Marilyn Manson

Indeed, Marilyn Manson (birth name Brian Warner) is the textbook definition of a deranged specimen. Case in point: three of his most cherished household possessions are a canister of Zyklon B (the gas used by the Nazis to exterminate Jews during the Holocaust), an eerie painting of a clown by serial killer and child rapist John Wayne Gacy, Jr., and an old abortionist’s chair (covered in a beaver rug that was given to him by Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt). Manson once told Rolling Stone it was a place “where I had sex with certain individuals that may or may not have resulted in my divorce”. Then there are his fabled ‘eccentric’ antics, such as the story of the deaf groupie whom Manson and his bandmates urinated all over, covered in pig’s feet and fucked, or his inclination to dig up dead bodies in graveyards and pick out bones “like strawberries” so he could smoke them like methamphetamine, or his torso that resembles a hashtag of scars following years of self-mutilation onstage.

“A lot of people don’t realise, but with the amount of stories out there about me, there’s still so much shit that I’ve done that they don’t know about which is a lot worse. Mainly because of a lot of it is illegal and shouldn’t be told,” he laughs wryly.

Manson is speaking calmly but with an undertone of energy. An hour before our call, he’d been onstage at the 5,000-capacity Fillmore Auditorium in Denver.

“I don’t think that I lead a completely unreasonable life,” he says. “I like repetition to a certain degree, while being chaotic and spontaneous at times. I don’t seek out trouble specifically, but it does seem to find me. I’m a magnet for broken women, bad people and crazy relationships. Some people think it’s because of drugs. Sometimes it is. Sometimes it’s just my own stupidity. It’s just how my brain works.”

Last month, for his 46th birthday, Manson’s father gave him a report card he had kept from his early school years. It read, “Brian shows an enthusiasm for the Bible and is very considerate of his fellow classmates.” It also noted that he was “a very courteous, sensitive and serious young man”. What the fuck happened?

“I began changing in 1984 when the world didn’t come to an end as I was being told at my Christian school. That’s when I realised it was all bullshit,” he says. “I wanted to find more answers. The Bible is basically a horror film, really. If you look at it carefully you’ll see it’s got pretty much every horror film ever within it from top to bottom. You’ve got the devil, you’ve got God, you’ve got demons, angels, ghosts, killing giants, et cetera. It’s all in there.”

It may come as a shock to many that Manson has always maintained a very loving and stable relationship with his father, which is somewhat ironic considering the number of parents who have blamed him for causing their children’s rebellion.

“My father recently told me that he was once going to become a priest, which I didn’t know. But then instead he went to Vietnam and shot a lot of people. I’ve learnt a lot about my father recently after my mother passing last year. He’s currently on tour with me, which is something that’s never happened before. I actually brought him out onstage the other night. We’ve bonded a lot more this year. I think he’s currently feeling a lot like me, like a kid again. Maybe that’s why he gave me my report card.”

Manson began 2015 with the release of his ninth studio album, The Pale Emperor. The title refers to Constantius Chlorus, the first Roman ruler to deny God. A departure from Manson’s signature industrial and electronica-influenced heavy metal, the record draws from the blues and sparse hard rock. However, lyrically, the album paints a career-defining picture of Manson’s malevolence, with his sinful depictions of religion, violence and mortality making it his most macabre record since 1998’s Mechanical Animals.

“Music has always had evil in it. There was evil when Mozart came up with the tritone,” he says, referring to the augmented fourth (or diminished fifth) known as the ‘chord of evil’, which was banned in Renaissance church music. “There has to be something in music that stops us from thinking stupid things, like there’s a God who created us, which puts us in an eternal loop of foolishness, like a fucking snake eating its own tail.”

Having taken on a role as a white supremacist in the US television series Sons Of Anarchy, in recent times Manson’s hallowed nocturnal tendencies have been impeded for the sake of 6am starts. However, he isn’t exactly enjoying all the sunshine.

“In Hollywood, people recognise you because you’re famous. Especially when you look the way that I do – which I intentionally do. I think I started to look more masculine this year. I’ve begun wearing this suit with a gold switchblade hanging off the pocket. So now people don’t just look at me because I’m six-foot-one and wearing makeup, but now they look at me and know that they don’t want to start a conversation with me. Because they know there’s a chance I’ll bring out the switchblade, which has happened.

“I was in a bar one night and this guy says something to me – who ironically was also an Australian, which is no fault of Australia [laughs] – I was with two guy friends, a director and a producer, just having a beer. A guy stumbles in with a bunch of paid-for escorts and goes, ‘Get the fuck out of my way,’ in some sort of macho, sadistic way. I wasn’t even close to him; I was like five feet away. I went, ‘Do we have a problem? Are you looking for a problem?’ He slurred back to me, ‘What’d you say?’

“‘I said, ‘Do we have a problem?’

‘“Are you looking for one?’ he says very aggressively.

“‘Look down.’

“He left the bar.”

This month, Manson returns to Australian shores on his Hell Not Hallelujah world tour, which sees him at the 2015 incarnation of Soundwave alongside a run of headline shows.

“I’m really bad at parties, and I’m really bad around people that I don’t know,” he laughs again. “It’s an utter phenomenon that I’m able to go onstage in front of thousands of strangers and do what I do. I guess it’s a trade-off. A gift, a curse? I don’t know. People ask me, ‘What’s the difference between you onstage and offstage?’ It’s really easy to explain. Offstage, I’m around people I know; onstage, I’m in front of people I’ve never met.

“Oh shit!” he exclaims just before we end our chat. “I’ve got something really important to tell you. Please make sure your readers know that the newly single Marilyn Manson will be coming to Australia.”

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