Rob Zombie

Rob Zombie
American musician, film director and writer Robert Cummings - more commonly known as Rob Zombie was born on January 12, 1965 in Haverhill, Massachusetts. His hoarse vocal style and enthrallment with horror movies has helped him turn out to be an idiosyncratic element in American heavy metal. Recognized as the originator, lead singer, and songwriter for White Zombie, Zombie has also established himself as a solo artist in recent times. He has sold 10 million albums with White Zombie and a further 15 million albums as a solo artist. Five of his CDs have been certified platinum and another two have been certified gold, making him the artist with the most gold and platinum discs on the Geffen label.

Zombie attended Keefe Technical School in Framingham, Massachusetts. Zombie has been a long-establishes devotee of The Ramones, The Misfits, shock-rocker Alice Cooper, British heavy-metal pioneers Black Sabbath, Judas Priest and many more. Styles and techniques of these musicians continue to be a strong influence on him to this day. Both brothers went to college, but Rob dropped out to follow other interests. Rob attended Parsons The New School for Design in New York. Rob got his start by working as a technician for Pee Wee's Playhouse. It was also during this juncture, that he met future White Zombie band-mate Sean Yseult.

White Zombie - an American band named after the 1932 film White Zombie, which starred Bela Lugosi was based in New York, and was formerly a noise rock band in the vein of fellow New York band Sonic Youth. White Zombie was identified for fusing heavy-metal music with driving guitar riffs (as on "Super-Charger Heaven"), overplayed with lyrics profoundly influenced by horror films and pseudo-Satanic images. Not like other metal bands of the 1990s, White Zombie was solely a "fantasy" band, writing songs not about real life, but about unreal horror fantasies.

Subsequent to their signing to Geffen Records, White Zombie attained substantial success, with two 2x platinum albums and a large number of their songs highlighted in movies and TV shows, particularly Beavis and Butthead. In 1998, the group officially dispersed soon after the release of singer Rob Zombie's solo album Hellbilly Deluxe.

In 1996, Rob Zombie worked together with his long-time inspiration Alice Cooper on the song "Hands of Death (Burn Baby Burn)" for the X-Files tie-in CD Songs in the Key of X. It was Zombie's first work outside of his band White Zombie. The song was nominated for a Grammy for Best Metal Performance the same year, but lost to Nine Inch Nails for their song "Happiness in Slavery".

In 1998, Rob Zombie formed his own solo band. John Tempesta (drums) came directly from White Zombie, with Mike Riggs on guitar and Blasko (Rob Nicholson) on bass. In 1998, they recorded and released Rob's debut solo album, Hellbilly Deluxe, which was produced by Scott Humphrey. The album was a huge hit, selling three million copies nationally. This album comprised of the hit singles "Dracula", "Living Dead Girl" and "Superbeast". After the release of Hellbilly Deluxe, White Zombie broke up. Rob Zombie toured extensively to promote the debut album, releasing American Made Music to Strip By in 1999, an album of remixes from Hellbilly Deluxe.

From style point of view, Educated Horses is Rob's most tentative release. In contradiction of the heavy metal sound of his first 2 albums, this one has a more alternative metal sound to it. The single "Foxy, Foxy" can be portrayed as his most "party-going" song. The other 2 singles, "Let It All Bleed Out" and "American Witch", featured his signature heavy sound. It was also his 1st album to not contain heavy amounts of horror - either in the artwork, songs, or even his physical appearance where Rob Zombie is dressed in regular clothes on the album cover, and his dreadlocks are gone. On the other hand, the songs "Seventeen Year Locust" and "The Scorpion Sleeps" featured song topics of creepy-crawlies.

In 2006 The Best of Rob Zombie was also released by his label, Geffen Records. It contains songs akin to his 1st greatest-hits album, but there are also songs on this release from Educated Horses. Sometime in 2007, Rob Zombie plans on releasing a White Zombie box-set and a Live CD/DVD, perhaps containing footage from his most recent tour in 2006.

Blasko, Rob's bass player, departed after the Educated Horses Tour, right before the American Witch Tour (The 2nd leg of the tour), to play bass with Ozzy Osbourne. To fill in the position, Rob appointed Piggy D. of Wednesday 13. After Ozzy finished touring, Blasko returned with Zombie.

On May 31st, 2006, Zombie was joined by guitarist Slash ? ex member of Guns N' Roses and Velvet Revolver; and Gilby Clarke, previously of Guns N' Roses, on rhythm guitar; Scott Ian of Anthrax on bass; Tommy Lee of M?tley Cr?e on drums and special guest Ace Frehley of Kiss also on lead guitar. The occasion was an instant super group tribute to Kiss for the first annual VH1 Rock Honors Award Show. They played one song, "God of Thunder," before handing it off to the honoree. Rob Zombie is now on tour with Ozzy Osbourne.

House of 1000 Corpses was Rob Zombie's administrative debut and his first horror film. Zombie wrote the script in addition to directed the film. It took four years to make (1999-2003), and was finally released by Lion's Gate Films in 2003, after Stacy Snider, then-head of Universal Pictures, sold the film to them, as she did not wish for Universal to release the film. Afterwards it was expressed that Snider is not a fan of horror films. It featured a dreadful amount of bloodshed and gore, a hark back to Rob's exploitation-film influences. It told the story of a group of unlucky teenagers who stagger upon the Firefly Family, a family of aggressive and ferocious murderers. The film was shot in a unreal and gloomy style that varied between dark and campy wit.