BlondMag (May 2007)
To read the others interviews:
Interview of BlondMag (May 2007)
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Marilyn Manson Interview On BlondMag.com Marilyn Manson doesn’t live a boring life. He is either busy with shooting provocative videos to his also provocative songs between gothic rock and industrial, or he is holding the Christian right of American, which holds him dear as its favorite scapegoat for a lot ofassacres, at bay. Most often he is doing both at the same time. It was however really much recently: The 38 year old, who calls himself Marilyn Manson, has first broken up (with the admirable Burlesque model Dita von Teese) and right after that has fallen in love again (with the actress Even Rachel Wood, 19 years old und pretty). In the end he has composed his new album “Eat Me, Drink Me” about both experiences. The man has a lot to do. He took his time for blond anyways. How are you, Brian? Marilyn Manson: I am better. Does that mean that you didn’t feel good? I had a little struggle with myself. I got confused to reconcile my personality and my role as an artist. I was on my way to distance from myself. To separate Brian Warner and Marilyn Manson is not such a great idea as you might think. But for a whole I didn’t feel good as Brian and that interfered with my creativity. Is honesty the key to 'Eat Me, Drink Me'? Yes, definitely. I maybe have hidden behind myself for a while. I know now that it is easier and better to be myself and to do what I want to do. Before I have defined myself artistically by doing the most difficult and the complicated what I could imagine. Meanwhile I have understood that is already complicated enough. Why is it so difficult to be you? I don’t want to whine. But to realize how much I have changed in the last few years was a really hard and painful experience. How did you change? I have let myself be distorted especially in my last relationship, the marriage with Dita. So Dita changed you? Or did you change yourself? I have trusted a definition of love in this marriage which isn’t mine. I got married to prove how much I had the will to devote myself. And how much I loved someone else. I have allowed myself to get pressured by this relationship-concept of my ex-wife. How does this concept look like? Conventional, Normal, I have let myself by constricted in a corset so that I could hardly breathe. I have done that for a while because that is apparently what you should do when you are married; I have lived after her rules. I thought it would be lovely to spend a lot of time with her and follow her career. I thought that I would take care of her on the road as much as she took care of me on my previous tours. But I didn’t like it. But hat seems pretty fair. That might be true. But the sacrifice that I gave to her seemed pretty big to me. And eventually it didn’t work anymore. I gave myself up and that was my mistake. I am this terrifically hopeless romantic that does everything he can to show someone that he loves her. Unfortunately I invested this romance into the wrong person. Did you learn something in the marriage with Dita that helps you now in your relationship with Evan Rachel Wood? I was almost becoming a cynic and started to see marriage as it is as a constructional defect. The love to Evan saved me from that. Was your love to Dita an illusion? I wonder sometimes why she didn’t just leave. She reproached to me pretty often. But instead of pulling the consequences she tried to change me. If she would have done that in the beginning of our relationship, I would have understood. But after seven years? Does Dita understand your problems? My ex-wife still hasn’t got it, no. She was already so far away from me that she didn’t realize what was going on with me. I always thought that love means to always stick together, no matter what. But it isn’t like that. I felt very lonely, yes. And after some time you don’t want to hold hands with a partner that doesn’t want to hold your hand. How do you define love? To be willing to die for each other. To jump down a cliff together. You don’t have to do that but you have to want to do it when it depends on it. Are love and romance the same to you? No, love is the source for happiness in life. Romance isn’t that, romance is beautiful but not permanent. Love doesn’t mean to tolerate the other person and accept what they are doing, but to love the other person outright because of his good and bad sides. And you have found such a person with Evan? Yes, I think so. Is 'Eat Me Drink Me' more a payoff or more a seductive love album? I think I can’t analyze that from my point of view because all those experiences are still so fresh in my mind. I have definitely written differently from how I have done before. I haven’t picked out a subject like God or violence this time. I have worked instead as if I would write a diary. Do you write a diary? No. But this is how I imagine it. I have become instantly happy while making this record because I realized that it touched exactly one person: me. How did you realize that you were in love with Evan Rachel Wood? I felt the great luck to find someone who felt connected to my emotions. I realized more and more that this woman is like me. It is easier if you don’t always have to explain yourself. You could get the impression that there are some Dita- and some Evan Rachel-songs on the album. [laughs] yes, yes. 'Red Carpet Grave' with lines like 'she has no faith in me' or 'she makes the depression business' sounds a lot like a bitter payoff. Yes, that is probably the most obvious song that comments my last relationship. I observe there, I directly speak about the things. Are you expecting a reaction from your ex-wife? I would be surprised if she wouldn’t comment that. I am sure that she will speak about it in public. She can do that. Was it difficult for you to make an album full of love songs? It cost me quite an effort. I have sung about all different things: about willpower, anger, hate, finding yourself, change and so much more. But never about the strongest emotion in the world: love. 'Eat Me, Drink Me' is obviously the most human of all Manson-albums. You only physically behind the comic-like created art figure, the songs are very bare and fragile. Hmm. Yeah. I have never allowed myself so much to show weakness and to admit. I let people see that I am also just a poor guy whose relationship didn’t work out. To be that human it really must have felt very very bad [laughs]. Do you wish sometimes to be just a common man? [astounded silence] You mean, in the common sense of being accepted by society and pretended normal? Yeah, kind of like that. I don’t wish to be like that, no. I think of myself to be absolutely complicated and somewhat kinky but I don’t think that I am uncommon. I am just me. I don’t wake up in the morning and think: 'So, how can I be especially weird today?' Does it bother you that most people don’t think you are normal? No. I do a lot of things that other people would never do. I live that representatively for them too. Because in general, and I am pretty sure about that, would a lot of people love to live like me and do the things I want to do. I don’t want to be a role model. But I am happy about the thought that some people get inspired by my being. It is basically pretty easy: It doesn’t matter if you are Marilyn Manson, the Pope or the guy next door – everybody wants to love, be loved and understood, and not to be alone. Exactly. I have many common grounds with the majority of society. But I also like to have stuffed animals to be standing around, blood on the walls and to have no light coming into the room. I just like that. Are you and your girlfiend sometimes sitting on the couch and watch an episode, of let’s say, 'Desperate Housewives'? Well, not that particular show, I never watch that, but I watch a lot of TV and all kinds of movies. In the last days I have watched “Brokeback Mountain” four times. Really? Yes! I love that movie. Greatly made. And I can understand to be a lonely cowboy who is fucked by another lonely cowboy. I found that pretty intense what the guys had to be going through. Do you want to say something about the massacre at the Virginia Tech-University? I wouldn’t be afraid to be made the scapegoat for that. It also wouldn’t surprise me. How did it – after the event – affect you that you have been made the scapegoat for the Columbine High School Massacre? Much more than I had allowed myself to admit. I thought that these wrong accusations would not hit me. But I suffered from how the world suddenly saw me. That I partially was presented as an abhorrent creature. That I spoke in the movie “Bowling for Columbine” helped me a lot at that time. That I could finally say:” Okay, I am your scapegoat, but I explain to you why I am not guilty but the parents, the teachers and everyone who looked away is.” What is your explanation for such an act? I allow myself to say that I don’t know. |
