PUBLISHED IN THE HAMILTON SPECTATOR Thursday, April 13, 1995
BY NICK KREWEN
When he was a young boy growing up in New York, ROB ZOMBIE wrapped himself in the fantasy world of BATMAN comics, monster movies, KISS and science fiction.
Twenty years later, life hasn't changed much for the lead singer and sole songwriter of New York comic culture band WHITE ZOMBIE.
"I remember every kid I knew wanted to play Planet Of The Apes and run around and watch Star Trek and The Munsters," recalled Zombie, 30, in Toronto last week to promote his band's new album, Astro-Creep: 2000, Songs Of Love, Destruction and Other Synthetic Delusions of The Electric Head, released yesterday.
"Everybody read comic books and everybody drew. Then everybody got old and forgot about it. They discovered baseball and got all sidetracked, and I always hated that crap and stuck with it. It's my endless childhood."
After spending seven years and three albums as part of the New York musical underground, White Zombie signed to Geffen Records in 1992 and released LA SEXORCISTO: DEVIL MUSIC VOL. ONE, a turbulent collection of grunge metal containing such imaginative titles as "Thunder Kiss '65", "Spiderbaby" and "Warp Asylum," plus sound bytes from RUSS MEYER films and The Night Of The Living Dead.
A two-and-a-half year world tour followed -- and after MTV's Beavis And Butthead cartoon characters dubbed them "cool" -- bandmates Zombie, guitarist J., bassist SEAN YSEULT and touring drummer PHIL BUERSTATTE were startled to find themselves with a Grammy nomination for Best Hard Rock Performance, and a platinum album in the U.S., with more than one million people sharing their vision. The album is certified gold in Canada with sales over 50,000 copies.
"It's surprising," admits Zombie, born ROB STRAKER. "You put out an album for yourself, and you hope than one or two of your friends might like it."
Zombie says the influx of cash from the royalties of "Devil Music" allowed them to spend seven months on the recording of Astro-Creep: 2000. It also afforded them the chance to spruce up their stage show, which will be coming to Toronto's Varsity Arena May 27 with their new drummer, JOHN TEMPESTA, and special guests REVEREND HORTON HEAT and THE MELVINS .
"We're building a huge stage set with a giant video screens," explains Zombie. "We'll be constantly projecting images that flow right with the music, and we'll have fire, explosions, smoke -- everything. It all fits, and never seems to overpower the music."
Zombie feels the pyrotechnics that have been missing for the most part since the earlier days of KISS and RUSH have robbed rock 'n' roll of its fun and excitement. He calls rock music today is "intensely boring."
"It's all so incredibly reality-based, it's mind-numbingly dull," says Zombie. "There was a point you'd listen to music because you'd get home from school. You hated school, you hated your parents, you hated your teachers, you hated your life, and you'd listen to records and it would put you in a good mood. The last thing you wanted to do was put on a record that moans about the same things you're moaning about already.
"The problem with rock is that you can relate to it. I don't want to relate to it. I want to forget about it."
Songs on Astrocreep:2000 include such fantasy-filled titles as "El Phantasmo And The Chicken-Run Blast-O-Rama" and "Grease Paint And Monkey Brains," a result of what Zombie says is his band's affinity for B-grade horror flicks.
"I think everyone in the band hears music in a visual way," says Zombie. "When I say, J, play a solo that kind of sounds like an old car dragging its muffler on the highway. He'll know what I'm talking about and he can play it.
"I think it comes from a total lack of musical understanding. As far as I know, no one in the band can read music -- or wants to read music. Nobody ever learned how to play the right way. I think being too technically advanced on an instrument holds people back."
Rob Zombie summarizes White Zombie as his musical fountain of eternal youth.
"All the stuff I'm totally into I remember my friends being into when we were all little," asserts Zombie. "Nothing ever came along in life that was more interesting. Everyone I knew was always in a big hurry to grow up, like there was some great prize you were going to get when you got old. And I didn't want to get old."
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DISCOGRAPHY
1986 -- Psycho-Head Blowout -- Silent Explosion
1987 -- Soul-Crusher -- Caroline
1989 -- Make Them Die Slowly
1989 -- God Of Thunder
1992 -- La Sexorcisto: Devil Music Volume One -- Geffen
1995 -- Astro-Creep: 2000
1996 -- Supersexy Swingin' Sounds
ROB ZOMBIE
1998 -- Hellbilly Deluxe
1999 -- American Music To Strip By
COLLABORATIONS
1994 -- Various Artists, Nativity In Black -- A Tribute To Black Sabbath
1995 -- Various Artists, Judge Dredd
1996 -- Various Artists, Absolute '90s
1996 -- Various Artists, Songs In The Key of X (with Alice Cooper)
1997 -- Various Artists, The Crow: City Of Angels
1997 -- Various Artists, Hallowe'en Hootenanny (with The Ghastly Ones)
1997 -- Various Artists, Private Parts (with Howard Stern)
1998 -- Various Artists, Bride Of Chucky
1998 -- Various Artists, ECW
1998 -- Various Artists, Psycho
1999 -- Various Artists, End Of Days
1999 -- Various Artists, Idle Hands
1999 -- Various Artists, The Matrix
1999 -- Various Artists, MTV Celebrity Deathmatch
CONTRIBUTIONS
1999 -- Powerman 5000, Tonight The Stars Revolt!
THANKS: CORI FERGUSON, WADE HEMSWORTH, GLEN NOTT
© 1995, 1999 Nick Krewen, Octopus Media Ink