«White Zombie is an American rock band from 1985 to 1998. The band played noise rock and groove metal. The founder, vocalist and ideological inspirer of the group was Robert Bartleh Cummings. He is known under the pseudonym Rob Zombie. After the breakup of the group, he continued to perform solo.
The path to becoming a White Zombie
The band formed in New York in 85. Young Robert Cummings was a fan of horror films. The idea to name the group in honor of the film of the same name, which presented itself to the world in 1932, belonged to him. Robert Cummings himself could not play and only wrote and performed lyrics.
In addition to the soloist, the original line-up of the group included his girlfriend Sean Yseult. To create a team, she left the guys from LIFE, where she played keyboards. In the White Zombie warehouse, she learned how to play the bass guitar in no time.
However, a duet of a guitarist and a vocalist would hardly have found success with a large audience. Therefore, soon another guitarist will appear in the group - Paul Kostabi. He was invited by member Sean Yseult. The advantage of the arrival of a new guitarist was that he was the owner of a recording studio. Drummer Peter Landau later joined the band.
The first work of the team
With this line-up, the band begins recording their debut disc "Gods on Voodoo Moon" in the style of noise rock. The first road performances of the group took place in 1986, while the guys do not stop the release of their self-made albums. The illustrations for the covers are drawn by Robert Cummings himself, he also writes the lyrics, but the band writes the music together. At the same time, the composition of the team does not remain constant.
After another year of such existence, the group releases the album "Soul-Crusher". On this disc, Robert Cummings appears before the listeners with a new pseudonym Rob Zombie. The nickname stuck to him until the end of the group's existence. In this early work of the group, there is a lot of screaming, noise. The works cannot be attributed to any style, it all looked like a mixture of punk and metal.
In 1988, the group signed a contract with the recording studio Caroline Records, which changed their style of performance towards alternative metal. A year later, another album, Make Them Die Slowly, was released. In the process of writing this compilation, the band was led by Bill Laswell.
White Zombie's first glory
Three years later, the band legalized a partnership with Geffen Records. The guys immediately released a new work "La Sexorcisto: Devil Music Volume One", with which the first fame comes. The style is changing towards groove metal, which was at the peak of popularity in the 90s. It also contributed to the success and promotion to fame.
This album becomes a cult for "White Zombie", which eventually received the rank of "gold" and later "platinum". The band's video footage does not leave MTV's music television venue. And the guys themselves go on the first long tour, which will last two and a half years.
Over time, the relationship between Robert Cummings and Sean Yseult begins to deteriorate. The first disagreements arise, which will eventually lead to the disintegration of the group.
The next album and its nominations
The year 95 was marked by the recording of another compilation with the long title "Astro-Creep: 2000 - Songs of Love, Destruction and Other Synthetic Delusions of the Electric Head". During the recording of the record, John Tempesta performed the drums, and Charlie Clouser worked on the keyboards.
The innovation slightly diluted the previous works and brought its own zest to the performance. The album was nominated for a Grammy Award, and Kerrang! won the second position in the nomination for "Album of the Year".
In the same year, the group received a Grammy Award for the song "More Human Than The Human". The video clip for this song was recognized as the best material of 1995 according to the "MTV Video Music Award". The video was directed by Rob Zombie himself.
While on tour, Rob Zombie begins work on the soundtrack for the film Beavis and Butt-Head Do America. Here he plays the role of not only a person who writes music, but also an artist and designer. Also during this period, Rob Zombie recorded the soundtrack "The Great American Nightmare" for the film "Private Parts. Rob performs the work together with the famous comedian Howard Allan Stern. The track and the film became quite popular not only in America but all over the planet.
The collapse of the group White Zombie
Despite the increasing success and gaining popularity, this album becomes the last in the group's work, except for the remix album. In 1998 the group «White Zombie officially ceases to exist. The reason is poor relations between the group members. However, the glory of Rob Zombie does not end there, and he begins his solo career.
Solo career as a vocalist
After leaving the band, Rob continues his career under the same old pseudonym and puts effort into creating the game "Twisted Metal 4", released for the PlayStation. Wrote three tracks for the game. They beat - "Dragula", "Grease Paint And Monkey Brains" and "Superbeast".
A little later, a new album "Hellbilly" is released. In addition to the hero himself, Nine Inch Nails guitarist, White Zombie drummer John Tempesta and Tommy Lee from Motley Crue took part in the creation of the work. The album was produced by Scott Humphrey. The style of the record remained almost the same as in the final White Zombie albums.
Then a duet with Ozzy Osbourne himself on the track "Iron Head". And after that, a long work on the film "House of 1000 Corpses" begins. The film features Rob Zombie as director. Naturally, the film is about zombies and bloody murders. Passion remained with the author throughout his career. The film was released already in 2003, and in 2005 a sequel to the film was released. The soundtracks for the first and second films were written, of course, by Rob Zombie himself.
In 2007, the world saw another picture "Halloween 2007", which turned out to be a remake of the film by John Howard Carpenter himself. In the making of the film, Rob acted as director. And in 2013, another work was released, which replenished his filmography - "The Lords of Salem". In 2016, another film "31" was released, also on the theme of the evening of all saints.
The identity of the founder of the group
Rob Zombie is a native of Massachusetts. He moved to New York only at the age of 19. The musician's parents were busy organizing holidays and could not devote enough time to raising their son.
In one of his interviews, Rob Zombie said that as a child he became interested in horror films. And once, together with his family, he had to endure a real attack on a tent camping. Perhaps this was the reason for the musician's love for evil spirits.
Despite the fact that Rob Zombie writes his songs and sings mainly about the dead, zombies and other evil spirits, the performer himself considers himself a believing Christian. And his bond with actress and designer Sheri Moon Zombie cemented in the church in the presence of a priest. Now Rob Zombie continues to tour, write songs, draw, publish comics.
Interestingly, the love of man, which began with horror films, continued with the creation of a thematic group. And then led to the filming of the same horror films. The story of Rob Zombie is the story of a man who followed his dream, and at some point the dream became his life.
Without the dreams and hobbies that once came to a young guy at a young age, it is now difficult to imagine the work of a musician, artist and director under the pseudonym Rob Zombie.
