Recently, legendary former White Zombie frontman (and acclaimed House Of A 1000 Corpses/The Devil’s Rejects director) Rob Zombie, always a man of many words and interesting stories, was kind enough to speak with us regarding, among many other things, the release of the long-overdue White Zombie box set Let Sleeping Corpses Lie…

Todd: How was White Zombie originally formed?  Did the overall progression of the group’s development occur at a faster or slower pace than you had initially anticipated?     

Rob Zombie:  “It was pretty simple...  …We had been turned down by every single record company that could turn you down.  We sort of were flirting with RCA (Records) at the time, who had just signed some friends of ours.  They had signed Raging Slab, who we were friends with at that time, and also Circus Of Power, who we were also friends with.  …But I wasn’t really feeling it.  I wanted to be on Geffen for some reason.  At that time, Geffen Records seems like the cool record label to be on.  I don’t know why.  I can’t remember why I thought that.  …I think we played a showed at a small club in here, called the Pyramid Club and Michael Alago, who is the main guy for Geffen Records came down.  …We already knew him because he was friends of some other people who knew him in New York.  It’s a small scene, so you know people.  And he liked one of our songs which became “Soul Crusher” that was on La Sexorcisto…  He just loved that song, and really, based on that song, he signed us to Geffen or signed us to make a demo for Geffen.  …Then we made a demo with (producer) Jim Thirlwell and that demo produced (of the song) “Thunder Kiss 65” and all the other songs that you are aware of.  And then we got a deal.  But it was really it was through Michael Alago, who just saw something in the band...  That’s how we got our deal.  And that’s the funny thing that people have to remember when they try to break into the things, and I have to remind myself of it sometimes, too.  It only takes one person.  Sometimes you shop a demo around to every record label and they go ‘You suck. We hate you.’  …But it only takes that one person that says they like it.  It’s the same thing with scripts, you know?  I’ve gone through this on so many movies where even when it’s a finished movie like House Of A 1000 Corpses…  Every single person turned it down except Lions Gate.  (But) all I needed was one place…only one person who can put the movie up.  …You only need that one place and that’s what we found with Geffen.”

Todd: Overall, how would you describe your time as a member of White Zombie?  Do you look back on it all with a certain fondness?

Rob:  “…It was a weird situation…because when the band started, everybody was so young.  …I don’t remember how old I was when it ended, but you you’re basically right out of High School…you are not really in mind frame to sometimes handle what it takes it to put that together.  …And then you do mature, and then being in a band becomes a weird situation because it’s almost like the situation hasn’t matured with you.  …That band had a lot of growing pains, a lot of baggage all the way through and a lot of rotating people.  …I think we did a lot of good stuff, and I think we were kind of ahead of the curve in the beginning and did some groundbreaking stuff.  But it was a painful situation most of the time, actually.” 

Todd: What ultimately led you to begin incorporating samples and sound bites into White Zombie’s music?  Was there a particular artists or group that influenced you to begin experimenting in such a manner?

Rob:  “It was just something I had always wanted to do.  I didn’t even know how you’d do it...  …We were doing stuff in such a primitive way like micing a tape recorder and playing a tape, ya know?   …We were so green.  We didn’t even have equipment.  …I remember breaking into a club and stealing amplifiers.  We didn’t have anything, no money.  …So I think we have a reference point for the sample thing because at that time, I think the only person I really thought of, the only person I was really aware of, who is doing that sort of thing was Jim Thirlwell with the Foetus records.  We were friends with him and he actually produced the first demo.  So I guess he was the only person I knew of doing that type of thing.  I am sure there were other people, but I was not really aware of them.”

Todd: Any truth to the rumors that the group was sued by Kiss over the release of the God Of Thunder EP?

Rob:  No…  That was one of those things…when we were flat broke and desperate for attention, we thought ‘Maybe if we do this, we’ll get in trouble by (Kiss bassist/vocalist) Gene Simmons and that will give us some attention’.  …We couldn’t pull off.  It never happened.  Nothing ever happened.  In fact, the funny thing is that Gene doesn’t miss a trick, so obviously it came to his attention and he was okay with it and it didn’t bother him.  …But even as much as a like a year ago…when I did the VH1 Honors and did the Kiss tribute, Gene still mentioned it to me backstage.  …This was like almost twenty years later, and he still brought it up.  Not in a bad way, but just kind of like...  …I just thought it was funny that after all those years that he could even remember that we did that.  I don’t even remember that we did that, so I thought it was funny that he did”. 

Todd: Looking back, what are your fondest memories from the recording sessions for La Sexorcisto: Devil Music, Vol. 1?  Did you feel as if the group had finally ‘…made it…’?

Rob:  “…We were just happy…  …Up to that point in our career, we had never really had the chance to make a real record with real money.  The budget for that record was still small, but it was like way beyond anything we’d ever seen before, so it was exciting to be in a real studio working…and we didn’t have to make the whole record in like two days or something.  So that was great.  Having a little bit of money, and by a little, I mean a little, but that’s better than zero, which is what we used to have.  …I just didn’t know what to think because the musical climate at that time wasn’t really screaming for a band like White Zombie.  But we had felt that there was a change kind of coming because…around the time of the first record, Jane’s Addiction was getting big and Primus and other different and weird bands were starting to pop.  So we felt that there was some kind of hope out there for us because just a couple of years before that, if you weren’t Bon Jovi or Poison, you weren’t even alive.  We were so far off the radar.  …But as far as the album, I thought that it was pretty cool at the time.  …I always thought “Thunder Kiss ‘65” was a cool song.  That was the first time we had really sort of a concise song that maybe could reach people.  So that was the main thing I remember.”

Todd: In hindsight, even when the group was at its peak commercially, did it feel as if you were mainstream outcasts or perhaps even on the outside looking in?   

Rob:  “Well, we were kind of outcasts.  We were definitely in our own world.  …I didn’t even know what was going on in the world.  …Everything the band appeared to be was exactly what it was…nothing was fake.  We were all living in a lower east side, everybody was flat broke…no one had any money.  …Sometimes we would eat the free Hare Krishna food in the parks that they would feed to homeless people to survive.  I mean, it was like we were a band of bums.  …I didn’t even have a television, so I didn’t know what was going on in the world.  You could mention like the number one record to me and I would have no idea who it was.  …We were so far off the map.  It was like our whole existence was the lower east side, (legendary New York City-based club) CBGBs…that world.  That’s what came out of it.  Totally just not comprehending what was going on, which was a good thing.  …It was sort of what let the band become the band that it was going to be.  …We put no restrictions on it because we weren’t even aware that there were restrictions.  …We didn’t know how things are supposed to be done and we didn’t give a shit, basically.”

Todd: At what point did you realize that White Zombie was coming to an end?  I would imagine there was a time when the group’s demise was both imminent and obvious to all parties involved…

Rob:  “Well, you could feel it coming for a long time.  …Anyone on the inside knew it was more of a miracle that it was still holding together rather than it falling apart because people weren’t getting along and people weren’t speaking…   I don’t think the entire band was ever actually in the same room together when we made Astro-Creep...  We were riding on separate buses…  I wouldn’t even see those guys until show time.  I would walk on stage play, walk off stage.  …So it was more of a miracle that it lasted that long.  I just remember it was the (War Of The Gargantuans) tour with Pantera.  …I remember walking off stage and handing this guy who we called Wookie because he looks like Chewbacca the microphone, and just…saying ‘Well, that’s the end of that’.   I walked off stage and walked to the car, went to the airport, went home and that was the end of that.  There was no discussion at all.  It was just sort of self evident.”

Todd: What ultimately led to the group’s demise?  Was there a particular incident or was an accumulative effect of everything the group had endured during their career(s)?

Rob:  “…The main reason White Zombie ended was because the people that were in White Zombie couldn’t get along anymore.  …That was the main reason.  It wasn’t because I had some artistic urge that I must be by myself.  It was just a necessity.  I mean the band could not be…so it was just a nightmare.  It just ended over a bad feeling.  …It’s kind of hard for me to actually judge it truthfully…”

Todd: What were the main motivation(s) behind releasing Let Sleeping Corpses Lie so long after the group’s demise?  In retrospect, I’m surprised it wasn’t released sooner…  

Rob:  “…The reasoning was because if I waited any longer, you wouldn’t want to release it because it would be useless.  I probably already waited longer than I should have.  …I mean I know…CDs are a thing of the past. They won’t be around much longer much like vinyl and everything else.  Maybe there will be some, but as a whole they’ll be gone.  …But there is still something nice about putting together the set that you can hold in your hands…  …No one is going to…go on iTunes and download seventy nine songs from the box set.  They’d probably pick and choose them.  …But there is something nice about presenting things in the format that you want them to be heard, which is something that’s going away.  …It’s nice to be able to put things out as you see that they should be presented.  …After that, people can do whatever they want with them, but I mean at least at some point in time, they come out the way you want it.  … I’ve been trying to put it together for a long time.  But…I would let everything to take precedence over it…a movie, a new record because I am not big on revisiting the past.  I like to move forward all the time…so whenever anything else would come up, it would go on the back burner.  …I had a little bit of window, and just knocked it out.  I also figured that, if not now, when?  …So this seems like a good time.”

Todd: When examining prospective material for Let Sleeping Corpses Lie, was there a particular track or even an era that, for whatever reason, surprised you?

Rob:  “Not really.  I didn’t really go back and listen to things that closely.  I compiled it and just quickly listened through to make sure the mastering and the sequencing was right.  But at the same…time, it was obvious to me…that the band had two major shifts that were important.  …It seemed like the band finally solidified into the unit that it was on the Soul Crusher record, like that was the pinnacle of what we were doing at that moment in time.  And then it changed again, and solidified as to what it was with La Sexorcisto…  That’s what I thought.  The band really had two different lives.  …Soul Crusher was…as we could take the ‘New York Underground’ and La Sexorcisto was sort of the beginning of…taking White Zombie out to the world’s face.  That’s really what was obvious to me.”

Todd: At this point, is there any live White Zombie material that has yet to be released?

Rob:  “We don’t really have any.  We never recorded a live record.  …Unfortunately, we didn’t really document the band all that well.  I don’t have really any live recordings that sound like anything other than somebody recording it on their walkman.  And it’s the same with live video.  There is some live video on this box set, but it’s pretty raw.  …That’s why I finally got around to making a live record because…I’m not good at documenting things.  …It just kind of happens when it’s over.”

Todd: In the proverbial ‘…grand scheme…’ of everything, what importance does the release of Let Sleeping Corpses Lie have in regards to you career?

Rob:  “The importance?  Well, I don’t know if there is importance to it, but I just thought it would be nice to finally get all the songs out there in a good sounding fashion because for so many years, people have been asking ‘How do I get the old records?’ because the first chunk of our career never even came out on a CD, because CDs didn’t exist yet.  They were just limited edition vinyl that no one, basically nobody has since there were so few copies.  So it’s nice to have everything out there for whoever wants it.  …Revisiting it was weird because a lot of the stuff I hadn’t heard in so long...  I mean, there were songs on those early records that if you played me that song, if I was in a store or something and heard the song, I wouldn’t even recognize it.  …I was going through the tapes and was like ‘What the fuck is this?  I don’t even remember this’.  My voice sounded so different back then that I didn’t even recognize myself when I hear it.  …And we weren’t really playing shows that much early on, so most of those songs we never really played live.  …So it was kind of funny to go back and look and go ‘Wow, I never remember writing half of these songs.’”

 Todd: With nostalgia being so potentially powerful, do you feel the release of Let Sleeping Corpses Lie will introduce the music of White Zombie to a whole new generation of fans?

Rob:  “It’s great.  …I think there’s already a new generation of White Zombie fans.  I can see it, strangely enough, in the royalty checks.  …Every year the band makes more money.  It’s weird for band that’s gone to get more and more popular.  And that’s just one of those things that happens.  …I don’t know, it’s just one of those things…there’s always a new wave of kids that always gets super jazzed on a band that’s not around anymore.  It’s just the way things go.  …I don’t know…sometimes things just seem cooler when they get older.  Luckily, we have those moments where the band hit and got really big and all that.  But it was always a band that was slightly out of time and out of step with what was going on, so sometimes things age well.”

Todd: What was the main inspiration behind the title Let Sleeping Corpses Lie?  I suppose it’s all a bit self-explanatory, isn’t it?

Rob:  “…There were two titles I had in mind and that one went out.  …It’s pretty self-explanatory because I didn’t want everybody to think the box set was the beginning of something.  I wanted everyone to realize it was the end of something, so this is such a perfect title.”

Todd: Influentially, have you always found yourself drawn towards artists and groups with a theatrical flair?

Rob:  “Yes…  I’ve always been attracted to that, but unconsciously because…when I was a little kid, in the 70’s, when I discovered music, everything was like that.  I just thought that’s the way music was.  …So…I was into Kiss, Alice Cooper, Elton John, Queen…I just thought everything was like that.  …So it’s hard to erase that from your mind.  And I like that.  I think that’s what’s been lacking from Rock music for a long time.  …I really thought the anti-Rock Star stance was going to be the death of Rock music.  …And for a long time it really was, because you’d go to these shows, the bands would do nothing on stage, and you don’t go back…  …And now you finally feel it’s starting to come back, like kids are excited.  Whether it’s through Guitar Hero or whatever, but you feel like kids are excited about Rock music again, and it’s great.  …I mean people want to go to a show and they want to see a fucking show and they want to be entertained.  …Maybe with other forms of music it’s different, but with fucking Rock music and Metal, that’s the way it is.  …At least in my mind, that’s the way it is, and that’s what I’ve always stayed true to.”

Todd: Realistically, how close are you to completing your next solo effort?  I understand you’ve been working on it for quite some time now…

Rob:  “Yes, we’re almost finished.  We will probably be finished with the record completely before Christmas and it’s great.  …The unique thing about this record is that it’s the first time since White Zombie broke up that I’ve actually recorded with a band…in the sense that these are the guys that I tour with, and that I hang out with.  We are a band and we record as a band.  So the record…it’s hard to describe how the music is different to someone if you haven’t heard yet...  It’s just got a much more solid vibe and it’s just going to be a much more intricate, interesting record I think, just due to the fact that we have four people that are in the room all the time, contributing and working.  For me it’s great…because my solo records have been somewhat disjointed because it is always a changing roster.  …The people that are touring are not the people that are playing on record… …Great things usually come out of situations that have a great vibe and you can usually feel it and that’s what going on here.”

Todd: Aside from John 5, what musicians are you currently working with?

Rob:  “It’s the same guys I have had for a couple of years.  (Guitarist) John 5, (ex-Alice Cooper/Ted Nugent drummer) Tommy Clufetos and (bassist) Piggy D, all of which have been with me now for probably two years, I guess.  John 5 (has been with me) longer, but we’ve never actually recorded a whole record together.  Part of Educated Horses was John 5 and Tommy, but…the other guys were still new, so this is the first full effort of us together.”

Todd: Once you’ve come to the conclusion that a particular band member needs to be replaced, ideally, what criteria do you look for in a potential prospect?

Rob:  “…The thing that I always look for…is somebody that I can get along with because you’ve got to spend so much time with these people.  Not just in the studio, but on tour and when you’re on tour, it’s just day in and day out.  …These people like…they’re like your family.  …So if you have somebody, no matter how talented he is, if you can’t fucking stand to be around him, because he’s annoying or something, it doesn’t work.  And unfortunately, trying to find someone who is a world class guitar player, who is also like an awesome guy to be around…is hard.  …And…that’s why John 5 is the perfect person.  …We are like best friends.  We get along great and we never have any problems because he is such a good guy.  And of course he is a world class guitar player, so it’s a perfect situation.  …When the prospect of John 5 first came up, not knowing him, I thought ‘Oh, he doesn’t seem like somebody I get along with’.  …But when we hung out, we hit it off great.  So you know, we’re good friends now.  … I mean I was well aware of how good he was, and I had seen him in (Marilyn) Manson and I had seen him in (Judas Priest frontman Rob Halford’s Alternative project) Two way back when, and a bunch of other bands, but you know he is kind like me where how he is perceived and who he really is are very different.  …And that’s why we hit it off, because I’m kind of the same way, ya know?  …Everybody in the band is kind of like that.  …It just took a long time…over twenty years, but I finally found a great guitar player that I can really vibe with.”

Todd: In regards to your forthcoming solo effort, is there a particular thematic direction you’ve opted to focus on or do you typically enter the studio with more of an open mind? 

Rob:  “It’s all over the place.  I don’t really have an approach.  I used to have more of an approach of what I wanted to do.  Now, we just go in the studio and we just kind of like let it happen.  …By having a band…that helps because we can change things for the moment, work on things and by the end of day…it’s morphed into something completely different.  …And the lyrics, I’m pretty lucid with how I approach it.  Sometimes, I get inspired by things and sometimes I don’t...  You just bang your head against the wall ‘till something comes out...  … I’ve always done things in a way that if there is any kind of specific message or information about anything, it’s always hidden in the way that I write the lyrics because I’ve never been a big fan necessarily of lyrics that are really blatantly obvious.  …I’ve always been more of fan of lyrics they were like ‘What the fuck is that supposed to mean’.  I guess the case is being baffled by what the words to (the Elton John classic) “Benny And The Jets”…mean or something.  It’s that sort of the approach I’ve always taken.  …Other people write songs like that, and they work great for them, but that’s just not my thing.”

Todd: Lyrically, how does your songwriting approach with your solo work differ from your approach with White Zombie? 

Rob:  “…They are not drastically different…  With White Zombie…I always did what I wanted to do.  I was never held back by the fact that it was a band...  It was always what I wanted to do at the time.  …Musically, sometimes, it would be a push and a pull, because it was a band and everyone has got their ideas and everyone has got an opinion.  …You know you’re trying to make everybody happy, which is never possible.  …Sometimes, some of the hardest won battles, even in White Zombie, ended up being some of the most popular songs and some of the hits.  But you know…trying to get four people in a room who are going to agree on anything makes it impossible.  …Spending hours and hours and hours in rehearsal space playing, and you know, it’s a nightmare.” 

Todd: In comparison, have you found you work as a solo artist to be more creatively liberating than working within the ‘…band dynamic…’ that existed within White Zombie?

Rob:  “Definitely.  …One of the biggest things that I can do as a solo artist is getting people that can do anything.  When you are in a band and you use those musicians for good or for bad, you are at the mercy of their abilities...  John 5 is a phenomenal guitar player and I can demand things with him that I couldn’t demand from other guitar players because they wouldn’t have the ability to do it.  …And it’s funny too, because I see it in other bands.  Sometimes, when we’re on tour with bands, they’ll come up to John and John will literally be giving the guitar player from the other band a guitar lesson.  I can see the struggle bands have when they are stuck within the limits of their own abilities.  So I feel that…being solo has really set me free.  I don’t have to try to get someone to do a solo that might sound like (acclaimed Slayer guitarist) Kerry King.  I’ll just go to Kerry King to do the solo.” 

Todd: When you embarked upon the filmmaking aspect of your career, did you receive any guidance from anyone established within the industry?

Rob:  “…I am pretty much a self taught everything.  I think that’s the key…you really can’t learn how to do any of these things.  …You can read all the books you want and take all advice you can get, but nothing prepares you for what it’s going to be ‘till you actually just do it.  …I never had a mentor.  I still don’t have a mentor.  I wish I had a mentor.  …You know, that’s the bummer, man.  …There are tons of weird questions and situations that come up with movies and you want to turn to somebody for advice.  But I really don’t have anybody.  …I just kind of do my thing and look at the situations as best I can.  …With music, I kind of had some people.  …I remember when White Zombie was falling apart and I wanted to go breakout on my own, I called Alice Cooper and said ‘What do you think about this?’ because I knew I he had gone through the same thing when he made Welcome To My Nightmare, so I kind of talked to him about it a little and we compared stories, and they were very, very similar.  …The reasons why he…went out on his own are the reasons that I was going out of my own…so that was nice.  …One of these days, hopefully, I am going to talk to different directors and stuff and get what I can.  But I don’t really have any one person to turn to.” 

Todd: Taking into consideration the caliber of actors and actresses you’ve already had the opportunity to utilize, with, is there anyone in particular you have a burning desire to work with?

Rob:  “Not really.  …There are a million actors that I just love to death…from people that are hugely famous to people that are not, so I don’t really have a laundry list.  …Probably when I start the next project, I’ll start compiling the new laundry list, if that might be appropriate for the film.  …But there are people that I have worked with that I would love to work with again.  I would love to work with Paul Giamatti again.  We worked briefly on El Superbeasto, and I love him.  He is amazing and that was a great experience working with him.  So they are people that I would like to definitely hook up with again.  …What kind of happens, as you make a movie, is there’s a whole group of people.  And then it’s like a strainer.  Some people fall through, who you never talk to again, and then there are the people that remain.  In every movie, there are a few more people that remain.  (Veteran character actor) Sid (Haig) has been a good friend ever since House Of A 1000 Corpses, Bill Moseley has been a good friend ever since, too.  There’s probably some other people I am forgetting.  …You know, Tom Towles is a friend and from Halloween and Dee Wallace is someone who is a good friend I always talk to.  PJ Soles and, you know.  Some people are really friendly with and you love to work with, but you don’t really talk to them or see them outside of work.  And then there are other people that you stay in touch with all the time that you really enjoy.  As far as the person I see the most, because he lives right down the street for me, is Bill Moseley.  …He was over here on Halloween with his daughter trick or treating again.  He always hits our house first.” 

Todd: Speaking of which, what can you tell us about El Superbeasto?  How close are you to finally completing everything?

Rob:  “El Superbeasto is completely finished and done, finally.  I finished it about a week ago…finished mixing the sound and all that stuff.  So now we’re just trying to figure out when the best time for it to come out is.  …That’s really it.  But as far as working on it, it’s done, which, after three and half years, is a nice feeling.” 

Select Rob Zombie Discography
Let Sleeping Corpses Lie (2008) *
Educated Horses (2006) **
The Sinister Urge (2001) **
Hellbilly Deluxe (1998) **
Supersexy Swingin’ Sounds (1996) *
Astro-Creep: 2000 (1995) *
Nightcrawlers: The KMFDM Remixes (EP (1992) *
La Sexorcisto: Devil Music, Vol. 1 (1992) *
God Of Thunder (EP) (1989) *
Make Them Die Slowly (1989) *
Soul-Crusher (1987) *
Psycho-Head Blowout (1987) *
Pig Heaven (1986) *
Gods On Voodoo Moon (EP) (1985) *

* as a member of White Zombie
** as a solo artist

robzombie.com