to touring the whole world now. I really do miss it. I love touring, I love playing live and I love it more than ever because the band I have are my best friends so travelling and playing is just a blast.” This travelling circus has never provided its full technicolour extravaganza for us in the UK though. This February, however, sees the man himself and his all-star band bringing their entire stage show and the entire catalogue of solo material from 1998’s Hellbilly Deluxe to present day for an extra special live return.
“I suppose everything will be a surprise as they’ve never seen any of it –
but we’re actually coming up with a couple of things that we’ve never done anywhere.” You can almost hear the grin across the transatlantic telephone line. This is a man who loves what he does. Yet he’s still relatively modest when it comes to the six date UK tour that sold it in a mere few hours. “Well I didn’t know what to expect. You know I hadn’t been there in so long I was like ‘oh boy, when we put these shows on sale is anyone gonna buy a ticket?’ Then they sold out really fast.” Quite apart from the influence he’s had and the unique visual treats he serves up, Rob Zombie’s recent output has revolved around a solid song writing partnership, which sees another celebrated US rock and metal legend writing alongside Mr Zombie.
“The day that I hooked up with John 5 and we started working together was very significant,” says Rob. “I never really had a song writing partner, ever. And I never really had the right-hand man guitar player that every lead singer usually has in any other band. Not in White Zombie, not in my other bands. Once John joined it really became a partnership that makes it immediately more of a band.” As far as the process goes, everything is written between Rob and John while other band member’s ideas are taken on board. “Predominantly John and I write everything together. John plays guitar 24 hours a day so he’s already got a million riffs in his head, so he usually comes in with some ideas but we predominantly start from scratch on each record.” And when crafting, where does the focus lie? “We really just think about the record. And sometimes when we listen back we go ‘Jesus! How are we gonna pull that off live?’ One of the songs we’ve been playing live is Jesus Frankenstein
“I love touring and I love it more than ever because my band are my best friends. Travelling and playing is just a blast!”
which keeps having these acoustic breakdowns that are in a different key and a different tempo and John keeps having to jump to the acoustic guitar and jump back. It’s kind of a pain in the ass. But it sounds great live!” With a musical career spanning two decades, Rob remains very aware of the
problems that come with bringing new material to everyone’s attention, as well as serving his own high standards. As a seasoned pro, he takes it in his stride each time.
“Really with every record it’s always the same problem. You want the record
to be different, so it doesn’t sound like the same old thing but you don’t want to sound like someone else. At the same time, you could have worse problems. I guess you’re just competing with yourself all the time.” Rob also mentions the fickle nature of fans, as every new album is compared unfavourably to the last one. “No kidding you like the old one, you’ve been listening to it for four years now!” he exclaims. Never one to shy away from a challenge, Rob Zombie has spent a lot of time writing and directing horror films – from his debut House of 1000 Corpses to the two notorious Halloween remakes. What is it that he gets from film that he doesn’t get from music though? It seems the two are entwined in Rob Zombie’s mind. “When I write records, as soon as I hear music my mind visually takes over so even when I’m writing the script for a movie, or working on it, I can hear the music in my head,” he explains. “I would always find it actually a little bit frustrating working with a composer because sometimes it was hard to describe what I wanted so to be able to do it ourselves makes it better.” Rob Zombie has always made himself music director on his movies
pickup445
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64