Marilyn Manson has explained why he refused to take painkillers following surgery that required 10 titanium pins after he broke his leg when a large stage prop fell on him during a New York City show three years ago.
Speaking to with Apple Music 1’s Zane Lowe, the ‘Chase the Dead’ singer revealed that he chose not to take the addictive pharmaceuticals despite being in “excruciating” pain.
“I think that I was very lucky that it was about six inches from my skull,” the 51-year-old said of the prop that fell on top of him on stage.
“When it fell it was not secured and I grabbed onto this giant lighting rig essentially that had these two guns on it. So I mean if there’s an argument for gun control, I’ll be right there in regards to those guns.”
Breaking his fibula in two places, the shock rocker hit the stage just five weeks after his injury while opting to perform in an electric wheelchair.
“Dave Grohl and Axl Rose graciously offered their chairs,” Manson recalled.
“And I said no and I found this electric wheelchair that rose up. And I tried to make it into part of the show and it was not a fun time at all,” he recounted, adding that he refused to take medication for pain following the surgery.
Love Music?
Your daily dose of everything happening in Australian music and globally.
“I didn’t take them,” he explained
“I mean I did initially while I was in the hospital, so in the operation. But being that I had taken them in the past which increased it to recreational use I didn’t want to fall prey to that,” Manson admitted.
“So I just didn’t do it,” he went on, conceding: “I mean it hurts, but once your pain receptors in your brain, it changes the way you think – all your cortisol, the dopamine, everything in your brain, it changes.”
“It doesn’t bother me now. It’s actually more of a bionic leg and it doesn’t go off at airports either, which is strange. If anyone’s heavy metal it’s my leg, it’s full heavy metal.”
Explaining he was fearful of developing an addiction to strong painkillers, Manson cautioned, “I am by no means a model sobriety.”
“It’s just it clouds your brain,” he said of the medication. “[That’s] why I stopped drinking absinthe, as well — it clouds the frontal lobe. A lot of people find it to be artistically enhancing, but it also bends your brain a bit sometimes in a bad way. Where you are convinced that what you’re doing is really great when it’s just the drug telling you that. That’s what I realised a while back. Especially going into this record. But before that.”
Marilyn Manson released his latest album We Are Chaos on Friday, September 11th, via Loma Vista Recordings.
Check out ‘WE ARE CHAOS’ by Marilyn Manson:
