Tyler Bates Discusses Working With Marilyn Manson

"I think we had an auspicious beginning."

On Wednesday (Sept. 9), Tyler Bates joined Loudwire Nights to dive into his musical journey that includes tons of movies, TV shows and video games. And for the last several years, that journey has included producing albums with Marilyn Manson.

Listen to the full conversation in the player near the end of this article.

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That auspicious beginning with Bates and Manson occurred on the set of Californication, a TV show Bates was working on and Manson happened to appear in.

"I was a bit irritated at the time," Bates recalled with Loudwire Nights' Chuck Armstrong.

"It's the end of a 10-hour day at 100 degrees in the rehearsal studio, he was the last one to show up of course. And we were ready to get out of there, so it took a minute. I never expected that I would work with him."

They did two shows together, followed by a "wrap party" which was essentially a full-on concert. Bates described it as an amazing atmosphere filled with nearly 1,000 people.

"That's when we first spoke about sort of a reinvention," he said.

"It took awhile before we actually ever did get to the studio — and that led to The Pale Emperor."

Not only did Bates produce The Pale Emperor, but he also played guitar on the album, something he never intended to do. And as they were working on this album, another opportunity that Bates wasn't expecting popped up.

"A colleague of mine called me and said, 'Hey, I've been told that I need to speak to you about an original Marilyn Manson song for a movie,'" he remembered.

"I said, 'Yeah.' He said, 'They said you're the one who is in charge of all of that.' And I said, 'Okay.' So this guy happens to live in my neighborhood, he came over and he listened to a few of the songs. And as soon as he heard 'Killing Strangers,' he's like, 'That's it. That's the song for this movie.' I'm like, 'What's that called again?' He says, 'It's just a little movie, it's called John Wick.'"

At the time, Bates was also scoring Guardians of the Galaxy, but he quickly found time to meet with the director and producer of John Wick.

"Then Keanu [Reeves] came over and I think at that point I'd only done a couple movies with Keanu, so I got to know him a bit," Bates shared.

"Of course, Manson was here and it turned out to be a hell of a Tuesday afternoon, let's just put it that way. We blasted the record like it was a concert and everybody responded to 'Killing Strangers.' They're like, 'That's John Wick.'"

What Else Did Tyler Bates Discuss on Loudwire Nights?

His conversation with Marilyn Manson before working on One Assassination Under God – Chapter 1: "I got together with Manson and I said, 'Look, if you're really serious about doing the best work of your life, I will do that with you. Anything less than that isn't going to work for you anymore. You're in a place in life where you have one chance to show people that you're a serious person and that you're a great artist ... The stuff you used to do isn't going to be good enough. You have to be open and honest with people in this music. If you're interested in doing that kind of work, then I'm into it.'"
What it's like in the studio with Manson: "It's just he and I. I play everything, I record everything, I record him. That's it. Just the two of us when we make these records. It is a very intimate conversation of music. And because we've worked this way, I know him probably better than anybody on this earth besides perhaps his wife...it's a really heavy, interesting thing."
Working on his first-ever solo album: "I probably have 40 soundtrack albums, none of them are my solo album. This is just for me, just to get some stuff out of my mind. It's instrumental, it is kind of a guitar-forward album, pretty weird. I guess it's sort of like a heavy Pink Floyd kind of thing, but it's a guitar-forward thing. And many of my favorite drummers are playing on the record, which has been really cool that everybody's just wanted to step in and play on it. We're going to put that out probably in the beginning of March, late February."