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