Interview:1999/04/01 MANSONWORLD
MANSONWORLD | ||
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Interview with Marilyn Manson | ||
Date | April 1, 1999 | |
Source | Alternative Press [1][2] |
ALTERNATIVE PRESS: What are the defining characteristics of Omēga as opposed to Antichrist Svperstar?
MARILYN MANSON: Making Mechanical Animals was, for me, like stepping foot into the world for the first time. I felt very vulnerable. I got involved in a relationship and fell in love, I think for the first time. And I started to feel empathy for other people. It wasn't so much I found God or became a pussy and decided to start giving money to vagrants; nothing like that. I just started to find the balance that I'd always preached about, you know? In the past I always talked about finding a place in my life where I combined extremes. But everything was very much more "Manson", for lack of a better word. And with Mechanical Animals, it became more "Marilyn". I think I've got a real dynamic now, not just in music but in life.
AP: But some people are loath to let go of the old you - the san-of-Satan thing that seems a little old hat for you now.
MM: Well, it's not something that I've forsaken or grown out of. I think it's just now another dimension. Some people are just used to things being an act, or things being one-dimensional and easily defined. But I've always felt that rather than being just one thing, why not be many? That's the way I look at the performance - it makes the performance so much more xciting to open up different parts of my head. Antichrist Svperstar was just the extreme. It just seems.... it probably seems like a multiple personality disorder. To me it seems normal. I think it is normal, and I think everybody has that in them. People are just often afraid to let loose.
AP: think some of the public is a little reluctant to accept the move to glam and fashion from the purely demonic image. And the Omēga character seems a bit more complex than the Antichrist Svperstar character, which was very easy to read. Any connection?
MM: Yeah, I think so. I think because this album was inspired by the movie that I want to make, I probably didn't fill in all the blanks on the record. But I really just mirrored my own lifestyle at the time. And Omēga's not really a character, by the way - I wouldn't create something that's not me. But I think a lot of people expected me to continue to speak about religion, even the people who hated me for it, as well as all the fans who loved me for it. But I felt like I had said everything I had to say - and making Antichrist Svperstar changed my life, made me into something stronger. What I didn't realize was that to be stronger I needed to have emotions, and that was something I had to shut off to make that record. So Mechanical Animals was like being born again. I guess the image on the album cover was about the alienation. And having an image that is hard to understand was probably what I was trying to say. That people didn't understand was kind of what I was saying in the album.
- Partial article thanks to The Nachtkabarett. Scans or entire article needed.