Antichrist Superstars: Trent Reznor vs. Marilyn Manson

In the mid-'90s, no two rock stars struck more fear into the hearts of parents than Trent Reznor and Marilyn Manson. These toxic twins started out having a teacher-student dynamic, with Reznor guiding Manson musically to stardom. But Manson's shock-rock antics soon overshadowed his mentor, who was hard at work for years trying to finish his masterwork "The Fragile." In time, Reznor would come to see Manson as a "dopey clown" while Manson seethed about Reznor literally losing the master recording to his early albums. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Rivals as a production of I Heart Radio. Hello everyone,
and Welcome to Rivals, the show about music beefs and
feuds and long simmering resentments between musicians. I'm Steve and

(00:21):
I'm Jordan, and today's episode centers around two individuals who
scared the living ship out of me whenever their videos
appeared on MTV and I was in like elementary school.
We got Marilyn Manson, we got Trent res The nineties
really were a glory period for a specific kind of
rock star. You know, let's call it the horror movie
nihilistic keytonist, and Trent Resider and Marilyn Manson personify that archetype.
I mean, at their respective peaks, they were to go

(00:44):
to rock guys for provocation, back when rock bands still
had enough capital to have people care about whether they
were shocking or not. Oh yeah, I remember. I grew
up in this really, really small town in Massachusetts, like
we just got our second stoplight like a few years ago,
and we had this tiny civic center where they had
like ccuses and stuff, and I think it double was
a planetarium. It was a small, small venue and for

(01:04):
some reason, Marilyn Manson performed there and it tore the
town apart, like there was this huge debate, free speech
debate and all a little town hall, and it was
like in all the little local newspapers and extended into
the classrooms like English classrooms were talking about all sorts
of free speech debates and stuff. It was really interesting
to see it at like a ground level, and it's

(01:25):
just astonishing to look back now on what massive cultural
figures he was and Trent was too. Yeah, it's funny
to me that he played there in ninety seven and
not two thousand seven, because I feel like that was
the era with Marilyn Manson was basically just playing any
little theater that would have him at that point. But
you know, in the nineties, these two guys really were
a big deal, and you know, behind the theatrics, you

(01:46):
know they were friends and had a kind of mentor
student relationship, with Trent Resident playing the big brother genius
and Marilyn Manson acting as as his willing and eager pupil.
But then things fell apart and their friendship ended up
in a downward spiral, if you will. We got the
pun in early this week. Yeah, that's exactly. There's much

(02:06):
to dive into here. So without further ado, let's get
into this mess. Try. Wrestler grew up with his grandparents
in a small farming town in Pennsylvania, and a lot
of people don't know is he was classically trained on
piano is a five year old and spent upwards of
ten hours a day practicing. And the funny thing is
a former piano teachers quoted as saying Restler always reminded
me of Harry Connick Jr. When he played which can

(02:29):
we get a Harry like Harry cover closer or something
like I really want to get amazing like a jazzy closer.
That's what the world needs. And he also played saxon
tuba in his school marching bands, performed in like the
drama Society. He was Judas in Jesus Christ Superstar, which
is a little foreshadowing for Antichrist Superstar maybe. And then
his teenage years and he discovered kiss and horror films

(02:51):
which helped transform him into the Trent that we know
and love. And apparently he watched the Omen and became
convinced that he was the Antichrist himself and spent hours
searching his skull for three sixes in the Mirror. I
love that story and it is so telling with Trent Resiner.
But you know, along with you know, the Omen and
Kiss and horror films, I think it is important to
focus just as much on the fact that he was

(03:13):
classically trained on piano as a kid, and that he
was involved in productions of Jesus Christ Superstar, you know,
because I think at heart, Trent Resider is a music geek.
You know, he is a guy who devoted himself to
learning everything that he could have about music and it
really made him, I think, one of the most talented
musicians certainly of like the ault rock era that we saw.
And it's the reason why I think Trent Resiner, you know,

(03:34):
when we look at him in retrospect, you know, he's
had a much bigger career than just nine inch Nails.
He's moved into many different arenas and then we're gonna
be talking about that in this episode. But that, to
me is like the crucial contrast between these guys, because
I think Resner, once he got past his shock rocker phase,
there was this whole other side to him musically that
allowed him, you know, to move on in his career,

(03:55):
whereas Marilyn Manson. I think you have the imagery, you
have the shock value, and what else do you have
beyond that? You know, it seems like there maybe isn't
as much of that core with Manson as we have
with Trent Resiner. You're right, yeah, Resiner. At his heart,
he's he's a songwriter, and I feel like that's something
that that gets overshadowed too much when you talk about him.
And he had a lot to say. I mean, growing

(04:16):
up in Rule, Pennsylvania, he had the strong desire to
escape this really sheltered existence and the sense of isolation
is what really motivated him the right and fueled the
rage in his music. He would say in an interview
with Rolling Stone in I don't know why I want
to do these things other than my desire to escape
small town USA, to dismiss the boundaries, to explore It

(04:36):
isn't a bad place where I grew up, but there
was nothing going on but the corn fields. And as
a kid, he's out, you know, in the corn fields,
consuming media that just bombarded him with images of cool
people in cool places and cool opportunities, things that weren't
available where he was, and it made him really angry
and resentful, and he would say, you know, it almost
taught you to realize that this isn't for you. And
for Trent, writing was his way out, you know it.

(04:59):
When we do this show, it really brings I think
to the fore for me about how certain kinds of
stories get repeated in rock history, and one of those
stories is the alienated midwesterner who is looking out, you know,
into the world and like Trent Resirees, seeing these cool
people who are living lives of excitement that he can't

(05:20):
live and he eventually turns to music in order to
reinvent himself. And we've seen this on our show. I mean,
we've talked about people like Michael Jackson, Axel Rose, Billy Corgan,
and I think this is also the case for Marilyn Manson.
We're going to see that when we get into his
story that he had a very similar background of you know,
in a way you look at the facade of their
lives and it's very you know, small town America. It's

(05:40):
all the things that you would associate with the middle
of the country, all the sort of corny heartland type stereotypes,
and yet beneath that, just like in you know, a
David Lynch movie. If you dig in to the depths
of it, you see all these like disgusting insects and
dirt and filth rolling around together. And that's what I'm
up rising to the surface eventually, midwesterners and pancake makeup.

(06:03):
What is he got? Billy Corgan, You've got Marilyn Manson,
but very pale nost furat to look, what is that? Well,
we don't get a lot of sunshine Jordan's, you know,
like we're suck inside for six months out of the year.
So I'm not even sure if it's pancake makeup. We're
just pale people here in the middle of the country.
So Resident moved to Cleveland in five and he was
twenty three, and he got a job as an engineer

(06:24):
at a local studio and the owner let him use
the space on the off hours to to work on
his demos, and he drew lyrics from his diary, and
many of these early songs ended up on the nine
inch Nail's first album, Pretty Hate Machine, And his reaction
to the success of this record was to effectively rebel
against it, and he put out two EPs just a
few months apart, Broken and Fixed, and this is kind

(06:45):
of a unique, someone say, tricky promotional strategy. I mean,
following up a successful album with two EPs released in
rapid succession. It's definitely unusual. But this is nothing compared
to the string of really nightmare inducing music videos that
MTV deemed too graphic to air. I mean, the most
infamous of this is the video for Happiness and Slavery,

(07:06):
which shows a man being ripped to pieces by a machine,
seemingly for some element of sexual pleasure. It's I tried
to rewatch that and I got about maybe a minute
and a half in, and I just think I couldn't
do it. It's a laugh a minute, feel good hit.
It's it's a lot, you know. I mean, despite, or
probably because of, these bands, Nine Inch Nails popularity continued

(07:29):
to grow, and Resident really stood out when viewed against
these like really kind of grotesquely decadent hair metal bands
that were holdovers from from the late eighties and and
they were looking more and more like cultural dinosaurs at
that point, and Resident was on the cutting edge. Yeah.
I think the imagery of those videos it was so
overwhelming that I think people in some ways like overlooked

(07:51):
the music of Nine Inch Nails uh, and where Trent
resident was coming from, because you like, when I revisit
those early you know records, you know, pretty eight Machine
in the Broken p and and Fixed, you know what
strikes me is one, like how good the production is,
Like just how good at putting together records Trent Resoner is,
and and to like how poppy a lot of the
songs are, you know, even like Broken, which I think

(08:12):
at the time was conceived as like the angry follow
up to Pretty Hate Machine. You know, it's a much
noisier record if you get past the noise and you
get past the scary videos, Like there's really good hooks
on that EP, and like the lyrics are evocative, and
they're and they're strongly emotional. And I don't think it
was really until people like Johnny Cash started covering Trent

(08:33):
Resoner songs that people could look beyond again the iconography
of ninage nails and and just appreciate Trent Resoner as
a musician. But you know, again, that's his strength, the
fact that like he wasn't just a guy pushing cultural buttons,
like he could do that. But I think it was
a means to an end. It was a way to
get attention for his music, which once we get past
the shock value of the time, like the music I

(08:54):
think really can stand on its own, which again I
want to take this opportunity to say, Harry Connick Jr.
If you're listening Trent Resiner covers album, it will be great.
Oh my god, Melody, Happiness and Slavery. You know, some
scat singing on that little orchestra would be beautiful. Oh
my god. So Trent Star was on the ascent in
the late eighties, he crossed pass with Marilyn Manson, who

(09:15):
then was working as a journalist for a South Florida
lifestyle magazine called Parallel and uh I I presumably he
was using his real name, Brian Warner, and not Marilyn Manson,
which isn't the most friendly pen name in the world,
but who knows. I love that his name is Brian Warner,
by the way, the most generic like guy name of
the time, Like it couldn't be anymore bland. But yeah,

(09:38):
I'm sure he was Brian Warner at the time. And
then you know what he had to transform into Marylyn
Manson later on. Can you imagine he wasn't just showing
up to like an interview. Hey, how are you doing?
I'm I'm Merylen Parallel. Yeah, he's this a good Spot's
a good time, Like, yeah, that's that would be one
way to get a unique interview in that era. But
but anyway, Brian Warner slash Marilyn Manson meets up with
Trent Resiner at a club in Florida. According to Manson's memoir,

(10:02):
he describes Resoner is just sort of sulking in a
corner during their first meeting and thought a little bit
when they started chatting, but you would say they had
a lot in common and they became friendly. It was
a good interview. But the power dynamic is really clear.
I mean Manson would say, I was just another journalist
talking to me. It was a good way, is any
for him to pass the time in a show in
a city where he didn't know anybody. So the power
dynamic there was very clear. I mean I wouldn't even

(10:24):
say that it was like a journalist rockstar dynamic. It
was more like a fanboy rock star dynamic. And you
can see that like the second time that they meet.
This is like a few years later, and by now
Brian Warner has become Marilyn Manson. He has a band
called the Spooky Kids, which I think it's like a
hilarious name, like I mean, come on, like the Spooky Kids, Like,
oh my god, these kids are spooky, Like look out

(10:46):
for this BANDO. Anyway, like, they were opening up for
nine Inch Nails at this club in Miami, and after
the show, Manson walked up to Resoner. He was tripping
on acid at the time, and he was basically like
looking for feedback from Resoner, and he quickly ascertained that,
like Resiner did not watch the opening act, he probably
saw that they were called the Spooky Kids and was like,

(11:09):
now this band definitely sucks. I don't have to pay attention.
And uh, Manson is is basically just blathering on, you know,
high office kite and just being a fanboy with Resident's
and he's passing him. I think he eventually passes him
a tape and he's like, yo, please listen to this.
And you think at that point, like, how many tapes
has Resiner been passed at this point in his career.

(11:30):
I'm sure many, and yet this tape somehow ends up
making an impression on him. Yeah, it's incredible that like
that was the one he chose to listen to because
a short time later, when he's launching Nothing Records, his
sort of vanity side label from Interscope, Manson gets a
call from Residers manager and he wants to hear more.
And then days after Manson sends him a more complete demo,

(11:50):
he gets a call from Resider himself to tell him
that he's recording an album, the album that will become
a downward spiral at the bell Air home on Clo
Drive where Sharon Tate was murdered in nine which Trent,
Chris and Lee pig after the message written on the
door in Sharon Tate's blood. Uh for a guy who
named themselves Marilyn Manson, you know, the chance to go
work in the famous Manson murders home is just like

(12:12):
too good to pass up. And I guess he always
wanted to record a version of the the Charles Manson
song My Monkey in the middle of that house. So
Resu said, yeah, come on out. We're working on some
some recordings and let's try to get something happening. And
I think the first thing they actually collaborated on was
a video for the nine Inch Nails song Gave Up
and Manson's pretending to play guitar in the background in

(12:34):
in Sharon Tate's living room, which is Fate. Fate's a
hell of a thing. Yeah, and you know, can we
just say pretty tasteless too, I mean, come on, like
these two guys, It's like, look, I have loud respect
for Trent Resoner, I have like some affection for Manson.
I don't know if i'd say respect necessarily, but I
don't know, like these two like nerdy guys hanging out

(12:55):
in a place where horrific murders took place and glamorizing
just is kind of lame to me. Yeah. Years later,
I think he tried to say that he passed it
off as he had no idea the history of the
place until after he had already like the deal had
already been done. But that seems pretty hard to believe.
It's a pretty identifiable place. Yeah, exactly. So. Anyway, Marilyn Manson,
he's now entering the nine in Shnails world. And you know,

(13:17):
just to give a little background on Manson, as we
said before, just as Trent Resoner was from the middle
of the country and he grew up, you know, dreaming
of a more exciting life and feeling alienated by the
world around him. Manson was also from the middle of
the countries, from Ohio, but you know, like Resoner's story,
it seems like a little more conventional, like he's really
just describing the lives of I think millions of people

(13:40):
from the Midwest, where you know, he's talking about being alienated.
But like when Manson recounts his origin story, of course
it has to be way more colorful than anyone's story. Ever.
And there's two I think big things from his childhood
that are worth highlighting. The first is the fact that
when he was growing up, he was a very sickly child.
He had allergies. He was allergic to everything from like

(14:02):
eggs to like fabric softener, so he was bedridden for
a long time, and he found out later that in fact,
he probably wasn't actually allergic to a lot of things
because his mother essentially was mentally ill. She had this
syndrome called Munchausen by proxy, which is this phenomenon where
parents basically make their kids sick in order to satisfy

(14:24):
some steep psychological need. I think the idea is that
the parent feels needed when their child is sick, and
it's also something that they can obsess over and maybe
like project their anxiety onto. So Manson discovers us later
in his life, and not only did he have to
deal with the difficulty of being a sick child, but
now he has to also contend with the betrayal of

(14:45):
a parent who was really abusing him, like throughout his childhood,
just to satisfy, you know, whatever psychological need that they had.
So there's that that is a very big thing. And
then there's a story about his grandfather. And this is
uh story. Yeah, I remember this story. This is He
writes about this in his memoir The Long Hard Road

(15:06):
out of Hell, which is one of the most I
think notorious rock memoirs ever and also I think one
of the most sort of factually suspect rock memoirs. Ridiculous. Yeah,
there's a lot of things in that book that, like
you cannot take at face value, and one of them
is the story about his grandfather. He tells the story
about how when when Manson was around the age of twelve,

(15:27):
he was in the basement of his grandfather's house and
he discovered what can be described I guess we'll call
it a masturbation den would that be the proper term
that sounds about right? Yeah, it's basically this part of
the basement like where his grandfather would keep very disturbing pornography, uh,
including instances of beast reality, and he would sit in

(15:47):
a chair while wearing lingerie and he would masturbate while
watching this this porn. And I guess there were like
weird sex toys everywhere, and there's like used condoms there apparently.
I guess his grandfather had like a tracheotomy, So like
the sounds that held make while you know, pleasuring himself
were even more disgusting than they would be otherwise. And
I guess he turned on like a model train to

(16:08):
cover the sounds of his masturbatory sounds. Now, like, look
this story, if it were just the fact that he
had a tricky out of me and that he liked to,
you know, masturbate in the basement, I could buy that.
Because Manson says, he writes in his book that he
used to like eavesdrop on his grandfather while he would
be pleasuring himself, and that this was something that fascinated him.

(16:29):
And you can extrapolate from there that this sort of
formulated who he was going to be as a grown up.
It's like I can buy the tricky otomy. I can
buy the masturbation, but like when you start adding like
the beast reality part and like the lingerie part, it
just seems like bullshit to me, Like maybe there's a
germ of reality there, but I think there's just seems
to be a ton of exaggeration for the sake of exaggeration.

(16:52):
For me, it's the train bit that pushes it over
the ends. The model train that's like a deleted scene
from seven. That's like, yeah, it's definitely makes you wonder
if this was like a rejected video concept that he
wanted to use somewhere and so he was really happy
to like work it into his memoir or something, because it's, yeah,
it's pretty extreme. It's just like it's like trying so hard,

(17:12):
you know, to you know, and like the mother story,
I mean I buy that story. You know, that seems plausible.
And it's like again, like if you just wrote a
story about, like, you know, discovering your grandfather masturbating, that's
a pretty disgusting story just on its own. You don't
need the lingerie part. I just feel like that makes
it less believable. But you know, maybe we're both wrong.

(17:34):
Maybe this was the most unique masturbator in all of Ohio.
And you know, and this is the thing that made
Marilyn Manson who he became. It's definitely in him. Whether
or not it was real or just in his imagination,
it's definitely in his mind. And it comes out on
his first album. Once he signed to Nothing Records in Uh,
Manson begins working on his debut LP, which was initially

(17:56):
called The Manson Family Album, solid title there, but it
ultimately morphed into portrait of an American family. And the
original producer this album was Rolly Massaman, who previously worked
with bands like The Swans, but as the recording progressed,
the band felt that his style of production really wasn't
working for him. They were I felt Roy was trying
to make a more just kind of shaved down all

(18:16):
the rough edges and make them in the more of
a pop band, which is really not what they were
about at all. So Resner ended up stepping up into
the producer's seat and it seemed like the ideal solution,
you know, I mean, who better to nurture the depraved
mind of Marilyn Manson than the guy from nine inch Nails,
and in Yeah It's October, Resiner commits the project. He

(18:37):
takes members of the touring members of nine inch Nails
to help complete the album. UH. They re record many
of the tracks and reworked some of the old material
and release it under the name Portrait of an American Family.
And it didn't make a huge splash, but I don't
think it charted, but it had some huge standout songs
now like Dope Hat, lunch Box and Cake and Sodomi

(18:57):
Uh in which he proclaims himself the god of Fuck,
which I hastened to add was a that's a Charles
Manson line right there. That's what he used to say
to his followers. But but it ended up sticking more
with with Maryland and in addition to Trent's musical expertise,
he kind of becomes almost like a paternal figure in
a way to Manson, and I love the story. It
was one night doing the sessions where I guess Manson

(19:18):
was freaking out on psychedelics and Trent took him and
some of his band UH in his minivan over to McDonald's,
this trying him like a chill out happy meal or
something and started a little food fight in the car
and just got the vibes back on, you know, on
an even playing, which is adorable in its own weird,
twisted way. Yeah. I mean again, when they make the uh,

(19:39):
the Marylyn Manson biopic, I hope that scene is in there.
That the heartwarming McDonald scene with Trent Rustler and Manson
having a food fight. I think that's very moving. I know,
the first Manson music that I remember hearing came from
the follow up to the debut, which was Smells Like Children.
It was the EP it came out in and this

(19:59):
ended up the being the breakout hit for Ryan Manson
because of a very famous cover of the song Sweet
Dreams by Rhythmics, and of course, in Marilyn Manson's interpretation,
it became this very dark, dirgy, gothy metal song, alt
metal song. And you know, when I think about it now,
I don't really remember like what that song sounds like,

(20:22):
but I remember the music video where Marilyn Manson is
like this very disturbing figure, like you don't really know
what he is. It's like is he a human? Is
he an alien? Is he a monster? There's something very
unusual about him, and it reminds me in a lot
of ways of like horror movie franchises. Like when you
watch the first movie of a horror movie franchise, it's
like the first time you see Freddy Krueger or Jason,

(20:43):
it's very scary. It's like what is this thing? Like
how can we contend with this? It's like is this human?
Is he gonna kill me? What is it? And I
think Manson had that same sort of impact the first
time that you saw him on MTV. The thing about
shock value, though, is that, of course it has a
very short shelf life, and once you get over the
initial shock of seeing you know, like a monstrous figure

(21:05):
that's like, you know, mysterious and enigmatic, is that they
quickly become silly and even funny, you know. And like
I think as you get deeper into like the Nightmare
in elm Street movies, like the first one scary, but
like by the fifth one, it's like pretty dumb and
like you're just watching it for the camp value, you know.
It's the same thing with the Friday the Thirteenth films.
And I think as we'll see as we get deeper

(21:27):
in this episode that Marilyn Manson had a very similar
trajectory where when he first came on the scene, he
was very terrifying. You know, he was the boogeyman of Suburbia.
People didn't know what to make of this guy. But
then as we get to the end of the nineties
and then into the auts and beyond, he is more
of a campy figure, I think, and more of a
person that is uh. I think, for the most part

(21:47):
unintentionally funny, although at times I think that he's in
on his own joke, maybe more than he gets credit for. Yeah,
it's tough to say. I mean, I feel like that
happened quickly. As he said, it's a short shelf life
for him doing his shock thing. Although I have to
say choosing to cover sweet Dreams with a video like
that was pretty genius because I mean it's basically, you
know you will not be having sweet dreams after watching

(22:08):
that video. I vividly remember having many nightmares after watching
matt As as a how overall, it would have been
eight years old or something when that came out, So
totally good call for a video cover there. I mean,
I think of how when you were describing your first
reaction to Axel Rose and the Welcome with Jungle video,
just like, what is this figure? Yeah, it was truly
truly terrifying for a little kid. It was genuinely freaky. Yeah,

(22:31):
And again, I think it's got to be said where
we're at in the timeline right now, which is the
mid nineties, what he was doing was working like it
was legitimately effective and shocking, and he was getting a
lot of attention and was like rapidly becoming like a
pretty huge rock star in the mid nineties. And he
really goes to a different level with Antichrist superstar, and
he goes down to Resiners Nothing Studios in New Orleans,

(22:53):
UH to record there and Resiners serving as producer again,
and he's got more of his nine inch Nails associates
associating with it um. And this is really the album
that made Manson a major musical force, but it was
also the album that would drive him in uh in
Trent apart. Yeah, I mean, I think there was a
degree of seriousness with Trent Resoner that he had for
his work that, like Manson to me, did not not

(23:14):
that he didn't take his music seriously, but I just
feel like when Resoner was working on a record. I
get the sense that he was deep into it and
was there to work, whereas Manson, it seems like it
was about the lifestyle, like we're gonna make the making
of this album epic in a very textbook, decadent kind
of way. Yeah, I mean, it seems like it was
designed to be a great chapter in his memoir, like

(23:37):
it's incredibly over the top. He writes in his memoir
that the sessions were not only not productive, we were destructive. Uh.
They were just tense and chaotic and just went off
the rails pretty much from day one. I mean, this
was the era when pretty much all were concerned were
smoking bones that they had swiped from graveyards in New
Orleans and snorting sea monkeys. And Manson would later say,

(23:58):
the first time I stayed up for We're days straight
on crystal meth. We started to put down the music
to Anti Christ Superstar, and I may say it sounds it.
I mean that's what the record sounds like. He was
experimenting with prescription drugs, which had a really, you know,
equally corrosive effect on his creativity and band relations. Nothing
Studios was a formal funeral home. So I mean it
couldn't have been a great vibe, and the band weren't

(24:19):
really happy being in New Orleans. They just thought it
was it was a dark and creepy place, and Um
and the band dealt with their frustrations by acting out.
They would throw drum machines out the window and put
tape machines in the microwave, and fry the circuitry just
for the hell of it, and smash guitars. And my
favorite story from the sessions is when Manson and some
of his bandmates set up a tent in the middle

(24:39):
of the live room in the studio and watched all
three Alien movies back to back all night, and then
when they were overset off fireworks indoors and nearly burnt
the studio to the corn. Yeah, I mean, it's just
it's again trying too hard. And Man's would also say
he had taken to shoving sewing needles underneath his fingernails
at this time to tell his pain threshold, because, as

(25:01):
he wrote in his memoir, my emotional one had already
been crossed. So that's what we're dealing with, all right hand,
We'll be right back with more rivals. Yeah, when I
look at these sessions. Again, it just drives home that

(25:23):
doing blow and drinking all day long it's not really
good for your mental or your physical makeup, because it
seems like all the characters in this story at this
point like that's what they're doing, even Trent Resiner. Like
Resiner talked later, you know, after he cleaned up that
like he was deep into cocaine addiction at this time,
that he was really drinking a lot. And you know,
even though he was maybe the more serious one, even

(25:45):
he was acting out during these sessions. There's a story
about how he took one of Daisy Brookerwoods his guitars,
Daisy brook Woods as a guitar player in Marilyn Manson's band,
and he smashed it and like Brookwoods basically just like
walked out of the session after that because he was
like so put off by how Resiner was behaving. Because
I really feel like Resiner, you know, he still had
that I think big brother role. I think people were

(26:06):
looking to him for guidance and for approval because you know,
after Brookwooz leaves, Twiggy Ramirez really steps up as being
basically like the musical director of Marilyn Manson and whenever
Ramiers would be doing something, he would always look to
Resiner for approval because he really considered Resiner to be
like the only other musician that was there at the time.

(26:28):
So that ended up being I think threatening for Manson
because this is a guy in his band, and yet
the guy in his band respected Resiner more than him.
Reser was the adult in the room basically at that
point that everyone looked to. This is really when the
sort of the jealousy starts to creep in for Manson
and Resiner, and a big tipping point for them was
drugs sort of the chief reason why he and Trent

(26:48):
started to fall out during the sessions. Uh years later,
Manson claimed that Reser came them one day and basically said,
you know, this can't continue. We we we have to
stop with the drugs. This is We're not gonna get
any work done this way. We we die if we
doing this. We need we need to stop. And Manson
took it very seriously. You know, he's not only his
producer but really is his mentor, and Idol in a

(27:09):
lot of ways was telling him to clean up. Okay,
sure I'll do it, and he said the next day
he he got on the straight and narrow, to use
his words, and and tried to clean up, and uh,
Resiner didn't. He didn't follow through with that at all.
And in fact, Resner started to sort of make fun
of him and say that Manson was basically a nerd
for no longer doing drugs, and Resiner and Twiggy Ramrez

(27:30):
would just make fun of him by calling him Arch Deluxe,
And which is an incredible insult because this was at
the time in the nineties when McDonald's had a sandwich
that was marketing to adults, and it was a notorious
advertising PLoP because you know, McDonald's trying to market an
upscale burger too adults. It's preposterous, it's hokey, is disingenuous,

(27:50):
it's pompous, it's kind of pathetic, and the implication being
so is it cleaned up Marilyn Manson, So incredible insult,
but very hurtful to him. I gotta say, I'm going
to be utilizing our DeLux in my personal life. Yeah,
when I'm smacked talking like a friend of mine, I'm
gonna definitely be dropping an Arch Deluxe reference at some point.
But yeah, I mean it shows that this wasn't just

(28:12):
a one way street in terms of like Manson acting
like a bozo and Resiner being the upstanding one. There's
certainly instances where it would be reversed, and again I
think that has to do with just the amount of
substance abuse that was going on at this time. A
story that really stands out from these sessions is this
this time when Resiner and Manson had a huge fight

(28:33):
and Resiner actually kicked Manson out of the studio and
then he took a hammer to the computer hard drive
where the masters for the album were held. And this
really becomes a huge incident for these guys because for many,
many years, and we're gonna be talking about this later
on in the episode, Manson thought that the masters for
Antichrist Superstar were destroyed and like lost forever because of

(28:56):
this uh you know active I guess drunken and drugged
out destruction by Resner, and it ended up being like
a huge wedge in their relationship when the album came
out in nineties six nine seven. This is really what
made Manson not only a rising rocks Are but just
America's most wanted rocker in the world. I mean, he
was just struck fear into the eyes of the country's

(29:18):
conservative sect, and Manson knew how to do it because
he was one of them. You know, he grew up
in Ohio and later suburban Florida. And it was basically
his way of critiquing uh organized religion and using it
as a metaphor for fascist elements in conservatism in the
United States. And his concerts took on the American flag,
and it took on the Bible, and there was gave

(29:40):
a famous performance of the Beautiful People at the v
m An and he's flanked by these sort of fake
secret Service agents and he steps up to the podium
and goes, my fellow Americans, we will no longer be
oppressed by the fascism that is Christianity. I mean, in
seven that is a huge thing to say on you know,
a basic cable hoard show. And it made him one
of the most talked about people in the country. I mean,

(30:00):
this was sort of just prior to the uproars caused
by Britney Spears and then Eminem slightly after that. I mean,
his his concerts were picketed by you know, pretty much
every major religious and civic organization you can imagine, and
he took on this mythic stature. I just I remember
being in school all the like urban legends involving like
beast reality and Satan and you know, removing a rib
for sexual reasons and all that kind of stuff. And

(30:24):
he became as larger in life figure. I mean, he
was banned from performing in state operated venues in utahs,
in schools in his home state of Florida, threatened to
expel kids for attending his shows. I mean this was huge,
huge cultural figure. Yeah, it reminds me of how like
in the eighties there was that Satanic panic going on,
like where people thought satanic cults were looking everywhere, and

(30:45):
that anxiety really transferred to Marilyn Manson in the nineties,
like he became the new again boogeyman that if you
were scared about the kids getting involved in the dark
side of of the world or you know, worshiping the
devil or whatever, like, Marilyn Manson is the person you're
gonna be afraid of. And it's an interesting contrast with
Trent Resoner at this time because you know Resiner, you

(31:06):
know Nine Inch Nails. They put out the Downward Spiral
in which is a huge landmark record. That's the album
of course that has Closer on it. Nine Inch Nails
ended up performing at Woodstack ninety four that year, a
very iconic performance Trent Resoner covered in the Mud, you know,
maybe the most famous performance of the band's career. But
then after that he goes into this long hibernation period

(31:28):
where he is working for years on this album called
The Fragile, a double record that comes out in which
is an album I love, by the way, and I
would say it's probably my favorite Nine Inch Nails record,
and I think history has proven that, you know, for
Nine Inch Nails fans, that that is one of the
band's great records. But like I remember when that album

(31:48):
finally dropped in ninety nine after that five year gap,
that you know, it debuted at number one and then
it fell fifteen spots the next week, which at the
time was the biggest drop I think in street for
a number one album. And there really was this window
in the late nineties where Marilyn Manson seemed like significantly

(32:08):
more famous than Trent Resoner. Even again, the people ultimately
held I think even then like they I think they
held Resoner in higher esteem Critically you know, I think
he was looked at as like a better artist. But
as you were saying, like, he didn't have the same
sort of like mythic boogeyman stature that Manson had. And
I'm curious, like, do you think on some level, like
the teacher became the student in this scenario or that,

(32:31):
or that he became the person that like, in some
way looked to Manson with envy. It's tough to say.
I can't imagine that he envied any of the celebrity
stuff that went along with Manson. I mean, you know,
I one of the most iconic images from Manson for
me is on the VMA's Red Carpet with UH with
Rose McGowan, you know, looking like it looks like Jamaric
wis got like a big I think he's got in

(32:52):
my memory, at least he's got like a big fuzzy
top hat or something. And I mean he looks kind
of more ridiculous than Marilyn Manson ordinarily would. And I
just I can't imagine that became so much of Manson's life,
it seemed like in the late nineties, and I can't
imagine Resner would have cared too much about that. I
almost feel like he resented the fact that he was
more prolific in that time because it was a long

(33:14):
gap between. It was five years between Downward Spiral and
UH and The Fragile, and I almost feel like I
pictured Resoner at that time. It's sort of like constantly
being in the studio trying to work out his next
move and if anything else, just feeling he was falling
behind in a production race standpoint, almost like Brian Wilson
and the Beatles UH as opposed to any of the

(33:34):
major Like you know that, I don't think he wanted
to be that big of a cultural figure as Manson became.
But but yeah, I think that that the musical output
that that Manson had after that UH definitely affected him. Well.
There was also one project that Resiner released in that
gap between The Downward Spiral and The Fragile was the
Lost Highway soundtrack, which is an awesome thing that he

(33:57):
put together for the David Lynch movie that came out
in even but that was also a competitive thing for
him and Manson, Like it wasn't Manson going to do
that soundtrack originally, Yeah, David Lyndes him first, and I
don't really know why he got taken off of it,
but Resner eventually got the job, and yeah, that was
a huge blow to Manson's ego at that time. It
also took Trent away from sessions for Any Christ Superstar

(34:18):
because I think they were done about in tandem too,
so that kind of hurt Manson's feelings also that not
only is is Trent not here at certain points, but
he's doing this other job that he missed out on,
so that kind of I think. I think Manson at
this point is really starting to resent Trent's role in
his success, which is why Mechanical Animals, the album that
followed it, with which Trend had nothing to do with,

(34:39):
had such a completely different sound. It was almost like
t Rex or something. It was such a changing course
and uh, it was also the most autobiographical album to
date and really established him as an artist who you know,
took musical risks in addition to social ones. Yeah, and
you see them moving in opposite directions, Resner and Manson.
It seems like personally too, they were moving in opposite directions.
Like Manson that up writing about this in his book

(35:01):
that in the late nineties he was making attempts like
to reach out to Restiner, I think, just to hang out,
you know, just to be pals again, and Resiner was
really blowing him off. And again this was when he
was in the middle of that I think intense deliberation
over the fragile But it seems like there was also
a feeling on resiner side that like he had to
put distance between him and Manson, that like, I think
he looked at Manson as a toxic presence in his life.

(35:24):
He gave an interview I think it was in ninety
seven with Spin where he referred to Manson as a careerist,
which I think, you know, whenever someone accuses another person
of being a career is I do feel like there
is an element of jealousy sometimes in that, you know,
this idea that like, well, the reason that you're doing
so well is because you care about your career. Well,
it's like, well, I'm sure Trent Resider also cared about

(35:46):
his career. I mean, you don't become as successful as
Resiner without also being a careerist. But I think that
as you were saying before, the pursuit of fame and
self mythology that Manson I think was primarily concerned with
at this time, even more than music. It was something
that I think for Resoner he was starting to back
away from. I think he was starting to grow that
moment in his life. And you know, to go back

(36:07):
to the Long Road out of Hell, the Manson memoirks
that came out, I think it was it was like
late nineties, which is a crazy time for him to
be putting on a memoir. I mean, this guy, he
hasn't had that long of a career yet and he's
already writing his life story. And you know, as we've
said before, there's a lot of things in that book
that have the feel of bullshit, and there's also just

(36:28):
like a lot of ugliness in that book for the
sake of ugliness. Like I think it's fair to call
that a misogynist book. Like the treatment of women in
that book, and like how how it glamorizes the debasement
of women, women that would be backstage admiral and massive concerts,
especially in retrospect, it's very gross. Has an age well

(36:52):
in the least, and I just think that with Resner,
it just feels like that maybe he was moving beyond
that in some respects. Yeah, I mean that book is
just filled with so many grotesque scenes. I mean the
meet and Greek section alone, uh is absolutely horrifying. Yeah,
it is such a weird move. Was he thirty years

(37:13):
old when he wrote that too? I mean, it was
such a weird move to do that at that point.
And you're right, it seemed purely to be done to
sort of like establish his own myth at this period,
which I can't imagine that that Trent when given a
shit about what people knew about him. I don't. I
know very little about you know, his personal life and
his his story. There doesn't seem to be much of
a myth to Trent. To me, I picked him as,

(37:34):
as you know, a workman like songwriter and producer, and
I mean that as a compliment, whereas he, you know,
Manson is this uh cartoon in a lot of ways.
But Trent really is starting to resent that sort of
the more career a side of Manson. And he puts
his feelings into a song on the Fragile called star
Fuckers Incorporated, which is very subtle. Yeah, yeah, subtle criticism there.

(37:57):
Incredible title. It's directed at Man and also at Courtney
Love and you know, as the title suggests that criticizes
sort of the careerest fame hungry artists who were driven
more by celebrity culture than by this authentic need to
to create um. And you also got the impression that
Resident is one of those people that believes that art
comes from pain, and I think that he resents people
that maybe looks like they're having sort of a better

(38:19):
time than he is doing it. Maybe, I don't know,
maybe if that plays a role in it. Two, Like
I picture him a sort of like again, scowling in
a dark studio as opposed to being on the red
carpet like Manson at the vim as. I think he was.
You know, he was a decade into his career at
that point, and I think he had gotten maybe some
of that a lot of that decadence out of the system,
even though he was still not cleaned up at this point.

(38:42):
I think he actually ended up having an overdose like
on the Fragile tour, so like he wasn't totally cleaned
up himself, but I mean, I think he was in
a year's long process at that point of like slowly
sort of extricating himself from the rock star lifestyle, and
maybe once he got some distance from it. It just
seemed unseemly to him, and in a way, I think
Manson personified that in a way. I almost wonder if

(39:04):
you looked at Manson as being like his own sort
of dark it, you know, and this is this is
like the person I have to get away from, you know,
because it's like the worst part of myself. And he
tells him off in the song star Fuckers, Inc. And
it includes a nod to another legendary tell off song,
Carly Simon's You're So Vain. I bet you think the
song is about you. And Manson knew all too well
that the song was about him, but instead of sniping

(39:25):
back in the song or in the press, he had
a better idea and I love this. He called Trent
and basically said, you know what, I'm sick of people
asking if this song is about me. So I got
a really cool idea for a video that's gonna funk
with everybody. So Manson co directs the song's video and
even makes a cameo at the end, which is just
sort of like the big twist ending and everyone knows
this song is a distract to Manson, And at the

(39:47):
very end, it turns out that he's in on it,
and then he would join Nine Inch Nails on stage
at Madison Square Garden in the summer two thousand to
do it on the song together. And I think this
is kind of like possibly a rivals first, you know,
it's the best response to a distract. Ever, aside from
writing a better distract, it sucked with people. It got
Manson an extra dose of publicity, and it brought him

(40:07):
back with his friend, although temporarily. They would say at
the time in two thousand, like it was really good
to see each other again, and Resner would say, you know,
I reluctantly missed him. We were like brothers and I
couldn't even tell you what we fell out. It was
something to do with getting some fame and both of
us being out of our minds. But they were reunited
against a common shared enemy at this period. Uh, they
wanted to unite against Limp Biscuit and New Metal. I

(40:30):
think Manson was saying, you know, we shouldn't be competing.
There's much more terrible music that we should be united against.
And they they name dropped Limp Biscuit as one of them. Yeah,
you know, to me, this just uh, you know, points
to like the pro wrestler Carnival Barker side of Marilyn Manson.
You know that he could put aside his own ego
and hurt that Resiner would have written a song like

(40:50):
this about him and and and just recognize the promotional opportunities,
you know that like to actually get involved in this,
like to lean into you this depiction, rather than to
act offended. It was only going to play to his benefit.
Like you said, it makes him look like he has
a sense of humor about himself. Uh. And it was
just a great opportunity for publicity. So I think you know,

(41:13):
that is Manson's genius to me, He's willing to make
himself look like the clown if it's going to get
him a little extra attention. Now, what's interesting about this
is that there's still this issue lurking in the background
having to do with Marilyn Manson's Masters, you know, the
albums that he made when he was on Nothing Records. Uh.

(41:36):
There was that incident that we talked about earlier where Resiner,
you know, took a hammer to this hard drive and
at the time, I think uh, Manson believed that res
actually like destroyed the Masters that they wouldn't be able
to be retrieved. And and then many years later, like
once we get into the mid odds, you know, Manson
was thinking about I want to do an anniversary edition
of Antichrist Superstar and he reaches out that Nothing Records

(41:58):
to ask you know, for access to his answers, and
he's told that they're basically lost. They can't find any
of the original recordings for the first three albums. And
Manson is understandably crushed by this because not only does
he feel that this label has wronged him, and I
guess by this point, like Nothing Records didn't even exist.
I think it was shuttered in two thousand four. But

(42:19):
I think he looked at it as like almost like
an intentional betrayal on Restner's part, that like Resiner essentially
erased his artistic legacy and did it to hurt him,
and it was something that was like a huge deal
for him in the moment, and it really reignited this
feud at this point. It was either intentional or just
lack of caring. I mean, this was a guy's life's

(42:39):
work and it really broke his heart and he would say,
you know, I don't know what kind of people do
things like that. It's a racing history, it's erasing your
life's work, it's killing a part of you. Uh, And
so that really hurt Manson deeply, and they spent much
of the next ten years just sort of sniping at
one another in the press. I mean, Resner would say
in an interview he and I are two strong per

(43:00):
Sun allies that could co exist for a while, but
things changed, and then Manson fired back. I think fame
and power distort people's personalities, referring to Resiner. When Resiner
got off drugs in two thousand one, he used that
as another excuse to sort of put some distance between
the two of them. Resiner called Manson unhealthy to be around,
and he openly mocked his two thousand four cover of

(43:20):
Depeche Modes Personal Jesus. He said somebody, I guess on
one of his like fan forums, he was talking to
fans and somebody asked him if he'd ever want to
do a cover, and Resoner's response was, I was really
hoping to do something unique and pertinent, like do an
exact copy of Personal Jesus, but it was already taken
ship well. And I mean the quote that really stands

(43:41):
out to me is that interview Resiner did in two
thousand nine where he referred to Marilyn Manson as a
dope clown, uh, which you know, and I think he
meant dope, you know, in the figurative sense and also
a literal sense, because you know, he was making fun
of Manson for basically being this guy that was glamorizing
being on rugs and alcohol, you know, even now that

(44:02):
he was in middle age, which I think for Resner
this was something that was a particular sticking point because
he had to fight hard, I think for his own
sobriety and I don't know if he was embarrassed by
how he was in the nineties, but I think he
certainly felt like that's not something I need to relive
at this moment in my life. You know. He gave
an interview in twenty eleven where I think someone asked
him about whether he'd want to work with with Manson,

(44:24):
and you know, at first he was diplomatic. He said,
you know, Manson, he's a talented person, and he said,
we've had our problems. But he said, but I wear suits.
I'm an adult now, you know, And that really underscores
this idea. It's like, Okay, it's almost like, you know,
like Manson was his college years, you know, it's like,
that's the guy I partied with when I was in college.
But like now I'm you know, I'm in my forties.
I'm not going to act like I did, you know,

(44:45):
back in my twenties. And it's always funny with me
because we've had this again. This is like another recurring
thing and our episodes that like when you have two
people who are rivals but they're also friends, you know,
like they started out as friends and then maybe they
have a falling out when they at each other publicly,
it's really mean, but there's always a ring of truth
to it. It's like you get the sense that the
rivals know each other better than anyone else knows them.

(45:08):
Because when Manson fires back at Resiner, he says, you know,
we I don't think we ever had a whole lot
in common. We had a certain sense of humor in common.
He was always more of the jock and I was
more of the burnout. And I think that seems to
be a shot at like what happened to Resoner in
the nineties and and beyond that, like he went from
being the skinny guy in leather pants to like being

(45:31):
like pretty muscular and jacked, which was kind of a
weird transformation I think for a lot of people, because
he didn't look like the outsider anymore, like by the
odds and beyond, like Restiner actually was like a pretty,
like handsome, even hunky guy, you know. He was like
a good shape rock sex symbol, yeah, exactly, which I
think is what Manson is referencing there. I mean, I

(45:53):
don't think it's fair to call Resinr like a sellout
or something like that, but there definitely was a transformation
like where he was more of a rock star, you know,
by the end of the nineties, and I think he
projected that kind of image moving forward. And something really
happened in the late two thousands and early two thousand tents.
I think Restler's career reputation and overall fame seemed to
shoot way past Manson's again, And I think it began

(46:15):
after Johnny Cash covered Hurt, which gave him this bonus
dose of cred as like a songwriter with a capital
S as opposed to like a nineties shock rocker, which
is what Manson's reputation to really rested on at this point,
and you know, he'd won an Oscar, which is, you know,
without question, the single most prestigious award in entertainment, UH
for his work on the two thousand tens Social Network soundtrack,

(46:37):
and his recording career also bounced back after the sort
of relative failure of the Fragile at two thousand threes
with Teeth, which had some really great radio friendly tracks
like the Hand That Feeds and only and every Day
It's exactly the same. So this is kind of when
when Trent sort of mounts his slow but steady come back. Yeah,
I mean, Resner ultimately became an artist who was not
defined just by one decade. I think Nineage Nails is

(47:00):
always going to be associated with the nineties, but like
Resner himself, he's done a lot of great things since
the nineties, and for a lot of people, they might
know him more for his film scores at this point
than they know him from closer in the nineties, whereas
Manson is always going to be fixed in that moment
in the mid nineties, like where he was the national
boogeyman and it was a very strong image in the

(47:22):
short run, but overall. Again, it goes back to the
horror movie franchise analogy I was making earlier that like
all horror movie franchises eventually turned into a campy joke
at some point. You know, like the first couple of
movies are scary, but once you get to the seventh
or eighth movie, you know people are going just to
laugh at it. And I think about that classic Onion
headline about Marilyn Manson, Marilyn Manson now going door to

(47:44):
door trying to shock people. I mean, that's such a
devastating own. I'm surprised that Manson still had a career
after that. He didn't just like wipe the makeup off
and go back to Ohio. I will say this, like
I interviewed Marilyn Manson in he put out a record
that year called The Pale Emperor, which I gotta say,
like for a late period Marilyn Manson record is like

(48:05):
pretty solid. And I think around that time he had
a song on the John Wick soundtrack, so he was
kind of making like a mini comeback himself. And I
have to say that, like, I think Manson is always
going to be somewhat relevant with the music press because
he's such a great interview. He's so good at like
giving these quotes that I think are self aware but

(48:26):
are also I think unintentionally hilarious in a lot of ways.
Like one of my favorite quotes from our interview was
he he was talking about his latest record, he said,
there was a time when metaphorically, you sold your soul
to become a rock star. I think that I stopped
paying for a couple of years, or I didn't pay
as much as I should have. This record was my
payment to him saying check is through now, motherfucker, this

(48:48):
is payment due plus interest. Like he can say this
stuff with a straight face. I have to say too
that like a lot of our interview, we just talked
about the doors, you know, And I also, was you
another indication of like where Manson is coming from. I mean, again,
he's a ridiculous guy, but I'm glad he exists because
there really aren't any other rock stars quite like him,

(49:09):
you know, even now, No absolutely, And you know it's
heartwarming because in later years he and Trent did bury
the hatchet. It came in a weird way and Manson
was watching the HBO series of Defiant Ones, which is
a portrait of the working relationship between Dr Dre and
Jimmy Irvine, and the series included interviews with Manson and
Trent and it made a nostalgic for their time working together.

(49:31):
And uh, I guess around the same time, Marilyn Manson
collaborator Tyler Bates cross paths with Trent Resident at a
movie orchestration event, and he told Tyler that that he
wanted to get back in touch with Manson, and they
connected over email, and Trent told him that, you know,
he still had his masters. They hadn't been destroyed with
a hammer or intentionally lost or anything. So that really

(49:51):
removed the primary road block in their relationship, and Manson's
anger dissipated, and he'd say, I just had a pent
up resentment because I thought he'd ruined my career, like
the history of my career, like burning the Dead Sea
scrolls or something. But any sort of past squabbles or
arguments have just all went away when he learned that
his work hadn't been destroyed. And I think for on
Resiner's side, you know, I think he got over that

(50:13):
period in his life where he was embarrassed by Manson
and embarrassed by the decadence and the hedonism that he represented.
And I think he came to appreciate what those two
guys together signified in the mid nineties, because again, it's
a it's a kind of rock star m that is
totally extinct now, Like there's no rock star now that
like people are picketing, you know, because they're afraid that

(50:34):
they're going to corrupt the youth. I mean, there's no
rock star that's famous enough to have that kind of impact.
And there's this email I guess that he wrote to Manson,
like where he he told him that he's like, look,
you know, I it pisses me off that no one's
dangerous anymore, you know, And I like that, you know,
I appreciate what we brought to the music scene in
the mid nineties because I really feel like it's gone,

(50:55):
you know now. I guess it's like a heartwarming end
into this story, Like you would not expect a heartwarming ending,
but I feel like these two came to appreciate what
the other guy brought to the table. We're gonna take
a quick break to get a word from our sponsor
before we get to more rivals. We've now reached the

(51:19):
part of our episode where we give the pro side
of each side of the rivalry, Let's talk about the
pro Trent Resioner side first. I mean, I think this
is like the pretty easy case to make, This is
the obvious one to make. I really feel like Trent
Resider is maybe the most singularly talented musician to come
out of the alt rock era of the nineties. I mean,
not just the fact that he can play so many
different instruments or that he's like a really great songwriter.

(51:41):
Obviously he had a great visual aesthetic, and he's also
been able to transfer those talents to different kinds of music,
and now you know, he's like one of the great
film composers to be working in cinema. And the arc
of his career and the fact that he was again
able to make such a strong impression with nine inch
Nails but also not be sort of contained by nine
inch nails, not to be find just by what he did, uh,

(52:02):
you know, twenty five years ago. It just seems like
he's always been able to keep moving forward right really
good music, and really he's like one of the only
people from that era where if I hear Trent wrestlers
putting out new music. I have an expectation that it
could be the best thing that he ever did, you know,
And I think that's a real testament to an artist
that you know, if you're like thirty years into your

(52:23):
career and people still think that you're capable of greatness, um,
that really puts you up there, like with the great
musicians of all time. Yeah, there's a subtlety and I'll
use that term loosely to to his music that I
think is definitely more suited to the long game than
Manson sort of throw it in your face approach, just
like the ambient work, like like Ghosts one through four.
I thought that was an incredible album. And you know,

(52:45):
I mean Trent seems to have the power position across
the board, you know, longer, more sustained career, and then
Manson may have maybe had higher commercial peaks in the
late nineties and and certainly higher celebrity status. But Resident's
career was a lot more consistent, and like you said,
he achieved success outside of the realm of mainstream radio.
Plus he was the guy who who signed Manson in
the first place, and I think was at very least

(53:07):
you'd say the co architect of his sound that a
crucial partner's career. So I think without Resider, you don't
have Manson, or at least the Manson that that we
we know and love and sometimes fear so going over
the Pearl Maryland Manson side. You know, I think it
is fair to say that at his peak he was
I think significantly more famous than Trent Resider. I think
people knew nine inch Nails, obviously, but Manson had the

(53:29):
kind of fame where even if you never watched MTV
or you never bought any rock records at all, you
knew who Manson was, and chances are already scared the
hell out of you. And it is the kind of
rock stardom that really doesn't exist anymore, and he might
be the last version of that, which I think still
makes him relevant in his own way. I don't think

(53:49):
he's ever going to come close to being as famous
as he was in the mid nineties, but I really
think that every couple of years, Manson's gonna bubble up
and give a round of interviews that is reminds people
that he is like a great talker, and he's a
great self promoter, and even if you aren't interested in
his latest record, You're gonna want to like hear what
he has to say because it's probably going to be entertaining.

(54:11):
Oh yeah. I mean, I can't pretend to be the
world's biggest Marila Manson fan, because I'm absolutely not. But yeah,
I kind of love him. I love the mythology, I
love the self conscious provocation. I love the pro wrestling
level ridiculousness and just his flamboyant persona and the outrage.
You know, God, bless the God of fun. I have
to say now, when we look at these two guys together,

(54:33):
I mean, look, if you believe that rock and roll
or youth music in general should be dangerous, then you
have to look at the peak of these two guys
in the nineties as one of the great moments in rock.
I mean, it's hard to imagine parents getting upset about
rock stars now, but back in the nineties, these guys
ensured that music would be unsafe. So for that reason alone,
I think again, even if you're not a fan of

(54:54):
Manson or like you've outgrown nine Is sh Nails, it's
hard not to look back on these two guys not
with fear, but with affection. Yeah, I also think they
were one of the best examples of the sort of
student teacher relationship in Rock. Resiner helped hone Manson's craft
and helped him reach his creative heights. And then Resiner's
sense of competition kicked in once Manson's success threatened to
overshadow his own, and it pushed them to do consistently

(55:15):
good work to keep up. And despite all the snorted
bones and ketamine and explosives and broken glass and god
knows what else, Trent and Manson were able to patch
things up and stay friends. And like you said, I
think that's a happier ending than any of us all
coming for the story. So, Jordan, it's been a lot
of fun talking about these two beautiful people. Beautiful people. Well,

(55:37):
I I was wondering the whole episode how we're gonna
get one in. But but you above and beyond that's
the most dramatic part of our episode. What terrible pun
will be dropped at the end of the episode, Steven,
If if you didn't, you know, I would have been hurt. Well,
if you're still listening after those two terrible puns, I'm
here to say so long, thank you for listening to
our episode this week. We'll be back with more feuds

(55:59):
and beefs and long swimming resentments next week. Rivals is
a production of I Heart Radio. The executive producers are
Shawn Tytone and Noel Brown. The supervising producers are Taylor
Chicoine and Tristan McNeil. The producer is Joel hat Stat.
I'm Jordan's run Talk and I'm Stephen Hyden. If you

(56:19):
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