MARILYN MANSON Says TWIGGY's 'Back Forever'

Jim Abbott of The Star Online recently conducted an interview with Marilyn Manson. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow:

On being in a happy place in his life:

"Do you mean Disneyland? You can't have any art without suffering, but it doesn't mean you have to be a miserable person. As much as my relationship now is positive, that doesn't cure the things I can never fix about myself.

"It's always surprising when someone can love me at all, so having [girlfriend] Evan in my life is a salvation. As for Twiggy [recently returned MARILYN MANSON bassist Twiggy Ramirez], it's not even about the music. Just to be friends with him is the most important thing."

On severing Manson's ties with collaborator Tim Skold, who was responsible for the more melodic approach to the "Eat Me, Drink Me" songs:

"There's too much tension there. Those two couldn't be on stage with each other, so out of respect for both of them I decided to split with Tim for this tour. It doesn't mean that it's forever, but Twiggy's back forever. Of course, forever is a very loose term when you talk about Marilyn Manson."

On intimating, as recently as 2004 that he would retire from the music business to concentrate on art, film and other projects:

"It had a lot to do with the relationship I was in. People are only inspired by their surroundings and what's around them. I won't put the blame on anyone else; it's how I felt.

"I felt like it was bad to be me, and I took it out on myself in terms of running away from music. It could've been the worst mistake I ever made."

On "Eat Me" reflecting that soul searching:

"It wasn't a choice as much as a necessity. I was at a place where I didn't really know who I wanted to be anymore. No one could save me from that except myself, and the album was written like I've never written music before."

On being unhappy about being "objectified as a product":

"You can't mention 'school shooting' without mentioning Marilyn Manson. If there's a thesaurus of pain, I'm in there. At this point, I didn't ask for it."

"Anyone can sell records. Marilyn Manson now is about death toll. How many more things can I be blamed for? If you wanna shoot people, just join the Army. That's the message that America sends you anyway."

"I've been talking about the hypocrisy of how America looks at violence when it creates so much violence. When there's some recent act I don't know how that can be more violent than me growing up when my dad was in Vietnam.

"It's all the same, there's just more channels now."

On playing smaller venues, where he promises to offer some bang for the buck:

"As much as can be fit in there, starting with our egos. At this point, Twiggy and I could just look at each other, set ourselves on fire, bow and be done."

"This tour is really about the attitude that he and I had in the beginning when we used to walk on stage and play whatever we wanted. We didn't care about playing the single."