In a new interview with Zane Lowe of Apple Music for his podcast, Marilyn Manson runs through his ‘At Home With’ playlist and chats about many topics with the great radio host. He discussed past encounters with David Bowie, Nicolas Cage, Noel, and Liam Gallagher of OASIS, and Rick Ross, the controversial nature of his songs, pursuing other art forms in the absence of live shows, the difference between Marilyn Manson and Brian Warner, and more. Manson’s acclaimed new Shooter Jennings-produced album, We Are Chaos (review here) is out now from Loma Vista Recordings.  

Key quotes below. Feel free to use and credit Zane Lowe on Apple Music. Check out all of the artist-curated ‘At Home With’ playlists on Apple Music HERE. Listen to Zane’s interviews with leading artists on Apple Music HERE and Apple Podcasts HERE. 

 

Marilyn Manson Tells Apple Music About Receiving an Email From David Bowie…

I’m not trying to ever try to live up to his greatness is impossible. He’s a separate person. Yeah. I got to meet him once. And he sent me an email once, which I felt like Santa Claus had emailed me back. That was the greatest thing ever. His email handle was a series of numbers and letters that was probably… You could never say, hey, just email me, and it would be this… some sort of calculus problem. He had gotten my email from Lisa Marie Presley, who I’m really good friends with. Elvis’ daughter, of course.

 

Marilyn Manson Tells Apple Music About Nicolas Cage…

 

He is a huge fan of music. And he’s a huge fan of very unusual things. But we related on animals because he collects cats, and he has a lot of exotic animals. But he has really determined for me to do a musical. I don’t know if it involves him or not, but there’s a thing with he and I, that Wild at Heart is my favorite romantic film, and where he sings Elvis.

 

Marilyn Manson Tells Apple Music About Spending Time With Noel and Liam Gallagher…

I spent some time with both Gallagher brothers separately. I found Noel to be very quiet and pleasant, and Liam to be, you know, Liam. He walked into the room and actually took the acoustic guitar out of Twiggy’s hands and started playing, whilst we were writing the song “Four Rusted Horses” back in the day, and then told me that he wrote the song. And then told me that he was John Lennon, he was the guru, he was Jesus Christ. And he was just being Liam. He was taking the piss out of me. So, I got it, and I thought it was funny. Arrogance, it’s beautiful, but it’s a beautiful arrogance.

 

Marilyn Manson Tells Apple Music About Spending Time With Rick Ross…

I had dinner with Rick Ross once, and he said to me, which I wish that this would come true, he said to me, “Man, it’s been my dream to always work with you.” And I was like, “What?” But he didn’t know that I used to walk out on stage… again, just like Shooter didn’t know I used to walk out on stage to his song, I used to walk out to “Devil Is A Lie.” And he was really cool and very, I don’t know, he just seemed very focused, very intelligent about what he wanted to do with music. And I I really got along with him, and I had lost touch with them since then.

 

Marilyn Manson Tells Apple Music About The Controversial Nature of His Songs…

 

I can’t control after I make a song what happens with it. It goes into the world and then… But I know that there’s a responsibility as an artist to stay true to what you’re doing and also to take your message. And I learned my lesson with the things that were not my fault with Columbine and things. Many things, even the Senate hearings over Antichrist Superstar with Joe Lieberman and things like that. But once you make a song it’s something you’re putting into the world. Religion and politics take things out of the world, we put things into the world.

If you want to be a pioneer you have to take some arrows in the back, and sometimes you have to take an ax in the face but I prefer. If you’re on the front lines, then I don’t want an ax in the face. And this is metaphorical of course, but yeah. You have to be willing to sacrifice yourself for what you do if what you do is what makes you feel alive. At some points of course, just like anyone else, I thought about giving up doing what I do when faced with the adversity.

 

Marilyn Manson Tells Apple Music About Pursuing Other Artforms In The Absence of Concerts…

I will write another book. I’m already in the process of that. I’m not limiting, especially now when you’re in an era where music and how … You know, concerts and everything. Hopefully things may return to a world where artists illness, in forced stillness, feels like a separate existence?

 

I guess I’m trying to take it out in other ways with trying to do acting and writing, and also just continuing to make music and trying to put them all together, in a Salvador Dali sense, this is the first record that I actually painted the album artwork for intentionally, specifically for, and I always tried to separate the worlds.

 

But it’s great to be able to thrive in a time when everyone could be in despair. If everyone’s stuck in their houses for now, it’s my job to make them entertained with something, as an artist, all of a sudden my job to entertain them, like I’m some sort of circus performer. But it is my job, and it inspires me to make me want to make things because I feel I’m running out of things to watch on Apple TV. I am.

 

Marilyn Manson Tells Apple Music About The Difference Between Marilyn Manson and Brian Warner…

Social anxiety has always been a big thing for me, which is an odd choice of careers to stand in front of a bunch of strangers and talk about your feelings by singing because the difference between Marilyn Manson and Brian Warner, they’re very simple, it’s just the name. The difference between me on and off stage, is onstage, I’m singing to people I don’t know, off stage, I’m talking to people I do know. I am a person and I am a persona, but it’s one letter off, it’s just an a. It’s all there is in it.

 

Marilyn Manson Tells Apple Music About Justin Timberlake and Jay-Z’s “Holy Grail”…

 

I think that I just like the song because it just had such an arrogance, and I liked for the remix that had the video to go with it with Jay-Z. People laugh when I say Justin Timberlake. It’s not that I like all of his music. I like certain songs of them very strongly, but who likes all of anyone’s music? I just liked this one because it seems really heartfelt. And this record that I created has a lot of romance in it. 

 

Marilyn Manson Tells Apple Music About James Hall Inspiring Him To Want To Make Music…

It’s strange, he gave me a demo that when I was making Golden Age of Grotesque, he sent it to me on a burnt CD. He was one of the first people I interviewed when I was 19 years old, and I was so excited to meet him because he was in a band called Mary My Hope. He was one of my heroes early on. And I had never even aspired to make music. I think meeting him, seeing and listening to that and seeing him live… and also, I remember being in a nightclub when I was doing open mic poetry night. I remember hearing “Jesus Built My Hot Rod,” Ministry and Butthole Surfers combination, which actually had, originally, before they cut the sample out, it had Dennis Hopper in the break, it said, “I’ll f-k anything that moves.” I have a 12 inch version of it. But when I heard that, I thought, wow, this is a whole new realm of music, like this is metal and industrial, but it sounded so heavy. That was one of the songs that really made me want to make music.