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Interview
from Kerrang, February 2001.
Marilyn Manson, 32, has spent the last three months
promoting his latest album ‘Holy Wood (In The Shadow Of The Valley
Of Death)’ with his band on the worldwide ‘Guns, God &
Government’ tour. He spends his days sleeping in hotels, dreaming
of revolution. His waking hours are spent creating merry hell as the
self-styled God Of Fuck. He currently lives in Los Angeles with his
collection of stuffed animals.
"I’M NOT normally a break-fast person —
I usually proceed straight to lunch, especially because by the time
I wake up breakfast has long gone.
"Lately on tour, I’ve been going to bed about
seven and waking up around four, four-thirty, just in time for soundcheck.
After that we generally commence the drinking, play the show and start
all over again. Some nights I drink more than others before we go on
but I’m not usually completely out of my mind, although there
have been a few occasions which I suppose were down to misery and self-destruction.
Generally I like to be conscious so that I can enjoy the interaction
between the crowd and myself.
"Sometimes on tour I like to read, if I have time. At
Christmas I was given a signed copy of ‘American Psycho’,
but the author, Brett Easton Ellis, managed to spell my name wrong.
He f**ked up. Yesterday I actually did some writing. I’m working
on a piece that I’m not sure what I’ll do with or how it’ll
turn out, but it’s called ‘The Suicide Batteries’.
It’s a story that’s based on a dream that I had on the plane
flying to the UK, about an attempt to return to the womb through a murder/suicide
by eviscerating someone and drowning in their insides. It was a bizarre
dream so I had to write it down.
"I also spend a lot of time watching movies, either
on the TV or on the tour bus. At the moment it’s a tradition of
the band to watch ‘The Big Lebowski’ every day in the dressing
room. It’s always play-ing and for whatever reason we’re
all familiar with the dialogue, so it’s often repeated.
"For this tour I’ve tried to create a stage-show
that looks like how ‘Holy Wood...’ sounds, and obviously
there are elements of communist imagery because of the revolutionary
ideas I talk about on the record, plus there’s religious imagery
and celebritarian imagery, It’s always very difficult for me to
describe a Manson show because I wish that I could sit down and watch
it, something I’ll never be able to do. Sound-wise things are
really raw right now. It’s the best — and the longest —
set that we’ve done. We can now play for an hour and 40 minutes
each night whereas there used to be a time where we’d struggle
to play for 45 minutes because we were so hell-bent on destroying ourselves
and everything onstage. That element is still there, though. This tour
reminds me a lot of the ‘Smells Like Children’ tour, but
it still has the grandness, the theatrics and the bombastic qualities
of our ‘Antichrist Superstar’ and ‘Mechanical Animals’
albums.
"Before we flew to Europe, I managed to spend a couple
of free days in Los Angeles with Joey Jordison from Slipknot, who has
just done a remix of ‘The Fight Song’. It’s definitely
one of the best mixes we’ve ever had done. After this tour finishes
in Japan we are going to be playing the Ozzfest and I’m real happy
that Slipknot are on the bill too. We’re doing the entire US tour.
Then after that we hope to be back to play some of the festivals in
Europe.
"Aside from that I’m also spending some time trying
to finalise the arrangements for the ‘Holy Wood...’ book.
so that I can put it out soon. The movie has to be done with the right
people. Right now I feel like life is pretty short and I want to enjoy
what’s in front of me and worry about the rest later."
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