We Are Chaos (stylized in all caps) is the eleventh studio album by American rock band Marilyn Manson. It was produced by Marilyn Manson and Shooter Jennings, and was released on September 11, 2020, by Loma Vista Recordings and Concord Music. The title track and "Don't Chase the Dead" were both issued as singles. The album was a critical and commercial success upon release, garnering mostly positive reviews and becoming their first number one album in Portugal, and their first number one record in Australia since 1998's Mechanical Animals.
Background We Are Chaos was recorded in collaboration between vocalist Marilyn Manson and musician Shooter Jennings. The two were introduced in 2013 by Twiggy Ramirez, former bassist for the Marilyn Manson band. That same year, the producers of Sons of Anarchy asked Manson and Jennings to record a song for the finale to the sixth season of the television series. Their version of the track remains unreleased, with both Manson and Jennings saying they were unhappy with the finished product. The track "Join the Human Gang" was written by Jennings alongside the show's creator Kurt Sutter, and was eventually rewritten and released by The White Buffalo as "Come Join the Murder". Manson went on to portray a character in the seventh season of Sons of Anarchy, and recorded two albums with Tyler Bates: The Pale Emperor and Heaven Upside Down. Manson and Jennings also collaborated on a cover of David Bowie's "Cat People (Putting Out Fire)", for Jennings's album Countach (For Giorgio).
In 2019, drummer Gil Sharone – who performed on The Pale Emperor and Heaven Upside Down – announced he was leaving the band to pursue other projects. Former Black Flag drummer Brandon Pertzborn was hired as his replacement. Shortly after, Manson announced that Bates was no longer involved with the group, and that We Are Chaos would be co-produced by Jennings and feature contributions from his drummer Jamie Douglass. Pertzborn and the band's touring guitarist Paul Wiley were also confirmed to perform on the album. Manson and Jennings recorded a cover version of The Doors track "The End" for use as the theme song for the miniseries The Stand. The track did not appear in the series, however, with director Josh Boone saying a license to use it proved too expensive for a series made on a limited budget.
Recording and production Manson said recording "The End" informed the approach he and Jennings took while recording We Are Chaos, in that it "started us exploring different things. [Shooter is] very talented in so many ways, and working with him is very fluid. We have a totally different collaborative style than I did [with Tyler] on the last two records. Sometimes Shooter will already be doing something that I was going to suggest. We lock brains a lot together." The album was recorded over two-and-a-half years of intermittent studio time. Since Manson and Jennings's touring commitments made it difficult to coordinate schedules, several different studios were used to record We Are Chaos. Their respective home studios were used as the primary recording locations, with Manson going so far as to rent a house within a short distance of Jennings's to further facilitate recording. Another studio that could accommodate the entirety of Jennings's live band – which included strings and live drums – was also employed.
Despite the difference between the two bands' styles, Manson said they were not "afraid to mix the two together when we were making the songs." We Are Chaos contains ten songs, and no additional tracks were recorded. Manson explained that once his and Jennings's respective bands found a mode to collaborate, the songs "flowed quickly" and "there were no extra songs. There was no fat to cut off the music." The album was produced by Manson and Jennings, and Manson's vocals were recorded late at night; the vocalist said that Jennings deduced his "peak hour for singing was 3 a.m. I'm sure that's probably because it's [when] the full range of rasp comes out of my voice".
Jennings said recording the album made him a more confident lead player, explaining that Manson frequently encouraged him to perform instrumentation he was not familiar with during recording sessions. As a result, he plays bass guitar, keyboards and lead guitar on most songs on the album, and also created all of the drum programming. He said several guitars were used to record We Are Chaos, but that the album predominantly features a black Gibson SG, given as a gift to him on his 20th birthday by his father Waylon Jennings. Other guitars used include a reconstructed 1963 white Gibson SG given to him by Dave Cobb, as well as Manson's own Airliner guitar, which Manson would also use to record various guitar parts. The primary amplifier used was a Gallien-Krueger 250 ML Series 2, as its dual-speaker system could record guitars in stereophonic sound. Jennings complimented the amplifier for its ability to modify guitar tones. A Fender Super Champ was used as a "cool alternative", with Jennings saying: "That thing is magical. You can dial in Jimmy Page or you can dial in the Beatles, or fucking Eric Clapton if you want". Various instruments were processed using an Eventide H910 Harmonizer. Although Jennings said he preferred the Eventide H-10, Manson insisted on using the older H910 model, saying: "This is the David Bowie sound!"
Recording for the album completed in January 2020. That same month, bassist Juan Alderete was involved in a bicycle accident which left him with a diffuse axonal injury, a type of traumatic brain injury. A GoFundMe page was created to help cover the cost of his medical expenses. Alderete is credited with performing bass on the album.
Composition and style
We Are Chaos was written entirely by Manson and Jennings, and was described by reviewers as a post-punk, gothic rock, industrial rock album, with elements of glam rock. The pair initially wrote material separately; Jennings said that during the initial writing sessions he created musical ideas to present to Manson, and the pair then evolved those ideas into songs. According to Jennings, their style of writing eventually developed to a process where they would "just start from scratch in a room. We'd start with a drum beat, or listen to a song that we liked, and the kind of guitar tone that was going on, and then emulate what was going on with that." David Bowie was a primary influence on the album's composition, specifically the material contained on Bowie's box set A New Career in a New Town (1977–1982). Manson gave a copy of that box set to Jennings as a gift early in the album's recording, and the pair frequently listened to it together. During one session, Manson divulged that "Ashes to Ashes" – from Bowie's 1980 album Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) – was the song that inspired him to become a musician; Jennings said he was inspired to become a musician and learned to play guitar by listening to Antichrist Superstar.
The work of Elton John and Bernie Taupin was also an influence. Several songs on the album were written on piano, a first in Manson's career. Manson explained that "it seemed great for both of us to find a spot where my voice and piano [worked together because it] sounded really different. And it seemed like I could really go places that I had not gone before. Different keys, or different rhythms, or just different elements and ideas." This new style of writing had an impact on his vocal delivery, with Manson saying he sings with a more baritone voice on We Are Chaos than on previous releases. Manson said that Jennings's previous production work had the biggest impact on the album's sound, but denied We Are Chaos consisted of country music. He argued against Jennings's work being classified as such, saying "southern" was a more appropriate classification, noting the latter "also drags in a bit of the Stones, in a way".
A writer for Inked noted the dichotomy between Jennings and Manson's previous work while complimenting the collaboration between two seemingly disparate artists, saying: "The respective musical backgrounds of each musician are also evident, complementing each other throughout the album, but also pushing themselves toward a new direction." They went on to comment that the pair's shared love of 1970s rock music was prevalent throughout We Are Chaos, and noted that although the album contained the "grinding guitars" found on every Marilyn Manson album, the sound was at times more reminiscent of the likes of Bowie, Iggy Pop and Roxy Music. Some lyrics on the album were inspired by the sudden death of Eric Rosenbaum, a tattoo artist publicly known as Norm Love Letters or Norm Will Rise, who had tattooed Manson on several occasions. Manson said: "I had talked to him two days before he died. It was so heartbreaking."
Titling and concept Manson initially said the lyrics on the album were autobiographical, and that he considered self-titling the record as a result. This was later revised, however, and he described We Are Chaos as a concept album. The record purposefully includes ten songs, with the explicit intention of listeners being able to experience the album as if it were a traditional LP, with Manson noting the mood and tone of the record changes drastically after the fifth track. He said: "I wanted it to be like any movie or any great book or any painting or any poem, [in] that it becomes part of the listener's experience, not just mine", noting this was what he apprised when listening to Bowie's Diamond Dogs, Alice Cooper's Welcome to My Nightmare and Pink Floyd's The Wall as a teenager, elaborating those albums made a listener "feel like you're a part of something bigger that you can insert yourself into. And I think escapism is an important thing to have now." He went on to say: "Hopefully, [listeners will] interpret it in a way that maybe I didn't even realize." Of the overall concept, he said he hoped listeners would be aware of the presence of a singular story arc, but encouraged people to discover their own story when listening to the album. He said he asked numerous people for their interpretation of the album's content, specifically whether they believed it concluded with a happy, sad or tragic ending.
Songs Side A The first song on the album is titled "Red Black and Blue", whose introduction consists of the vocalist reciting prose text, which he said set the mood for what was to follow on the album. In the prose, he proclaims himself to be a king bee who will cover the Earth in honey so that everyone will devour themselves. AllMusic compared the introductory prose to a sermon, before saying the song "quickly rumbles to life with a pounding beat, gurgling bass, and chugging riffage." Guitars featured on the song were recorded using the GK250 amplifier, which Jennings referred to as the best amplifier in his collection. He highlighted the amp for its "chorus button" feature, which he said was used to record "those huge tones on 'Red Black and Blue' for the chunking guitars." Reviewers compared the song to the work of White Zombie.
Despite being written eighteen months before the album was released, and before the COVID-19 pandemic began, Manson said the lyrics to the title track could be interpreted as referring to the impact of COVID-19 lockdowns on mental health. Although it contains political and religious references, the song was primarily inspired by Manson seeking to relate emotionally to the rest of the world. American Songwriter compared the lyric to those of Kurt Cobain, describing the chorus as being "among the most visceral, primal expressions of inner turmoil" since Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit". The acoustic guitars on the song use Nashville tuning, which Jennings said he utilized to "bring that Elvis [Presley] meets Jeff Lynn vibe. Nashville tuning gives you the glimmer but you don't have that whole fucking hippy, '60s peace thing going on."