For Rob Zombie, anti-medical marijuana attitudes are the real horror
By Tyler Davidson
Over the last two and a half decades, Rob Zombie has left his indelible mark on the landscape of American pop culture, whether with his band, White Zombie, his solo music career or his burgeoning film career, which includes his 2007 remake of John Carpenter’s classic Halloween (and its sequel). CULTURE Magazine recently spoke with the “Superbeast” himself to discuss his latest album, Hellbilly Deluxe 2, and his views on cannabis.
As far as the latest album, Hellbilly Deluxe 2, is concerned, in which ways would you say it’s similar to the first Hellbilly Deluxe, and in which ways would you say it’s different?
Truthfully, I can never tell how different anything is from anything. It’s really weird, I kind of go into each album with the same mindset. I don’t have any music written, we just start writing songs and see where it goes. It’s not really until the music comes out and the fans start [talking about it] that it even enters my mind. There’s been songs that people think sound so different and they’ll be like “Aw, I wish it was like White Zombie,” and I’ll listen to it, and I’ll be like, “That totally sounds like something that would be on a White Zombie record 15 years ago.” So I’m really a terrible judge of it.
What would you say are some of the biggest differences between the Rob Zombie of 1985 and the Rob Zombie of 2010?
I think that I appreciate everything more now than I ever did then. I appreciate having great guys in the band, I appreciate the crowds, I appreciate the tours and the shows. I think when you’re young, you don’t think about things. You just do it, and you don’t appreciate stuff, and as you get a little older, you go, “Wow, this is f#*king great. This is the greatest job in the world and I really want to enjoy it.” I think that’s why a lot of bands fall apart and break up, because people just get caught up in their own bullshit and they don’t stop to appreciate how awesome the situation they’re in is until it’s too late. I’ve been lucky enough to have the chance to have one band fall apart, start a new thing, and keep it going to have been here long enough so that I can appreciate how awesome it is.
What are your thoughts on the use of medical marijuana? Are you for it, against it? Other?
I mean, I’m completely for it. I don’t understand why it’s even an issue. You turn on the TV, and all you see every five minutes is an ad for another drug that will, you know, give you f*#king rectal bleeding and brain hemorrhages, yet they’re still selling it on TV, you know? Like, “May cause side effects like heart attacks, mild paralysis . . . ” Meanwhile, they don’t want some cancer patient to smoke marijuana. It’s absurd. It’s the hypocrisy of this country that makes me insane. It makes no sense, I don’t understand it on any level [ . . . ] Everyone smokes it anyway, so who cares? Why the hell do I care? This has always been my thought: What the f#*k do I give a shit what anyone does with their life? Sit home, marry your boyfriend, marry your girlfriend, have gay marriages, smoke marijuana, what the f*#k do I give a shit? It’s your God damned life. It’s none of my f*#king business. If you’re not hurting somebody, then do whatever the f*#k you want, what do I care?
Do you have any experience with friends or family using it for medical reasons?
Not recently, but in the past, yes. People that were in a lot of agony and they had to. It’s real easy for somebody to tell somebody else, “You can’t smoke that, just sit there and live your life in complete agony.” It’s ridiculous. This country was founded by religious fanatics who were burning witches. Well, actually, they were hanging them. People have got to get out of that mindset, but I still think it’s somehow rooted in their subconscious. This crazy Puritanical nonsense.
There’s a lot of people that think that marijuana and rock ‘n’ roll go hand in hand, going as far back as Black Sabbath being the sort of quintessential pioneers of “stoner rock,” as it were. Do you think it’s valid to think there’s a connection there?
Oh yeah, of course there is. I would think that [that generation] was onto everything first. That’s another thing that bothers me, it seems like the rock community back in the ’60s or early ’70s was a very liberal, sort of free-thinking community, and I don’t feel that so much anymore. It feels very uptight sometimes. Very sort of right-wing, uptight. Like, I thought this was f*#king rock music. I thought this was where all the freaks went to hang out, what the f*#k? What happened? [Laughs]
To keep up with Rob’s latest doings, check out www.robzombie.com.
