Not-So-Spooky Kid

That’s the way that it should be. If it is real it is always right. I’ve refused to listen to some warnings in the past and they’ve come back to haunt me. You know, you’re blinded by relationships and you’re warned that it isn’t right. You think that you can outrace destiny or fate. I recently had my tarot cards read by a friend of mine, he told me that this moment … this record was the first time that I have truly defined myself as a person.

And you believed that?

Well, that wasn’t what I was asking to hear. But I do believe it now.

How do you deal with the whirlwind of rumors and gossip that surrounds you? People wanted me to ask you about your divorce and your nose job and your new girlfriend….

Well, I’ve gotten used to making the division between reality and fiction. Something to my benefit, and I don’t mean in the press. I mean … the last time I was home I had movie lights around my house instead of proper lamps. I’m used to being on the set of a photo shoot or a film or a video or something. It became almost like a Fellini movie. Why should I bother trying to be normal and fit in, which is what happened to me over the course and towards the end of my marriage? I was expected to conform a little too much to what the public wanted. Because there was that expectation of the relationship … that that was how I would prove my worth as a partner. If I would suddenly be everything that I am against. I wrote a song about my feelings towards public perception and how that can destroy a person….

Are you still painting?

I haven’t had a chance. When I’m on the road, it’s impossible. But yes.

I read The Long Hard Road Out of Hell, and I have heard that you are working on a new novel?

It’s still in progress. I have a lot of stories to tell, that I’m sure would be interesting to people. There’s a bunch of stuff that I have to finish when the tour is over. There are a couple of movie roles that I’ve done; the films haven’t even come out yet. I’ve written a film about Lewis Carroll that I want to direct. It was supposed to begin at the end of last year, but I think for the best I decided to make the record and postpone the film. I have found a lot of things in common with Lewis Carroll. The whole book Alice in Wonderland is about loss of identity. She gets small; she can’t remember her name. I realize now that I was becoming —

Hello? Hello? (At this point in the interview, my allotted 15 minutes were up and we were cut off. About two minutes later my phone rang.)

Sorry about that, what was the last thing you heard?

You were talking about Lewis Carroll….

Oh yeah. I was very much either becoming the role that I was writing about …or I was already the role. Alice In Wonderland is more than just a fascination of mine, it was part of the inspiration for Eat Me, Drink Me. As well as the vampire mythology that is very related to Christianity. This idea of consuming somebody or being consumed and how that exists in religion and how as a person I felt objectified as a product being consumed. A lot of these things were going on in my head and the record is the end result of it.

You see yourself as a product?

As long as I’m in control of who I am, then I don’t have a problem with it. The only way that art can be art is if the artist and what they create are one and the same. When I started to separate the two, my creativity died and I had no feelings or desire to live. Now I can never be separate from my creativity. That’s why I can’t not be Marilyn Manson any more than I can not be Brian Warner. I can’t turn off how I think, and that’s really why I picked the name Marilyn Manson. Just to define my personality.

That’s pretty intense [laughter]. Okay … you’ve written quite a few songs about the drugs. [laughter] From what you’ve been saying about separating the work from your life....