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Transcript[edit]
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0:01 Hi, this is Jan Yelski from Rapsy and we're speaking to Marilyn Manson today. Hi Manson, where are you calling from?
0:07 I'm in Los Angeles. Oh, okay. Hollywood. Speaking about this new album, that's basically what I want to talk about is
0:14 your life has gone through such so much upheaval since your last album. What was the thing that changed the most for you?
0:22 That's a very expansive question. We have to choose one thing. Well, I think
0:30 being able to uh I guess surrender, sacrifice, let down
0:37 my guard. Uh I think that I can look back now and realize that
0:44 I was seeking a lot of other outlets. Uh not just because they were satisfying,
0:50 but I was trying to put efforts towards simply painting or making films. pretty
0:56 much everything except music because I was running away from being me. I was
1:03 in a position where I didn't think much of myself. I didn't want to be me. And
1:09 uh I have a hard time relating to the person that I was last year because I
1:16 feel like I was fortunate enough to have figured my way out of that hell that I
1:22 created for myself. And I think if if it were a uh a movie, the
1:31 moment where uh the dramatic change happened, if I had to pick that
1:37 out and remember things, as complicated as my life was at the time, it was singing the song Just a Car Crash Away.
1:44 And I only really sang it twice in the the second time is what is on the record.
1:50 Yeah. And the song made me feel something in a time when I didn't think
1:55 I could feel anything anymore. Wow. So I started to realize
2:00 that music is what I always turn to when I am
2:09 sad or I want to let out some aggression or whatever it might be. And it was
2:15 foolish of me to almost have uh left left music alto together. and and I
2:20 can't possibly imagine myself thinking or being like the way I was before making this record
2:27 ever again. Have you gone through similar watersheds in your life? I mean, you know, you have those small moments. One has those small
2:33 moments where everything turns, you know, like you can never see it coming, but when it's there, it's almost like it has a sense of inevitability.
2:40 Um, has this been like the first time you've had your life so totally turned upside down?
2:46 Well, in in this way, it was in a way that I had never expected and maybe feared the most. I've people have always
2:53 asked me what my greatest fear is, and I've always said u the inability to
2:59 create or express myself. And you know, I've had plenty of
3:06 crazy periods in my life. I don't think there's ever been too many sane ones at this point. But
3:12 what's different about how I felt in
3:17 making this record was more I suppose in the past I've I've
3:24 been you know self-destructive. I've been angry. I've been self-loathing. But
3:29 there was always some feeling behind all of it. And a lot of times I think it was anger or resentment
3:36 or some sort of drive. And I got to a point where I didn't have any drive. And I
3:46 think it's probably as simple if I can look at back at because at the time I
3:52 don't think I could have made any of these conclusions or looked understood any of it. But I know that I can't
4:00 separate myself from what I do. And when I was put in a position where I felt
4:05 that uh the people closest to me wanted me to or felt like uh it wasn't in so many
4:15 words but I was being faced with a lot of um strange realizations particularly in
4:23 my past relationship where it was almost a case of well I thought that you would
4:29 grow out of this stage or you would change eventually. And I didn't know what I was supposed to
4:37 change into because I knew that I was starting to be somebody that I didn't like to be.
4:43 But uh I could only want to be who I was
4:48 before that. I couldn't be somebody who was suddenly something I don't know how
4:54 to be and something that I don't want to be. I think I was you fall prey and it's it's as simple as high school, you know,
5:00 when you your relationships are sometimes fall prey to uh the pressures
5:08 of the people outside of it and what they want to impose upon either person.
5:14 And that's pretty much everything I've always thought that I stood against. And I started to be in a in a place where
5:22 I was feeling embarrassed for just being me. And I wrote the song Red Carpet
5:28 Grave. And I think that probably says everything better than I could describe the this situation.
5:33 Do you feel that after you wrote this this record and after you you went through your divorce or or your
5:39 separation that you were returned to yourself or are you are you a whole different entity now? I mean, has going
5:46 through this like being forged by all this pain made you different and better? Well, I came to terms with uh my
5:54 humanity. I think that I've tried so hard to prove
5:59 how invincible I could be because I was always challenging the world and facing
6:05 a lot of self-induced uh conflicts, whether it be with politics or religion.
6:12 And when you start to feel like you can't
6:17 communicate to the people closest to you when you spend all your life communicating to essentially strangers.
6:24 Yeah. I really didn't know who or what I was supposed to be. And I suppose it's probably
6:32 to other people who aren't me. It may even seem a little bit absurd because it's the most normal situation that
6:40 everybody has to deal with. But I think that I've often imposed my ideals onto the people
6:49 who are in relationships with me and I assumed that they felt the same way because they cared.
6:54 Yeah. But, you know, it's it's the same with what I create artistically. A lot of
7:01 people might like uh the aesthetic or they might like the type of music, but they don't like the message or they have
7:07 a hard time agreeing with every opinion I have about politics or religion. Or it
7:13 might be they agree with that and they don't like the type of music. But it's it's hard when
7:20 the people you're closest to start to genuinely question if that's
7:27 what you believe or that's who you are all the time offstage and on stage. And
7:34 the thing is I am. And you feel like yourself at all time in your best moments. You feel like
7:39 yourself equally on stage and off stage like the same the same being the same person, right?
7:46 Well, I've ne I've always been really hellbent on not separating myself in the
7:53 sense that it's simply for show. However, you can't be the same person in
7:58 any two circumstances. But the the difference was that
8:04 I enjoy my onstage metaphorically whatever the extent that
8:10 you want to take that I enjoy that part of my life uh very much and I was in a position
8:17 where I wasn't able to create and I was thinking well I
8:22 don't enjoy this part of my life and I didn't know how to change it and it was
8:28 it really became very simple I just had to make music again and I had
8:34 to redefine myself. So, I'm I'm feeling like the person that wanted to start a
8:41 band, but I feel not wiser or even cynical or, you know, that I've grown or
8:48 matured from the experience, but I feel resurrected and new like when you shed
8:54 your skin type of feeling, I suppose. That's the only way I could descri I think the only way I could describe how it feels when you listen to the record
9:01 because the songs are almost in the order that they were written for the most part. So you can
9:06 sense the change of all your records. I like this one the best. I like it because honestly it
9:13 scares me on a whole different level and brings up things for me and maybe it just mirrors things for me that you know
9:20 are much more frightening than than the things that go bump you know the things that the self annihilation. So, I mean,
9:26 I think I think I think it's I think that's what I like about movies and books, the ones
9:34 that are psychological and not the obvious, you know, the whole
9:39 idea of something like Rosemary's Baby when you don't see the baby. That's really what when it's in your head. And
9:46 I think that I tapped into a part of me that I was afraid to deal with. So when
9:52 you hear it, I don't know how other people are going to feel when they hear it. But when I I listen to this record,
9:57 and I never really listen to my records because it's a it's a real process to
10:02 make it and then you end up performing it and it's very rare that I listen to something, but I listen to this record
10:08 and it makes me feel the way that I needed to feel. So I think I probably
10:15 needed to say the stuff to me the most. In another way, a lot of the records that I listen to most, you know, whether
10:23 it's Purple Rain or Diamond Dogs or, you know, Tattoo You, a lot of these
10:30 records come in a a point in a lot of my
10:36 favorite artists careers. Uh, that is essentially where I'm at or I haven't
10:42 even got to yet. And they're some of the strongest material. So, I was in a position where I thought maybe I've said
10:48 everything. I don't know what to say anymore because a lot of the things that I've pointed out in the past are obvious to everyone now and there's not really
10:54 any reason to say them again. There's a lot of uh art and bands and things that
11:04 have in some way uh been changed enough that they do things that
11:12 when I did them they were a little bit too offensive and when David Bowie and Alice Cooper did them and their time it
11:17 was a little too offensive and now when they do it it doesn't have the heart behind it. Yeah. Yeah,
11:22 but I almost felt uh why should I really do this anymore? And I didn't understand that I had to do the most simple thing
11:30 and and ex turn the magnifying glass onto myself. Oh, no. It's so true because you know
11:35 what I think you did and what and actually what those artists that you like did in the same kind of way, the
11:40 same kind of trajectory is I think you spent maybe the first four records defining yourself out there and what you
11:46 believed in, but it was more cerebral. This one is not cerebral. This one is you took a scalpel and you opened up
11:52 your guts and you poured them out. You know, it's like this is a crisis point record. And what sounds better than pain
11:57 really? Cuz there's no Well, I I I think that what I identify
12:05 with most is is tragedy historically, you know, starting with Shakespeare and with
12:12 any of the mythologies that I didn't even choose as subject matter. It was just what was in my head on this record,
12:18 you know, watching a movie like Bonnie and Clyde the next day waking up and writing Putting Holes
12:24 in Happiness, you know, that was that I was affected that immediately and it
12:30 was it's a different way of writing for me. I I haven't ever written in the way that I would write uh a letter or I
12:38 would write a you know, god forbid a poem or something.
12:44 Wait, so what was different about your creative process this time? I mean, you because you stayed with it because it it
12:49 came from the subconscious. Like what what made this different? I was trying to make this record and in
12:58 some ways maybe I didn't want to succeed at it for the greater part of that year.
13:05 And it was not until things became really really bad uh in my
13:14 personal life and in my living situation where I didn't
13:20 want to uh in the same way Lewis Carol he he never slept. I didn't want to go to
13:27 sleep because I didn't want to wake up because waking up seemed so terrible. Yeah. I mean, I'm speaking sort of in a
13:33 metaphorical sense or figurative way, but in this in a little bit of a literal sense that I was very
13:40 um lost and it it was something as simple as Tim Scold, who probably spent
13:49 the most time with me of anyone because I saw him on a regular basis, but our
13:55 friendship is quite different than other people who would call each other best
14:00 friends. He's uh he's Swedish, so he has a different demeanor that I I understand
14:07 quite well, but other people might think he's cold or uncaring. And it's just the way that he relates. So for us together, he's
14:15 very much order and and regiment and I'm chaos and, you know, instant uh impulse.
14:23 and he said to me, "Well, why don't you write about what what you're going through or what
14:30 you feel?" Because I couldn't really explain it to anybody so much in a conversation or in words.
14:35 And it was that simple that he said that and I started
14:41 figuring out an entire new approach. And I had
14:47 maybe 15 or 20 notebooks filled chaotically with different writings. I
14:53 even put a very small snippet in in the artwork
14:58 to the album, but it it wouldn't really be understood unless you saw them all together because it's it's a little uh
15:04 eccentric to say the least. But because I lose things and I'll write an idea and it might go across four
15:10 notebooks as I'm trying to find the right one. So I would just lay them all out and in some ways it was almost like
15:19 seeing some sort of uh autopsy of my mind in
15:25 front of me and I would pull or be
15:30 uh I guess inspired by different pieces of it almost in a William S. Earl's sort
15:35 of cut and paste sense, but completely different. And I I spent most of my time
15:41 singing on the floor on my back with a ribbon microphone, which isn't meant to be held in your hand. And you know, it
15:48 sounded raw and anybody who was concerned about making something
15:54 technically and proper, emotionless, would have complained about it. But I
15:59 thought it sounded very appropriate uh because it was the only way I wanted to
16:04 do it at the time and I wouldn't have ever dreamed of going back and trying to fix anything cuz it it it sounded like I
16:11 felt When you were looking at all your notebooks, did you see a theme emerging about what you were going through?
16:18 I don't think that I really saw something so specific as that until
16:25 I got to the end and you know there I could see
16:32 but it was I was too close to it. So when I when we did Eat Me, Drink Me, Mhm.
16:37 the song's very narrative in a strange way, and it wasn't as calculated as me
16:43 trying to tie everything together as a concept record, but in a sense, it ends
16:48 up being maybe the most uh
16:54 the strongest and most complicated concept record that I've ever approached, but it was right there in
16:59 front of me. The story that I needed to tell was about myself and not
17:05 manipulated into a metaphor for the first time. And that song
17:11 when when we finished it, there was a debate I think for maybe a few moments whether it should be first or last. And
17:18 I think simply because of the the lyric that it ends on, it needed to be last. And and I knew when we did If I Was Your
17:25 Vampire on Christmas morning at 6:00 a.m. when I wrote it, it was it had to be first cuz it was
17:33 really the the song that made me realize this was definitely going to be a record and there was no question about it.
17:40 What about your relationship with Lewis Carol? I mean, what did you see in him that that you mirrored that made you want to do the movie and then name this
17:47 album Eat Me, Drink Me? Well, I I guess in the beginning I wasn't uh
17:57 as aware of the parallels other than the ones that were obvious to
18:03 me between his mental state and the one that I was sort of becoming. And I think
18:11 in some ways a lot of people close to me probably
18:17 I don't know if they said it to me literally or probably were saying it whether they were saying it to me or behind my back or something that I was
18:24 becoming what I was writing about more than I thought cuz I started reading his diaries and I chose to write
18:33 a script based around the year 1869 when he wrote the poem Fantasmagoria and he
18:39 wrote that in January, literally a hundred years to the week that I was born. Wow. And in his diaries, it's very
18:50 very Jackal and Hind. It's Charles Dodson who is a very proper
18:57 uh Oxford professor that teaches math and then Lewis Carol who is everything
19:04 that goes against what his father who was Charles Dodson's senior uh expected
19:10 of him and he was very torn with religion and the thing that struck me the most and the the simplest
19:17 was that he wrote a ghost story after father died and this was a man who
19:23 was supposed to become a priest and someone who believes in the supernatural struck me as very odd. So I started
19:29 reading his diaries and they were very dark. They were very uh
19:35 compelling and that there was much more of the story than the obvious question.
19:41 You know the question that people posed to me first of all you're writing about Louiswis Carol was he a pedophile? I
19:46 think in my opinion no. Yeah. Um, I don't even address it in my
19:52 story because I don't think that's the point of it. I think that he's uh terrified of losing his uh his youth,
20:02 his uh his spirit and and if you look at Alice in Wonderland, the
20:08 there's themes that come up and you have to when you read his diary, you understand why. The un the unbirth party. His
20:15 mother died on his birthday. So, I'm sure if his birthday wasn't a very nice day, you know, my thing is that's my birthday. I've always resonated to his
20:22 birthday, obviously. And it's Mozart's birthday as well. Well, that's a things come in threes.
20:29 So, you know, in the Madhatter's Tea Party, there's obvious parallels to The Last Supper. And what I started to find
20:35 interesting was that the book uh is supposedly the second most read book
20:42 to the Bible, which is interesting because it doesn't ever say that she has blonde hair like Disney portrayed her.
20:48 It doesn't ever say the Mad Hatter was even wearing a hat. That was just his name. And it doesn't say Humpty Dumpty was
20:54 shaped like an egg or anything like that. So I started looking at it and looking at him and seeing all the
21:00 parallels and he was very inspired by Ed Growan Poe. Wow. And Edgar Poe, you know, who of course
21:06 had this, you know, scandalous sort of uh Lolita sort of love affair. And then,
21:13 of course, the book Lolita, a lot of people don't even realize that it was clearly inspired by
21:18 by Lewis Carol. And Nabokov was the one who translated both Po and Lewis Carol
21:25 into Russian for the first time. Did this all happen to you before you met Ellen? I mean, did you feel like you were like No, at all. Yeah. It's like
21:32 you called this in, you know. I mean, there had to be days where you thought, "God, did I create this reality?"
21:38 Yeah. In in a lot of ways. Yes. And the the strange thing is that neither one of
21:44 us really saw it coming. I I think it was just interesting that I found anybody who was even familiar with any
21:51 of the stuff that we just discussed. And so the concept of
21:58 uh age and of conflict and the strangeness
22:04 never never really figured into it. And it's you know it's I think that it
22:11 wasn't even really disappointing to me. I thought it was too cliche and I I I can only expect you know what people
22:17 initially started thinking and even uh you know in my personal life that
22:25 things were something different than what they really are. And it was, you know, me finding somebody that I could
22:30 actually relate to. And uh it was realizing that
22:36 I was disappointed in the idea that I spent all my time watching films like
22:43 The Hunger, Harold and Ma, True Romance, and I was just wanting to hit myself thinking, why
22:50 isn't my life like that? cuz I thought it was. But now I realize that
22:56 there's such a fear about what's going to happen tomorrow. That today isn't any good. I think that I've gone to great
23:05 lengths from the beginning of becoming whatever it is that I've become. Now that
23:11 I've made my path for myself and there's no there's no reason why it can't be the
23:18 way it should be. And I think it's it's ultimately fear. And I think letting down my guard to write the things that I
23:26 that I wrote. And it ended up giving me the first real collaboration in
23:33 songwriting with Tim Scold because I had someone who made music that sounded
23:40 exactly like what I needed to hear. It's almost as if he was scoring what he saw
23:45 me feeling. Yeah. and it challenged me and I felt really inspired and and I've never had
23:53 that that situation with any guitar players in the past. I've always had to tell them, can you make it sad? Can you
23:59 make it angry? Can you do and it just it flowed right and it allowed me to simply
24:06 concentrate all my strength on what I wanted to say
24:12 and and singing it. And that that's all I worried about. And it it made me happy
24:17 to sing again. And I was excited to play it live. And we just finished eight weeks in Europe. And it was it was very
24:26 new and and different. And not in uh the way that I've always hated when
24:36 somebody comes out with a new record that you you like a lot that's had previous records and they focus too much
24:42 only on a new album. Yeah, this this stuff was very
24:49 uh it was it was able to transform into the set with the other songs quite well
24:55 and it makes for some absurd greater picture that I'm probably
25:02 too close to to see yet. I mean, what do you think's the most different about this album, you know,
25:08 compared to the rest of your cannon? I mean, do you think if art is always a state of becoming, this is like like the
25:13 way you're pointing the way, or is it just, you know, another version of the things that you've been singing all along?
25:19 Well, if I look back at mechanical animals or I look at Antichrist
25:25 superstar in Hollywood, I talked a lot about uh
25:31 you know the the niche idea of Antichrist superstar and the
25:36 transformation uh Hollywood you know it was very
25:42 obsessed with the themes of alchemy and and that entire
25:48 way of looking at the world. But this record to me has more of both of those
25:55 things, but it doesn't really talk about them as much as it just is them. So I think that
26:01 you genuinely as deep as you want to look into these songs just if you look at it as
26:09 uh a whole it has more of a transformation and more of a becoming
26:14 something than the the records where I talked about those ideas. Yeah.
26:20 And I tried to fight to present those ideas as being important. I thought that I had already done that but I didn't
26:25 realize that I had had to do something much more difficult. Well, I think it's it's another case of you anticipating
26:32 your future and creating it, you know? I mean, the things that you were talking about earlier were the things that you
26:38 would become. I mean, to me, I just it it does seem an extension of everything you've ever written before. And um and
26:45 then this the essence of what is holy, but now what's holy is much more soft. I
26:51 mean, to me, like love is holy in this in this album. And that wasn't the case in your other album. No, it was always
26:59 uh maybe either the disappointment or the uh the shallowess of of certain
27:07 ideas that I didn't really understand how to
27:12 say something in the same way that I say it to people who I'm
27:19 closest to. Yeah. Something as as simple as heart-shaped
27:25 glasses, the course of that song is something that I literally said and then I realized what why haven't I really
27:31 written a song in the same way that I said that. So I was very determined to write a song now.
27:38 But when I look back and now I think about what I say in the course of that song, it really defines
27:44 the entire my entire what's that? It's not about you say something about about don't leave me or
27:50 don't not leave. Well, don't break my heart and I won't break your heart-shaped glasses. I think when I look at that, that really defines
27:56 a lot of the record in, you know, this song is very disguised in a sarcastic
28:03 pop sense, but I wasn't really so much trying to be sarcastic because I think it's it's a little little darker than some people might
28:10 even think, but because it's all very very subtle double meanings, but I
28:16 think that that makes me realize how guarded and how afraid I was to uh
28:23 surrender myself to someone else by saying something like that. When you say, you know, don't don't break my heart or
28:30 I'll break, you know, it's it it ends up saying more to me about how afraid I was
28:36 to open myself to people. And I are you still happy? I mean, is this is this as good as as you
28:42 anticipated? I think anything was better than how I
28:49 felt before I made the record, but I think I'm genuinely enjoying myself uh performing
28:57 and I'm not uh
29:03 I'm not in a state where every day it's a question mark if I'm
29:09 going to be depressed or angry or happy about something. I think that I feel
29:15 much more in control. But I feel happy that I can say that from
29:21 uh a position that does not include uh sobriety or religion or any other
29:28 thing that somebody else had to help me find the answer to what was making my
29:35 life go wrong. So, I figured out that it doesn't really matter what
29:41 you drink, do drugs, or or how much, it's why. And I was in a position where
29:49 I was so I guess empty.
29:55 I wasn't I didn't even have the motivation to drink. That was pretty bad. Oh god. Yeah. said that. I think that says a
30:00 lot. I guess, you know, what do you think the greatest misconception is about you? And
30:07 I know that doesn't really tie into this, but I think there's so much that people believe about you and you
30:13 polarize so many people. What do you think they always get wrong about you? Well, people are always uh
30:23 believing that I'm trying my hardest to be shocking. Mhm.
30:29 and then love to complain in a very lazy journalistic way because I I know from
30:35 where I started. I know how easy it is to make yourself sound more amusing as a
30:40 writer when you're criticizing something than praising it. But I never chose to write about things that I didn't like
30:47 because I didn't really feel there was a a need for it. Although it's it's fun and amusing sometimes, but I think that
30:55 it's always a disappointment when people say, "I'm trying to be shocking, but I didn't
31:02 do it." And I've never really tried to be shocking. I think I've tried to make that clear from the beginning. I've tried to uphold the concept that
31:10 anything that wants to call itself art has to at least be provocative. and to be able to get anyone's attention
31:17 and for them to have an opinion on it whether that's hate or love and I really
31:24 prefer those extremes says a lot in an era where the world has become such a
31:32 victim of itself that it's a little unnecessary to try and point out uh the
31:39 weaknesses of everything outside of you and I I was able to point out my own weaknesses. And I think that that ends
31:45 up saying in some way what I've always said because I've always really been trying
31:52 to hit at the importance of uh believing in yourself and in the power of not
31:59 being afraid. Yeah. To stand behind your opinion. If you had a motto, what would it be? I
32:05 mean, is there something you say to yourself when you're feeling really terrible or something that that reinforces that idea of believing in
32:11 yourself? Well, it's anything I say will probably sound like a bumper sticker. I
32:17 think they all do, but they all help. No, I think uh All right, I'll tell you mine. Okay. Okay. I have this picture of Madonna, and I'm
32:23 not a big Madonna fan, but she's in a yoga pose, and it's really dreadful and ugly, and she looks like she looks
32:28 terrible. And it says, "If I'm afraid of something, that generally means I have to do it." I could say, "Be here now."
32:34 And that'd be worse. No, I'm trying to think You put me on the spot. I have a lot of uh comical
32:40 slogans. Well, go for it. Well, I'm just trying to think. First, I should deliver the uh more profound one,
32:47 which I think I I suppose for me, I've spent most of my songwriting on
32:55 in some way slogans, you know, in a sense because that's the way I've always grown up thinking. I mean, there there
33:02 was a good chance I could have ended up, you know, becoming an advertising person, except I feel like
33:09 it it wasn't where my heart was. I think
33:14 when you have the courage to drive off a cliff
33:20 with somebody who believes in you the same, to trust you and do that, then you
33:26 don't want to anymore. I don't know if that's a slogan, but that's what I learned that when you when you are not afraid to hit bottom or die or give
33:33 yourself up complete to sacrifice, then there's no need to anymore. That's that's pretty great, you know. I
33:41 mean, that is profound. I've never tried it. I haven't I'm not that daring yet. Yeah. No, you don't have to try it. It's
33:47 just when you have it in your head. Uh I wouldn't find any I don't mean for real.
33:53 Okay. You mean surrendering? Yeah. But Yoda says there's no trying, right? So, thank you. I love the album. I
34:00 really did. Um I I every time I take it off the CD player, I really miss it. So,
34:05 uh you've did done a really great thing and I'm I'm really glad that you're happy. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. All right. Bye.
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