Cancer claims Marilyn Manson band co-founder

BOCA RATON, FLA.» Scott Mitchell Putesky, known as Daisy Berkowitz as a founding member of the South Florida goth-rock band Marilyn Manson and the Spooky Kids, died Sunday after a long battle with colon cancer.

The former Fort Lauderdale resident who, to the end, faced his illness with grace, humor and a generosity of spirit that defined his life beyond the stage, was 49. He was diagnosed with Stage 4 colon cancer in 2013 and died in hospice care in Boca Raton, where his parents live.

Known around the world by the name of its singer, Marilyn Manson, the band first stirred to life in 1989 as the invention of Putesky and Boca Raton resident Brian Warner. With kooky names and the kinky brashness of Warner’s title character, Marilyn Manson and the Spooky Kids found local success and then national prominence beginning with their 1994 Trent Reznor-produced debut album, “Portrait of an American Family,” and the 1995 EP “Smells Like Children.”

While the band became famous for theatrical excess, it prospered in large part because of the credibility provided by the gleaming, industrial gear shredding of Putesky’s guitar on early Manson songs such as “Lunchbox,” “Dope Hat” and their cover of the Eurythmics’ “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This).”

Rob Elba, who played the same South Florida clubs in the early 1990s with his band the Holy Terrors, says that most musically creative songs made by Marilyn Manson came from Putesky.

“He was such an inventive player. Marilyn Manson has his fans, and that’s fine, but musicians, especially, know that the only good songs and music they had was when Scott was in the band,” Elba says. “The first two records had such interesting musicality to them, aside from all the gothness and all that. Brian may have been a good lyricist, but the whole music part of Marilyn Manson was 90 percent Scott.”

Citing “creative differences,” Putesky left Manson during the recording of the band’s 1996 breakout album, “Antichrist Superstar.” He told Noisey in 2014 that Manson and Reznor let it be known that they weren’t interested in the music he had composed.

“We had a number of unreleased songs that were contenders for ‘Antichrist’ that (Manson) didn’t want to do or Trent didn’t want to record, so I was being slowly muscled out as far as my contribution,” Putesky said. He sued Manson for royalties from the six songs he is credited for on “Antichrist Superstar,” a case settled in 1998 for an undisclosed amount.

After Putesky’s death, Manson wrote on Instagram: “Scott Putesky and I made great music together. We had our differences over the years, but I will always remember the good times more. ”