WHITE ZOMBIE

Formed: 1985, New York, New York

Members: Robert "Rob Zombie" Cummings, vocals (born Haverhill, Massachusetts, 13 January 1966); Jay "J." Yuenger, guitar (born Chicago, Illinois, 26 December 1967); Sean Yseult, bass (born Shauna Reynolds; Raleigh, North Carolina, 6 June 1966); John Tempesta, drums.

Genre: Rock

Best-selling album since 1990: Astro Creep: 2000—Songs of Love, Destruction, and Other Synthetic Delusions of the Electric Head (2000)

Hit songs since 1990: "Thunder Kiss '65," "Black Sunshine," "More Human Than Human"

In a decade that ushered in no-frills, acoustic-framed alt-rock, White Zombie took the theatrical, colorful road-less-traveled. Spending lots of time watching TV and reading comic books, Rob Cummings (who later renamed himself Rob Zombie) was something of a social outcast growing up in small-town New England. In his late teens he moved to New York City, where he found fellow travelers who shared his love for the tacky and vulgar side of Americana, and he formed a band that began to play locally. He also started a romantic relationship with a female bassist, Yseult, but their professional relationship proved more enduring.

White Zombie released the EP Psycho Head Blowout (1987) independently and followed that with debut album Soul Crusher (1988). Zombie was still going by the slightly cheesy pseudonym Rob Straker. The band got the attention of the legendary New York bassist/producer Bill Laswell, who signed them to his Caroline Records and released Make Them Die Slowly (1989). After five years of slogging it out in the tough New York scene, the band was deemed ready for prime time by Geffen Records.

Their debut on Geffen, La Sexorcisto: Devil Music Vol. 1 (1992), was produced by Andy Wallace, who went on to become one of the most in-demand mixing engineers of the decade. He helped the band combine its monster-truck metal riffs with a rollicking groove. However, the album received little notice until the "Thunder Kiss '65" video got a "cool" recommendation from MTV's Beavis and Butt-head cartoon show. Zombie's dreadlocks, twangy rap singing, and fusion of metal with up-tempo R&B grooves set the band in stark contrast to the grunge movement. The lyrics evoke decadence and devil worship, though in a cheekier way than such metal predecessors as Black Sabbath and Dio.

White Zombie reached its high point with Astro Creep: 2000—Songs of Love, Destruction, and Other Synthetic Delusions of the Electric Head (1995). On the album, the band hones its amalgam of hard rock, industrial rock, and hip-hop. Their first single, "More Human Than Human," starts with stuttering synthesizers and Zombie's rabble-rousing "yeeeah" shout and subsequently explodes into a rafter-rattling blast of crunching guitars and hip-shaking beats. "Super-Charger Heaven" sustains the group's penchant for tongue-in-cheek Satanism and rolls along like a revved-up version of Tom Petty's "Running Down a Dream." Acknowledging their dance-music influences, White Zombie released a remix album, Supersexy Swingin' Sounds (1996), and covered KC and the Sunshine Band's "I'm Your Boogie Man" for The Crow: City of Angels (1996) soundtrack.

The band found themselves in a situation resembling the plot of the film Footloose in 1996 when the Johnson City, Tennessee, city council denied the band permission to perform at a city-owned venue. Some cried censorship, while others questioned whether lyrics like "Cupid brought a gun, he gonna blow the f**ker" (from "Electric Head Pt. 2") conformed to community standards in a small southern city.

Zombie went solo in 1998, claiming the other members were not into his trashy concept anymore. His former band mates vigorously denied the accusation, saying Zombie simply bailed out on them. Regardless, Zombie does indulge his macabre side more on his solo debut, Hellbilly Deluxe. He sings, "dig through the ditches / burn through the witches" on his first single, "Dragula," which conforms to his trademark template of electric beats and chainsaw guitars. "Living Dead Girl" uses a Nine Inch Nails–inspired industrial rhythm and comes with a video that pays homage to silent horror films. In fact, NIN members Charlie Clouser and Chris Vrenna did production work on American Made Music to Strip By (1999), another remix set.

White Zombie's concerts resembled carnival sideshows, with their ghoulish makeup, pyrotechnics, and images from old horror movies. Old-timers saw shades of Alice Cooper. For The Sinister Urge (2001), Zombie makes a few minor adjustments, aiming for pop accessibility on "Never Gonna Stop" and cooling down the tempo on "Land of 1000 Corpses." The single "Dead Girl Superstar" uses scratches and samples. But mainly he sticks to the cyber-groove-metal formula that has pleased his fans.

White Zombie and Rob Zombie brought rhythm, irony, and decadent fun to hard rock. Not ones to make stylistic leaps or reinvent themselves, they found a niche market of like-minded fans and gave them plenty of good, dirty fun.

SELECTIVE DISCOGRAPHY:

La Sexorcisto: Devil Music Vol. 1 (Geffen, 1992); Astro Creep: 2000—Songs of Love, Destruction, and Other Synthetic Delusions of the Electric Head (Geffen, 1995); Hellbilly Deluxe (Geffen, 1998); The Sinister Urge (Universal, 2001).

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