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Marilyn Manson's Diabolic Cabaret

For many, this pale and skinny man is the Antichrist: the sum of all the detestable in the modern world. He likes to provoke and to become the spotlight of social phobias related with sex and religion. Let's say... he lives from that. He reappears with the album "EAT ME, DRINK ME" the result from his break-up with the glamorous Dita Von Teese.

It doesn't seem right. We're in London and we're going to meet up with Marilyn Manson in the Metropolitan, a hotel in front of Hyde Park. One can expect something more related to his rough image, like some victorian building wich there's a lot on this city. Besides, the Metropolitan is identified with the crazy years of britpop, a movement miles away from Manson's poisoned sensibility.

It turns out that there is no mistake at all and the date is here. On the halls I can see some european journalists who are wearing discreet goth clothing: black clothes, metalic details, impossible hair colours. They're believers and their edginess turns out contagious: "Poor Brian, he must be destroyed...". Brian is Brian Warner, Marilyn Manson's real name, born in Canton (Ohio) on January 5th 1969. "And the cause of his pains -the soft voice of a whisper- it's his divorce from Dita Von Teese" her wife for over a year, famous model and burlesque dancer (a recreation of the sexy spectacles from the 50's).
She had the fault, assures our confident: "She's a bitch that took advantage of Brian's fame, and now that she's established she leaves him alone".

According to the promotional argument, after months down the black well of loving desperation, Marilyn has come to the surface with EAT ME, DRINK ME, an album with conventional fury but with great echoes of glam rock. One would believe that satanic rockstars would never get that as a form of inspiration, proper for sensitive singer-songwriters. The truth is that, without Trent Reznor's magic powders (head producer of Nine Inch Nails) he tends to stay on typical sounds and predictable lyrics: vampirism, self mutilation, canibalism, the devil.

At first sight, the artist in person gives this image of abandoned lover. He's sitting in a couch forming a Z with his legs. Gives his hand to the journalist and invites him to get a drink. There's a big glass of a fluorescent drink in front of him -does it smell like kiwi juice?- but then he gets a bottle of absinthe that he shakes in front of me.
-No thanks. It's Too early for me.
-It's OK. Like they say in here, it's 1 o'clock in the afternoon, but it must be 10 o'clock in the night in some part of the world too.

-I was saving it for the last part of the interview, but well, let's talk about drugs. Have drugs helped you to avoid the pain after your breakup with Dita?
-Who takes drugs as a pain killer must be an idiot. Drugs are a recreative element. They work better when you are in good company, with friends who like to have fun. Maybe they'd work also for self knowledge, if you are willing to take the excess road. But most of the people get high to forget who they are. Mostly in the Rock world, where so many betray their art for money.

It's supposed that today's rock stars talk more about their personal trainers than about their drug dealers. Marilyn thinks that's hypocryte. "Look at record labels, when they give you a gold or platinum album they offer you the chance to make some extra copies. There's morons who give their platinum albums to their drug dealers because they think they'll get free drugs. I've been in some drug dealers houses where they invite you to get a line over the platinum album of artist you'd never imagine in one of those places".

That's the authorized opinion from someone who brags about smoking bones of corpses, but he says: "It gives you a bad trip. It's repulsive. It was really about testing some Hollywood good kids who thought they were the coolest thing on the planet. We told them: 'We have a bag of bones, the ones they use for Voodoo ceremonies? and they said: 'Sure, voodoo bones'. I was happy for give them vomit and nightmares".

The question was obvious: What kind of person travels with a bag full of human bones? He assures it was an idea from his ex-band member, Twiggy Ramirez. We visited an abandoned cementery and the bones were practically popping out to the surface, like in a B list movie. That happens in New Orleans: the ground is spongy and what was buried decades ago suddenly reappears. It was a temptation we couldn't resist".

While he recorded some of his best themes, Marilyn hates New Orleans with a passion. "It's America's sewer. If you avoid the turistic places you just find ugliness, mean amputated people, junkies, disgusting transexuals... even the police is full of morons. I remember the time when some cops robbed a chinese restaurant with uncovered faces and they killed some employees. I've never seen a city filled with so many fucking vampires. Desperate beings who think they are Anne Rice's characters but they just want to suck your energy".

Look who's talking. Marilyn Manson precisely attracts an extreme audience that falls into the grotesque. In one of his records appear the slashers, the chicks who write his character's name with a razorblade on their chests. Marilyn is a magnet for lost souls trying to find degrading experiences. On some tour, he brought some sadomasochist instruments for both gender fans whom once naked, they were forced to confess their deepest secrets. They even recorded those humiliating sessions, like they were psicological experiments and he doesn't blush when he remembers: "Oh, that was backstage trainings to calm us down after the show. It was about consensus games, I must stress that out, where nobody was hurt in a physical way. We quitted when we proved that a lot of them were telling stories... How should I say this?... relly fucked up stories that we decided to think they were fake.

-What did you do when you found people like that? did you send them to psychiatry?
-I don't believe in psychiatry. Neither I consider myself responsable for the mental health of my fans. If you've been in depressing situations you have to let them behind with your own will. You're really sick if you hope for a really stoned rockstar to show you the road to health.

In New Orleans, the ground is spongy and buried bones reappear. It was a Temptation we couldn't resist.

Manson used to think there was no bad publicity, until some people wanted to make him an intellectual responsable for the Columbine massacre. When he remembers it, his voice turns deeper: "Everyone has played with the idea of killing someone you hate or someone who makes your life impossible, but generally, the thing that stop us is the fear to punishment. At least that's my experience. Neverthless, I'm not willing to carry with the crimes of other people on my back. In fact, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold (the massacre's authors) didn't consider themselves as Marilyn Manson fans, they thought we were too commercial so they rather listen to Rammstein or KMFDM. But media doesn't know too much about german industrial rock so they passed the blame to me".

What started as a mediatic beating allowed him to improve his image thanks to his interview on 'Bowling For Columbine' the documentary by Michael Moore that showed the facts for treating violence between the american society. "I spent some weeks hiding, convinced that there were too many fanatic people who wanted to kill me. Well, I still think about it (laughs), but those were days where the murder would get applausses. Michael was the only one who decided that I had something to say about the topic. I've known a lot of people who say to me: 'You're a really inteligent person, I proved it because of the movie'. And I have to smile while I ask myself what kind of junk information this people were consuming before the documentary".

A good friendship was born with Michael Moore, but that doesn't mean he follows him with his attacks to the Iraq war. "I don't think any movement against the war would like to count with Marilyn Manson (laughs). Besides, I have said before that I preferred George W Bush as a president. It's not like I'm voting, but it seems more transparent, more disgustingly sincere. With Kerry we would still being in Iraq, in a more subtle way though".

More than intertational politics, he's more concerned about the limitations with freedom of speech in his country, that may cause some damage even to an artist specialized in provocation: "I thought that the record label that signed me, Interescope, knew what kind of game they were going to play with me, but I spent entire days fighting against lame executives that wanted to cut my lyrics, edit the DVD or change the song that's being released as a single. I'm trying to stick inside their stupid heads that I have a superior knowledge of the audience and that I know what's expected from me".

The journalist must recognize he feels a little uncomfortable with Marilyn Manson. In the seventies, the king of shock rock used to be Alice Cooper, but we assumed that once without makeup he was Vincent Furnier again, a gentleman who borders into a conservative, a golf lover. With Marilyn there's no clear line between the stage and the everyday life. It turns out repulsive his indirect glorification of serial killers: when they left Florida, the band's members were getting their first names from a female icon and the last names from a serial killer. For the leader, the reference was clear: Charles Manson, the hippie guru who directed a massacre in the Roman Polansky and Sharon Tate mansion not counting some other gory crimes.

There most be something about him...
With some of his girlfirends. Above, with actress Rose MCGowan. Over this lines, his actual partner Evan Rachel Wood. Down and left, his lost love Dita Von Teese. Plus two more pictures of Manson live on 2003 and 2005.

-Was it scary for you to record in the exact same place where the Sharon Tate thing took place?
-Well, Trent (Reznor) rented the house. I guess we were expecting some vibrations there to make our music more intense. And some hard to explain things happened there: One night, with just me and the sound technician alone, we found Manson's voice in what we were recording at the time. Of course we ended up running. Next day the recording disappeared.

-What exactly did you hear?
-They were some fragments of one of his songs. At that time just a few people knew that Manson recorded some songs and that he wanted to be a rockstar. I remember talking with the dopey Axl (Rose, lead singer of Gun's & Roses) and his jaw dropped when I told him Manson had a record called 'Lie'. After that, they recorded one of his songs on 'The Spaghetti Incident'

I've been accused of sacrify kids... But oddly enough, babies like me".

He swears and swears that Charles Manson never tried to have contact with him. It's surprizing that someone who has spent most of his life behind bars doesn't even try to take advantage from the rocker's name to gain some fans and get himself into a brighter light. On the opposite side, Marilyn recognizes that he spent time with Anton La Vey, the californian Satanist, but always keeping the distance in between.

"When I met LaVey he was really old. I allowed him to give me a card that certificates me as a reverend for his Satan's church. I know it was something essentially symbolic but I don't think there's much sense on creating the opposite side of a Christian church. In my world, individualism is an essential thing. Even when I have so many values that LaVey defended, I wouldn't seriously involve in his organization or any other. And that created me a lot of problems. I've been accused of sacrify kids... But oddly enough, babies like me".

Even when a lot of cities in many countries have tried to ban his concerts, Marilyn's crime history seems dull: feuds with cops or security guards that end up in a fine or an extra-official agreement. Regardless of that, they made him feel the force of hate: "When you have been taken to your cell, they took all your clothes and all your humanity, you don't feel that thing so dull anymore. You know you're gonna spend several hours under their control until someone pays the fine, and that you're gonna be their trophy until then. They bring their friends to watch you. They say they'll lock you up with the psychopaths. You can suffer any kind of 'accident'"

-And what do you do with that? Do you try to let them know that all of just stays in a show? After all, you're essentially a great 'showman'.
-No. You shut the fuck up and you let them know, in a very very subtle way that if they exceed with you, you have some lawyers that would make their lifes really uncomfortable.

-Do they show some kind of humanity? Curiosity for example...
-Well, someone may relax and make you a gesture of complicity. They usually get astonished when they discover I don't have horns and a tail and hooves.

In short distance is where Marilyn Manson's charm works. Dressed up casually, showing those mall tattoos, he seems exactly like a skinny heavy metal fan who doesn't spend too much time under the sunlight. Being a musical journalist on his beginnings, he knows how to cover the needs of the pen. He brings up briefly his speech of how important is the new album for his evolution, claims a little of attention to his matrimonial misfortunes... and efficiently attends other people's curiosity, even if he has told the same adventures a thousand times before. He has his playful side: "We've talked about Charles Manson, but you never asked for my mother, for Marilyn Monroe".

"Marilyn had her dark side too, but let's not say bad things about the ones who died early, right? Anton (LaVey, the satanist) told me some dirty stories about Marilyn, but he recognized that they were second hand stories, kind of Hollywood-Babylon. She did get close to James Mansfield. According to him, Jane died for a damnation from her against her pimp. It was a collateral damage. Maybe a wizard should not brag about his powers when they are so little... polished (laughs). Altough the incident that killed them took place in New Orleans and everything is fucked up there".

-We haven't talked too much about today's Hollywood either. Last year they were announcing on the Berlin festival your debut
as a director with "Phantasmagoria: The Visions of Lewis Carrol" but we don't know anything again...
-I can't tell you anything besides the obvious: the Hollywood bussiness is more depraved than the rock bussiness. Like Alejandro Jodorowsky adviced me once, it's not a place for someone who pretends to make art.

*EAT ME,DRINK ME (Universal) comes out on June 4th. Marilyn Manson will be the headliner on this year's Lorca Rock Festival to take place on saturday June 2nd

и перевод со страницы с Эван (тоже на английском):

EVAN RACHEL WOOD
Raleigh (North Carolina), 1987

Son and sister of actors, evan has a good resume on cinema (and at life) for her 19 years. She was a soup opera actress as a child and at 11 she needed to drop school (and educate herself in private lessons) because of the claimed mistreat she recieved from other students. Popularity came to her in 2003 with "Thirteen" when she was a candidate for a Golden Globe. Watch out! She's black belt in taekwondo and Marilyn Manson's girlfriend. Her role on King of California recieved acclaims at Sundance 2007.