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Fame & Fortune: White Zombie's
Rob Zombie
Obsession with detail fuels his business
reincarnations |
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Bankrate: You're the longest
active artist on Geffen Records, pretty remarkable considering the
turmoil in the music industry over that time. What do you think
that says about what you do?
Rob Zombie: I've always
been out of step with what's going on, and I think that's worked to my advantage.
When I signed to Geffen, I went in with the head of product marketing or something.
He goes: What do you think this record can sell? And I say, I think it can be
a gold record for sure. And he started laughing. He looked at me like, you're
crazy, there's no way. At that moment, I realized what the vibe was. A couple
of years later the record was double platinum, and he was out of a job. Bankrate:
How have you been able to navigate this difficult business with such success? Rob
Zombie: I think you always have to pay attention. People
think I'm crazy with it sometimes. I'll run into bands I toured with 10 years
ago, when I was doing stuff and they were partying, and they were like, "Why
do you always worry about that stuff?" And now they're like, "Man, you
were smart. I can't believe we weren't worrying about that stuff." Where
your money's going, little issues like that -- I pay attention to everything,
every day, all the time. Usually when you do that, things don't derail. If you
stop paying attention to stuff for a year, two years, things start going to hell.
If you always pay attention, it doesn't mean you can solve every problem, but
it usually means you can see the problem coming and deal with it before it destroys
you. Bankrate: You oversee
every aspect of your projects, down to the graphics and marketing. Is that why? |
