White Zombie

White Zombie was an American Industrial Metal and Heavy Metal band founded in 1985 in New York City by vocalist Rob Zombie and bassist Sean Yseult.

Initially, they were a noisy rock band; however, they became popular when they later guided their sound towards the Heavy Metal genre. They had an innovative musicality at the time, combining the intense riffs of heavy metal with overloaded lyrics that were strongly influenced by horror films and satanic aesthetics. Unlike other Heavy Metal bands of the 90s,
White Zombie was almost exclusively a “fantasy” band, writing songs not only about real life but about surreal fantasies that almost always involved the horror genre.

White Zombie’s songs are quite culturally influenced, mostly making references to comic books, science fiction literary works, American films and series, and the “B films” of renowned American director Roger Corman.


The band reached its peak in the mid-90s, coinciding with other groups with similar influences, such as Monster Magnet and Marilyn Manson.

The band officially split in 1998, and in the same year, lead singer and co-founder Rob Zombie began his solo career with the album Hellbilly Deluxe. Bassist and co-founder Sean Yseult also, in 1998 founded the band Famous Monsters, debuting with the album In the Night!

In 2000, they were included in the list of the 100 Greatest Rock Bands of All Time made by the television channel VH1, ranking 56th.

On May 18, 2016, Riot Fest released their lineups, revealing that Rob Zombie would be performing Astro Creep 2000 in its entirety at the Chicago weekend. This sparked a swirl of speculation, coupled with the recently reunited Misfits, that a White Zombie reunion would also occur at the festival.
When asked in September 2016 about his refusal to reform White Zombie, Rob replied, “I am always amazed at how people can speak with such authority on subjects they know zero about. I have many legitimate reasons. Just because you don’t know them does not mean they don’t exist. Everything is not everybody’s business.”Guitarist J. said, however, that he and bassist Sean Yseult could do an “Astro Creep, ‘more original members’ tour” and added that they “joke about it sometimes”.
On May 22, 2017, Rob posted a short snippet of audio to his Instagram account of a live recording of the White Zombie song “Electric Head Part 2”, with a comment stating he was in the process of mixing the Astro Creep 2000 live set from the Chicago date of the 2016 Riot Fest.


White Zombie made a special appearance in the 1994 film Airheads. The song “Electric Head, Part 1 (the Agony)”, from the album Supersexy Swingin’ Sounds is used as the opening vignette of the CQC program on Rede Bandeirantes.
The song “More Human than Human” is part of the soundtrack for the film Can’t Hardly Wait and the electronic game Tony Hawk’s Downhill Jam. The songs “Thunder Kiss ’65” and “Black Sunshine” are part of the soundtrack for the video games Guitar Hero and Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock, respectively. The band re-recorded the song “I’m Your Boogie Man” in 1996 for the film The Crow: The City of Angels, in addition to several other appearances on film soundtracks and other media.

Members

Rob Zombie – vocals (1985–1998)
Sean Yseult – bass (1985–1998)
Jay Yuenger – guitars (1989–1998)
John Tempesta – drums (1994–1998)

Studio Albums

Soul-Crusher (1987)
Make Them Die Slowly (1989)
La Sexorcisto: Devil Music Volume One (1992)
Astro-Creep: 2000 (1995)