This is an off-shoot of that other thread, about the strangest person in America. Someone there mentioned Marilyn Manson and someone else pointed out that he’s pretty much just playing a role. He comes off as fairly normal when interviewed (at least he did in Bowling for Columbine).
This made me start wondering–who are the people who have bizarre personnas on stage or in film but act pretty normal in real life? Weird Al Yankovic comes to mind. I heard that they did a Behind the Music of him and were struggling to make him seem more bizarre because he actually leads a fairly down to earth life.
The walking tour of the Garden District made note that Trent Reznor lives there and is considered a fantastic neighbor. Supposedly, when they got the news, everyone was living in fear of drug overdoses, loud parties and cops. The tour guide made him sound absolutely mundane.
My sister met Reznor back in the early 90s at some rock festival. She was a slight fan, but she said he was so nice and accommodating she really took a shine to him afterward. (He wasn’t hitting on her, she was with a group of friends, some male and female, who all reported that he was cool and even sort of “tagged along” with them afterward.)
I don’t know if he qualifies, but I think Morrissey is assumed to be some goth freak, but by all accounts he’s a good neighbor (of course his neighbors in LA are all quite rich).
I’ve read that Alice Cooper is nothing like his stage persona. Quite laid back, actually. He kicked alcohol and now works with rock musicians with substance abuse issues, which really makes me want to listen to his music on general principle in and of itself, but all that pales beside the fact that he’s an avowed Simpsons fan and even wrote a story line for one of the **Treehouse of Horror ** specials.
Judging from that real-life soap he was in, I think Ozzy Osborne was rather normal. A bit foul mouthed and a bit retarded and his wife dressed him rock star-ish, but otherwise, just your average white-trash friendly neighbour. Even the “biting the head of a bat thing” was an accident; he thought the bat was a rubber prop.
Yeah, he came to mind when I was writing the thread and I forgot to put him in. I think that was behind a lot of the success of the show–the incongruity of this bizarre and possibly scary rock star just hanging out with the kids and bitching over seemingly normal concerns like the dogs peeing everywhere.
Supposedly some producers approached Cooper with the idea of doing a reality show about his family when the Osbourne show hit big. Cooper said the show would be a failure because when he’s not performing he lives a normal middle-class life.
While Manson is not the Satan-worshipping space alien of his stage show, everything I’ve read about him (a lot of it from his own autobiography) tells me that he’s still a little nutty.
Weird Al might not be all that weird but I can tell you that they day I met him he was a giant asshole. We were on the same flight (coach!) once and he bitched and moaned and did the “do you know who I am?!!?” thing to anyone who dared to look at him. I thought maybe he was doing it to be funny but he appeared to be quite serious.
John Waters is by all accounts a very normal, and actually pretty down to earth guy. My sister got to interview him for a magazine article once, and while I was not there, I got to hear the audio tapes of the discussion. A lot of his answers were very reasonable and not at all what you might expect.
One point in particular I remember was his opinions about federally funding controversial art. (These interviews were not too long after the Robert Mapplethorpe/Jessie Helms brouhaha in the late 80s.) Although he was unabashedly liberal on most topics, on this he actually was opposed to federal funding. “Nobody ever gave me money to get my pictures made, I raised all the money myself, and STILL got them made” he said. “You can’t take federal grant money and claim that you’re a rebel outsider.”
By all accounts, even though Gene Simmons’s public persona as a member of KISS was fairly strange, in real life, he is, although fairly egotistical, opinionated, and flirty, a pretty normal guy (even though Terry Gross isn’t his biggest fan).
Also rendered as, “Why do you always take two Methodists* fishing with you?” “If you just take one, he’ll drink all the beer.” One of my husband’s old standbys.
*Pick on the sect of your choice. It’s a flexible joke. My husband likes to use Baptists.
I’ve read that 50 Cent doesn’t drink, or do drugs, even though he’s known as a pretty “gangsta” rapper. He also lives in gated community. He’s also very business savvy and made a fortune selling Vitamin Water to Coca Cola
In interviews, Iggy Pop comes across as a very intelligent, yet down to earth guy, whose remarks hit the nail on the head. In fact, I would love to hear a longer interview with him.
