1997: Dave Navarro, Billy Zane, Marilyn Manson

I had started hanging out with the actor Billy Zane, and he introduced me to Marilyn Manson. We spent many late nights hanging out in Marilyn’s house up in Laurel Canyon, along with Marilyn’s bassist, Twiggy, and many other interesting characters. There were obviously a lot of drugs, but also a lot of music and good times. It was always fun hanging out with those guys. I appreciated Marilyn and what he was doing as an artist. He was pushing boundaries and constantly reinventing himself, not unlike what Bowie had done a couple of decades earlier—and I have always been a huge Bowie fan.

I fit in up at the house in kind of a strange way. All those guys—Marilyn, Dave Navarro, Nikki Sixx—they didn’t like my music from way back when, but I didn’t either. But they did all seem to appreciate the style I had brought back then. To these guys, I was a type of pop culture icon whom they appreciated. They remembered all of the magazines and the craziness, and that was interesting to them. And, of course, my reputation with women was something everybody always wanted to hear about as well. They always asked me questions about the old days, about what it was like to be so hot and so wildly popular. They were just really into pop culture.

Hanging around them got me thinking about music again and about what I wanted to be doing. Eventually, a number of us would all work together on my solo project, but when I first started hanging out up there, it was just a chance to enter a new world I felt comfortable in. All of these guys were making good music on their own terms. I liked that. That inspired me. It also helped me come to grips with what I had been years before. I think in a way I was trying to shed my skin with them, so in sort of a ceremonial act, I began giving them my gold records. They all freaked out and thought they were receiving some great cultural artifacts. But to me it was part of a life that was fake. I didn’t want those things around me anymore. I gave Twiggy one; Dave got one; I also gave one to my friend Julian Raymond for his efforts to try and produce a hit song for me that we cowrote.

At a certain point, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland had an exhibit dedicated to teen idols, and asked if I could lend them a few of my things. I asked Marilyn if I could have the records back for a short period to be put on display. I assured him I would give them back to him after the exhibit closed. But he took it the wrong way and called me an “Indian giver.” Sadly, that was the end of our friendship.