Kerrang! claimed on Friday that Pumpkins co-founder James Iha will make a “guest appearance” on the next album from Brian “The Space Cowboy” “Marilyn Manson” Warner and Jeordie “Ratso Rizzo” “Twiggy Ramirez” White:

[Marilyn Manson], who is clearly reeling after the commercial and critical failure that was 2007’s Eat Me, Drink Me, says tracks for his eponymous band’s seventh studio album are “very ruthless, very heavy, and very violent.”

The Double M has also revealed that Slayer guitar god Kerry King and The Smashing Pumpkins’ James Iha will be making guest appearances on the record.

There is essentially no original content in this Kerrang! blurb, as the information – including the “very ruthless, very heavy, and very violent” quotation — has been part of a Wikipedia entry since February.  Just days after that Wikipedia entry was created, an extensive discussion of the entry took place on Manson fan board The Hierophant Council.  One fan taking part in that discussion, Tim “Litso” Hessel, recognized that the Wikipedia entry was a copy of an entry on his MansonWiki site:

It’s nice to see wikipedia takes information from the MansonWiki, it used to be the other way around. Everything in the article is true for as far as I know, we try to stick to the facts (as presented in interviews and other reliable sourdces) as much as possible.

Another participant in the Hierophant Council discussion wrote:

I recognize almost everything in that [Wikipedia] article from posts here [on the Hierophant Council site] of live concert reports and other credible goings-on of information gleaned over the past year, but for Wikipedia that isn’t (and shouldn’t be by principle, even though we know better) good enough for it to remain unsourced and intact there. It is just about all true, though.

So the Kerrang! blurb is (effectively) sourced from Wikipedia, the Wikipedia entry from MansonWiki, and the MansonWiki entry from the Hierophant Council discussion boards.  Based on a Google search of those boards, it appears that the James Iha information can be traced to a September 27, 2007 post by Heather Wiewes, who told of her experience at a Manson concert in São Paulo the night before:

After the show, I met Manson, talked a little bit with him. I asked to him about a new album and new single… he told me that a new album coming soon :D and it will be a participation to Slayer (sorry, I can’t remember the name of guy), James Iha from Smashing Pumpkins and someone else (I also can’t remember)

Also cited on the boards is a November interview conducted with Manson by David Saavedra of Madrid newspaper El Mundo.  The interview is in Spanish, but here is the Google Translate rendering of the section where Saavedra tries to get clarity:

[Saavedra]. - is rumoured that could assist in that CD Slayer and Smashing Pumpkins.

[Manson]. - It’s definitely a possibility. Obviously, I had the opportunity to meet many people during these years. I have made very close friend of Kerry King of Slayer, I have had enough contact with Smashing Pumpkins and recently I also worked with Nick Zinner of Yeah Yeah Yeahs, who has made a remix for me. All of them can become part of the disc.

Where does that leave us, or the truth?  I’m not really sure, but I almost have to question the rumor purely on plausibility grounds. I don’t have any personal knowledge of the “failure” of the last Manson album, but I daresay that anyone who calls in James Iha to further a plan for heavily ruthless violence is reeling at best and may rather like the drugs.  Uhm, so, maybe it IS true…

Last note: the MansonWiki is now citing Kerrang! (in the mistaken belief that Kerrang! conducted a new interview with Manson) as evidence that “the Smashing Pumpkins’ James Iha would still be making an appearance on the album.”  What goes around, stays around?

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