Latest revision as of 13:17, 8 February 2024

Larry King Now, Marilyn Manson Interview[edit]

(background music)

Larry King: On Larry King now, Marilyn Manson, is the man behind the makeup a villain or just vilified?

(excerpts from the interview)

The Goth icon sets the record straight (more interview excerpts.) Plus (more interview excerpt)

Next on LK now

(cue music)

Welcome to Larry King now today’s guest is Marilyn Manson, a man who needs no introduction, a platinum selling musician Grammy nominated artist, cult rock icon, he’s now performing with another friend, Alice Cooper in his Masters of Madness Shock Therapy Tour. When he’s not making music, he acts, makes absinthe and dabbles in watercolor painting and thanks for coming.

Larry King: (to Marilyn Manson) Your name is Brian Warner.

Marilyn Manson: Brian Hugh Warner

Has anyone ever called you Brian?

Uhm My dad does.

He never got hooked on this, did he?

No, no he’s hooked on it, in fact he likes to come out on tour, I think he, he likes to soak up some of the .. he came for me, so he...

He helps

...with the young girls (laughs)

Oh Oh. Tell me how this thing came, tell me this shtick. How did you become Marilyn Manson?

Well, I, we might have this in common, I was uh, moved to Florida with my father and my first job that I could get, I conned my way into becoming a music journalist in Florida so I interviewed a lot of people,

Where? In Miami?

Yeah, in Miami it was amazing, called 25th Parallel. And by the time I was nineteen I was a senior editor And I was also mostly the only writer so the very first interview with Marilyn Manson was conducted by Brian Warner. So...

So you interviewed yourself.

Yeah, and I didn’t even have any songs yet. So I sort of.. So how did this come along with the Marilyn Manson thing?

Well it was obvious I watching , uh, you know at the time, all the Phil Donahues and Jerry Springer, before Jerry Springer but you know the fact that I was born in 1969 and that was the year that the Beatles, and you know, Charles Manson. And Marilyn Monroe, I just remember as a kid, Marilyn Monroe, fake name, Charles Manson, fake name, you put the two together it’s like abracadabra it really describes American culture, all together Marilyn Manson, you got light and dark and ..

but you took the name together of a notorious villain.

Well she wasn’t a villain. (laughs)

No he. (laughs) Good line, Marilyn. Now how did the makeup come about? Why you? Why the lipstick? Why glasses where I can see myself talking to you.

Well the lipstick’s good though. Because then if you come home with lipstick on your collar if you’re a white collar job man then. (inaudible) you’d dodge, you know,

Good thinking.

See see it’s always good to keep the..

But, I mean though why, why did you go this route?

Being a fan of Bowie, of Prince, Alice Cooper of course, and even Madonna um I don’t know, I think it’s probably you know I wrote a book before I was famous really, an autobiography and uh, and that sort of turned me into being more popular by making a book it was sort of like what Bowie did with Ziggy Stardust who came to America and said that he was something bigger than he was. I’ve always just been a big fan of um the Art of War or the War of Art whichever way you want to look at it, (Larry King laughs) it’s just that uh, if you’re going to do something in life, I’ve been a big fan of film and a big fan of music and I just wanted to be a part of it I have a lot of things to say about pop culture

Do you do your makeup every day? Or do you ever go around just without the makeup just like get on a plane no one knows who you are.

Yeah, well I mean it’s more so, I mean other than the fact I probably do less makeup than any girl that I know. I mean a little lipstick you can take it off and suddenly I become a red neck from Ohio so it’s easy (laughs)

Do you like to turn people off?

Like a light type, type of thing? You mean like offend people, you mean?

Yeah do you get a get a kick out of offending people? Is it a shtick?

I think, well it’s always been for me, uh, chaos and confusion are the best form of communication for me, I think that’s the way that you can really make art, you know art should be a question mark it should not be an answer, so if you ever explain your art rather than letting your art be an explanation of you.

I understand.

Yeah and then uh, you know, being a journalist you know, it’s still journalistic in some ways because I try to look at the world and try to think of how to process it and then you become a part of the pop culture that your, you started out criticizing, and I started out as a journalist writing about people who criticize art sort of when I think back at it, it’s sort of... You’ve done a circle.

It’s a weird progression I think your quality as an artist is measured equally by the people that dislike you and people that love you but you need to have both or you’re mediocre.

So you don’t mind being disliked.

Well, uh, I care more about the people that I surround myself with, what their opinions are and then when you think about it you end up showing all of your inner secrets your or whatever you want to show your feelings in songs and things like that to strangers essentially, I get on stage and I sing things that I wrote personally about someone or to someone and I sing to strangers so when people say oh is there a difference between Brian Warner and Marilyn Manson? Those are just words you, what is similar with it, probably the different amount of letters in them. (laughs) But that, other than that, it’s just another way of describing someone.

(laughs) So how is the tour with Alice Cooper going?

We just started that. I’m looking forward to it, obviously because he was a big influence on me as a kid, and my mom, I remember, who, my mom is now is uh, she, uh, she is, you know, I guess it’s been coming for quite some time but she is mentally ill like to the point where she can’t communicate with...

Oh it’s sad.

It is sad but I had to of course deal with it in my own way and a, so I’m not looking for sympathy when people say I’m sorry about that, I of course, I wish it could be different but I can’t change it. So..

( how do ... )

I just remember when I was a kid my mom used to tell me, my mom used to love Elvis and Alice Cooper and that’s why I dyed my hair black the first time.

I know Alice pretty good, Alice used to hang around Beverly Hills, sports fan, golfer.

He’s great. Yeah, we met recently, we actually the first time we met was in Transylvania, no lie.

You’re kidding.

No, we were both playing a some festival and it was in Transylvania, it was at...you couldn’t even make that up.

Do you play an instrument?

I play guitar but you know, uh mostly sing.

Do you sing together in the act?

Uh, we plan on doing a song together, but I don’t want to say which one.

More with my guest is more with my guest, Marilyn Manson, right after this, don’t click away.

(cue music)

Larry King: Our guest with, our guest is Marilyn Manson, he and Alice Cooper are touring in Master’s of Madness, Shock Therapy Tour. You intend to shock people.

Marilyn Manson: I think the best and only way you can shock people is with uh, light sockets. I actually bought a ring, it’s called the Suicide Ring it’s just a light socket thing.

A suicide ring?

Yeah, you just plug it into a light socket and boom, you’re shocked.

Oh I see, so you kill yourself.

Yeah, sorta, but I thought it would be a sarcastic art piece, but I thought it would be good for an engagement ring.

Do you think you’re misunderstood?

Uh, no I’m just understood differently by everyone, I think it’s the best way, it’s almost like Mickey Mouse,

(laughs)(inaudible) ...how did you? (laughs)

If you can’t really, you really can’t evolve that’s the way it really is.

( Larry King laughs) How did you get famous what made you, did something happen that was a hit record, what happened?

I think it was a moment in pop culture and MTV and rock n roll followed grunge and Alice Cooper even said this, he said when I...when someone asked him what did you really think when he first saw Marilyn Manson and you know because a lot of people said aw it’s just like Alice Cooper, you know, a girl’s name , and so forth and he said ‘thank god somebody finally did something exciting after grunge’.

Huh.

And for me, you know, I went to college briefly, at Broward Community College, I went for about three months and I took theater, and journalism and I learned how to spell blonde with an e if it’s a girl, and I learned to speak in front of people, but for the most part I’m shy even though what I do on stage is completely would not give you that impression.

Do you date?

Do I date? I have, have a, a partner, a girl.

You’re you’re,

I don’t use the word girlfriend.

but you’re a heterosexual.

Oh, oh, I’m very heterosexual. Was that a? What kind of question was that?

(Huh noise) ...It was a sane question, I mean, your name is Marilyn.

No I, just didn’t know if you were, (points at Larry King) asking me out on a date (laughs)

(laughs) No.

(laughs) I was just kidding.

You said you voted for the first time in 2008, right?

Yes. Who did you vote for?

Well, I voted for Obama. Ah, because... Would you vote for him again in 2012?

I didn’t like the whole process of voting because they didn’t even ask my name. I didn’t even present a driver’s license. I was just some random dude. But uh...

But you had to be on the voting list.

Yeah, I don’t know, I don’t even know how worked. It was very...

Where did you vote, in what city did you vote?

In Burbank, at a hotel.

You just walked in and voted.

Yeah.

So you’re now against voting?

No, I’m just that I’m so, you know, you’re a King, you should be into the feudal, the monarchy system.

I could issue decrees. Well, what John Kennedy once said the public would really love is a kind king.

That’s true.

Just leave me alone and let me do things.

Yeah, I was very obsessed with Kennedy after, uhm, right after the whole Columbine thing that I got blamed for it because..I ran, I ran a record.

How did you hear about it?

Well, I just remember sitting around watching TV in Chicago and I saw this taking place on TV and I go, I know I’m going to get blamed for this, you know it’s, it’s not like when you have...

Why were you blamed for Columbine?

They didn’t have, ...because they didn’t have, I, it was the best face to attach to, at the time, because I put myself in the role of villain. Because I think villains are the key to any good story. (Let me show) you what the bible...

But did you, did you endorse any mass shootings?

No, absolutely not.

So then why were you in Columbine?

Because I happened to have a song in the Matrix that had just come out and they’re shooting and I had a video on TV was called Rock Is Dead. The kids were not even fans of me, I think they probably thought I was too much of a sissy because I was wearing lipstick, I don’t really know.

But you must have...

Yeah, I don’t know what was going on with them.

...must have got a bad rap from that.

Yeah I did, I mean it put my whole career on hold. A lot of people don’t even know about it because of. I had to really take an active stance legally against a lot, a lot of news places for using Marilyn Manson which is trade mark much like Mickey Mouse is a (inaudible)

Did you sue people?

No, but I had to put a cease and desist order, so now people don’t talk about, so in some ways I feel mad that you know, other than Bowling For Columbine people which a lot of people at airports and places like that always say I didn’t know you were so smart, if it wasn’t for Columbine, and I always wanted to say, I didn’t know you were so stupid, but I don’t know you.

(Larry King chuckles)

But, uh, you know I just said the simplest thing of all uh,

Which is...

Well, I just said nobody listened to them, if somebody had just listened to them because Michael Moore just asked me what would I say and I said well, I would have just listened... as part of...

When Columbine happened though as soon as it happened, did you know you were going to be somehow involved?

Before they were showing me they even said ‘a gang of kids wearing Marilyn Manson t-shirts shot up the school’ or something live on Fox and I was saying oh this is why, you know this is, you know so now, I think I’ve been blamed for about 36 school shootings, uhm, well other than you know, it’s hard for me to have, I can have empathy I can have sympathy, I can have different feeling about, but, I met one of the survivors, from Columbine, the kid that’s in the wheel chair that’s in the Michael Moore documentary, and ah, other than, other than that, other than that, I don’t know these people personally, so I don’t feel that I don’t, I can’t have that fake sympathy that everyone has on TV, and they’re crying for people they don’t know, uhm, I’m not a misanthrope, I’m not an annalist, I’m not an atheist, I believe in spirituality, but it just really has to come from somewhere else, you know I was, I was brought up Christian though, I, mean I was..

But don’t you feel sadness for people who just through the, happened to be in a building on 9/11?

I uh, well, yeah...

(Can’t you have grief for them?)

I mean, well, of course, I don’t mean to say I’m insensitive to it, I just mean I don’t know them so I can’t personally, you know, if it was someone I knew that got hurt then of course, yeah, there’s so many bad things that happen in the world, if you feel bad about all of them, it’s just like love, if you love everyone, if you know, it kind of dilutes it, but you can’t, I just learned a long time ago you can’t change the world you can just try to make it, put something in it and, I think that that’s my spirituality, that if you don’t believe in putting something into the world, if you take all the basic principles of any religion, it’s usually about creation, you know there’s also destruction but creation, uh essentially, you know, I was raised, yeah, I went to a Christian school, because my parents wanted me to get a better education, but it ended up I just got kicked out...

(Larry King laughs)

I got beat up more by the public school kids but then I go, I go to like my friends Passover, and I thought that I was like, you know this is more, this is more fun than...

Well, Passover is fun. It’s spiritual.

Yeah, it’s a drinking game.

You’re a spiritual person, right? Yeah, (laughs) well I’m a romantic.

Music may be his first love but Marilyn’s exploring a new medium, we’re going to show you that and talk about it, after this.

(cue music)

Larry King: We’re back with Marilyn Manson you are the new face of St. Laurent, how did that come about?

Marilyn Manson: It must have been the lipstick, my wonderful charm and good looks, I don’t know, I, I met the photographer, the designer , for it when it was Yves St. Laurent, Hedi Slimane, and he’s a big fan of rock n’ roll so he’s taken a lot of rock n roll portraits over the years and he just called and they asked me to do it and so I...

Did you get paid for this?

Yes, so I’m a fashion model also, you can put that on...

Do you use their lipstick, the St. Laurent’s lipstick?

No, I don’t actually.

You DON’T use their lipstick.

No, just the clothes.

Just the clothes

Not today, but...

But you wear St. Laurent.

Yes.

So you’re a, so obviously you’ve overcome any bad image to have a major fashion company use you, and pay you.

Sure, I mean, I don’t think there’s, I don’t know, you know there’s the a, well it’s almost impossible to kind of to make a mathematics of that now the in the era when you got your Lindsay Lohans and your Paris Hiltons and when, when celebrities started to ( morph) you know this obviously more so than me, you being in the your job and what you do, for talking to every person in the culture, uh there was a point where when I started out, you know, I was a rock star, I became a rock star and then I became famous, I did a cover of Sweet Dreams, and you know the Eurhythmic’s song and was my first sort of breakout thing, that people knew me for and now people don’t even realize that the Eurhythmic’s wrote that because everything is so ephemeral and they say everything is forgotten the next day. So...I think it’s a, it’s a..

So you don’t think endorsing a commercial product is a cop out.

No, no, but I would have a long time ago. Not, not out of, just out of I guess it’s more adapting to the culture it’s never about the music. The music is a soundtrack to everything. One of my favorite heroes is Dali, Salvador Dali.

I knew him.

You did?

Interview.

That’s amazing. He uh, just ... his whole, he just decided to express himself, whatever he wanted to do, and I, I like that.

Great man. You’re also a photographer and a painter. (cut to the The Unembodied Self painting) Look at that, that’s really well done.

Thank you, that’s on of my more recent one. But, I like to look at life always, almost as like you’re almost in a zombie film. Where you, you just have to improvise an end of the world type of situation if you got whatever tools are in front of you and the day I painted that I just got a new tattoo I used tattoo ink, but I usually use watercolors.

(Screen cuts to the Harlequin Jack and the Absinthe Bunny painting)

That’s an older one.

What are you saying there?

That one’s called Absinthe Jack, uh, absinthe bunny, Jack and the Absinthe Bunny.

Do you make Absinthe Jack?

...the Easter bunny, I do remember that.

You make absinthe?

Yeah, well I don’t make it personally, but I have my own absinthe, because I bought so much at the time that they just said make your own. But that one, Jack Osbourne, I remember that was one of first ones that someone bought, and it was very strange to sell something that was a painting because they never intended to be...

Who’s that? (cuts to the The Moment I Became Edgar I Suddenly Realized I Was in Hell painting)

That’s Edgar Allen Poe.

Oh, that’s Mr. Poe.

Yeah, died in 1849

Buried in Baltimore.

Twice.

Buried twice, correct. Do you sell these?

Yeah. Yes, which is very strange experience, because I never intended to, I’d only painted them for friends.

(Larry King chuckles) That’s very good.

Thank you.

(Screen flashes to the Alice painting)

(Larry King)Huh.

That’s sort of a da Vinci meets Alice In Wonderland kind of combination and uh, I wrote a, I wrote a screen play to, was intended to make called Phantasmagoria it’s one of Lewis Carroll’s books and a, it’s about him and his photography and sort of his split personality and uh, I think it sort of rubbed off on me too much. But I just resurrected it again, and Roger Avary is going to direct it.

You’re in a movie at Canne’s Film Festival, right?

Yeah, yes it’s called Wrong Cops. Who do you play?

I play, uh David Delores Frank, a teenage street hustler.

You play, you play a teenager?

Yeah, they made me wear braces.

(Larry King laughs) Would you like to start a family? I mean you’ve had relationships, Dita Von Teese, Rose McGowan? Want to be married?

I feel like marriage is, is something is that American’s they built up as some idea I don’t really think that, I think and I even think that love is even a narrow definition when you say you love someone, because you know, I love being alive, I love...you know, so love is not the right word, it should be dedicated and I think a ring or a piece of paper doesn’t really solidify that but I think , I know that it’s in a girl’s heart and in her mind.

Well...

And well, yeah, I, I believe in being, uh, with one person to the best of your ability. (small laugh)

Would you be a good father, want to be a father?

I think so, I’m good friends with Johnny Depp and a, he a...

He’s a good father.

He is a great father. His kid Jack, his daughter’s birthday, I remember, giving her a (I did a painting of him when he first had her) I remember giving her, her first pair of high heel shoes but she was still wearing diapers, no, I saw her again at the age of 13 about a year ago, and haven’t seen her since then, and he said do you remember Manson when he first gave you high heels, I said this is not coming across right. This sounds bad.

When we come back, guess who was Marilyn or Brian’s first kiss? We’ll find out after the break and we’ll take some of your questions too, that’s next.

(cue music)

Larry King: We’re back with Marilyn Manson and he’ll be performing with Alice Cooper in the tour Masters of Madness, Shock Therapy Tour. Your stage name comes from an iconic beauty and a serial killer.

Marilyn Manson: Technically, technically, he wasn’t a serial killer though.

No, he didn’t kill anyone.

No, no, no.

But he was in the car.

I mean you could call him a mass murder, people always say that but, I always found it strange that they say serial killer, because serial killer is a whole different...

Yeah, that’s right he was a mass murderer, he wasn’t a serial killer, he just had people killed in his name.

Yeah, but serial killer, I would not...

What name, what name would you give me, if I was taking another name?

Hmmm, I would Salvadore Dali Parton.

(Larry King grins) I love that!

(chuckles)

Salvador Dali Parton Now. Got it!

(Marilyn Manson snaps fingers) Boom!

Uh, do you ever think you’ll ever just go back to being just Brian?

Uh, I don’t I don’t really think that I’m not, it’s just that you as you mean just using it as a (another form away?) Uh, maybe. I don't know.

Yeah.

Maybe. I don’t know. You asked me about having kids and things like that, idk what I’m having my kids call me. If I had a more than one kid, I’d call the second one Etc.

(Larry King laughs)

Because that seems like too many names.

(Larry King laughs) That’s good! Do you remember the first person you kissed?

Uhm, I think so. I, I believe it was a girl named Michelle Bass...

What...

...and she did have a, kind of a fish type mouth.

What school were you in?

Heritage Christian School in Canton, Ohio.

Okay we have some social media questions.

Uhm.

(Tearup)82 wants to know if the contacts you wear are actually prescription or just for the look.

Um, I, I technically don’t need contacts and don’t wear them anymore.

Alex D. Ross wants to know if you talk to Billy Corgan anymore, if not, what happened?

Umn, I don’t, I haven’t spoken to him but there was no fall out or anything.

You just don’t talk to him.

I think he might have got mad once when I told him it would be a good marketing idea that if he sold Charlie Brown t-shirts and bald caps at concerts and he might not have liked that ‘cause he does look like Charlie Brown a little bit in fairness to. (laughs)

Uh, Margaret Stern asks What are you doing to stay relevant to younger fans as your older fans get older?

Being on Larry King.

That’s the way to do it! Uh Matthew Ochman asks, is Kanye West sampling you in one of his new songs and if so, how did that come about?

I’m, I’m not quite sure if it’s a sampling or not but I like the song I saw on SNL, I think that was a really a really ballsy strong performance you know because, I had a discussion, a debate with a friend of mine about Jay Z and Kanye West who was better, because I’ve met both of them and I think they’re both really smart and really talented...

They are.

And it was an argument over who was better and I uh, and I was leaning towards the Jay Z (thing) until I saw that, and it may or may not have been because he may or may not have sampled The Beautiful People but I thought wow he came out so strong on Saturday Night Live, I wish I would had done that.

And Howard16 wants to know what kind of diet you have?

Uh, wow that’s strange, mostly I eat, well, I’m, not a vegetarian. Uhm, I mostly like fruits and vegetables. I, I usually forget to eat.

Forget to eat.

Forget to eat, but sometimes from being on tour all the time, I think my favorite food of all is a grilled cheese sandwich.

I like that, too.

Yeah.

Grilled cheese sandwich is almost the perfect sandwich.

It is, if you dip it in ketchup it’s even better.

I’ve never tried that. (Durald Matask) tweets, ‘Would you ever do a duet with Madonna?’

Aw, I would have really loved to or would really like to still, I think that she’s very, I actually met her, well, I had a crush on her when I was younger, but I met her.

She’s a great promoter.

I met her and I think she’s still as sexy as she was in the beginning.

Andy Flory says scary looking guy, is he a teddy bear on the inside?

That’s a really weird phrase because I use teddy bear, whole, as a euphemism for a deviant sexual act.

Huh! Another quick question. Favorite musician?

David Bowie.

Guilty pleasure?

Uh... being on this show. (laughs)

Celebrity crush is Madonna.

No, no, celebrity crush I would say, uh, okay we’ll go with that, yeah you can go with that.

Biggest regret?

My biggest regret is that uh, I didn’t get to uh, have a proper farewell or goodbye to or speak to my mother before she was unable to know who I am now and uh, and that will always haunt me.

She doesn’t know you, huh?

Uh yeah, she has uh,

Alzheimer’s?

No, no it’s more of a mental illness and I never really got to say goodbye and I regret that because I could’ve done it and I was too afraid to face that.

Hmmm. I understand, thanks Marilyn.

Hey no problem. (Shakes hands with Larry King)

Marilyn Manson! You can find him on stage with Alice Copper in their Masters of Madness Tour and can remember you can find me on twitter at @kingsthings I’ll see you next time, this is Salvador Dali Parton.

Marilyn Manson snaps fingers and points at Larry King, smiles and laughs.