Interview:2017/11 Irresponsible Mate Anthem
| Irresponsible Mate Anthem | ||
|---|---|---|
|
||
| Interview with Tyler Bates | ||
| Date | November, 2017 | |
| Source | Metal Hammer #302 | |
| Interviewer | Eleanor Goodman | |
- We grilled Manson’s writing partner in crime, Tyler Bates, about what it’s really like to work with the God Of Fuck. Turns out it involves teenage diaries and knives to the throat…
Marilyn Manson and film/TV composer Tyler Bates met on the set of US sitcom Californication, before deciding to work together on 2015’s The Pale Emperor. Tyler went on to tour in Manson’s band, playing around 50 shows, and the two have conspired again for Heaven Upside Down. We caught up with him to ask what it’s like collaborating with the Antichrist Superstar, how it compares to scoring Hollywood blockbusters like Guardians Of The Galaxy, and what goes on at their recording sessions behind closed doors…
WHAT WERE YOUR FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF EACH OTHER?
“We immediately hit it off, and had a ton of energy creatively. We always have a great time and are never short of ideas, but generally the process has become that he talks to me about his life and I score it like a movie. It’s different to a typical rock’n’roll session, but we do raise a bit of hell!”
HOW IS IT LIKE SCORING A MOVIE?
“There’s always drama in his life. My studio has a large sofa which he consumes the entirety of with his books of lyrics and his new gadgets. He hangs out there and tells me what’s going on, and while he’s talking about his trials and tribulations, music comes to my mind. I’ll just start making a beat and playing, then at some point he’ll get off the sofa, and sing at a microphone next to me. It’s all done spontaneously like that.”
WHAT KIND OF GADGETS?
“He does a lot of late-night Amazon shopping. He’ll bring over the things you can plant in people’s houses that emit horrible noises that they’ll never be able to find. But he always comes with a bag full of huge leather-bound books – Pilgrim’s Progress was, I’d say, something that may have inspired some of the philosophical aspects of this record – and spiral notebooks dating all the way back to his high school writings. Sometimes we’ll read through them together, and something might begin a train of thought that he starts building; a lyrical idea.”
HOW WAS HEAVEN UPSIDE DOWN DIFFERENT TO THE PALE EMPEROR?
“On The Pale Emperor, I wanted him to reveal part of himself that he hadn’t revealed to his audience before, and to really show me who he was at that time. It was clear that everything on that record was from his mindset at that point in his life, not something that was harkening back to earlier records, and he was very interested in exploring the blues. On this one, we wanted to make it more fun but more violent. To play like that is a lot of fun, and for him to sing like that with the type of choruses that are on the record, they’re fun. Because there is a juxtaposition with the musical style that is imbued with his dark sense of humour, but also lyrically what he is talking about is extremely relevant to what’s being reflected in pop culture and media right now.”
WHAT’S YOUR FAVOURITE SONG ON HEAVEN UPSIDE DOWN?
“It’s really difficult for me to say. Tattooed In Reverse is one of my very favourites for sure, and Say 10, and WE KNOW WHERE YOU FUCKING LIVE. Those songs, there’s just something about them that are tone-setters. WE KNOW WHERE YOU FUCKING LIVE was the first song we wrote, and basically the discussion about that was ‘we need to make a mission statement with what this record’s about’. The last album was a different headspace – more of a cleansing of the palate for Manson. And this record was a return to chaos in some places.”
HIS FATHER RECENTLY PASSED AWAY. DID YOU NOTICE A CHANGE IN MANSON AFTER THAT?
“It was different from his mother passing. We’ve been in the thick of working together during the loss of each of his parents. I think he was more disturbed by the passing of his mother, because she was sick for a while. But I think he was at peace with it, because he was there with his dad, and whatever needed to be said between the two of them was said. And on The Pale Emperor his father came out on tour with us for a month, so they had a chance to have some time together in recent years. So his dad was really excited for him, especially when he came over to my place and listened to The Pale Emperor for the first time – he was really proud of him.”
WHAT WAS IT LIKE HAVING HIM ON TOUR?
“He came out for a month. Hugh was really funny, and always happy to be part of it. Manson is somebody who has an incredibly dynamic range of emotion, and it was cool to see them enjoying their time together.”
WHAT’S IT LIKE TOURING WITH MANSON?
“Ha ha ha! Well let’s see. Onstage, it’s nearly a contact sport, so you always have to keep your peripheral vision intact. There’s always stuff flying and breaking and whatnot. He likes to hold a knife up to my neck every now and then. It’s not a real knife, but it could seriously cut me if he was a little aggro! We just laugh about it.”
WERE YOU INTO METAL GROWING UP?
“Oh yeah. I don’t consider Manson metal, and that’s one of the most frustrating things for me to see. He has more of a goth/industrial/punk attitude, in my opinion. But yeah. I’ve seen Iron Maiden 12 times, and Judas Priest probably the same amount of times. I used to go to concerts all the time when I was a kid. I saw Manson, Jim Rose and Nine Inch Nails in ’95 or something.”
WHAT DO YOU REMEMBER FROM THAT SHOW?
“He had black leather boots on, a black g-string and a black dildo, and that was it. I didn’t know what song they were playing – it might’ve been Hate Anthem or something. But they were running around making a ruckus. And I thought that that kind of chaos was really, really exciting, and I really felt that rock needed it. It seemed like such a lull immediately after Kurt Cobain died. One thing that really drives me to work with Manson is he’s the last icon. And it takes icons and rock’n’roll to engage people. It’s just starting to become so samey and mediocre that I’m compelled to work with Manson, because I think he’s one of the most uniquely talented and interesting personalities in rock music.”
YOU’VE SCORED THE GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY MOVIES. COULD MANSON POTENTIALLY GET INVOLVED WITH THE MUSIC FOR GUARDIANS 3?
“I just did the Guardians… attraction at California Adventures, and we also did a Halloween version of it that’s going to be run at night. I wrote a song for the ride and sang it, and I said, ‘You know, if you guys wanna bump me and have Manson sing it, I’m sure he’ll do it.’ He’d actually texted me while I was sitting on the ride with all these people and said, ‘Can I come sing on your ride?’ They ran it up the Disney flagpole but I think he’s too dangerous a personality to associate with the Disney branding, which is a good thing!”
