Random Little-Known And Awesome Facts About Rob Zombie (20 items)

(#16) He Admired Alice Cooper, Steven Spielberg, And Stan Lee The Most

In an interview with Men's Health, Zombie stated:

Growing up, I had the weird fantasy list: I wanted to be Alice Cooper, Steven Spielberg, and Stan Lee. You have to have almost psychotic drive, because you're going to have years of failure. My advice: Don't quit. When I got to New York City, I lived so far below the poverty line, because I didn't give in and get a job at 7-Eleven. I think you can thrive in misery. Great things come out of being hungry and cold. Once you're pampered, you get lazy. I still don't do anything to pamper myself.
(#4) He Attributed Much Of White Zombie's Success To 'Beavis and Butt-Head'

In 1992, Zombie's first band, White Zombie, had a break-out hit with "Thunderkiss '65." However, if it hadn't been for the MTV series Beavis and Butt-Head, the song, its album - La Sexorcisto: Devil Music Vol. 1 - and the group itself might have fallen into absolute obscurity. He told Entertainment Weekly in 1993:

The record immediately started picking up in markets where we never played, like Wyoming and Missouri-places where Beavis and Butt-Head was the only thing happening, where it’s just cows. It always seemed we needed something to give the album a kick in the butt, and I guess this was the thing.

As a result, Zombie befriended series creator Mike Judge and contributed an animated hallucination sequence in the feature film Beavis and Butt-Head Do America.
(#2) He Made A Voice Cameo In 'Guardians Of The Galaxy'
He doesn't appear on screen, but Zombie provided the voice of the computer Ravager navigator system.
(#20) He Got Into Horror At A Very Young Age

Revolver magazine interviewed Zombie in April 2016. A portion of the piece was dedicated to answering fan questions, and Scott Riffle asked at what age Zombie got into horror. His response:

I was pretty little. I can remember being into it by kindergarten, for sure. I remember being excited to go to the chamber of horrors at a wax museum, or the haunted mansion at Disneyland. And there was always a lot of horror stuff around on TV, because at that time The Addams Family and The Munsters were really popular. And I loved it all.
(#10) His Parents Often Worked The Carnival Circuit

Zombie revealed in a 2013 LA Weekly interview that, on his mother's side, the family business was working carnivals and circuses. Moreover, he and his brother would "get dragged along" to work the carnivals as well. One of their favorite pastimes while on the job was playing in the spook houses and haunted rides, thus shaping his early love of all things horror and macabre.

He also spoke of the parallels between the carnie life and that of a touring musician:

Touring is like this isolated family that travels around, stops, sets up, puts on a show, packs it all up and leaves for the next town. A rock 'n' roll tour is like the closest thing to a traveling circus that still exists.

The family stints in carnivals ended in 1977 when a riot broke out at a carnival they were working.
(#7) He Almost Made The Crow 3

In 1997, Zombie was asked to write and direct a third installment of The Crow film franchise (White Zombie had previously contributed a cover of "I'm Your Boogie Man" to the The Crow II soundtrack).

He did indeed write a script, titled The Crow: 2037. i09 provides this plot synopsis:

Rob Zombie came up with this idea for a third Crow movie set in the dystopian future. A young boy and his mother are murdered by a priest of the Fallen One, and the Crow brings the boy back to life — and finally, 27 years later, he becomes a futuristic bounty hunter and seeks vengeance. Zombie worked on this project for 18 months before bailing.

Zombie's film debut would ultimately be House of 1000 Corpses.