MARILYN MANSON Comments On The DIXIE CHICKS Backlash

Marilyn Manson spoke to Kerry Gold of the Vancouver Sun about the backlash DIXIE CHICKS encountered over comments made about President Bush during a March concert in England. "That is an odd situation," he said in reference to DIXIE singer Natalie Maines' statement that she was ashamed the president of the United States is from Texas. "Whenever things like that happen, it is always hard for me to reconcile it because I have to remember that I am so different from other people. If I were to have said something like that, I don't think that it would have mattered. I felt bad for them in some strange way. But in other ways, they put themselves into a genre that just defined itself in how limiting it is.

"I've always felt that if I assumed the role of a villain, and started at the bottom, then nobody could push me down any further. I would have only upwards to go."

Since his interview with Michael Moore in Moore's "Bowling for Columbine" documentary, Manson has come to be seen as an articulate, insightful and purposeful artist, as opposed to the vapid, shock-seeking satanist of yore. His pointed comments in the film on the state of American culture stole Moore's show, and for the first time in his controversial career, Manson is less the gratuitous shocker than the voice of a reasonable liberal.

"It was a strange part of timing, building up to where I am right now because I had fought for many years to have my opinion heard, and to be allowed to be myself," he says. "And a lot of people tried to stop me, to destroy that. And I think in some ways that movie and what I said was symbolic. If this were to were to be made into a fairytale of some sort, from that moment, a lot of people looked at me in a different way. I don't think they understood me more, but they started to figure out where I belonged in the world and it was important in a lot of ways for people who don't listen to the type of music I make to hear my opinion or my aesthetic." Read more.