MARILYN MANSON MARILYN MANSON Alas, In Wonderland Alas, In Wonderland WORDS: Ronnie Kerswell

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Despite a lack of emissions on the musical front,

Marilyn Manson has barely been out of the news, worldwide. Ignoring the idle gossip, Rock Sound gets the low-down on what the God Of Fuck calls a terrible year…

“When I decided to release a ‘best of’ I got to the point where I was pretty prepared to never think about making music again.” Marilyn Manson is speaking to Rock Sound from his Los Angeles home. It’s approaching the witching hour, and he’s literally just walked in the door from a shoot for a short film (which shares the title ‘Eat Me, Drink Me’ with his new album) that he’s making with new, experimental 3D camera technology. As you would expect, the so-called God Of Fuck isn’t the type to retire to bed with a mug of cocoa, and despite the lack of studio album releases in recent years (‘The Golden Age Of Grotesque’ was his last effort in 03), there’s plenty that’s been keeping him awake at night, from getting hitched to – and divorcing – queen of the burlesque Dita Von Teese to opening his own art gallery, The Celebritarian Corporation Gallery Of Fine Art (at 667 Melrose Avenue – unfortunately not 666!), fittingly on Halloween last year. He’s even entered the world of the silver screen (both as an actor and filmmaker), most recently immersing himself in writing and directing Phantasmagoria: The Visions Of Lewis Carroll, tipped to be the most frightening psychological horror you’ll ever see! With all these extra-curricular activities on his plate, ‘Lest We Forget’, the 04-released best of, serves as a reminder of why Manson felt happier venturing into other artistic avenues. “I felt like the world of image – and music specifically – wasn’t allowing me to be creative as much as making film,” he reveals. “I started to feel like I didn’t do anything that wasn’t objectified as anything other than a product. It was not really me feeling like my art has to be understood, it was more like starting to lose my feeling of value as an artist within the way I live and feel as a person. I just didn’t feel like there was any reason to do (music) as it wasn’t making me happy and I wanted to put all my ideas into opening an art gallery, my paintings, and making this film about Lewis Carroll.”

For Better Or For Worse Taking a step back from the musician persona he’d created to concentrate on other creative pursuits wasn’t without its problems and led Manson to some dark times – especially where his marriage was concerned. “The idea of concentrating on being an actor and breaking away from the idea that I should always be perceived as I have been prior to this point kind of got to a place where my personal life and marriage were in a weird world,” he confesses. “It was effected by the way I felt and affected by the way I felt, there was no real way to understand which caused which – although I ultimately accept responsibility as I’m the only one that can take the responsibility for how I feel. People say, ‘You make me feel this way…’, but a person can’t make you feel, you feel how you want to feel.

If you feel a certain way, you have to make a change or change the way you live. I didn’t understand that, got really depressed, and wasn’t able to feel creative. I didn’t really feel like I had an identity, it just made me really confused about who I was and who I wanted to be.” With Ms Von Teese jetting off – giant champagne glass in tow – for shows around the world, the man formerly known as Brian Warner had a lot of time on his hands to assess his situation. “For the greater proportion of last year, my then wife was very busy with her career and I wasn’t prepared for being by myself. Somehow it made me make decisions and think of things in a different way. I’m still trying to understand why you end up reacting ultimately to the things that happen in life and where it takes you. For me, it wasn’t that I necessarily needed somebody around, although I planned on having a particular person around. When I didn’t, it made me kind of fall apart. I got to a place where I didn’t know what to do so I started thinking about music again because that’s always been the best place to put emotions.” The thrust for Manson’s musical return was former bassist, now guitarist, Tim Skold’s advice: “I was just talking about everything that was going on and how it was keeping me from being able to focus and he said, ‘Why don’t you just write a song’. I started doing that and the record took on a whole different feel.” While Marilyn Manson’s former albums such as ‘Antichrist Superstar’ and ‘Mechanical Animals’ have followed distinct themes and have been coupled with a new image and identity, the lyrics have never revealed anything about the author. Specifying exact times and dates, latest full-length ‘Eat Me, Drink Me’ is a brave new step for someone who has exposed himself on stages (he was arrested for getting his cock out in Italy), but never bared his innermost thoughts. “It’s very autobiographical but not in the stylistic type of way,” he explains. “The very first song on the record is ‘If I Was Your Vampire’ and the first line is, ‘Six-am Christmas morning’. I always assume the people that listen to my records know things about my life and it pins it down to everything that was happening at that time.”

The Visions Of Marilyn Manson If ‘Eat Me, Drink Me’ is the closest you’re going to get to reading the Antichrist Superstar’s diary, then Phantasmagoria: The Visions Of Lewis Carroll, his film (which has temporarily been put on the back-burner) is the closest you’ll get to the torment he’s experienced during the past 12 months. Journalists attending a press conference about the film, in which Manson plays Lewis Carroll, were handed a synopsis which described the protagonist as a haunted writer who finds himself becoming a symptom of his own invention. Sound familiar?

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