Rob Bartleh Cummings, better known as Rob Zombie, was born on January 12, 1965 in Havervill, Massachusetts.
Zombie is a Grammy-nominated musician, film director, producer and screenwriter, but he is best known for his dreadlocks, gruff voice, crazy antics and his heavy metal, shock-rocking band called “White Zombie.”
White Zombie was started by lead singer Zombie in 1985 and was originally a noise rock band that strayed away from the conventional song writing style. Most of the songs are about the surreal rather than reality.
Originally a punk rock band, White Zombie became more heavy metal and was inspired by horror films, television shows like “The Munsters” and pseudo- satanic imagery.
They liked to shock listeners and viewers with their hardcore music and videos. Their music videos blended terror and humor in a unique 50’s horror film way, along with the constant use of moving camera angles, neon colors, creepy images and some black and white throwback clips.
All this madness came together to form their videos—entertaining and a little scary, but definitely couldn’t keep listeners from head banging and thrashing their bodies into one another.
Zombie truly became a character with his scraggly long hair, over the top outfits and makeup, and intensely menacing eyes. The best example of this would be White Zombie’s “I am the Boogie man,” where there is no doubt he could scare any kid away from the TV, screaming nonetheless.
After two platinum albums, with many of their songs reaching audiences through movies and television, the band unfortunately split up in the wake of Rob Zombie’s “Hellbilly Deluxe” solo album’s release.
Since his solo career set off, he has been associated with Alice Cooper, Marilyn Manson, Ozzy Osbourne and several heavy metal bands.
Not only is Zombie an accomplished heavy metal, shock-rocker but he also has had a recently successful film career. In 2003, “House of 1000 Corpses,” which Zombie wrote and directed, debuted on the big screen.
After little success with the movie, he persisted and wrote a sequel four years later, titled “The Devil’s Rejects,” which did much better than its prequel.
But by far his most successful production was “Halloween,” which was released in August 2007 and received much accolade from critics and fans alike. It rose to number one at the box office.
So what’s on the horizon for this heavy metal icon?
Well, currently Zombie is living the life of luxury in the small, quiet town of Woodbury, Connecticut. He resides with his wife of seven years, Sheri Moon. But don’t worry—at just 44 years old, Zombie hasn’t hung up his heavy metal, horror career just yet.
With a new album to be released, “Hellbilly Deluxe 2” and several films “The Haunted World of El Superbeasto,” “Tyrannosaurus Rex” and even a recreation of the 1950’s horror flick “The Blob,” Zombie will be shocking audiences and listeners around the world.
With his horror inspired rock music and unique ability to make people cringe, he will surely be around for many years to come.