Never one to rest on his laurels or stay inactive for any length of time, musician/artist/filmmaker Rob Zombie is ready to re-enter the musical fray with a new label, new album and mega tour. We recently chatted with him about his fourth solo outing, Hellbilly Deluxe 2: Noble Jackals, Penny Dreadfuls and the Systematic Dehumanization of Cool, what to expect on stage, and his time spent in the director’s chair.

Interview by Mike Bacon

The album itself is now being put out on Roadrunner and has been pushed back. What was the reason for the delay?

We just pushed the release date back a couple weeks. It was turning into one of those situations where we had booked a tour, tweaked some things and then something slowed the record. Yet we’re rushing to make the date thinking, "this is crazy." We needed to pull it back a couple weeks. A couple weeks isn’t going to kill anyone but it’s going to make all the difference in the world for us. We loved the record so much and put so much work into it that we didn’t want to just go crazy shoving it out there. And we had the luxury of doing that so we thought it would be a good idea.

            Sometimes, unfortunately, that’s just the way things go...  definitely in the movie business. It’s like, "Here’s the release date no matter what." It usually is to the detriment of the movie. I’ve dealt with that on my last two films where you’re just… you know you’re not releasing a movie as good as it could be because you’re rushing to make a date. Shitty feeling.

How would you compare this album to the first Hellbilly Deluxe record?

What I like about it is it seems to work really well as an album, which I know is, unfortunately, kind of an outdated concept. I still like the idea of an album being like a musical journey that you put on and you go through.  It’s not just a collection of singles that you randomly listen to.  It just really goes all over the place.  We have songs like "What?" which is just the four of us in the garage playing, and then there’s songs like "The Man Who Laughs" which ends the record, which is an eight-and-a-half minute epic song with a 100-piece orchestra.  It really is an interesting musical journey as opposed to just a bunch of songs… I really like this record.  Everyone who’s heard the whole thing thinks it’s the best record yet. I can never tell. 

What should we expect on tour as far as stage design and production?

The stage is going to be killer; that’s what we’re working on now.  I’ve always done big stage shows and I continued that theme. There have been a lot of technological breakthroughs in the last few years with video and things of that nature, so it’s the most high-tech show we’ve ever taken out.  It’s pretty amazing.  I’m very excited to get it out there.

What is your impression of Metal or Rock today?  Anything new out there that excites you?

Not really. I’m not saying that because I’m saying there’s nothing out there to be excited about.  With movies, since it’s a storytelling, you can always go to the movies and there will always be a movie that will excite you.  But, I feel like sometimes music kind of moves on and you have your time period and your situations that you like, and when you see new stuff you go: Well, that just reminds me of this other thing that I already like.  I don’t know.  If anything I fall more in love with older stuff that maybe I wasn’t that hip to at the time.  It’s hard to go: Oh, I’m going to look at a bunch of 19-year-olds and they’re going to do something that blows my mind. Anything’s possible, but it just doesn’t seem to work that way.

On the subject of the Halloween movies, were you happy with the way both ultimately came out?

I was really happy with the way the first half of the first movie came out.  That was my story.  Then the second half was sort of like a weird frustrating balancing act between my story and John Carpenter's story.  I’ve come to terms with that, but at the time it was a little tricky.  Halloween II I love.  It’s 100% my thing. It’s a weird thing with everything that I do that I’ve found is that, not 100%, but it never seems to make the impact upon release that it tends to after people live with it. The way I shoot them and the way I make them, they’re a little bit unconventional at times, especially Halloween II, but the more people see them the more they see the layers that are built in that maybe aren’t apparent on the first viewing.  Especially with The Devil’s Rejects. It came and went, and now people talk to me and not just fans, but like major directors, about how much they loved that movie.  And I’m just blown away because when it came out it was sort of this movie that flew under everybody’s radar. 

            And it’s been the same thing with my music.  People will talk to me now about like, "Oh, White Zombie…  it was such a significant sound…" Really? Because when that record came out everyone hated it. I’m glad that it’s so significant now.  But I just remember touring and having a bunch of Metal kids giving us the finger.  But that’s what I like about it.  The one thing that always tells me I’m doing the right thing, and Halloween II definitely got that response, was there was really only two things people said to me: "Oh my God!  This is the greatest fucking movie I’ve seen in the last 20 years!" Or, "This is the worst movie ever made!" That shows you there are people who totally got it and those who totally didn’t get it and maybe come back to it at another time and have a different opinion. There have been records and movies that I’ve seen and thought: "God I hate this!"  And then seen it or heard it later and gone: "Oh my God, this is fucking brilliant!  What was I thinking the first time?" Anything extreme is like that.  But I never get passive reviews, the kind you’d get for a sort of typical romantic comedy movie that you see on a plane. That’s what you don’t want, because that means you’re just making vanilla ice cream.

I heard there were plans for a third Halloween movie in 3-D?

This is all I know, which is not much, is that they announced it right away, but now I know they’ve pulled the plan for it. I don’t know if they’ll make it eventually, but it’s definitely not coming for next Halloween, and it definitely will not be a remake of Season Of The Witch. 

Will the remake of The Blob be your next movie?

I’m not sure if that’s the next movie or not. Movies are always like… they’re so hard to get made that you have all these ones that are sort of “in the works.”  We’ll see what actually is the next movie, I’m not sure.