 You were talking earlier about the religious right having in part blamed you for the columbine high school murder. What was the psychological fallout of having been blamed there? >> I had to spend about three months deciding and writing and just thinking about what I wanted to say to the world after that, what I wanted to say to myself, and in that three months, I really kind of locked myself away in my attic and didn't talk to anyone, and the band was working on music. When I came out, I wrote what ended up being the record. What do you think of your fans and how do you think your fans perceive you? >> Well, I don't try and assume how anyone perceives me. Everyone is going to have a different opinion, and with music, everyone is going to like it for a different reason. I think that's a good thing, you know, and I usually just give back to people what they give to me. If someone is nice to me, then I'm nice to them. If they are an asshole to me, I'm an asshole to them. But, like I said before, the fans were the only ones there to support me when I was being kicked down, so that's something I'm going to never forget. So I love all of you. Who do you admire the most? >> I think I kind of show that on the new record, you know, with John Lennon, kennedy and christ. I think I admire anybody who stands up and has an opinion. I think that's why I worked with eminem. I think that he's maybe someone that you don't always agree with what he's saying, but the fact he's saying it and doing it in a clever way and he's talented, I admire him for that. The thing that pushed me to become what I am is probably the same thing that you're feeling as well, you know. Anybody who has awakened enough to see the way the world is, you can't really contain yourself after that. A lot of people go through life blind, and ignorance is bliss, but once, you know, you have to do something about it... Instead of being negative, I try to focus on being something positive like music. I try and do things that make people think, you know, and if it makes me think, then hopefully it will make other people think. At the end of the night when I go to bed, I don't change even if I wash my face off or put on some pajamas with little footsies or something like that. I'm still the same. For me, as long as I'm able to perform and write songs, that's as good as it's going to get for me. If you read the bible, there's a lot of good stories in there, a lot of good morals that I think exist and that everyone will agree with because they're in every culture. It's just the idea of suppressing people, making them feel guilty for being human beings. You know, the idea of sin is to -- that you're born a sinner, you're going to be guilty for being yourself all your life, and there's nothing you can do about it. So I think that leads to unhappiness. I think we should be proud of our faults, be proud of the fact that you can get angry, you hate somebody. It's not something that you should go cry about, you know. It's being human. Do you still look down on the -- you said sort of the herd mentality, the sheep mentality that goes along with following a faith, where there is no room for individuality? >> Well, "antichrist superstar" examined that on a lot of different levels. It even examined the herd mentality of rock 'n' roll. And I think by looking at that, it made all of us smarter. It made the fans smarter. It made me smarter. I think it gave us all the perspective to realize that christianity and rock 'n' roll are very similar in a sense, and if you can see that, you can point out your own hypocrisy, then you can go above it and you can try and be "realer" than anything else. What you wore in "dope show" some might say could be representative of a feminine side to you. Would you agree with that or maybe... >> Well, to me, it was -- the image on the album cover was to represent vulnerability. It was to represent an undefinable persona to represent sexlessness and both sexes at the same time. So it did have feminine elements, but it was also sexless at the same time. Did you direct this one yourself? [The Nobodies] MM: No, I worked with a new director named Paul Fedor. I think this video may be my favorite one we've done. I've kind of grown to hate the idea of making music videos, because it's frustrating when you spend so much time being creative and coming up with ideas - particularily for me, because I take it as seriously as writing a song and put everything into each detail. It's such a finite thing. It's not like making a film, something that lasts forever. Even though people can go back and watch videos, in some ways it's sort of a worthless art form, because they play it for a couple of weeks and then it's forgotten. That gets frustrating. But I actually enjoyed making this one, and I think it may be the best one we've done. It seems that with your imagery and the concepts that you come up with, video has been and would be a really natural and expressive medium for you. But at the same time, as you said, you really don't know where they're going to end up, how many people are going to see them. Do you feel like this medium has not been utilized to its fullest potential? MM: It's just turned into something quite different because of MTV's programming. Obviously they rarely play music videos as much as they used to, so there's really no home for music video. There are just five or six that are played over and over again, and it's more about politics now. If there was another channel or another way for people to see these things, it might be more worthwhile. We're actually putting together a DVD that is gonna come out later this year, and it'll have a full, filmed concert, and all of our videos - including the new ones - so people will be able to see them that way. And it's our first DVD. I�m not a slave to a god that doesn�t exist, I�m not a slave to a world that doesn�t give a shit I can�t even stand to watch people in restaurants laughing, having fun, enjoying life. Their pitiful happiness sickens me. And on TV, do people really live like this? Is this all a joke? Do we raise kids to believe in Baywatch, canned laughter, Jenny Jones? Stupid fish-white housewives straining their flabby legs together with Suzanne Somer�s Thighmaster? She helped create the dumb blonde stereotype and now she�s a fucking infomercial folk hero hawking a worthless contraption that sounds like a porno movie or an Aerosmith song. Fuck blind consumerism. Stupid people deserve what they get. They�d buy shirts that say �I�m fucking stupid� if Cindy Crawford told them it was cool. I�d love to kill all of them, but I�d be doing them a favor. The worst punishment I can give them is to let them wake up every morning and lead their stupid fucking lives, let them raise their stupid fucking children in their stupid fucking homes, and, of course, make a record called Antichrist Superstar, which will annoy and destroy each and every one of them. Fuck you America. Fuck me. The world spread its legs for another fucking star... He only writes about girls when he had a bad time, he might think he got as far away as possible from Brian Warner, but in doing so, it created all his problems, he was mostly honest although I'm sure he left a lot out he wouldn't want you to know. I think I respect MM more for being somewhat honest rather than pretending none of it happened. Even though some of the things he did went too far [and he knew it] At least he never talked about women like they were goddesses yet f-d them up. He has a tour diary at the back, and although he's still sleeping with anyone, it's now top porn stars, not just fans. He mentioned Courtney and refers to her as a dog, hopes she won't get his diary and destroy it. I identified with him without even wanting to. Not the rock and roll lifestyle, but how he feels about things. One journal entry he wrote I could have written [highlighted above] And how he said he imagined getting married to a black woman or a gay man just to see everyone's reaction. I already know everyone's reaction to you when you're "different". His book just told me what I knew. How his family looked at him like he was nothing, and asked him, why did you tell everyone about your grandad [and what he used to get up to in the basement] and they're saying it to Marilyn Manson, who was practically the same, yet in public. Then he realised it too. He was back down in the basement, and whereas once it used to scare him, he felt at home. I felt like he was in my head, I wasn't just in his. It was a strange feeling. all the pretty, pretty ones They love you when you're on all the covers when you're not and they love another Sometimes I feel so worthless sometimes I feel discarded I wish that I was good enough then I'd know that I'm not alone |
