Q&A: Pittsburgh's Reba Meyers talks playing with Marilyn Manson ahead of Roxian show

At 32, guitarist Reba Meyers considers herself the kid among gothic rocker Marilyn Manson’s band, with the rest of the members ranging between 49 and 60 years old.

“I’m always trying to listen, but I’m sure I annoy the (crap) out of them. I’m basically like the (expletive) triceratops from ‘The Land Before Time’ energy,” she said with a laugh. “It’s cool though, they need that. They need that right now.”

Meyers, a Pittsburgh native, may be best known as the guitarist for Code Orange, but she’s also launched a solo career, which included her “Clouded World EP” and a short tour this summer. She’s also been touring with Manson since last year.

“It just clicked with me. I was like, I feel like this is what I’m meant to be doing right now, to propel me into a new chapter, and to give me a new confidence, which it does. They just got my vibe, I think that was the main thing. We jammed once, and they were like, ‘We’re down,’” she said with a laugh. “‘We’re down if you’re down.’”

Manson brings his One Assassination Under God tour for a sold-out show Saturday at the Roxian Theatre in McKees Rocks. It’ll be his first area show since 2018 at Star Lake, as he toured sparingly from 2020-23 during a years-long investigation into allegations of sexual assault and domestic violence, in which he wasn’t charged.

“I think it’s valuable to talk about anyways in the sense of just because of, one, his controversy. It’s nice whenever we see stuff written that is not about that,” she said. “It’s like, people can talk about that. That’s fine. We’re very ‘talk about whatever you want,’ but I think that the story is actually more interesting. The actual story of what’s happening is more interesting than the controversy by far. We have a lot more to teach people about with that. It’s like the real story is not even being noticed by most people, which is sad.”

For Meyers, that story is one of redemption and that people can change.

“I don’t want to speak for him, because he’s not even doing press, which I think is (expletive) rad,” she said. “But for me it’s about redemption, and I’ve seen that with the crowd, and the more important part to me is how people are receiving it, and I can see that it’s empowering people to be better, which that’s incredible. It’s rare.”

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In a chat this summer in Pittsburgh, Meyers spoke with TribLive about her experience in the band, playing someone else’s music and more. Find a transcript of the conversation, edited for clarity and length, below.

What’s the experience been like for you to play with Marilyn Manson?

It’s been amazing, and it’s (expletive) awesome. Learning so much and being supported in awesome ways and encouraged to be myself. It’s been a whirlwind. I just love being able to play shows in a different context and play songs that really resonate with people. And when you’re up there playing them, they resonate with you because they’re just good (expletive) songs. There’s some really good material, and that’s important and that makes a statement.

I’m always a little afraid to talk about it because I feel like people want to see negative in the situation. But putting that all aside, none of that really matters because it’s more, this interview anyways, it’s about my experience with it, which has been incredible. And that’s really all that needs to be said. People can have their commentary on whatever, but it’s irrelevant to my experience. My experience has been awesome. I’m seeing great things in everything around me, positive things, positive effects on people.

It’s been really (expletive) cool. There’s a lot of young people at these shows, the Manson headline shows. He has a real cult following, and those people are just so happy to have this energy back. It’s a place where they can be weird, really weird, and free in all ways, free sexually, free gender wise, people are comfortable there. I think that’s really (expletive) awesome. It makes me feel more comfortable, makes me be able to be myself more. It’s kind of taking back parts of myself that I had lost from being so shelled up and angry. I get to play this and just really learn to be myself and find out what that even is.

So it’s been cool. I’m treated so well. Everyone’s so respectful and encouraging. When you’re an artist and you feel encouragement and support, it’s the (expletive) best feeling in the world. Because the world makes it kind of hard to be yourself sometimes.

How different has it been to play other people’s music compared to most of the stuff that you’ve done before, it’s just been you, whether it’s part of a group or that you wrote? Is it weird to play other people’s stuff like that?

It’s different for sure. It’s kind of like being an actor, being an actor and trying to really be a good actor. I’m not acting up there, like pretending. I’m really trying to encompass the material. I don’t really need to think about it, it just happens naturally. Fortunately, it’s a good ‘role’ for me to be cast in because the material is very close to home to me. Most of that speaks to how good the material is, because good art resonates with a lot of people. So that art really resonates with me. Those songs really resonate with me.

So when I’m up there playing them, yeah, they’re not my songs, but I can feel like they are when I’m playing them because I feel so connected to what the message is and the emotional mood of it. The emotional mood of it, I feel very connected with that. It’s very unique stuff, and I’m really enjoying doing that. I didn’t know how I was going to feel not playing material that I grew up writing with my friends, (laughs) but I think it’s really good for me. It’s kind of teaching me how to act almost. It’s like, OK, it’s happening naturally, fortunately, but it’s actually a little easier sometimes to do that with someone else’s material, because there’s less personal baggage.

You weren’t there for the writing process, you’re just going up there and playing.

It’s freeing, and it’s forcing me to learn other people’s songs, which I always avoided. (laughs) That’s why I joined a band: I was like, oh, I don’t have to learn other people’s songs. That’s great. That takes (expletive) work. But it’s forcing me to do that, and that’s making me a better musician. So I’m learning to fit into a group sound, being my individual but also working within that. And for me, it’s been easier to do that in this context than with the band because I was so strong-willed to an insane degree that it was not even good at that point. Yeah, it’s been freaking awesome. Nothing bad to say.

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It’s probably fun to play to the rabid fans vs. the more casual fans. It’s a different feeling in an arena show where they’re so far away vs. the Roxian where you’re 100 feet at most away from them.

Super different. That’s (expletive) cool for me too because he hasn’t really done that. I’m here for the comeback, so he’s doing smaller places – for him anyways – but they’re packed out, so it feels like a weird transportation to the ‘90s which I was a child during, so I didn’t experience that. It’s my closest experience to what the ‘90s might have been like at shows, which I am jealous of everyone who’s like, ‘I went to this show in the ‘90s.’ I’m like nice. ‘I went to see freaking Faith No More and Alice in Chains in the ‘90s. I went to see Metallica in the ‘90s.’ I’m like, must have been nice.

What’s your favorite song from him to play that you’ve been doing?

It kind of changes every day. I would say this new song has been really cool, “As Sick as the Secrets Within.” That’s his newer single from the last album that just came out, it was the first single. Playing that has been great because it feels very relevant to him now, and all the old material is incredible. I love playing every song, but that song is the one of the newer material that clicks with me.

(Being better people) should be the goal for everybody, right?

Yeah, it’s hard to find stuff that makes you feel that profoundly. I think good art has to be profound. People can say something a little bit or bring something up and it’s still art, but really good art is (expletive) profound and it makes you really want to change or really inspires you. I think when people see the Manson shows, headlines especially, it’s (expletive) profound. It makes people look at themselves, and I think that’s been hard to find in art.

There’s a lot of worship in rock ‘n’ roll, just like ‘oh my god,’ and that’s rad. That gets people to pay attention, but the more important part is the story and what it teaches you about yourself. If you can be an artist that is profound and extreme, it gets people to really pay attention to that part of themselves and it’s this extreme situation. It’s extreme artists, to the absolute definition of extreme. There’s really no one more extreme than him in terms of his career. The show has been profoundly effective on the audience and that’s been really beautiful to see. I think it’ll be easy to see at this Pittsburgh show because it’s so small for him, and I know exactly what that venue feels like. It’s like you can really see everybody, so that’ll be cool to see everyone’s faces and feel the energy in the room. I’m freaking hyped.