THIS ISN'T ME. I'M NOT MECHANICAL.
--Emotional Nightmare - CMJ Magazine - Issue 64
-~Splitting the Brain - Chart Magazine - October 1998
Becoming Superhuman - JANE Magazine - 11/98
~Omega - Radio 3 of Spanish National Radio Network - 9/21/98
-What do you think God hears from you? - Penthouse Magazine May 1997
MANSON:"I think the in making Mechanical Animals I just opened up to the idea that being everything that I set out to be on Antichrist Superstar includes having human elements and emotions that I didn't count on. This record was easier to make physically, but emotionally it was a nightmare because I was experiencing empathy and wondering how other people feel and what they're suffering. I never wanted to feel empathy. It's a lot easier to feel alienated. It's easier to be mechanical. It's a challenge for me to try to be human. I'm at that point in my life where I've done everything. I've taken it to the extreme. Now the simplest thing, the easiest thing, is a real nightmare. I mean, Antichrist Superstar was driving toward and praying for this bigger than life thing, and this record is accepting and coming to terms with that thing."
MANSON:"I think on Antichrist Superstar I really split the left and right halves of my brain. This album is trying to put them back together again. I’ve maybe found the reasons not to want to fulfill the tragic thing I set in motion, the personal apocalypse. That’s where the sadness on the record comes from: The idea that I may be too late."
MANSON:"On Antichrist Superstar I was dealing with everything from my past and using that to try and become something very superhuman. So I shut off a lot of my emotions and numbed myself. Writing my autobiography forced me to examine my life, and I began to start feeling again. When I started to experience empathy, it felt to me like being and infant or an alien. Mechanical Animals documents that and dreams of a kind of dystopia."
QUESTION: People wanna know why the Omega thing. Why are you calling yourself that now?
MANSON:"It represents the end and the final transformation that was set forth in AntiChrist Superstar, and it's also ironic cause this is a rebirth, so it's the alpha and the omega. It's very biblical in a way. The last album made references to Lucifer's fall from grace, and this album makes references to Christ walking on Earth."
QUESTION: So you're gonna end making Christian Rock?
MANSON:"Like Striper, yeah. It's not to say that what I'm presenting is Christian, but I'm finding comparisons between the alienation that ocurred with Jesus as much as the alienation that occurs with me."
MANSON:"If I believed in an outside force that we wanted to call God - and I believe that there is one, maybe it's not necessarily supposed to be worshiped. I think God would appreciate what I say, because I can't see God wanting to create a world full of idiots."
"Bigger Than Satan" (John Selzer 1997) --
MANSON:"I've tried to debate with Christians, and I'm just tired of it at this point, because they always like to fall back on the idea that it says so in the Bible, and that's their only defense. They don't have any other tangible defense. So I'd much rather speak to someone who has a fresh mind. The younger you are, the more you hold on to what I try and hold on to, which is really magic, which is the idea that if you believe something, if you have a dream, it can come true. It's innocence."
"I think that a lot of people are afraid that it’s easier to not think. It’s easier to just accept things and to not question them. When you question them, you have to start worrying about believing in yourself. And so many more people are content with just being told what they believe.
People can't even decide if they like a rock album. They have to read a review. ‘Well, it’s got five stars on it - I think I'll buy it.' People in America, by nature, prefer to be told what they think than to think for themselves. It’s just a matter of fear.
Once you cross that line and you make that transformation, you can't imagine being that other person you used to be. Its just like Nietzsche's Superman, the idea of mankind in general, to someone who's experienced so much more, is like a lower form of intelligence. You almost have pity, in a way."
INTERVIEWER: Particularly in America, religion seems to have even less sympathy for mankind than you do.
MANSON: Right Here, religion is more of a hat that people put on when it’s convenient if they're trying to make money or to make themselves feel as though they have something worthwhile in their life. I don't think people are really spiritual in America; I think very few people here even have a spirit. It's a lot different in Europe; people have a greater appreciation and understanding of music and art and want to discover and find meaning behind it. Here, people would rather sensationalize. That’s why Marilyn Manson has always been a mockery of sensationalism. When people are mocking me as a gimmick, I'm mocking gimmickry."
INTERVIEWER: You could also take the view that religion is actually fundamental to America, it’s just that because it’s also such a capitalist country, making money out of it is the only tangible means they have to measure their beliefs. Do you feel that you are engaged in a cultural war as much as a religious war?
MANSON: Or even political, because it’s really a struggle of power. It’s not even so much about God, it’s who's going to control the minds of America's youth, because it’s who wants to take their money. Do they want to buy my records or do they want to throw their money on the offering plate? So I don't think a lot of times they care what their kids are listening to or thinking, they just want to make sure that they're listening to them.
But I'm trying to set people free and let them be controlled by themselves. I'm not trying to control them, I'm trying to open their minds. In a sense, that’s controlling them, but by destroying one part of Christianity, you're creating something very similar. I think that if you know that - at least going into it - it’s not as dangerous as what you're destroying."
-NEW FANS - Official Website Interview 9/9/98
MANSON:"So I think, as long as what you create is true to what you are, the more people that hear it can only make it better. And I think it's important that fans don't judge new fans, because everybody hears something for the first time. A fan that's been around since Antichrist Superstar shouldn't have the attitude that someone who heard "The Dope Show" isn't as cool as them, or isn't as dedicated as them, because maybe they didn't hear Portrait of an American Family. By judging other people, it's everything that we stand against. We're trying to say, "Let's break down these barriers. Let's make our own standards." We don't want to judge each other. We have to stick together. I think the more people that hear it, the more of us there are, and the more power that gives all of us."
- Suicide - Official Website Interview September 9/9/98 QUESTION: Does it bother you when you're blamed for kids committing suicide?" MANSON:"It bothers me that someone could grossly misinterpret something enough to kill themselves. But I don't think that anything I've ever said would encourage that. I think that everything I've ever said has been a fight for life, has been me struggling to keep my head above water. I think that I've always discouraged weakness. I think I've always discouraged pitiful escapes like suicide, regardless of how many times I myself and everyone around me has considered thoughts like that."
MARILYN MANSON'S TRUE COLORS
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