WHITE ZOMBIE
Interview by Mike Gitter Photos by Kristin Callahan
So I asks de Zombees, if dey git to play Radio City Music
Hall what dey would do for their ultimate audience-zappin',
soul transmogrifyin', most excellent stage show?
"You would be in hell," smirks baby-faced guitar troll Jay
Younger.
"We'd come out riding on dragons, of course," reponds
the voice of doom, Rob Straker. "And then we'd start sword
fights with beefcake barbarians-you know, the guys in
Manowar
"And, of course, there'd be all the normal stuff like women
in leather with water whipping Ivan (DePrume), whose drums
would be shaped like a Viking ship and he'd be pounding
them with clubs."
They were glorious-a frenzied, cataclysmic invocation
of the forces of chaos, a god-slayer's victory dance, a con-
juring of ethereal light and sound, a poke in the squinty, spec-
tacled eyes of scenesters who would no longer welcome
White Zombie into their private little club. Wake up cheese-
heads, it's time to die!
Even New York's art/noise gurus, folks like the Swans' lead
emoter Mike Gira, could only look upon the band with utter
contempt. Jay explains, "After we played, I walked out into
the crowd and he (Gira) was staring at me like Bela Lugosi
with this look that could whither flesh. Whooaah! Famous
people hate me personally!
"There's a weird attitude in New York which basically says.
"While monsters exploded out of the floor," suggests if you listen to crappy, horrible sounding psycho-music, not
bassist Sean Yseult.
"And Manowar would, of course, be opening for us,"
finishes Rob. "That way we could have a TUG-O-WAR. Yep,
that's what we're saving our money for.""
Awesome dude, totally awesome.
White Zombie didn't mean to fall in with the grim-visaged,
art-noise/burnout/scum-rock circuit of New York's Lower East
Side. You know, the "misery loves company" school of shit-
ty musicianship, catharsis over style or substance, and at-
titude so thick the uninitiated couldn't scratch the surface
with a handful of M-80's. They've got twice the inspiration
and a thousand times the depth.
"We constantly get grouped in with bands like Sonic Youth,
Live Skull and the Swans simply because we are from New
York and have lived on the Lower East Side for six years,"
explains Sean. "When we started in 1985, I had no money
and I bought a shitty bass that I played through a guitar amp
in Ivan's basement. That's going to sound noisy!"
"It was also a case of people not knowing what to do with
us," adds Rob. "We didn't sound like Metallica, so they im-
mediately pegged us as a Sonic Youth copy band. We had
a lot of spastic energy at that time, but not a lot of focus.
That had to do with never really having the right sort of
guitarist, something that's totally changed with Jay (formerly
of Chicago's Rights of the Accused) joining us just a few
months ago."
Event. White Zombie headlined CBGB's in Fobruary 1989,
mere days after the release of their Bill (Motorhead, Iggy Pop,
Swans) Laswell produced Make Them Die Slowly Lp. Com-
pared to previous homegrown releases, Psycho-Head Blow
Out and Soul Crusher, it's a lot more streamlined, structured
and dare we say metal. They hadn't played the Apple in
nearly a year and for the first time ever, the eyes of the city
were upon them. Some wanted to see them succeed while
others only wished them the worst.
a lot of people are going to be into it, so it's this neat exclusive
club you can be in. We don't think that way."
"Being lumped into that category really sucked for us
because it was nothing we wanted to be a part of," explains
Rob. "There are so many people who want to fit into that
niche, and we're more interested in being ourselves. Why
keep playing to the same ten or twenty close-minded people
every week?
"That CBGB's gig was probably our funnest New York
show because we had been gone for so long and ragging
on art fags for so long that they just didn't show and only
punk rock and metal kids were there having fun. We didn't.
have those goofy dudes trying to push their glasses up on
their nose, trying to figure out what we were doing. Everybody
rocked out and it was just a relief."
Event. Beneath scarlet stage-beams and billowing mist,
the Zombies twist and convulse, never allowing the audience
to feel much more than sensations. They draw one into a
sweaty, offal-encrusted Gotham sewer world, with Rob tak-
ing the role of leper messiah-a dreadlocked Christ, fresh
off the cross and ready to rock. Friends, White Zombie's hyp-
notic, snaggle-toothed stage show is something Black
Sabbath might have struck upon years back, a musical and
visual intensity unmatched by just about anyone in town.
"I'm constantly amazed how people who put so much
thought and energy into sound don't give a second thought
about visuals at all," harps Jay. "I always thought the two
went hand-in-hand, but bands hardly ever have a visual
sense, and the picture becomes so much more amazing
when you do. It should be a total experience, a larger than
life spectacle."
"Look at what happened to KISS once they took away the
make-up and stage show," says Rob sarcastically. "Boy, their
popularity totally skyrocketed."
So, is White Zombie an image band?Consued on page 1029
ELL