Once upon a time, my best friend’s mother toured briefly with Marilyn Manson. This was around 1994, after their first studio album was released but before “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)” hit airwaves and Alternative Nation (remember Kennedy?), prompting the band’s meteoric rise and subsequently embarrassing fashion movement.
Before the public adoration of narcotics. Before the high-profile relationships with B-list actresses. Before his festive, ornithological stage apparel.
Manson was described as being well mannered and easy to talk to. He and the rest of the band were respectful and courteous.
They ostensibly didn’t know what to make of the positive attention they were getting from their music and stage performances, but they didn’t appear affected by them either.
When reading interview transcripts with Manson during that period and contrasting them with today, he is decidedly more accommodating to the interviewer while being poised, candid and infinitely entertaining, even in print. Now, however, his interviews often reflect his current countenance: aged, surly and worn down. When speaking with Dan Haug, the 26-year-old Dayton, Ohio, ing
