Marilyn Manson takes on critics, Columbine fallout

By G. Brown 
Denver Post Popular Music Writer

Sunday, June 10, 2001 - HOLLYWOOD, Calif.

More than two years after the shootings at Columbine High School, Marilyn Manson is still dealing with the backlash from those who believe his music shares some culpability for the tragedy. 

But sitting at his home in the Hollywood Hills, the controversial shock rocker isn't going out of his way to settle the troubled waters. 

"The honest to God truth is, I really don't find the controversy something to be proud of, or to use to better my career," he said. "I'm not trying to be a lightning rod for all their hatred. ... I just want to be someone who inspires other people to have an opinion, to be an individual, to maybe question things once in a while." 

Later this month, Manson will perform in Colorado for the first time since the Columbine tragedy as part of Ozzfest at Mile High Stadium. In the face of protests against his appearance, Manson talked at length with The Denver Post about his background, his music, how he views the school massacre and his attitude toward his detractors. It was the first extensive interview given by Manson to anyone in the Colorado media in more than two years. 

In the aftermath of the April 1999 massacre, which left 15 dead and 23 wounded, Manson canceled his "Rock Is Dead" tour - including a show at Red Rocks - and issued a statement expressing his sympathy for the victims. 

"But I was surprised," he said. "Even coming back home to Los Angeles, it was strange going out to a restaurant and having people give me dirty looks like I did something wrong. ... I became a poster boy for a big campaign of fear." 

Columbine, Manson said, "is probably the only event since the Kennedy assassination to really shock America. ... It's grotesque that they used it as a toy to toss around to set up the election - the only thing Bush and Gore were talking about was violence in entertainment and gun control. 

"I may have nihilism in my music, and it may not be pretty, but at the same time I don't think I behaved in such a disrespectful way as these other people." 

Citizens for Peace and Respect, or CPR, a group affiliated with Denver-area churches, citizens, businesses and several families of Columbine victims, is protesting Manson's June 21 appearance at Ozzfest. 

They are "just digging up something that didn't need to be talked about, because I wasn't going to come to Denver and make a point of discussing Columbine," Manson said. "I'm definitely a provocative artist, but I'm not inhuman. 

"It's very self-serving of these people, because it helps get their name in the paper and have another reason for people to be scared on Sunday. ... (They say) "Marilyn Manson is the devil,' because if they want to be the good guy, they have to find a bad guy." 
Gov. Bill Owens and Rep. Tom Tancredo support CPR, but Manson said his show will go on. And rather than be on the defensive, Manson challenged them. 

"Now this trip to Denver is worth fighting for," he said. "These people are saying, "We don't like your message in your music because it represents some of the same motives or feelings that were involved in the shootings.' In some ways, they have a point, because what I say represents the people who are never being listened to, the anger of growing up in a world that takes advantage of you. 

"I'm lucky - I can put all of my anger into a song. Other people can't. When someone has something to say and no one's listening and it just builds up, then these things happen. People react violently. They cause a spectacle so you're forced to listen." 

In videos and onstage, Manson may look menacing to adults and thrilling to young fans. But in person, he's thin and sensitive, not favored with classic rock-star features. His careful voice is deep, and his long, detailed (and profanity-free) answers to questions demonstrate his intelligence. 

He's a genuinely strange man. He wears signature mix-and-match colored contact lenses. During an interview at his home, he's clad entirely in black - a skintight long-sleeve shirt, jeans and Velcro-strapped boots. 

Manson shows off some of the highlights of his house, where the Rolling Stones wrote "Let It Bleed" in the late '60s. "It's definitely haunted," he says. "The other day I woke up and heard someone running down the stairs." 

The living room is lit only by three candles and the glow of a crucifix lamp. An African tribal mask made of the skin of natives rests on the mantle. Manson gently caresses a skull on one table. "Someone gave me the skeleton of a 7-year-old child," he said. "I don't know where they got it, and I don't want to know." 

Manson collects medical items, such as antique models of the brain and other organs. "It's a fetish that goes back to being a skinny, sickly kid," he said, carefully pushing his jet-black hair off his face with a long, bony finger sheathed in a metal talon. "My father was in Vietnam and sprayed Agent Orange, so I had to be tested in the hospital all the time. I don't think there were any real effects, except I had pneumonia four times." 

He points to mounted specimens of a boar and two baboons. 

"My favorite dog was poisoned by my neighbor. I think that's why I'm attached to these already dead animals, so the loss factor doesn't play into it. ... I try to find beauty in the things that most people consider to be ugly." 

Every room is strewn with books. "I have a real thirst for knowledge on a lot of subjects, religion and psychology and philosophy being my favorites," he said. 

There's a kneeler and a pulpit from a Baptist church from the 1800s. "I always like to juxtapose religion and logic," he says. And there are crucifixes - some small, plastic and cheap, others huge, wooden and intricately cut - hanging on every wall. 

Manson has a sense of humor that escapes his detractors. "Always, my favorite character (in the Bible) is Lucifer - I re-enacted his fall from heaven, but in my own life," he says with a laugh. "He wanted to be God, he wanted to be himself, and he was kicked out for that. ... (I thought) "This is good - this guy has his own opinion.' It's a metaphor for parents and kids. ... 

"I've taken pieces from all sorts of teachings and combined them together to form my own opinion. ... It's much like my name represents - there's Marilyn, there's Manson, there's God, there's the devil. ... 

"I don't dislike what's in the Bible. I dislike how people use it to make others suffer. I don't hate God. I just don't like the God of the people that I hate." 

Manson was born Brian Warner in January 1969, the only child in a middle-class family, and was raised in Ohio and Florida. He doesn't have a complaint of neglect or child abuse by his parents, a furniture salesman and a nurse. In fact, they sent him to a private Christian school for 10 years. 

"They weren't all that religious, but they wanted me to have the best education possible," Manson said. "And they thought I'd get it there." 

But the young Manson said he was not allowed to express his individuality and creativity. It intrigued him when the school warned of rock's wickedness. 

"They would play albums backward and say, "This is what you shouldn't listen to.' ... So I immediately went out and bought Black Sabbath and Kiss. It's just common psychology - if you say, "Don't do this,' any kid is going to do it. 

"I've grown up to become the same thing that led me down the path of evil, as they would see it. Music was just an escape for me, my way of dealing with the world that I didn't feel like I fit in." 

Manson, whose first album, "Portrait of an American Family," came out in 1994, made his move into ghoulish, theatrical rock and set out from the beginning to push buttons. His music and stage shows dealt a large dose of sex, violence and Satan and integrated the influence of pornography and horror films. 

It was adolescent fantasy that no mainstream act could match. Manson wasn't the first to wring fame and fortune out of portraying himself as a symptom of American pop culture, but with a few sharp songs, some inflammatory imagery and reckless performances, he became the bane of people concerned about preserving family values in entertainment. He sold souvenir T-shirts proclaiming "Kill God ... Kill Your Mom And Dad ... Kill Yourself." 

After the release of 1996's "Antichrist Superstar" came reports that Manson ripped pages from the Bible onstage. The religious right dreamed up more - they wrongly accused him of everything from handing out drugs to bestiality to sacrificing virgins. There were pickets, canceled concerts and death threats. 

"There was a real slander campaign going on with some religious groups," he said. "When they were calling in bomb threats on a daily basis, it became, in a sense, a war for me. 

"Tearing up the Bible was obviously a provocative thing to do. At the same time, I like symbolism. It's a book, made of paper. Why do you have to put your hand on it to swear to tell the truth? It's what's in your heart that counts....

"Right now in Denver, I'm sure there are a lot of people arguing - is it right for me to come there, should I have the right to come there? ... So they are fulfilling my dream as an artist. The people who hate me are doing what I want them to do - I'm on their minds, so I'm affecting their lives." 

Immediately after Columbine, it was reported that gunmen Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris were Manson fans. While Harris had a Manson CD, interviews with acquaintances indicated they were far bigger fans of the goth-industrial rock of the German bands Rammstein and KMFDM. 

The criticism of Manson began immediately. 

"I was in Chicago watching television in my hotel room, and Columbine came on the news, happening live. Initially, they were saying the killers were wearing makeup and masks and Marilyn Manson T-shirts. As it went along, some of that got knocked away, but because of the first reports, it stuck. And it snowballed from there." 

Manson retreated. "I went upstairs and didn't come down for three months," he said. "I spent time reading and writing and putting all of my thoughts together. ... Sometimes people mistake my viewpoint as fatalistic or pessimistic and hopeless, (but) the one thing that they miss is that I wouldn't bother creating music if I didn't have a small gleam of hope." 

Manson has done considerable research on Columbine. He cites everything from the latest results of the investigation to conspiracy theories outlined in the book "You Are Being Lied To." 

"The way the national news media dove on it and made it into something worse than it even started out being annoyed and disgusted me," he said. "And it didn't surprise me at all. For them to blame me was sadly ironic. ... The media takes violence, makes it into entertainment, and the killer becomes the star." 

Manson's latest album, "Holy Wood (In The Shadow Of The Valley Of Death)," was written and recorded as a direct response to his critics. 

"People would have expected or preferred it if I would have toned things down and made a more pleasant record," he said. "Instead, I went the other way and made something that dealt with everything they didn't want me to deal with - guns, God and government." 
There are several references to Columbine, notably in the single "The Nobodies": "Some children died the other day/You should see the ratings." 

"The song doesn't have any profanity in it," he said, "but I was asked by MTV to remove the word "dead' from the chorus, "When we're dead, they'll know who we are.' I think that's really odd. It's not an offensive word. That's not even a sentiment I created - it's an obvious viewpoint. That's the dangerous area we're treading with art." 

As music and film are called into question for exerting a bad influence on young people, Manson is one of their most impassioned defenders.

"It seems absurd to blame entertainment for the way people behave," he said. "That would be like blaming the guy who invented the video camera for pornography. It's the job of artists to express the feelings around them in their own special way. And hopefully what they create is something that people will relate to, that will change their lives in some way." 
However, he admits he isn't eligible for any humility awards.

"I would be willing at any time to sit down with these people, even as far up as Joseph Lieberman, and discuss and stand behind anything that I do, and the rest of entertainment. I guarantee that I know more about the Bible than any of them, and I guarantee that they would lose the debate. That's an open invitation."

Manson initially planned to forgo Ozzfest's Denver date, citing an unspecified prior commitment. However, his agenda was altered to accommodate the stop. When CPR began its protests, Manson's camp issued a statement saying the singer promised to "balance (his) songs with a wholesome Bible reading, (so that) fans will not only hear (his) so-called "violent' point of view, but also examine the virtues of wonderful "Christian' stories of disease, murder, adultery, suicide and child sacrifice."

"I was being facetious to say that I could find more offensive material in the Bible than in my own lyrics," Manson said. "I will make it a point to read some of those verses that are dark and overlooked. But I'm not going to make the show into a Sunday school lesson, I can assure you of that.

"Once I come to Denver and play, they're going to realize I am a lot of things they think I am. I'm going to provide them with a performance that some of them might find unsavory. But in comparison to my surroundings and the way we've grown as a society, I don't think I'm any more offensive than Elvis or Jerry Lee Lewis in their time.

"No one is going to get hurt, hopefully. And everyone will realize that this is not going to be the last time someone like me comes to town. They need to learn to deal with it, to stop saying, "You can't go see this show,' because that's just going to make more people come." 

Manson sums up with tongue firmly in cheek: "And they need to stop calling me about secretly paying them for all the good publicity they're giving me."