Marilyn Manson Talks Blues Influence for 'The Pale Emperor,' Billy Corgan and Collaborator Tyler Bates in New Interview

Marilyn Manson sat down with Billboard recently to discuss his upcoming release, The Pale Emperor. The shock-rocker revealed that blues played a role on the album, which is the follow-up to 2012's Born Villain. He also took some time to talk about the mini reunion he had with Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins and his collaboration with film composer, Tyler Bates, who co-produced the singer's ninth studio effort.

In his darkly poetic fashion, Manson summed up the Emperor perfectly. "I have hellhounds on my heels, and this record is payment," he said.

Manson revealed that he caught some inspiration from the blues for the new LP, which came out today (Jan. 20) via the singer's own Hell, etc. label.

"That dirtiness of the blues resonates with me, especially in the way some contemporary artists -- PJ Harvey, Tom Waits, Nick Cave -- approach it. The blues is repetitious only if you don't add your own style to it. It's essentially the same thing: life, f**king, religion. But if you add your own swagger," he said.

Bates, who worked on movies like 300 and Guardians of the Galaxy, met Manson when the singer had a guest stint on Californication, another one of the composer's projects. The two clicked and Manson decided to bring in Bates as a producer for The Pale Emperor sessions.

"Tyler has a great sense of cinema, and I've always had cinematic records," Manson added."He was doing an interview recently and I overheard him say that he carved the music around my voice, just as he would have done with a film. We never had that conversation, so it was interesting to hear what actually went on in his head."

Back in December, Manson showed up at a Smashing Pumpkins gig to perform his single "Third Day of a Seven Day Binge" during the encore. The performance put any lingering rumors of bad blood to bed, and Manson referred to Corgan as an "older brother type" who helped him learn to play guitar.

"We hadn't seen each other in 15 years. We had a small falling out years ago but there was no hatchet to be buried," he said.

Tags

Marilyn Manson, Billy Corgan, Smashing Pumpkins, Tom Waits, Nick Cave