It's always exciting when two people with a lot of money get pissed at each other over very trivial circumstances. Such is the case with Marilyn Manson and Rob Zombie, who are both on a co-headlining tour currently, and things are not going swimmingly. Apparently, the two are dueling over set times. Oh, the tragedy!
The world was made aware of the drama in Detroit this weekend, when after singing phoning in his hit "The Beautiful People," Marilyn Manson apologized to the Detroit crowd saying "I'm sorry if you came to see Rob Zombie, and he can't come on, because I'm going to beat his ass…twice…three fucking times." Here's some video, ranting starts at about 3:50:
Later in the show, Rob Zombie was covering Alice Cooper's "School's Out" and added a few Suck it Marilyn Mansons into the lyrics, followed by "Fuck you, motherfucker." He also said the cover was dedicated to "the only real shock rocker that ever was, Alice Cooper and not some punk ass bitch." Manson is a punk ass bitch, I guess?
Such drama! Then, in Chicago, apparently Manson's set was cut short, because Rob Zombie went on too long. Manson did what any professional would do, and used Twitter to bitch out Zombie, saying:
Sorry to Chicago for not getting to play "Beautiful People."You can sing it in between Zombie songs, his band has already played it.
— Marilyn Manson (@marilynmanson) October 12, 2012
Sadly, it seems this beef is winding down, as Rob Zombie posted a message on his Facebook page taking the high road:
As stupid as this all is, I feel I must clear things up a little better. First off, I want to thank all the fans who came out in the freezing cold in Detroit last night. It was a total blast as always.
Unfortunately things turned ugly backstage. Why? I don't know, but for some reason our touring partner decided to end his set by blaming me for something that I had nothing to do with and screaming he was going to "kick Rob Zombie's ass as soon as he got off stage".
Go figure. I was backstage hanging, watching the show thinking "hey this is gonna be a great night", when suddenly he starts screaming threats. So strange. I don't get it. Christ, I've known some of his crew for 20 fucking years and some of his crew used work for me. It's all good. No one would fuck with someone's show. It is ridiculous.
Well, of course I felt the need to respond to the " kick my ass remark". Who wouldn't? Although I wish I had kept it backstage and kept the fans out of it. It is all 4rd grade fight after school nonsense of which I have never dealt with on tour before. Co-headlining tours always go smooth because everything is cut 50/50 and I mean everything. No one fucks with anyone's show. It is even fucking Steven.
I've done it co-headlining tours many times before and have had no troubles. Not with Pantera, Slayer, Alice Cooper, Korn, Megadeth or anyone ever. So I didn't expect any troubles on this. It seemed like a great idea at the time.
But shit happens. Anyway, sorry to the fans who had to dealt with the embarrassing stupidity of it all. We are all there for the same reasons to give you the best show ever… that's it.
You can't be too surprised at this drama, as these are two of the biggest egos in hard rock. Recently, we heard from The Melvins frontman Buzz Osbourne how hard it was touring with Rob Zombie. Marilyn Manson is the queen diva of rock, being known for making anything difficult when it comes to his stage show. Which is interesting, because he hasn't seemed to care about his performance since 2002, barely phoning in vocals any time I've seen him. Ultimately, this whole thing turned into a silly pissing contest, with the ultimate loser being the fans who paid their hard-earned money to see "hit songs" performed. Hopefully, these two can pull it together.
Update! Reader Tim Sullivan was in Chicago for the show and sent us this message clarifying what happened:
Manson was on first so Zombie could not have played too long to cut him short. The venue they played has a hard 11pm curfew, the house lights went down at 8pm for Manson, we sat in the dark for 4 more songs over the PA system even before he came out 20 minutes late, he bitched about being cut short during the show and did not play Beautiful People to end his set, if he got his now fat ass on stage on time he would not have been cut short. As far as phoning the vocals in, absolutely, it was a brutal performance. Sorry that your "shock rock" image is gone but don't take it out on people who came to see the show.
