Rob Zombie

When he first invaded the living rooms of America in a whir of dreadlocks, tattoos, and demonic growls, Rob Zombie resembled a ’90s-alternative update to shock-rock legends like Gene Simmons and Alice Cooper. However, Zombie’s horror-movie-inspired freakiness wasn’t merely a stage schtick, but a way of life that’s transformed him into a one-man multimedia cottage industry for all things outlandish and depraved. Born Robert Cummings in Haverhill, Massachusetts in 1965, Zombie formed his group White Zombie a couple decades later in the same New York noise scene that birthed avant-punk icons like Sonic Youth and Swans. But Zombie’s latent love of ‘70s hard rock and campy B-movie imagery would burrow a path out of the underground and into Beavis and Butthead’s good graces via 1992’s groove-metal manifesto La Sexorcisto: Devil Music Volume One. After crashing the Top 10 with 1995’s industrial-shocked Astro-Creep: 2000, White Zombie disbanded at the peak of their success, laying the groundwork for Zombie’s promotion from rock frontman to full-fledged showbiz mogul. While solo albums like 1998’s Hellbilly Deluxe and 2001’s The Sinister Urge kept fans satiated with hot-rod-revving trash-metal jams, Zombie also launched a record label (Zombie-A-Go-Go) to release his favorite garage-rock and surf-punk acts, before putting his encyclopedic knowledge of slasher flicks to good use as director of modern grindhouse cult classics like House of 1000 Corpses and the 2007 reboot of the Halloween franchise. But even as he’s parlayed his Hollywood connections into Guardians of the Galaxy cameos and CSI: Miami directing gigs, Zombie remains committed to keeping rock ‘n’ roll evil, and on 2021’s The Lunar Injection Kool Aid Eclipse Conspiracy, he sounds as monstrous and maniacal as ever.