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 Fame
& Fortune: White Zombie's Rob Zombie
Obsession with detail fuels his business
reincarnations
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When Rob Zombie stomped onto the scene with his horror-metal
band White Zombie in the early 1990s -- a large man adorned with
wild costumes and wilder dreadlocks -- few "respectable"
business people would have perceived him as an astute businessman.
But over a 15-year entertainment career, Rob Zombie
has proved to be not only a creative powerhouse with a sharp, clear vision, but
a man with a keen sense of how to carve out his own niche in a variety of industries.
With an astute sense of the type of raw entertainment he enjoys consuming and
creating, Zombie has branched out from just being a multi-platinum recording artist
for Geffen Records -- his musical home for more than 15 years -- to also becoming
a successful filmmaker, video director, and comic book creator. The DVD of Zombie's
latest film, "The Devil's Rejects," came out last November, and his
new album, "Educated Horses," hit stores last spring. Bankrate
spoke with Zombie about why he has succeeded while so many others have failed
in the fickle world of show business. Bankrate:
So much has changed in the music business since you started out. How have the
changes in the business aspect affected what you do? Rob
Zombie: It first happened in the movie business, where it became all about
the opening weekend. If a movie doesn't perform in the first weekend, they consider
it a failure. It didn't use to be like that. In the music business, labels would
sign bands, they would put out three or four records that would stiff -- anybody
from Cheap Trick to KISS -- and then suddenly they'd be a huge band. Now, the
first record hits the first week, and if it doesn't perform, it's like, "wow,
that's over." It's kind of sad. A lot of great music never gets heard because
the labels are always looking for that instant-gratification hit. They're not
living on careers anymore. It's a tragedy. Bankrate:
How has this affected what you do? Rob
Zombie: It really hasn't, because I got in the door in the early '90s with
White Zombie, before that really took hold. Our first record on Geffen; we were
on tour for a year and a half before the record started taking off. It took us
a year and a half to sell 100,000 records, and then it took us only six months
to sell a million. In the post-Nirvana period, though, labels got into a huge
bidding war for everything. You'd sign these bands who are not experienced, give
them all this money, and they become lazy and don't perform. It's just crazy.
Money makes people lazy. Bankrate: Well,
you need that sense of having earned it. Rob
Zombie: Back in the day, when White Zombie signed to Geffen, we got a tiny
publishing advance which we split four ways. Each of us pocketed $7,000, and we
lived on that until we got some more money from something else. But these bands
now, they get a $3 million deal; they haven't even put out their record yet, everybody
bought new cars, and they're running around flashing their money. You can already
see that it's over. They've lost track of what it's about before they even started. |
