Interview:2002/03/12 Rock Show

The Rock Show Interview
Interview with Marilyn Manson
Date	March 12, 2002
Source	The Rock Show
Interviewer	Mary Anne Hobbs

Vampirical rock God, Marilyn Manson, took time out from avoiding sunlight and petting his fluffy white cat (?!) to talk about his new album with Mary Anne Hobbs.

Mary Anne Hobbs: Hi Marilyn, where are you calling from today?

Marilyn Manson: I'm calling from my red room in Los Angeles. It's my 1930s Berlin-cabaret-decadent-entertainment room. It's where my friends come to watch movies, consume Absinthe, take drugs and to pet my white cat.

Mary Anne Hobbs: How's the album coming on? Is there an alter ego in tow?

Marilyn Manson: Yes, there's an alter ego in tow. In fact you will be visiting the altar of my ego and you will bow down before it. The new record brings out the dandy in me and accepting my life as my ultimate work of art as much as anything I create. Pushing the decadence to the limit. Much like I made the transition from Mechanical Animals, which was glamorous like a wonderful birthday cake.

But this is like leaving the cake outside and the worms get in it and it starts to stink a little bit. It's quite beautiful and grotesque and inspired by the depression era, Vaudeville, 30s Berlin. My image is pushed completely to the extreme. It will be entirely what people are not expecting.

The music itself... I suppose I've hinted at it with Tainted Love, but it's far more hard. The kind of music that makes you want to bang your head and you don't stop at any point. It deals a lot with relationships past and present.

I've created a language of my own on this record. In the spirit of Cab Calloway ['Hi-De-Ho' man on old-school kids show Sesame Street, singer of 'Minnie the Moocher' in the Blues Brothers movie - he used a lot of 'nonsense' words]. I've got eleven songs with vocals so far and I expect there to be 13 on the record.

I'm going to announce the title of it, maybe later this week on my website. One of the songs is called 'Use Your Fist And Not Your Mouth'. It can be interpreted on so many levels.

Mary Anne Hobbs: Do we get a tub of vaseline with the album?

Marilyn Manson: I think you're gonna need one.

Mary Anne Hobbs: You look like you are on the cusp of a number one here in the UK…

Marilyn Manson: I thank you guys for that. I didn't write the song but I think I distorted it in the proper way so it's on a different level.

Mary Anne Hobbs: Your major rivals in the chart this week are the runner-up of Pop Idol and George Michael. Do you think you can beat them off?

Marilyn Manson: George Michael kissed cops far after I had kissing cops in my '[Show' video]. I deserve to win.

Mary Anne Hobbs: You have two soundtracks out this week too. You sing the vocals on Redeemer, for the film 'Queen of the Damned'.

Marilyn Manson: I don't have any responsibility for the writing of the song and I haven't read the book but people often think of me when they think of vampires. It was good for me to reunite my friendship with my friend Jonathon. He called and said I would be perfect for this track because my voice would suit Lestat better than his. It just happened quite quickly. I started at the witching hour of twelve and finished about 6am. I didn't write it but I enjoyed singing it.

Mary Anne Hobbs: And tell us about the Resident Evil soundtrack.

Marilyn Manson: Rather than writing a song for a movie I was asked to score the film so I was given a selection of 11 scenes and asked to compose songs. The music was written frame by frame. It started with the main title and all the rest of the music was based around that.

I worked with a more traditional composer, Marco Beltrame, who did some of the string stuff. One should not assume that the songs with just heavy guitars are the only things I did, because I did a lot of traditional stuff as well. I did this as a project by myself and not with my band and I worked hand-in-hand with Tim Scold. We have a kind of partnership with scores. He's producing my next album.

Mary Anne Hobbs: You had intimated that you would be very keen to play at Ozzfest.

Marilyn Manson: That's not happening unfortunately because I need to finish my record so that I can give a real show of my own when I come over. The inspirations for this record are European, as many are. But I even found myself singing in a German accent, like I was possessed by Marlene Deitrich.

Mary Anne Hobbs: When will you come over?

Marilyn Manson: At the end of summer. The record will hopefully be released in September.