Marilyn Manson
Marilyn Manson
Brian Hugh Warner, better known by his stage name Marilyn Manson, is an American musician, songwriter, actor, painter, singer, rapper, author, composer and former music journalist. He is known for his controversial stage personality and image as the lead singer of the band Marilyn Manson, which he co-founded with Daisy Berkowitz and of which he remains the only constant member. His stage name was formed by juxtaposing the names of two opposing American pop cultural icons; actress Marilyn Monroe and...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionRock Singer
Date of Birth5 January 1969
CityCanton, OH
CountryUnited States of America
I've always had a desire to be provocative and to make people think, but it wouldn't be any challenge for me just to be shocking. That is where it begins for me, not where it stops. And I could be much more shocking. I think I've adopted a sense of subtlety. I don't sit around wondering how I can make myself even stranger to the world. I've simply evolved into the monster I created, and I'm quite happy with it.
I heard this album as finished, I heard it in dreams . . . It was like the revelations of John the Baptist or something.
I'm completely unlike a lot of other performers in the past who have been forgiven or come to terms with the real world because they tell everyone their performance is 'just a show.' And so, people say, 'Oh, it's OK then. We don't care. He's not really a bad person.' It's not just a show for me. It's my life.
Everything I was afraid of when I was growing up, I've become. I've taken on my nightmares, like the devil and the end of the world, and I've become those things.
I can't turn off the way I think, and that's essentially who I am, who anybody is.
If you lose who you are, what do you have?
It's shocking to me that it's easier to buy a gun at Wal-Mart than it is to buy my record.
Sometimes I wonder if I'm a character being written, or if I'm writing myself.
My art is not limited to the songs I create but also to the reaction it creates. I like to sit back and look at the whole thing as if it's a tornado that I'm controlling. It's creating chaos. When you create chaos, ideas are turned upside down, and everybody looks at things in a different way.
The most that I can learn is in records that you burn.
Anyone I may have used should feel happy that they even had a use. It's better than being useless.
Living in Hollywood, it's easy to have someone flatter you. That doesn't help me.
I'm not a role model. I'm a role villain.
Johnny Depp is like a brother to me. We have matching tattoos on our backs - Charles Baudelaire, the flowers of evil, this giant skeleton thing. It's kind of a secret. People say to us, 'Why did you get that?' And we say, 'No reason.'