WEB-EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: ROB ZOMBIE, ON REVISITING WHITE ZOMBIE FOR THE NEW BOX SET AND LOOKING AHEAD TO THE FUTURE

White Zombie, circa 1995Somewhere in storage, Rob Zombie has a couple hundred copies of Gods on Voodoo Mountain, the 1985 debut release from groove-metal heroes White Zombie. “I don’t know what to do with it all anymore,” he says, pausing. “I’ll just make Frisbees, I guess.” He then bursts into laughter. Over two decades since recording Voodoo Mountain—when White Zombie was a New York post-punk band—Zombie hardly even has time to ponder what the past means. Having transformed White Zombie, which also featured guitarist Jay Yuenger, bassist Sean Yseult, and a rotating cast of drummers, into a ’90s metal powerhouse, then gone solo before bringing his artistic eye to Hollywood, the man born Rob Cummings is now infinitely busier than when he was chasing gigs for his band of misfits on New York’s Lower East Side. That’s why we should be grateful to him for taking the time to meticulously compile Let Sleeping Corpses Lie (Geffen-UMe), a chronological four-CD/one-DVD box set that features every note the band ever recorded. Revolver is even more grateful that Zombie afforded us a few minutes of his time for us to make him look back.

REVOLVER When you went back and listened to the early stuff again, what came to mind?
ROB ZOMBIE It’s funny. I haven’t listened to a lot of it since recording it because, going back, whenever we were making those records, I’d finish recording and just feel disappointed. I mean, we were also recording these albums for, like, 60 dollars, so I don’t know what else I was supposed to feel. So, I’d listen to them, think, Eh, and then never listen to them again, ever. So listening to a lot of those songs which I haven’t heard in, like, 20 years, all I thought was, Huh, this sounds weird. What were we thinking?

But you probably played those songs a lot. Listening to the demos, were you unhappy with the songs or the recording?
I don’t even remember. In the early days of starting a band, you’re just striving for something that you can’t even achieve yet. Sonically, songwriting-wise, everything was coming up short. A lot of those songs we barely played. Back then, it was hard to get gigs, so we didn’t get to play as much as we should, so… It seems like forever ago. Even putting that together, it seemed like I was putting together a box set of someone else’s life.

You were living on New York’s Lower East Side. Was it hard to get gigs?
I guess, yeah. It was New York, 1985. There was CBGBs, which was always there, but most of the clubs would open, then close. We’d play there once, and then it’d be gone. And CBGBs, it wasn’t like they’d just let anyone play. You’d have to go to their audition night, and then beg someone to give you a gig. It was difficult.

White Zombie, Let Sleeping Corpses Lie trailer

What were your influences when White Zombie started up?
I grew up on arena rock back in the ’70s. I loved Alice Cooper, KISS, Blue Öyster Cult, Queen. But then later, in the late ’70s and early ’80s, I discovered punk rock, the Ramones and all of that. So White Zombie was always a conflict of both worlds—a DIY punk-rock mentality while trying to create an arena-rock band. We loved Black Sabbath, the Birthday Party, the Cramps, the Misfits, Van Halen. Back when we started, we got a lot of ‘What’s with you guys? What’s the deal?’ ’Cause we had long hair and were playing with bands that didn’t, because we weren’t playing in the heavy-metal scene, we were playing in this New York Sonic Youth underground, and everyone was very college-y, and we…weren’t! [Laughs]

That might’ve led to the gigging problem.
Yeah, well, we didn’t really fit in anywhere. Everything was very much a scene, and we weren’t—I mean, at that point, New York hardcore was very much Agnostic Front, Cro-Mags, and we obviously weren’t that. And then the art-rock scene, Sonic Youth, Live Skull, we didn’t really fit into that either, so we sort of just got lost in between them.

I think it was really Make Them Die Slowly when you guys really focused more on metal. Why did you take that direction?
Well, it was that thing of being trapped between two worlds. We couldn’t play here, couldn’t play there. But in Brooklyn—it’s amazing what happens when you cross the bridge—there was a club called L’Amour, and it was like a whole new world. We would rehearse in Brooklyn ’cause our drummer lived there, and he was big into going to L’Amour, and we started going there. And I was like, Fuck it, this is where it’s at! In Manhattan, you’d maybe play one or two shows, and also, that art scene was just so pretentious. It was very fanzine- and critic-driven, which always bothered me. And then when we went out to the metal scene, there’d be 2,000 kids at a show going ape-shit, and I thought, Fuck yeah! You guys’re having fun while everyone else is staring at their shoes back in Manhattan. So we thought, Fuck it, let’s just declare ourselves a metal band, even though we really weren’t, musically. We never knew what to call ourselves, so we decided to just call ourselves that.

Movie samples have always been a big part of the White Zombie sound. Was there ever a time when labels tried to monitor your use of samples?
Yeah, that became a problem when we signed to Geffen. The samples actually held our record up for quite some time, and then we had to get permissions.

Are there any you regret not being able to clear?
We had this cool sample of Vincent Price form Last Man on Earth, and I remember trying to get clearance, and we’d spoken to his secretary or daughter or somebody connected to him. It was right before he died. And all we got back was that he didn’t want to give us permission because he felt he’d been screwed giving his voice to Thriller, like they’d paid him some tiny amount of money and then the thing sold a bazillion copies.

What song was that for?
It was for “I Am Legend”, which was written about [Richard Matheson’s] book I Am Legend, which The Last Man on Earth was based on. So it was perfect; it was a perfect sample. It tied into the song perfectly, but we couldn’t use it.

White Zombie, “I Am Legend” (live in 1991)

Looking back, what’s your fondest memory from White Zombie?
Probably the fondest memory of it all was sort of at the height of the White Zombie thing. I dunno, it was ’95, maybe—when the band was really big, playing arenas and stuff. We played Irvine Meadows in California on Halloween, and Alice Cooper came onstage and we did “School’s Out.” I’d met Alice before, but we’d never played together or anything like that, and we’ve been good friends ever since then.

What was the moment where you said, “OK, it’s all over”?
We were doing the War of the Gargantuas Tour, and that was White Zombie and Pantera, and I believe Deftones were opening. I remember walking offstage, handing someone my microphone, and thinking, OK, I’m done. I just went to the airport and went home.

There was just that immediate finality to it all?
It was no fun. The band could not get along, and it was miserable. And it was a bummer, because you work so hard to achieve success. And when it finally comes, I just felt like I couldn’t do it; I couldn’t do this anymore. So much in-fighting, so many problems. Everything’s a problem, and that’s why I left. It wasn’t like I had a big ego or anything; I just really didn’t want to do it anymore. And as for a solo record, everyone was trying it: Scott Weiland, Chris Cornell, everyone. So when I came along, people thought, Oh, well, this record’s gonna be a disaster. And I figured, You know what? Maybe it is, but I’d rather have a lesser career and be happy. There was something just so wrong about playing sold-out arenas with a bunch of people who aren’t even speaking to each other. It was just ridiculous. I thought, Best to just let it end when it’s big, it’s happening, leave a good memory for the people who came to the shows.

Your forthcoming new album is your first with an established band since White Zombie. How has that affected writing it?
It’s hard to say. It could be looser; it could be more complex, because there’s a wholeness that comes through. Plus, everybody’s happy. This band is three of the greatest guys [guitarist John 5, bassist Piggy D, and drummer Tommy Clufetos] I’ve ever worked with. Not only are they talented, but they’re just the coolest guys in the world. They’d do anything for the project. And that’s the thing—back in the day, everyone’s ego was off the charts. These guys have no ego. With this band, people say, on tour, ‘This is the best show you’ve ever played.’ And I just think it’s a tangible quality, a chemistry you get with certain people, and it’s hard to describe, but you can definitely tell when you don’t have it.

White Zombie, “More Human Than Human”

Interview by Kory Grow