What
does Marilyn Manson have in store for this summer's Ozzfest? "I plan
on doing things that most people say won't work in a festival environment,"
he promises. "Whether that's a chorus line of girls or me singing to
piano accompaniment to disabled women in the nude -- whatever the case
may be, I want to bring a new definition of family fun." No doubt that
includes tracks from his new CD, The Golden Age of Grotesque, and the
sort of stage play that led Italian authorities to speculate that Manson's
genitals were detachable. Read on!
The
last time you played Ozzfest, things didn't go so well.
We were a year into our record being out, and we'd just survived Columbine.
It was a battle. But we walked away from that tour playing with every
band on the radio that was clearly, in technical standards, more popular
than us. And we showed people who was really running the show.
Did
you make friends with other bands?
I think on the last Ozzfest, the Osbournes definitely embraced me as
a family member. Not only did I take Jack Osbourne to his first strip
bar and have to baby-sit for some of the other youngsters, but I got
close to Ozzy and Sharon as well.
What's
the strangest thing that's ever happened to you on tour?
I was arrested in Rome -- not for wearing a pope's outfit, which I think
was the reason they wanted to arrest me, but it wasn't illegal. But
someone came with a complaint from a concert that happened two years
prior, saying that I pulled off my genitals and threw them to the audience.
Very strange. I don't know if it was a breakdown in the translation.
You don't have that power? At the show, I did not throw my genitals.
I still have them. What other kind of problems have you encountered
on tour? There are the constant death threats. And, for anybody who
thinks I don't have problems anymore with conservative American protests,
we've been banned from playing Buffalo.
How
do you deal with the summer heat?
I've never really had a problem with temperature. But I'm obviously
not a big fan of the sun.
Do you
use sunscreen?
I never go out in the sun, so I don't have to. I don't think we're gonna
be playing in direct sunlight.
When
you're having a bad show, is there any surefire thing that you can do
to make it work?
I
guess the only thing that would make it a bad show is if I'm unable
to deliver when I need to. I always just end up being violent. In the
past it's been more extreme, whether creating the 300 or so scars that
I have all over myself or, in the last couple of years, destroying equipment.
But that always has to be honest; it can't be something you do because
people expect it.
What
were you doing the summer before you got famous?
That was around the time of "Sweet Dreams" -- I was in New Orleans recording
Antichrist Superstar, my second album. I was probably putting myself
one step closer to the grave every day. I was digging up bones and doing
drugs and sleeping in the basement of a rat-infested apartment. And
it wasn't becoming famous that saved me, but it was knowing that my
willpower had started to accomplish something that made me feel as if
I had a purpose that was more important than self-destruction.
On a
more positive note, are groupies better during the summer?
Well, they're sweatier. Groupies are a strange thing for me, because
I have this fatherly Boy Scout-leader quality -- I have a sense of respect
for people who are a part of what I do, and I don't feel the need to
disrespectfully abuse them. But the heat gets people acting strange.
The last time we did Ozzfest, we had the bus that everybody envied.
We had a better way of dealing with the entry into our private domain
-- it started with wet T-shirt contests, but that seemed just too spring
break. So I made it more of a "whoever can get undressed the quickest"
kind of vibe. Then it became a thing with girls in bondage being forced
to do improvisational dances to the Geto Boys. It was a strange performance-art
thing where everybody genuinely enjoyed it.
When
you were growing up, do you remember any really good summer shows?
The best thing was taking acid and going to the first Lollapalooza and
seeing the Butthole Surfers. Things started to get kind of strange,
because there was this family behind me that was all covered in warts.
I don't know if it was the drugs or not, but it really scared me. And
then Jane's Addiction played, and that was one band that really infused
all of the imaginative elements of cinema and literature into rock &
roll in a way that wasn't pretentious, in a way that made me want to
do something. I haven't experienced anything since then that worked
the same way.
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