Metro.us recently conducted an interview with rocker-turned-filmmaker Rob Zombie. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.
Metro.us: You said with [“The Lords Of Salem”] you wanted to try something different. Did you mean different from the “Halloween” films or just in general?
Rob: Just in general. I felt like the last group of films I did were in the same wheelhouse. I just wanted to break out of that within the structure of what we were making. I hate that phrase “horror director.” It sounds so limiting. I just want to make movies. That’s why my next film isn’t even remotely a horror or genre film.
Metro.us: “The Lords of Salem” had a lower budget than you’ve had recently. Was that the plan?
Rob: That was a freedom thing. Because after doing the two “Halloween” films, which were with Dimension Films — that’s a very hands-on studio. So you’re always fighting to retain some sense of what you’re trying to do. But with this film I had complete control, contractually. That was the appeal. Working with a small budget is kind of a drag. But the other part was great.
Metro.us: This film is less gory than your other films, with a lower body count.
Rob: I don’t really think my films are that gory. I think “Halloween II” is pretty violent, but it’s not that gory. I’m not a fan of gore, necessarily. I think when things become too gory it just becomes cartoony — it becomes like a bloody Roadrunner cartoon. This one isn’t that violent. It’s not even that vulgar, in terms of the language. I tried to make it different. The art direction’s a lot cleaner and sparser, more composed. It’s the opposite of what I normally do.
The eagerly awaited new ROB ZOMBIE album, “Venomous Rat Regeneration Vendor”, will be released on April 23 on Zodiac Swan/T-Boy/Ume. The CD was produced by Bob Marlette, who has previously worked with everyone from BLACK SABBATH and ALICE COOPER to WILSON PHILLIPS and LYNYRD SKYNYRD.
The “Venomous Rat Regeneration Vendor” cover artwork can be seen below. Also available is an audio sample of the CD’s first single, “Dead City Radio And The New Gods Of Super Town”.
“I think for the first time this new album perfectly merges the old days of WHITE ZOMBIE with the future of what I am doing now,” says Rob. “I think fans of both will agree that this is the perfect combo of both worlds.”
A rock icon and auteur filmmaker with insight and unlimited vision, Rob Zombie has continuously challenged audiences as he stretches the boundaries of music, film, and publishing. Now, the seven-time Grammy-nominated recording artist releases his fifth solo album, “Venomous Rat Regeneration Vendor”, which includes “Dead City Radio And The New Gods Of Super Town”, along with such tracks as “Ging Gang Gong De Do Gong De Laga Raga”, “Lucifer Rising”, “Behold! The Pretty Filthy Creatures” and a heavy-duty cover of GRAND FUNK RAILROAD‘s “We’re an American Band”.
“Venomous Rat Regeneration Vendor” is the first release on Rob‘s new label, Zodiac Swan, through T-Boy Records/UMe.
Zombie told The Pulse Of Radio what goals he set for himself in making the new album. “I wanted someone to hear it and go, ‘Wow, I haven’t heard that before,'” he said. “I wanted it to be just different. We really went out of our way with the sounds, so every song has a very different sound, a very different guitar sound, drum sound, just everything, where the sound, the actual sound becomes very important. You know, after all these years you want to still try to feel that you can break through new, creative areas in your own mind, and that’s really what we’re just trying to do, you know.”
T-Boy Records is veteran rock manager Andy Gould‘s new partnership with Universal Music Enterprises (UMe) which will serve as an umbrella label releasing new music and albums from established iconic hard-rock bands with major followings.
Gould, who currently heads his own Spectacle Entertainment Group, has managed Rob Zombie since his days in WHITE ZOMBIE. Gould‘s track record includes sales exceeding fifteen million worldwide and seven Grammy nominations with Zombie, including securing deals for Zombie to become one of only a handful of people to have unprecedented success for six feature films as the writer and director.
“We have had a great deal of success in the past with Rob Zombie,” explains Gould about his decision to take the new venture to UMe. “We want to sign rock bands with brand names that do good business on the road, and have been underserved by the major label system. The idea I had arose out of discussions with the other managers of major hard-rock acts who all felt their artists could benefit from an improved label experience. We’re looking to super-serve this niche audience, which is tremendously loyal, and is often even larger internationally than here in the States.”
As a musician, Rob Zombie has sold over fifteen million albums worldwide to date. His last studio album was “Hellbilly Deluxe 2”. The CD came a decade after its predecessor, “Hellbilly Deluxe”, the album that established Zombie as a solo artist after the breakup of multi-platinum group WHITE ZOMBIE. That triple-platinum album also yielded a string of successful radio singles, namely “Dragula”, “Superbeast” and “Living Dead Girl”, which dominated the airwaves.
The rocker-turned-film director is the only artist to experience unprecedented success in both music and film as the writer/director of five feature films, with a worldwide gross totaling more than $100 million dollars. The week of his album release, Zombie will premiere his sixth motion picture, “The Lords Of Salem”, that he wrote, directed and produced in tandem with the producers of the “Paranormal Activity” franchise, on April 26, with Anchor Bay Films.
Last year, in addition to working on his film, Zombie also dominated the touring world in 2012, blowing away audiences on the road with MEGADETH, then with MARILYN MANSON for the “Twins Of Evil Tour”. Zombie and his band of maniacs — John 5 on guitar, Piggy D on bass and Ginger Fish on drums — brought their elaborate, multi-media production, complete with hair-raising theatrics, animatronic robots, oversized LED screens, a non-stop collage of psychotronic monster film clips, a spectacular light show, a gigantic robot with flames shooting out of its body, pyrotechnics, insane guitar riffs and vicious beats to audiences and festivals around the world.
Rob Zombie has set “Venomous Rat Regeneration Vendor” as the title of his new album, due on April 23 via Zodiac Swan/T-Boy/Ume. T-Boy Records is veteran rock manager Andy Gould‘s new partnership with Universal Music Enterprises (UMe) which will serve as an umbrella label releasing new music and albums from established iconic hard-rock bands with major followings. The CD was produced by Bob Marlette, who has previously worked with everyone from BLACK SABBATH and ALICE COOPER to WILSON PHILLIPS and LYNYRD SKYNYRD.
In an interview with the Toledo Free Press, Zombie stated about “Venomous Rat Regeneration Vendor”: “It seems to happen every couple of years or every 10 years or every five years or whatever, you have a moment when it all comes together. Not that the other records are bad, but not every record can be like the most inspired event in your life. But for some reason, this one feels like it is. The songwriting, the sound of it, the vibe, the production — it’s special.”
According to Zombie, fans can expect an album that touches quite a few musical bases.
“It’s stylistically sort of a little bit of everything,” Zombie said. “Fans of my really old stuff will love it because there’s a certain aspect of it that’s very reminiscent of that. But it also is very looking to the future. It’s hard to describe music to somebody if they haven’t heard it, but I feel like it’s the best of all of the things I’ve done. I’ve finally found a perfect match between the old stuff I did and the new stuff. That’s the way it sounds to me anyway.”
The singer released a collection of remixes of various ZOMBIE tracks on August 7, 2012 called “Mondo Sex Head”. The remixes feature some of the hottest names in the growing electronic dance music scene, along with contributions from Jonathan Davis of KORN and Chino Moreno of DEFTONES.
Gould, who currently heads his own Spectacle Entertainment Group, has managed Rob Zombie since his days in WHITE ZOMBIE. Gould‘s track record includes sales exceeding fifteen million worldwide and seven Grammy nominations with Zombie, including securing deals for Zombie to become one of only a handful of people to have unprecedented success for six feature films as the writer and director.
“We have had a great deal of success in the past with Rob Zombie,” explains Gould about his decision to take the new venture to UMe. “We want to sign rock bands with brand names that do good business on the road, and have been underserved by the major label system. The idea I had arose out of discussions with the other managers of major hard-rock acts who all felt their artists could benefit from an improved label experience. We’re looking to super-serve this niche audience, which is tremendously loyal, and is often even larger internationally than here in the States.”
Legendary rocker Alice Cooper recently spoke to The Village Voice about the bands that are carrying on the traditions he created, including ROB ZOMBIE, GWAR and BLACK VEIL BRIDES.
On ROB ZOMBIE:
Cooper: “You have to start with Rob Zombie. Rob Zombie‘s like my little brother. Live, he’s fantastic. if you’re gonna go see an extravaganza, sort of like a media blitz on your brain, it’s Rob Zombie. He knows his stuff when it comes to all things dark and scary. But he’s got a great sense of humor about it. We went on tour together, and we watched the same movies. He and I (along with Tim Burton) agree, most horror movies are comedies. They’re so over-the-top if you’re not laughing there’s something wrong with you.”
On GWAR:
Cooper: “GWAR! Love GWAR. GWAR is just so over-the-top ridiculous that they’re wonderful. I mean, what band has their own factory where they build their own costumes? You’ve gotta give it to them for taking it to the ultimate limit. They are really out there.”
On BLACK VEIL BRIDES:
Cooper: “There’s one young band out there that’s doing something right: BLACK VEIL BRIDES. They’re sort of like MÖTLEY CRÜE/ALICE COOPER junior. But they’re a pretty good idea of style and look and everything, sort of like the brand new Sunset Strip. If MÖTLEY CRÜE had children, it would be these guys. Sleek, very made-up, very rock ‘n’ roll dark, scary creepy. A good rock ‘n’ roll band. A good, snotty rock ‘n’ roll band.”
According to MLive.com, MARILYN MANSON and ROB ZOMBIE engaged in a war of words Friday night (October 12) at the the ninth stop of their 36-city “Twins Of Evil” tour at DTE Energy Music Theater in Clarkston, Michigan.
Manson reportedly accused Rob Zombie of cutting Marilyn‘s set short, telling the crowd, “I’m going to kick his ass.”
Zombie also addressed the feud during his 90-minute performance, telling the audience, “Some tours just don’t go [expletive] together” and making it clear that he was tired of Manson‘s “rock star [expletive].” He also fired more verbal shots at Manson while paying homage to Alice Cooper with a cover of Cooper‘s classic “School’s Out” (see video below), dedicating the song to “the only real shock rocker there ever was, not some punk-ass bitch, Alice Cooper.”
“[Bleep] you Marilyn Manson!,” Zombie reportedly yelled several times, along with other choice words including “suck it, Marilyn Manson!” He also called Manson “Brian,” referring to Marilyn‘s birth name, Brian Warner.
Manson implied on Twitter that Zombie had also cut Marilyn‘s set short Thursday night in Rosemont, Illinois, writing, “Sorry to Chicago for not getting to play ‘Beautiful People’. You can sing it in between Zombie songs, his band has already played it.”
Zombie himself took to his Facebook page earlier today to “clear up the rumors flying around.” He wrote, “Neither I nor anyone working for me made Manson cut his show short. It is a co-headliner and we both play the exact same set length every night. It is all very simple, but if one of us chooses to go on late for whatever reason, that time will have to come out of their set. That just the way it works, that is the way it always works. There is no evil plan going on. It is all complete nonsense.”
He added in a separate posting, “As stupid as this all is, I feel I must clear things up a little better. First off, I want to thank all the fans who came out in the freezing cold in Detroit last night. It was a total blast as always.
“Unfortunately, things turned ugly backstage. Why? I don’t know, but for some reason our touring partner decided to end his set by blaming me for something that I had nothing to do with and screaming he was going to ‘kick Rob Zombie‘s ass as soon as he got off stage.’
“Go figure. I was backstage hanging, watching the show thinking, ‘hey, this is gonna be a great night,’ when suddenly he starts screaming threats. So strange. I don’t get it. Christ, I’ve known some of his crew for 20 fucking years and some of his crew used work for me. It’s all good. No one would fuck with someone’s show. It is ridiculous.
“Well, of course I felt the need to respond to the ‘kick my ass remark.’ Who wouldn’t? Although I wish I had kept it backstage and kept the fans out of it. It is all fourth-grade-fight-after-school nonsense of which I have never dealt with on tour before. Co-headlining tours always go smooth because everything is cut 50/50 and I mean everything. No one fucks with anyone’s show. It is even fucking Steven.
“I’ve done co-headlining tours many times before and have had no troubles. Not with PANTERA, SLAYER, ALICE COOPER, KORN, MEGADETH or anyone ever. So I didn’t expect any troubles on this. It seemed like a great idea at the time. But shit happens.
“Anyway, sorry to the fans who had to dealt with the embarrassing stupidity of it all. We are all there for the same reasons to give you the best show ever… that’s it.”
Josh Stockinger of DailyHerald.com recently spoke to ROB ZOMBIE/ex-MARILYN MANSON guitarist John 5 about the songwriting process for the score for Zombie‘s latest horror film, “The Lords Of Salem”.
“Rob would give me direction, like, ‘I want it to sound like this, or I want it to sound like that,'” John, whose real name is John Lowery, said. “It’s very primitive, not your everyday-sounding instruments. I would use a violin bow across an acoustic guitar or clank on things or use other odd musical instruments. Then, of course, you have your bassoons and french horns and everything under the sun for other parts of the score. It’s very unorthodox, if you will, but it really was a lot of fun. It was a lot of work and it was a big challenge. It turned out amazing, though. I’m very proud of it; that’s for sure.”
He added, “I wanted the theme of this movie to be very simple, like ‘Jaws’ or ‘Halloween’ — something that’s so easy to remember. When you see the movie, you’ll understand what I’m talking about. I really wanted to concentrate on the simple things that ring in your head. I wanted to do something easy in that sense so people could remember it and hopefully have fun with it.”
Asked if he had a lot of visual elements to work with, the guitarist said, “We [John 5 and producer Griffin Boice] would get visuals, or we would get a scene or two and just go off of it from there. It’s really amazing when you see a shot with nothing there and then create this sound. It’s pretty incredible to see how it all comes to life.
“It’s funny, the power of music. I was watching ‘Dracula’, the 1931 version with Bela Lugosi, and the only music you hear is at the very beginning of the credits. There’s not one other piece of music; it’s all silent. It’s unbelievable and it’s very effective, too.”
Watch the first trailer for “The Lords Of Salem” below.
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