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--Mechanical
Animals - Official Website Interview September 9, 1998
Q: What exactly does the name Mechanical Animals mean?
MM:"Mechanical Animals is the way I describe mankind and the path
it's following. That people look and act like human beings, but
inside, we're losing our souls, that we numb ourselves with drugs,
we numb ourselves with television. we numb ourselves with the Internet,
with prescription drugs, with whatever we can find, because everyone's
afraid to be an individual. And Mechanical Animals is the fear that
I have for the world."
--Machines - CMJ Magazine - Issue 64
MM:"The idea of Mechanical Animals is that man makes himself more
and more irrelevant with what he creates. You kind of have to remember
where it all comes from. If machines someday replace men, they would
realize that you can't replace the human soul, so they'd have to
try to start manufacturing humans again."
--Speed of Pain - Chart Magazine - October 1998
MM:"Speed of Pain was inspired by the scientific theory that they’re
trying to make machines that operate at the speed of pain, like
the human nervous system. It’s more about the coming to terms with
man’s relevance on earth. How it’s becoming more and more apparent
that by our own creations we will destroy ourselves. The album to
me is really a dystopia, the world I see ahead. It’s the second
part of my apocalyptic story."
--The Songs - Raygun Magazine - November 1998
MM:"But these songs definitely deal with the idea of love. Definitely
deal with the idea of alienation. Being a person that actually has
feelings in a place like this where no one does. It's unreal. Like
the emptiness of Hollywood. But, you know, with this album I was
not afraid to be rock 'n' roll and to be theatrical. And to be bombastic,
because that's what rock 'n' roll is. It just doesn't exist anymore."
--Omega - CMJ Magazine - Issue 64
MM:"I was imagining Omega to be the most exaggerated extension of
what the Antichrist Superstar was, everything that glam rock has
ever been and then some. To me glam rock has always meant a very
sarcastic and over-the-top flamboyant image that was hiding something
that was darker and more depressing underneath. That was always
the irony of glam rock to me. A lot of people never really looked
beneath that."
--Shells without Souls - Chart Magazine - October 1998
MM:"This record is kind of about waking up in a world that you didn’t
expect. I feel like I’ve been away from the world in a way for the
past couple of years. I feel like I’ve numbed myself and now I’ve
awakened and started to feel a lot of things I didn’t feel before.
This record is about trying to gain back those emotions. The more
I gain back, the more I can see the world as less and less caring,
less human. I see nothing but mechanical animals, these shells without
souls."
--Androids - JANE Magazine - November 1998
MM:"The more I began to feel, the less that it seemed the world
felt, and that's when I started seeing everything and everyone as
Mechanical Animals. People that looked and acted human, but were,
to me, were metaphorically more like androids. There was no soul
or spirit inside."
--Drugs on this album - JANE Magazine - November 1998
MM:"I meant narcotics as a metaphor for people's need to numb themselves.
That's what Mechanical Animals is hinting at. That we're encouraged
to not have emotions, to not be individuals, to not have an opinion.
As far as the message on the album, when it comes to drugs, it's
not a positive or a negative. In the past I used drugs to fill a
void. But now it is more of an inspiration or just purely for recreation.
I don't do them in excess."
--Inner Powers - Dutch TV Guide - October 10-16, 1998
MM:"Decadence is a very strong side of my personality. I consciously
play with that on my new album Mechanical Animals. It's also a way
to make things clear. By exaggerating, by magnifying subjects you
can pass on your intention in the right way. Apart from that I
am just somebody who's up for everything, to experiment with things
and to discover things, even if it was just only to test your own
inner powers."
--Unfolding his Personality - Dutch TV Guide - October 10-16, 1998
MM:"There's no flaw in that argument. What you hear is how I feel. And
on Mechanical Animals I very strongly felt the urge to bring out
the new sides to my personality. You can easily say that a rebirth
has taken place. Before I could and dared only to show only one
side of my Marilyn Manson."
--Identifying with Humanity - Chicago Tribune 1998
MM:"The music is a lot more personal, about me finding myself in
the world and trying to identify with humanity instead of fighting
it."
--Songs on Mechanical Animals - Much Music - November 17, 1998
MM:"Seven of the songs on the album are kind of an homage to what
people make me out to be, sort of an icon. The other seven songs
are more internal, and because the record was about me putting myself
back together again after stripping away all my emotions, I was
thinking about my childhood a lot, so the music that I liked growing
up was very inspirational on this record."
--Coma White - Much Music - November 17, 1998
MM:"Well, the whole album, I speak about this unobtainable entity
called "coma white," which at times could be looked at as a drug
or a person or even the fans or even myself. And I try and point
out on the album that drugs kind of go beyond the obvious and that
it kind of exists and just people's need to suppress their feelings.
As I started to gain back all my emotions and talk about them on
the record, I began to see the rest of the world as being very mechanical,
and drugs as a metaphor for how people suppress being actually human,
with religion or with television or whatever you want to choose."
--Album Cover - Much Music - November 17, 1998
MM:"The image on the album cover was to represent vulnerability.
It was to represent an undefinable persona to represent sexlessness
and both sexes at the same time. So it did have feminine elements,
but it was also sexless at the same time."
--Explaining Mechanical Animals - Houston Chronicle April 4, 1998
MM:"We're trying for the rawness and sincerity of the Stooges, early
Pink Floyd. And the perspective is more in keeping with the way
I've felt since writing the book. It's about a person who's been
away from the world for a long time and returns. Like Edward Scissorhands
or something from 70's science fiction. About how it's quite hard
to fit in once you've been exiled."
--California - Time Out Magazine - April 15 1998
MM:"California's just too complicated to explain in one conversation.
It's best described as from where I live on the hill, looking down
on the city, it's like floating in space. Even the stars seem below
you it can be very depressing. So there'll be a lot on this record
about the darkness behind the California smile. I want somebody
to hear a song from the new album and say thats a really good song,
who sings it? and have one of their friends tell them it's marilyn
manson."
--Mechanical Animals - Cream Magazine Winter 1998
Q: Tell us Marilyn. Do you fear death?
MM:"My new record represents not so much a fear of dying, but more
a reason to live. I’m finally having feelings, having things to
fight for, which represents a reason not to die."
--Rock n Roll - Norwegian Radio Interview 1998
Q: Do you feel that you are recognized as a band? I mean musically
or just the image of Marilyn Manson as a provocateur?
MM:"Well, different people look at it in different ways so it is
hard to say how everybody sees it. I think Mechanical Animals establishes
our musical identity very firmly and it will re-establish rock 'n
roll in America because it's been dead for ten years. So, I think
this is kind of the last hope in this millennium for rock 'n roll."
--The Music - Norwegian Radio Interview 1998
Q: Musically, you are most settled now then on your three first
albums. What happened?
MM: It is more sophisticated now. I'm expressing different ideas,
different emotions and I think it's something that you can find
more of. And, the more you listen to it the more you discover that
it is a more complex version of what I have done in the past."
--Mankind Destroying Itself - Norwegian Radio Interview 1998
Q: Do you worry about the future?
MM:"I don't worry about it, but I think Mechanical Animals kind
of deals with the fear of the ending of the mankind losing itself.
I think man is kind of destined to destroy himself, so it is more
about finding something to live for while there is still time."
--Mechanical Animals Album Cover - Select Magazine January 1999
MM:"I think my album cover went about as far as I could go without
becoming a skeleton. All clothing and sexuality were stripped away.
It made me very innocent. Maybe if I were to dress like Lionel Richie.
That could be possibly more offensive. I could make myself black.
Michael Jackson made himself white, so it's been something I've
been thinking about."
--Machines - Access Magazine Issue 38
MM:"Although I think machines, no matter how fast or how smart that
they become, they'll finally realize that you can't duplicate the
human soul."
--The Dope Show - Access Magazine Issue 38
MM:"Well, if someone sees something ugly, it's in their own mind.
If I say the word 'queers' in 'The Dope Show', which has no reference
to homosexuality, if people see that as hateful, then I think that’s
in their perception. If I say the word 'white' and all of a sudden
that’s racist then that’s reflective of feelings that people have.
You could pick any word and make it ugly depending on the context.
And I think in my context, I'm not lashing out against anybody."
--Next Album - Addicted to Noise - March 3, 1998
MM:"After going through what I just did in the past two years, it's
almost like Edward Scissorhands, or E.T. Someone who feels like
they're in a place where their not accepted or don't belong. Often
times, something that is different, that you don't understand, like
a spider, you want to kill it immediately. It's more from that perspective.
It's much more vulnerable music that I'm making on this new album.
Both sonically and lyrically it's about the depression of alienation,
rather than the aggressiveness of it. It's about the emptiness."
--California & Mechanical Animals - Time Out Magazine April 8, 1998
MM:"California's just too complicated to explain in one conversation.
It's best described as from where I live on the hill, looking down
on the city, it's like floating in space. Even the stars seem below
you it can be very depressing. So there'll be a lot on this record
about the darkness behind the California smile."
--Manson in Movies - Juice Magazine October 1998
Q: Do you think you may work with Rose MCGowan one day?
MM:"I actually had a cameo in a movie that she has coming out called
Jawbreaker. It's just a small role. I play a sleazy person in a
bar with a mustache. It's not that explicit. It's more of a PG movie.
But I pick her up and we have sex. It won't be out til next year."
--Manson in Movies - Juice Magazine October 1998
Q:Do you want to do more acting?
MM:"Yeah, absolutely. I mean, its something that actually I wanted
to do before I started doing music. But I haven't really had the
time until now to start getting involved. I have a movie that I'm
putting together that goes with Mechanical Animals that will probably
be the first thing I'll dedicate myself to in a film."
--Armegeddon - Juice Magazine October 1998
Q:Do you believe in Armageddon?
MM:"Yeah, I think the end of the world is something that mankind
has always been destined to invite upon itself. I don't think it
has come from any spiritual force. I think man has a basic penchant
to destroy himself and I'm sure it will eventually happen. It's
not something that I'm afraid of, or think should be stopped, because
it's what mankind deserves, really."
--Manson in Movies - Juice Magazine October 1998
Q:Do you want to do more acting?
MM:"Yeah, absolutely. I mean, its something that actually I wanted
to do before I started doing music. But I haven't really had the
time until now to start getting involved. I have a movie that I'm
putting together that goes with Mechanical Animals that will probably
be the first thing I'll dedicate myself to in a film."
---Purity - Aardschok Magazine November 1998
Q: When I listen to the lyrics of Mechanical Animals, I sense that
you are longing for a pure, honest purity.
MM:"That's indeed the case. Only I try to reach that by going in
the opposite direction. The more you go through, the more you can
leave behind. It may sound bizarre, but while rooting in the mud
pool of life I feel myself getting cleaner bit by bit. I would like
to become as pure and immaculate as a child. The boy I once was,
but that got stained by life. Exceeding myself to everything was
mostly a way to straighten out my youth."
--Mechanical Animals - Hit Parader Magazine December 1998
MM:"This record will only help our fans along to the next level."
--Re-birth - MTV (Manson TV) - Sept 14, 1998
MM:"Its like a re-birth. It's like being an infant, everythings
bright, everythings very painful."
--Gift - Official Website Interview September 9, 1998
MM:"This record is my gift to you, and I hope everybody can take
something from it and learn the things that I learned while making
it."
--The Name Omega - Official Website Interview September 9, 1998
MM:"The name Omega refers to the final chapter in this story that
started with Antichrist Superstar. And it is a reference to the
end. But it's not necessarily a reference to the end of my career."
--Dope Show Video - Official Website Interview September 9, 1998
Q: What was your inspiration for the "Dope Show" video?
MM:"Living in Hollywood, like I mentioned, it made me feel very
alienated. And there's so many people that I've seen around me fall
prey to dope, which is really a euphemism not only for drugs, but
to fame, to power, to money. And this video is kind of representing
how the world tries to put me into a rehabilitated state, tries
to shape me, tries to make me into this perfect rock star, tries
to make me into something safe. But
that I refuse to be a clone, refuse to be copied, to be a copy."
--Machines Replacing Humans - Official Website Interview September
9, 1998
MM:"And the one ray of faith that I have, that I try to assert on
this album, is that if we came to a time when our creations, machines,
for lack of a better word, replaced us and made us obsolete. The
thing that they would eventually discover is that you cannot duplicate
the human soul, you cannot duplicate man's need to create. Something
can create, but it will never have the desire and the need to express
itself."
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