to have the freedom to listen to whatever they want to, they should take on the responsibility and the parents should take on the responsibility of teaching their kids to think intelligently. A kid should be able to listen to a song and not want to kill somebody or kill himself. That shouldn't have to be the artist's responsibility. What I'm singing about is my sarcastic, sardonic, even bitter look at what's going on. It's just my point of view. If people want to share my point of view and they can understand where I'm coming from, fine. If not, they don't have to.

FOAMM (1992)

Looks like you guys are slowly climbing up the ladder of success...

Sounds like it. I'm not sure. I don't know what I want to happen.
I think I'd handle stardom pretty well, eh? [laughs]

HARDCORE!

FUCK YEAH!

Well, I don't want to end up being a media whore. And all that. I want to be a positive and negative symbol at the same time. Make any sense?

THRUST (11/1991)

We don't condone violence, racism, drug abuse... If you don't like what you see — take some action.

I show people their own fear. If people are afraid of being gay then they're going to think we're a bunch of fags. If people are real religious they're going to think we're satanic. Everything people say about us is more a reflection of what they think rather than what we think.

WYNX-FM (1990)

How would you describe your music?

[...] I think it's pretty much like, "60s meets 90s-psychedelic-industrial-brain tumor-disorder-thrash" sort of thing. It's kind of groovy, you know, groovy. I guess the word "groovy" will work.

So what does the future hold for Marilyn Manson and the Spooky Kids?

Well man, we want to be brand new at what we are trying to do, and want to affect as many people as we can with our music. We want to make changes in this town. We want to develop our cult and make it stronger. We have the Spooky Kids Hotline, we got people calling in all the time. Mass amount of people, wackos, crazies, I love 'em all, and I want to thank them all. And we're just going to move something, that's what we are going to do.