interview: rob zombie
Posted on 01. Jun, 2010 by nicole in play
words> RED
photos> DUSTIN CRAIG
We set out to do an interview with Rob Zombie. The NakedCity magazine interview was scheduled at the end of the day, before the Hartman Arena show on Mother’s Day. Before Rob Zombie came into the room, his tour manager asked me if I had any stupid questions. I asked him what he defined as a stupid question. Long story short, Mr. Z was not in the best of moods, due to some prior Wichita interviews. I don’t know what was asked, but it’s safe to assume that it was directly linked to his “stupid questions” inquiry. In attempt not to get the same dull answers to the same dull questions asked in every other interview, I decided to get back to basics:
Support the tour.
Support the album.
And talk about something you won’t read about anywhere else.
So as random and unsteady as this interview may seem, I doubt you will find an interview anywhere else that talks about Rob’s pets and scary childhood movie memories Not to mention that we hope he was in better spirits after our interview. Don’t ask us how we got into what we got into in this conversation; just trust us that if you were there it would have made sense.
RED: So, you have some exciting stuff going on this summer.
ZOMBIE: Yeah, after we finish this we take a couple weeks off and then we start the Mayhem tour with Korn. So that starts… June 10th, or something like that? I’m not even thinking about that, hahaha. I mean, I am thinking about it in a way, but, ya know, it’s like I’m just worried about today. But I think it’s June 10th.
RED: Will we be seeing Gruesome Twosome festivals, more to come with you and Alice?
ZOMBIE: I don’t know; we were talking about it. After the first day we were having such a good time together, cause it’s really hard to find good matches of bands. A lot of times, bands just don’t fit together, and me and Coop works really well, so we already talked about doing it again because we’re not really hitting that many places. It was such a last minute thing, so yeah we might do it again.
RED: Let’s talk about how Hellbilly Deluxe 2 is doing.
ZOMBIE: It’s goin’ good, ya know; it’s fun to have new songs to play. We’re only playing a couple of them, though, we don’t like to kill the crowd with too many new songs because… nobody likes that. That’s horrible.
RED: But is it selling good?
ZOMBIE: I think, yeah, everything’s goin’ good, everything’s goin’ really good.
RED: So, you commented on nobody having physical CDs anymore, which would save money in production, but don’t you think it kind of loses something in the mix?
ZOMBIE: Oh, I think it loses everything. I mean, I’m gonna keep making CDs and records as long as they make them… the record industry was dying so fast and CD sales were becoming so bad that I was like geez, by the time we get around to making another record, ya know, in a year or two, will they even make records?
It just seems like, ya know, the way all the vinyl plants were closing because so few people were pressing vinyl— and anybody who was in the A-track business is certainly out of business— but it seems like a lot of the CD pressing plants are going out of business too. So, it’s almost like a specialty item at this point. Where do you buy them?! You can’t find them anywhere, there’s no record stores. Wal-Mart has like 3 records they sell. Yeah, even Best Buy, if you go in Best Buy now it’s amazing how small their CD selection is. It’s a cruel world for CDs.
RED: So does Sheri [Moon Zombie, Rob's wife] get to go on tour with you all the time?
ZOMBIE: She usually does. She’s usually here; she’s not here today.
RED: That’s great because a big hardship on musicians on tour is being away from family and relationships, so you’ve got a good setup.
ZOMBIE: Yeah, this is really the only tour she hasn’t been on. I mean, usually, she’s in the show and part of it, [and] for the last however many years has always been there, but she wanted to take a break this time and I don’t blame her. Cause, ya know, one girl on a busload of guys for months and months and months…
RED: Doesn’t she have a girl with her?
ZOMBIE: Well actually there always was one other girl, yeah… okay TWO girls. Hahaha.
RED: What scares you? It doesn’t have to be a movie.
ZOMBIE: Well now, I can’t think of anything. I’m not trying to sound like “Oooh, nothing scares me;” I’m not really bothered by anything. I think that maybe too much TV and movies has desensitized me to violence, but it doesn’t really bother me— anything sometimes, which is kind of stupid.
RED: What about when you were little?
ZOMBIE: Well when I was little for sure. Like when I was little of course. I mean when I was REALLY little I’d watch the Wizard of Oz and, like, the flying monkeys were scary and the witch was scary cause I think I thought it was real. Ya know I didn’t know it was a fake thing, ya know. You’re like a little kid, what do you know?
RED: Wizard of Oz! Not snakes or spiders but Wizard of Oz.
ZOMBIE: Nooo snakes are nice.
RED: Do you ever see yourself completely walking away from the music scene?
ZOMBIE: Well, I wanna do it as long as I can, is really my answer. Ya know, touring is a hard life and playing music is— the type of music we play anyways; if you’re like Willie Nelson you can play forever, but what we’re playing is so hard and physical that I guess maybe someday there will be a time we can’t do it. But I don’t know when that is, considering.
RED: But you don’t ever think you’ll get burnt out on it.
ZOMBIE: No, no, no. I’ve been doing it now for 25 years and tonight’s as exciting as it ever was. So, that I’m not worried about. But Alice is 62, so he’s not quitting anytime soon. So, I don’t think anyone quits. Who quits? Paul McCartney still didn’t quit. People quit when they die. Nobody quits.
RED: Well a lot of musicians who do try to delve into the movie scene, first of all they don’t keep at it as long as you have, or it’s not going anywhere, so one might think that since all this is happening for you–
ZOMBIE: Yeah who needs it? But, I mean, I like them both. They’re a good counterbalance because they’re such different worlds. Ya know, making movies is really a different experience, it’s a very… just totally… I mean there’s nothing like playing live on stage. Except maybe if you’re like a football player or something, but there’s nothing that you can do where there’s— I mean what other things can you think of where there’s, like, thousands of people gonna scream like crazy tonight?
Movies are very, like, calm. You’re on a set, you don’t see anybody, and then you’re editing—
you’re like this with 2 people for months and months and months in a room. It’s like the exact opposite; you almost go stir crazy because you’re so isolated from people.
RED: What pets do you have?
ZOMBIE: I don’t have that many pets anymore. I have two cats and one dog, but I wanna get another dog, and I actually had a dream about that dog the other night so as soon as this tour’s over we’re gonna get a new dog.
RED: Favorite pet from childhood?
ZOMBIE: No, it was really weird, like, I remember being— cause, don’t you kind of think that parakeets and goldfish don’t live very long?
RED: They don’t, at least not in my house.
ZOMBIE: Yeah, right. So when I was really little, like in kindergarten, we got a parakeet. I still had that parakeet when I went to college. It just lived forever; it lived like 19 years. So, that was really the childhood pet that I remember because it was like the parakeet that wouldn’t— I mean birds live a long time, like, if you get a parrot it’ll probably outlive you. They live like 80 years.
RED: I didn’t know parakeets did.
ZOMBIE: I didn’t either! I thought, like, “Oh, it will be dead in two months.”
RED: What was its name?
ZOMBIE: Oh gosh, I can’t remember. I mean, it was some silly name that me and my brother came up with from when we— it was something.
RED: I can tell you loved him very much.
ZOMBIE: No, I’m trying to remember, it was a long time ago. OH! I know what it was. It was “Tiki,” because at Disneyland there was something called the Tiki Room that was like this Polynesian room and it was filled with birds, animatronic birds. Ya know, this is filtered through the mind of a kindergartner. So, hahaha, I haven’t even thought of that in a long time. There ya go: the world’s oldest parakeet. And then one day he just literally went “KLUNK!” He just expired.
