A renaissance man for the modern age, if said renaissance man was covered in gore and gutting a virgin, Rob Zombie has cut quite a swathe through the cultural hinterland as the blood and mud-caked outsider. Who else could lay claim to platinum rock star status as a band leader and solo star as well as once helming the number-one film in the US? Dismiss his bloody theatrics at your peril, Zombie is the real deal, either behind the camera or as the emcee of his ghoulish musical troupe.
I once went to LA to interview Rob Zombie on Halloween, at a show he was co-headlining with Alice Cooper, and we talked about his early years living and studying graphic arts in New York (it would also be where he first hatched his plans to create the White Zombie band). He told me that one of the first things he did when he got to New York was to go and find every landmark from the Taxi Driver movie that was still standing.
