Rob Zombie: Venomous Rat Regeneration Vendor – new album

ROB ZOMBIE's fifth solo album, ‘Venomous Rat Regeneration Vendor’, is out now, April 23rd, 2013, a few days after the release of Zombie's latest film, ‘The Lords Of Salem’, a story about what happens when a Salem, Massachusetts' rock radio station DJ named Heidi Hawthorne, played by Zombie's wife Sheri Moon Zombie, plays a mysterious vinyl record she assumes a rock band has sent to her – in attempt to spread their word. ‘Venomous Rat Regeneration Vendor’ features for the first time on a record drummer Ginger Fish (MARILYN MANSON) who joined Zombie and his cohorts, guitarist John 5 and bassist Piggy D, a couple of years ago. Produced by Rob Zombie and recorded at his own studio in Massachusetts, USA, the album was issued through Loud & Proud Records and Universal Music. ‘Venomous Rat Regeneration Vendor’ awaits you on Amazon, iTunes, Google Play, Best Buy and other reputable music vendors:

“It’s kind of hard to say what Rob Zombie is at this juncture. He’s a filmmaker, he’s a musician but, more than anything, he’s a brand selling... There seems to be a concept album tying together ‘Venomous Rat Regeneration Vendor’ but it’d require patience to piece together, patience that only fanboys could afford. Zombie panders to these true believers but he’s clever, clever enough to give ‘Venomous Rat Regeneration Vendor’ some distinctive wrinkles, whether it’s the heavy dose of DEEP PURPLE organ, relentlessly sequenced rhythms, or the monster movie lyrics he loves so. … If you like what he likes, you’ll have fun with him. If not, this is a world of hurt,” [wrote Stephen Thomas Erlewine, AllMusic – read the rest here]

ROB ZOMBIE worked as a bike messenger, porn magazine art director and production assistant for children's TV series “Pee-Wee's Playhouse”; he was known as Rob Cummings before he formed  WHITE ZOMBIE in 1985, “one of few hard rock bands of that era that you could actually dance to “, together with then-girlfriend and bassist Sean Yseult. ‘Astro-Creep: 2000’ was WHITE ZOMBIE's all-time highest charting album, peaking at number six on the U.S. Billboard Top 200 chart, but the album's success couldn’t hide the fact that he, Rob Zombie, was getting fed up with the group and longed to launch a solo career of his own. WHITE ZOMBIE would split up in 1998, the same year Rob Zombie released his debut solo album ‘Hellbilly Deluxe’. The album sold more copies in its first week of sales than any WHITE ZOMBIE record before. Zombie started his own label, Zombie-a-Go-Go Records, and began to work on a feature film entitled “House Of 1000 Corpses”. He drafted in metal superstar cast including Ozzy Osbourne, SLAYER's guitarist Kerry King, MOTLEY CRUE drummer Tommy Lee and LIMP BIZKIT's DJ Lethal for his next solo record, 2001's ‘Sinister Urge’. “House Of 1000 Corpses” became a cult hit and Rob Zombie went on to write and direct its sequel “The Devil's Rejects”, released in 2005. Next he recorded his most experimental album to date, ‘Educated Horses’, and issued it 2006; it debuted at number 5 on the Billboard Top 200 and sold around 120,000 copies in its first week. His first live album, ‘Zombie Live’, came out the year this prolific man (director, writer, animator and horror devotee) directed, co-wrote and co-produced the remake of John Carpenter's “Halloween”, out in 2007, which was followed by “Halloween II” in 2009. Zombie enlisted longtime touring comrades guitarist John 5, bassist Piggy D and drummer Tommy C for his next recording, issued through Roadrunner Records in 2010:

“It’s as if Rob Zombie’s trying to be something else, but still coming up totally Zombie,” [wrote music critic Jason Lymangrover in his review of ‘Hellbilly Deluxe 2’] At this point in his career, his best move is to take these types of risks, and when he does so on the ten-minute closer ‘The Man Who Laughs’ with its underlying orchestral score by Tyler Bates, the results are compelling and unnerving in a good way.” [Read more here]