The LA Weekly is reporting that Erin Broadley, their web editor, is about to write Marilyn Manson first authorized biography. But how did she get this privilege?
Back in 2009, Erin had written about an encounter between the gothic rocker and Travis Keller, another LAWeekly writer, and founder, in 1998, of Buddyhead, a LA music webzine with an attitude, which once dared to describe Pitchfork as ‘forever trapped by their pseudo-intellectualism’.
Keller met Manson at a West Hollywood Le Montrose suite, during a cocaine fueled Christmas party, and he described the reality being very far from the usual scary image of the tenebrous rocker, then pictured as ‘wearing a Von Dutch trucker cap — sideways — and a white shirt covered in stains, pulled over his beer belly’.
Not very long after, Manson posted a threat to kill Keller (no joke) on his Myspace page:
‘I can, but do not need to defend myself And the absurd accusations that the average press has clinged onto. If we need a nude photo of me to prove that I am far different than the soon-to-be-murdered-in-their-home press has decided to fabricate, that is easy. But if one more “journalist” makes a cavalier statement about me and my band, I will personally or with my fans help, greet them at their home and discover just how much they believe in their freedom of speech. I dare you all to write one more thing that you won’t say to my face. Because I will make you say it. In that manner. That is a threat. Mm’
You just don’t want to have Manson as your enemy, I mean, I would be totally scared! In 1998, Manson and 2 bodyguards were accused of assaulting Spin editor backstage at a concert over a story published in the magazine. Or may be it was just good publicity…
Erin Broadley, who, remember, reported the story for the LAWeekly, thought Manson hated her too. But after an invitation at the Magic Castle in Hollywood where she met with him, and a conversation at the end of which Manson handed her his business card (saying ‘PIERCE & PIERCE, Mergers and Acquisitions/Patrick Bateman, Vice President’,… yeah what else would you expect?), things turned around. Erin was invited again at Manson’s apartment, heard tracks from his upcoming 2011 album, and became his official new biographer:
‘I asked Erin Broadley to write an objective account of my life because I have great respect for her. I think she has the balls to be the next Lee Miller.’
Lee Miller? Man Ray’s muse and lover and war photographer who recorded the horror of the Nazi concentration camps and broke into Adolf Hitler’s apartment? You can always count on Manson to draw some diabolically grandiose parallel.