MARILYN MANSON SAYS THE 1999 COLUMBINE MASSACRE “REALLY SHUT DOWN MY CAREER ENTIRELY”
Page Six of the New York Post reports:
Marilyn Manson shared his wisdom about staying authentic as an artist with the ad and tech elite at Cannes Lions, and concluded, “America needs someone like me to make it not suck as much as it could.”
The singer, speaking at the Grey Music Seminar with Grey Group’s Tor Myhren, described how he has survived a lengthy career as one of the most controversial and polarizing artists, explaining it is because he has remained true to himself, “It’s difficult because you don’t want to become a caricature of yourself, and you don’t want to be a cliche … sometimes I wonder if I have outgrown my spotlight.”
He continued, “You have to question these things. I still get excited performing live still, but when you see the immediate reaction from a crowd, its like being a theater performer, its something you can’t get from being a writer or being an ad man … its almost ritualistic.” But he added, “I don’t like being a celebrity.”
“One of the first questions anyone ever asked me when I started out in music was, ‘Are you worried that your image will overshadow your music?’ I said, ‘No, I am worried that my music will overshadow my image,’” he quipped.
In an interview where he shared a series of seemingly random sardonic stories, jokes and amusing anecdotes, Manson, dressed head to toe in black and wearing glasses and minimal make-up, said, “My father told me when I was very young, after he taught me how to be a sniper, because he was in Vietnam … My dad said, ‘Son I will give you three pieces of advice … if ever you are with a woman, squirt lemon juice on her, if she screams, don’t have sex with her, she has a disease. Second he said, ‘Son when you get a job, on day one fire someone so everyone fears you.”
Clarifying his comments about being an artist, he added, “I think that people have to believe in you and its easy to fake it, its easy to create things that are fake. My name is two fake names … Nowadays kids are more cynical because they have more information … you can’t try to sell something that is fake. Having an avatar or having a persona online isn’t having a personality either, when everybody could be famous, to me it is not a challenge – it makes it easier, it makes the best rise to the top. Anybody can make music, and be famous.”
He talked about the effect of the 1999 Columbine massacre on his career after he was initially blamed when it was falsely reported that the killers were affected by his music, “When Columbine happened, it really shut down my career entirely, the casinos and the establishments refused to book my shows, it was almost unprecedented, not only did I not do anything, but they were not fans of mine, I sat and watched it live on TV and they said initially they [the shooters] were wearing Manson make-up and t-shirts, then we found out later that they weren’t, but once the wheels started spinning … I put cease and desists on all press and I didn’t do interviews, because I thought it would give them exactly what they want.”
Manson described being interviewed for Michael Moore’s Bowling for Columbine, and added, “I started speaking about how there is a whole campaign of fear that really controls the greater part of America, and that’s why I do a shout out to France, because I look at America in the same way that an outsider would. A lot of people ask me if I would ever become an expatriate, and I considered the idea, but I think America needs someone like me to make it not suck as much as it could. If you think my music made them [the shooters] do something, which it didn’t, they were not fans – what do you think I would do?”
Of the current nature of fame he added, “It has become increasingly more difficult to maintain what I call ‘not emptying a bucket of mystery’, there are a lot of people who know a lot about your life.”
“Sometimes you end up becoming exactly what you are fighting against. If you are against pop culture, you become part of pop culture, when I make music I am my worst critic. I don’t like to read reviews unless they are good, I don’t drive myself for accolades … people have an opinion on the internet, but they are all hiding behind the cloak of the internet.”
source: pagesix.com
So, he is saying his music didn’t make them do anything because they were not fans? Well, what if they were? that changes it? So then, the bands they were fans of made them do it? I can’t believe this guy, he is back pedaling from his own premise, which is people have to think for themselves, he’s behaving exactly like a politician. He denies it, when in fact, he should be standing up for the principle itself, whether or not the story is true doesn’t even matter, he should be taking a stand for all artists, which is his claim, and he’s running and hiding like a mouse. America needs him? not nearly as much as he thinks, and moreover, he’s still portraying himself as a victim where people lost their lives! He’s still milking this story for his own benefit.
Milking what? He was flat out blamed for influencing the Columbine shooters, which was completely untrue. He’s saying there’s no way he could have come out of that positively because, as usual, especially in the US, people make up their minds independent of the facts. The guy can talk about how the media destroyed him, and still be respectful for the fact that all those people died, I think he’s allowed that.
America’s reaction to school shootings isn’t without criticism as well. Zero tolerance and overhauling curriculum and policies to be overly politically correct and antiseptic have turned kids into indoor zombies with parents afraid to let their kids out the house.
America needs something, maybe a huge psychological enema. In the internet age, is Manson even edgy enough for the kiddies anymore? Not nearly brutal enough when you can watch real uber violence and explicit materials from the comfort of your 14 year old’s laptop.
I am so tired of responding to posts where the person who I am responding to doesn’t either, 1. take the time to read what I said, or 2. doesn’t comprehend what I said.
So, again,what I said was Mr. Warner is portraying himself as a victim and he’s done this so many times regarding this event, he is obviously desperate for the limelight, he craves it so much, that he is willing to cast himself as a victim of a tragedy, when he should be calling attention to the real victims, the kids who were killed and permanently injured. The theater of the grotesque, oh, the irony. If you recall, his album after this tragedy was Holywood, where he depicts himself being crucified, one of the most disgusting opportunistic moves an artist has ever made. This guy is so full of himself he would engage in this ridiculous charade which makes a mockery out of actual human suffering. An analogy is If the Pope put out a picture of himself being crucified because people said he influenced Hitler, and there are people who said that. He would be looked at as a complete imbecile, and a narcissist.
Brian is a narcissist on steroids. And besides that, this talk about Columbine almost ruining his career is just a red herring, what really ruined his career was a string of weak tea albums, beginning with Holywood.
Your second two paragraphs, I can’t even take that stuff you are saying seriously. So, go ahead guys with the personal insults, the surest sign you are losing a debate: you get personal.
What Manson should’ve said was…….nothing. No comment. Nada, zilcherino, a blank stare, he should have said not a freaking word about it. If people want to infer he influenced those kids, fine, if not? fine. He should’ve stood up for a principle, that it was beneath his dignity to even respond to such nonsense. A band causing kids to kill people? That is so far out there. Look at how Priest handled their situation, that was how it’s done, total (stained) class. Some knucklehead at their label tried to call their Painkiller tour the “subliminal criminals” tour, and they squashed it, those guys don’t put fame above principles.
Unlike Manson, Priest were actually prosecuted in a Court of law, and that trial destroyed the band. They were never the same after that, it broke them up, and those guys hardly ever talk about that case and what it did to them, I’ve heard Glenn mention it a few times in passing, in describing why he wrote the song, “Bloodsuckers” but the way the song is written, it’s ambiguous, it could be about any case, and it’s tucked away as a deep album track. Moreover, he waited over a decade after the trial to put it out. Of course, that was partly because he had to, the trial destroyed his band, but you never hear those guys crying about it.
Something funny: Watch the movie “Phantom of the Paradise” from 19 freaking 74! Manson sure has!