Zim Zum didn't get any support from his friends when he told them that he was going to leave shock-rock group Marilyn Manson after helping write two albums that went on to sell millions of copies.

They clucked their tongues and told him he was making a mistake, one that he couldn't take back.

"If I had a dime for every time I heard that I shouldn't do this ... that's essentially what made the Pop Culture Suicides," Zum said from his Chicago home last week. "They kept saying, "Why would you take a year away?' But the first thing I ever recorded (the song "Suck for Your Solution" for Howard Stern's "Private Parts" soundtrack) went platinum. The second thing I ever recorded (Manson's "Mechanical Animals") went platinum...it's odd. It's extremely surreal to have something like that happen to you. And having that was what Pop Culture Suicides was born out of. Even when I was in Manson, I knew it wouldn't be the last thing I would do. I just had to do it."

So, as "Mechanical Animals" was owning the top spot on the Billboard album charts, the guitarist severed his ties with all society. He disconnected his phone, didn't buy any records, refused to turn his television on and rarely spoke with friends or family for over a year as he holed up in his own recording studio that a pair of platinum records affords one. It was a meditation and rumination period that led to Zum starting to write an industrial rock opus that makes up an hour and 20 minute live show without breaks, stoppages or pauses. It's an evolving piece of work that expunges repetition and is not for the faint of heart, who also happen to have short attention spans.

"Everything is just so massively over-commercialized that it's hard to get over it without going to extremes. This isn't motivated by fame and fortune because those are myths and equally fleeting," Zum said. "I'm a huge fan of rock operas and what we're doing lays out more like a movie. It's made to be played as one story. If you get the ending of the movie two minutes into it, there's no incentive to keep going."

Zum joined Manson just before the band went on the road with one of the most controversial tours in recent memory, encountering opposition from religious groups in every city they went to. While living in Chicago, Zum responded to an ad in the Chicago Reader, the city's free weekly newspaper, and flew down to New Orleans where he and 14 other hand-picked finalists auditioned for the guitarist spot in Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor's studio.

"That overnight success myth isn't completely a myth because it kind of happened to me," Zum said of his good fortune. "I can remember walking down to the pharmacy to get my phone turned on in case I got a phone call. And I got the phone call. It did change things. I had sent them a tape of four songs and I felt that if they listened to it, I would be the one."

He spent two years with Manson before cutting out on his own, placing an ad in the very same Chicago Reader to fill out the Suicides.

"Maybe I used my name to get some response, but I got a lot of the wrong people," Zum said of the ad. "I just really wanted unique musicians who were musicians, not players. At times, it was very circus-like.

"Some of the people that came in thought I was difficult. I think I got that word a few times, but if you're not striving to be perfect, what are you trying to be? Mediocre? Almost? We're doing this on our terms. We're not motivated by record deals and advances and recouping. We don't want to do something that takes us straight to 'MTV Cribs'."

Sean Moeller can be contacted at

(563) 383-2288 or smoeller@qctimes.com.

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What: Pop Culture Suicides

When: 7 p.m. Friday, Nov. 25

Where: Quad City Live, 423 W. River Drive, Davenport

How much: $10

Information: (563) 322-3241