up to me and tells me ‘oh you’ve influenced me in this way’
...it won’t even enter my mind” he admits modestly. “Sometimes I hear bands - not so much anymore, but ten years ago when White Zombie was big - I heard bands that sounded and looked like us for sure because we had a very specific look. Now it’s very commonplace but you know 25 years ago there weren’t a lot of guys with dreadlocks and beards in metal bands. It was pretty uncommon and now it’s incredibly common. You never know what your influence is. I mean we’ve done enough stuff we should have some influence by now, I suppose!” Selling out a UK arena tour in such a short time at least nods to an indication that the popularity of the music has not faded. Just looking around certain city centres in the UK will see that same dreadlocked, stormtrooper-booted aesthetic that Rob Zombie helped cultivate with White Zombie and his solo ventures. Though you can hardly suggest it hit the mainstream, this man’s output resonates with a great deal of people and it makes a lot of sense that his love of horror has been constantly proven in spoken word film samples throughout his records and, of course, his development of his directing career. He’s almost authored a sub-culture within metal and horror fans and so it’s no
in the past, but for his upcoming Lords of Salem picture, he and the band are composing and performing the score themselves, something he did on his first film too. Rather than a rock band thrashing over the top, it will be an original scored piece that the band will interpret through their instruments. It could well be one of the most exciting things about the film itself. But despite this parity the real difference is what it takes to create either music or a full movie. “I think that movies are more draining because music is very much a release, to play it (and) to write it. But movies, you kind of get the gratification of the movie later when it’s on in theatres and they are a lot more mentally draining because you work in such a vacuum. With a song or a live show, if it’s not working you can change it on the spur of the moment but with a movie, well... that’s the movie and if people don’t like it you’re kinda screwed.” For a man whose image is so distinctive – you’ll have seen his hirsute, long
haired, shredded, cyber-demon clothing, a kind of horror-fantasy warrior – and whose industrial-tinged heavy metal has garnered huge popularity over the past 20 years, his thoughts seem never to wander into the territory of his own influence on others. “It’s not really anything I think about and it’s only when somebody comes
“Movies are tougher than music because music is a release. If people don’t like your movie you’re screwed!”
surprise that the UK awaits his return with an eagerness usually reserved for far more household names. But now that the film career is, despite some negative criticism at times,
really on a roll with a large audience ready to absorb the next Zombie epic, does this mean that music may well be slowly retreating from the big picture? “It’s a bigger priority now than it used to be,” Rob says, contradicting such rumours. “I think about it constantly and obsess over it constantly. I mean, to me everything is a priority, but the last five years music has become a bigger priority than ever.” So, there’s no worry of Rob Zombie’s dramatic and ferocious vision being diminished just yet. PM
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