ROB ZOMBIE: DEAD MAN ROCKIN'
May 15th 2010 19:21
Link: thejukeboxhero.com
It is probably inevitable that ghoulish rocker/ filmmaker Rob Zombie and Alice Cooper would one day tour together.
If Cooper is the father of shock rock, then Zombie is his most adventurous offspring. While the two have performed with each other on albums and guested for individual songs, the current "Gruesome Twosome" tour is the first the two have performed full shows on the same bill. The tour is in the middle of a month's run of wild and crazy theatrics and gut-pounding rock n roll winding up on May 22nd in Lewiston, New York.
Now this is a collaboration that makes sense. A match made in Heav....uh...hell.
Zombie certainly appears elated by his partnership with Cooper.
"The Dream (or nightmare) comes true", he laughs. "Me and Coop have been talking about touring together for about 15 years, and finally the moment is here."
The "Gruesome Twosome" tour has been well received, so much, in fact, that once Zombie and his band plays the "2010 Rockstar Energy Drink Mayhem Festival" this Summer, he's anticipating more dates for the gruesome gig in the Fall.
"Alice is probably the most influential person to me, " says Zombie. "As a kid, way before I discovered music, I had been watching horror movies on TV and loved all that stuff. Going to Disneyland to the Haunted Mansion---anything dark really appealed to me. I'm talking as a first grader. I loved music, listened to the radio, but one day after seeing his album in a store and buying it is when it all came together for me. All the worlds just collided for me with all the things I loved. It was just amazing."
Zombie went on to form "White Zombie", a noise rock/heavy metal band of wild, thrashing maniacs, and then went on to have an even more successful solo career. He's also become a very popular film director, the recent remake of "Halloween" , "The Devil's Rejects", and the hugely popular 2009 cult favorite, "Zombieland" among his efforts.
While film and music are separate careers, Zombie has always blended much of those ghoulish theatrics into his musical act.
"The music I grew up on was Alice Cooper, KISS, Elton John, Queen, Blue Oyster Cult", says Zombie. "It didn't matter if it was Barry Manilow. He would've probably walked out on stage in a rhinestone suit. Everything was theatrical. Everything was exciting! It was show business, man! That's just the way I thought things were supposed to be. I never thought you just wandered on stage with your T-shirt and jeans looking like a schlub. Everything was, you go out there and put on a show, because that's what I thought things were supposed to be."
To that end, Rob started "White Zombie" in 1985 and performed in New Yorks clubs, the group was not exactly in style.
"I don't know if the bands were anti-image. They just didn't really have an image," Zombie muses. ""Sonic Youth" were the gods of that scene. I think they're a great band, but that wasn't what we were trying to do. We'd come on stage and have long hair and were thrashing around. We we're metal though. We were some other weird thing. And people didn't know what to make out of it. They looked at us like....."Well, seems like they're playing this weird, noisy, sludge rock, but they kind of want to be VanHalen at the same time."
With music that borrowed from psychedelia and even surf guitar, "White Zombie" didn't fit in any better in the metal scene.
"We didn't really have a place in the world," says Zombie. "The world had to come to us."
It wasn't until Zombie's first solo album, 1998's "Hellbilly Deluxe" with its creepy, pulverizing hard rock riffs, that he finally won over the masses.
While Zombie's love of hard-driving rock n roll has never wavered, he has occasionally thrown fans some curve balls, mainly with his fondness for fantasy comic book productions.
"I just do what I like" shrugs the always non-chalant Zombie. "You gotta take this in the spirit that I mean it, but you can't worry about pleasing your fans, because then you start to become a fake carbon copy of yourself. You have to always, artistically, be doing something you're excited about and hope the fans come along for the ride. It would be very easy to make fake music, sort of a generic version of what I do. That's not your job. Your job is to do new and crazy things all the time. That's what bands have always done But for some reason it seems that music has gotten more compartmentalized. It's like, "That's not metal! Well. who gives a (expletive), dude? Who cares how it's labeled? That's how I look at it."
Zombie says that sometimes having a dual career provides a nice break, but other times each interest keeps him going away from the other too long. He will be dedicating all 2010 to music and touring and take up another film project next year.
With respect to specific future plans, Zombie has plenty of those ahead.
"I have a list going over the next 10 years," he says. "I have a list going that I hope I live long enough to complete."
For right now, the Dead Man is Rockin' hard with his Gruesome Twosome campatriot, Alice Cooper, school's almost out for the summer, and all is cool in Zombieland.
.
If Cooper is the father of shock rock, then Zombie is his most adventurous offspring. While the two have performed with each other on albums and guested for individual songs, the current "Gruesome Twosome" tour is the first the two have performed full shows on the same bill. The tour is in the middle of a month's run of wild and crazy theatrics and gut-pounding rock n roll winding up on May 22nd in Lewiston, New York.
The Grusome Twosome Tour: A Match Made In Hell
Now this is a collaboration that makes sense. A match made in Heav....uh...hell.
Zombie certainly appears elated by his partnership with Cooper.
"The Dream (or nightmare) comes true", he laughs. "Me and Coop have been talking about touring together for about 15 years, and finally the moment is here."
The "Gruesome Twosome" tour has been well received, so much, in fact, that once Zombie and his band plays the "2010 Rockstar Energy Drink Mayhem Festival" this Summer, he's anticipating more dates for the gruesome gig in the Fall.
"Alice is probably the most influential person to me, " says Zombie. "As a kid, way before I discovered music, I had been watching horror movies on TV and loved all that stuff. Going to Disneyland to the Haunted Mansion---anything dark really appealed to me. I'm talking as a first grader. I loved music, listened to the radio, but one day after seeing his album in a store and buying it is when it all came together for me. All the worlds just collided for me with all the things I loved. It was just amazing."
Zombie went on to form "White Zombie", a noise rock/heavy metal band of wild, thrashing maniacs, and then went on to have an even more successful solo career. He's also become a very popular film director, the recent remake of "Halloween" , "The Devil's Rejects", and the hugely popular 2009 cult favorite, "Zombieland" among his efforts.
While film and music are separate careers, Zombie has always blended much of those ghoulish theatrics into his musical act.
"The music I grew up on was Alice Cooper, KISS, Elton John, Queen, Blue Oyster Cult", says Zombie. "It didn't matter if it was Barry Manilow. He would've probably walked out on stage in a rhinestone suit. Everything was theatrical. Everything was exciting! It was show business, man! That's just the way I thought things were supposed to be. I never thought you just wandered on stage with your T-shirt and jeans looking like a schlub. Everything was, you go out there and put on a show, because that's what I thought things were supposed to be."
To that end, Rob started "White Zombie" in 1985 and performed in New Yorks clubs, the group was not exactly in style.
"I don't know if the bands were anti-image. They just didn't really have an image," Zombie muses. ""Sonic Youth" were the gods of that scene. I think they're a great band, but that wasn't what we were trying to do. We'd come on stage and have long hair and were thrashing around. We we're metal though. We were some other weird thing. And people didn't know what to make out of it. They looked at us like....."Well, seems like they're playing this weird, noisy, sludge rock, but they kind of want to be VanHalen at the same time."
With music that borrowed from psychedelia and even surf guitar, "White Zombie" didn't fit in any better in the metal scene.
"We didn't really have a place in the world," says Zombie. "The world had to come to us."
It wasn't until Zombie's first solo album, 1998's "Hellbilly Deluxe" with its creepy, pulverizing hard rock riffs, that he finally won over the masses.
While Zombie's love of hard-driving rock n roll has never wavered, he has occasionally thrown fans some curve balls, mainly with his fondness for fantasy comic book productions.
"I just do what I like" shrugs the always non-chalant Zombie. "You gotta take this in the spirit that I mean it, but you can't worry about pleasing your fans, because then you start to become a fake carbon copy of yourself. You have to always, artistically, be doing something you're excited about and hope the fans come along for the ride. It would be very easy to make fake music, sort of a generic version of what I do. That's not your job. Your job is to do new and crazy things all the time. That's what bands have always done But for some reason it seems that music has gotten more compartmentalized. It's like, "That's not metal! Well. who gives a (expletive), dude? Who cares how it's labeled? That's how I look at it."
Zombie says that sometimes having a dual career provides a nice break, but other times each interest keeps him going away from the other too long. He will be dedicating all 2010 to music and touring and take up another film project next year.
With respect to specific future plans, Zombie has plenty of those ahead.
"I have a list going over the next 10 years," he says. "I have a list going that I hope I live long enough to complete."
For right now, the Dead Man is Rockin' hard with his Gruesome Twosome campatriot, Alice Cooper, school's almost out for the summer, and all is cool in Zombieland.
The Gruesome Twosome
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