Marilyn Manson just released his highly anticipated Shooter Jennings-produced album, WE ARE CHAOS, and he recently talked to Apple Music 1's Zane Lowe about the new LP — of which he quipped, "mostly, I had joy making this record, which sounds very unlike what you'd expect for me to say." Among the many other topics covered, Manson discussed how he and Jennings bonded over the respective loss of their fathers, how he dealt with his horrific 2017 onstage accident, his canceled tour with Ozzy Osbourne, and the connection between album closer "Broken Record" and bully culture. Watch the interview above and read standout excerpts from it below — you can listen to Manson and Zane's conversation in-full today (September 16th) at 10 a.m. PT or anytime on-demand at apple.co/wearechaos-interview.
"When making this record with Shooter, because we both lost our fathers and we bonded over that, in a sense," Manson said. "And his father was musical outlaw, as you said. My father was also, in his own right, a real asshole but outlaw. I mean, he did not play by the rules, but he raised me to be who I am. And I'm not ashamed of that. It just, sometimes you miss your lost ones. But I try to put that into the music. And I tried to make this record also a story that's not just about me. I mean, ideally, if I could have made a book of it, it would just be mirrors for pages, literally. So you could just see your own story in it. And starting out with the intro, I think it was meant to set a tone. That was prose that I wrote on the moment — I had it in my head — but it was in the moment, I wanted it to introduce the record so that it would sort of in any great movie or TV show or book or play."
Of his canceled tour with Ozzy, the shock-rock icon commented, "Like if you have an ill parent and you can't do anything about it you feel helpless. If you're stuck in your house and your work you can't do you're helpless. For us fortunately and for me making this record luckily somehow it was finished for the most part far before any of the pandemic hit. It was in January when we really finished it. And it was never really written about this, but it seems as if it became the moment where it was supposed to happen. And it's sad that Ozzy had to cancel his tour because he was ill. But I planned on spending my whole year kind of based around concept of touring with Ozzy and releasing the record. And then everything suddenly shifted. And sometimes I don't like to use the word works out for a reason, things happen for a reason. I think things are faded and they come together."
Looking back on his infamous 2017 onstage accident, Manson said, "I think that I was very lucky that it was about six inches from my skull. When it fell it was not secured and I grabbed onto this giant lighting rig essentially that had these two guns on it. So I mean if there's an argument for gun control, I'll be right there in regards to those guns. OK. Fair enough. So I've 10 titanium pins on my leg. Right here 10, just goes from here to here and they're still there. They're going to be there forever, but I had to do a year and a half of rehab while on tour. I did a tour with it. Then Dave Grohl and Axl Rose graciously offered their chairs. And I said no and I found this electric wheelchair that rose up. And I tried to make it into part of the show and it was not a fun time at all. But it doesn't bother me now. It's actually more of a bionic leg and it doesn't go off at airports either, which is strange. If anyone's heavy metal, it's my leg — it's full heavy metal."
