Scott Putesky - Marilyn Manson

Marilyn Manson

Putesky and Brian Warner met at a Fort Lauderdale club called The Reunion Room and later at a local after-party in December 1989. The two created the concept of Marilyn Manson & The Spooky Kids poking fun at American media hypocrisy and its obsessions with serial killers and beautiful women.

Putesky, who had at this point developed his own poetry but not yet worked lyrics into his music, began to meet up with Warner and brainstorm character and show/event ideas, after Warner asked for help starting a band as a creative outlet for his poetry writing. Putesky played guitar, bass and keys, programmed a Yamaha RX-8 drum machine, and taught Warner about vocal performance, recording and arranging. Input from both parties gave the band its darkly psychedelic style, and as early as January 1990, they began to record songs like "Red (in My) Head", "White Knuckles", "Cake and Sodomy" and "Dogma" on Putesky's 4-track. By March they had assembled a band with Warner's Broward Community College schoolmate Brian Tutunick and Perry Pandrea. The band played its first show at Churchills, a club in Miami April 28, 1990, opening for the popular local band "The Goods".

Marilyn Manson & The Spooky Kids, with its fusion of psychedelic industrial rock and mixed metaphors, quickly built a cult following, due in part to flyering parking lots long well before show-dates, playing at clubs such as Squeeze and The Reunion Room, and later opening for several national acts such as Danzig. The group also won a number of Slammie Awards, Florida's version of the Grammy, for metal acts. In August 1992, Marilyn Manson & The Spooky Kids played their last show and shortened their name to Marilyn Manson. The line-up had by that time changed to include Fred Streithorst as Sara Lee Lucas on drums, Brad Stewart as Gidget Gein on bass, and Stephen Bier as Madonna Wayne Gacy on keyboards.

Warner had interviewed Trent Reznor years before and remained in touch — Reznor, when asked to come and see a show, was suitably impressed and offered them a contract on the spot. After signing with Reznor's label Nothing Records in the summer of 1993, they began working on their first album, Portrait of an American Family. Though Marilyn Manson built up a strong local fanbase during its early years, it was not until their 1995 release Smells Like Children that they caught the ear of the world with the darkly gothic cover of Eurythmics' "Sweet Dreams". In February 1995, after opening for Danzig, having two headlining tours, and making three more music videos, the band headed back to the studio to begin work on Antichrist Superstar".

At this point, creative differences between Warner and Putesky peaked and Putesky left the studio before Antichrist Superstar was completed.

While being interviewed by Aaron Réne in an online radio show in 2010, Putesky spoke about his experience of leaving the band. "I was asked to leave. They only kept one song I wrote for Antichrist Superstar and I was starting to get pissed off. Twiggy and Pogo pretty much penned the whole album and I resented it. So when I approached the band on the matter, they basically said they were going in a different direction and they weren't sure I 'got it'."