In 1989, Brian Warner was a college student working towards a degree in journalism at Broward College, gaining experience by writing music articles for the South Florida lifestyle magazine 25th Parallel.[2][3] It was in this capacity that he met several of the musicians to whom his own band would later be compared, including My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult and Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails.[4] That December, he met Scott Putesky, who proposed that the two form a band together after reading some lyrics and poems written by Putesky, who wanted to be the vocalist of the proposed band.[5][6] Warner, guitarist Putesky and bassist Brian Tutunick recorded their first demo tape as Marilyn Manson & the Spooky Kids in 1990, taking on the stage names of Marilyn Manson, Daisy Berkowitz and Olivia Newton Bundy, respectively.[7][8] Bundy left the band soon after, and was replaced by Gidget Gein, born Brad Stewart.[9][10] They were later joined on keyboard by Stephen Bier, who called himself Madonna Wayne Gacy.[9][11] In 1991, drummer Fred Streithorst joined the band under the name Sara Lee Lucas.[12][13]
The stage names adopted by each member were representative of a concept the band considered central: the dichotomy of good and evil, and the existence of both, together, in every whole. "Marilyn Monroe had a dark side", explained Manson in his autobiography, "just as Charles Manson has a good, intelligent side."[14] Over the next six years, all of the band's members would adopt names that combined the first name of a female s*x symbol and the surname of a serial killer.[15] Images of both Monroe and Manson, as well as of other famous and infamous figures, were common in the band's early promotional materials.[14]
The Spooky Kids' popularity in the area grew quickly[16] and because of the band's highly visual concerts, which drew from performance art and used many shock techniques such as "naked women nailed to a cross, a child in a cage, or bloody animal body parts."[17] Band members variously performed in women's clothing or bizarre costumes; and, for lack of a professional pyrotechnician, would set their own stage props on fire.[16] The band would contrast these theatrics with elements drawn from their youth: characters from 1970s and '80s children's television made regular, often grotesquely altered, appearances on band flyers and newsletters, and were frequently sampled in their music.[18] They continued to perform and release cassettes – shortening their name to Marilyn Manson in 1992 – until the summer of 1993, when they drew the attention of Reznor, who had just founded his own label, Nothing Records.[19]
