HEAVY MUSIC HISTORY: Hellbilly Deluxe – Rob Zombie
In 1998, WHITE ZOMBIE stunned the rock and metal world by breaking up at a time when it looked like they were reaching their zenith; three years before, their fourth studio album Astro Creep: 2000 (1995) had been released to critical acclaim, gone double platinum within a year and seen the band tour with everyone from METALLICA and THE RAMONES to SOUNDGARDEN and REVEREND HORTON HEAT. As their charismatic frontman Rob Zombie would say in the years to come, “The band had run its course…it didn’t work any more,” he told Metal Hammer in 2011. “Rather than continuing on and making shitty records and having it all fall apart, I thought: ‘Let’s just end it on a high point.'”
Zombie, however, wasn’t to be deterred at the end of this particular road; indeed, prior to the announcement, he had already begun sowing the seeds for his very first solo album. Initially, he began working with NINE INCH NAILS member Charlie Clouser and opted for a more ‘electronic’ sound on the record. “It was me and him with a computer, trying to figure out a direction we wanted to go in,” Clouser would tell MTV that year. “We had a pretty good idea of the kind of elements that would be included and an overall concept of the segues between songs and the musical interludes. We even started coming up with the core riffs for the album.”
Unfortunately, Clouser‘s other commitments meant he couldn’t fulfil his duties and was subsequently restricted to a single credit; the album’s crushing main opener Superbeast. In his place came Scott Humphrey, whom Zombie would work with for the next nine years. Wanting to have a band that he could both record and tour with, Zombie chose Mike Riggs to play guitar, Rob ‘Blasko’ Nicholson on bass and former bandmate John Tempesta for the drums. However, through his personal friendship with Humphrey, MÖTLEY CRÜE sticksman Tommy Lee played on two tracks – Meet The Creeper and The Ballad Of Resurrection Joe And Rosa Whore. “I was staying at [Humphrey‘s] house after I got out of jail for a while” Lee would later recollect, “and they were working on the record downstairs. Scott and Rob asked me to play and I was like, ‘I would love to play right now. I could really use… you know, just kind of check out, really do some music'”.
As with WHITE ZOMBIE, Rob signed with Geffen Records to release his debut record, now called Hellbilly Deluxe in tribute to the album Hillbilly Deluxe by country artist Dwight Yoakam. Officially seeing the light of day on August 25th, 1998, it confounded Zombie‘s expectations – he told Indianapolis radio station X103 in 2009 that making the record was “weird” and that he didn’t believe it would do well as “most debut solo records don’t”. What transpired was an album that broke into the Billboard 200’s top five and sold over three million copies in the US, outstripping every WHITE ZOMBIE release. It didn’t come without controversy, though – Walmart refused to initially stock the album until an edited version was made, which Zombie did after initial hesitation. “I saw that, for some of these kids, it was the only place they can buy records” he told MTV shortly after the album’s release. “At the end of the day, it’s these kids who are getting fucked.”
If said kids weren’t getting done over by the establishment, Hellbilly Deluxe would destroy them in a much more positive way. 38-and-a-half minutes long, it remains the best soundtrack for any zombie apocalypse, even 25 years down the line. Taking on WHITE ZOMBIE‘s penchant for hard-hitting, industrial metal combined with excerpts from horror movies and camping it up with over-the-top electronics, there’s a reason it both catapulted Zombie into the limelight and hasn’t been matched by any of his releases since. Whether its the pounding guitars of Demonoid Phenomenon, the menacing whispered lyrics of Spookshow Baby or the RAMMSTEIN-esque stomp of Meet The Creeper, it remains a masterpiece and a true monolith of a record, let alone within the category of ‘debut album’.
Of course, you can’t speak about Hellbilly Deluxe at any great length without touching on the opening four tracks: Zombie‘s wife Sherri reading a twisted nursery rhyme on Call of the Zombie. The explosion of riffs and synths in Superbeast combined with THAT regimented stomp. The sinister and unsettling lyrical content of Living Dead Girl contrasting with the sensual, mesmeric tempo that has likely been the soundtrack to many conceptions over the years. And then, there’s Dragula – Zombie‘s debut solo single, currently at nearly 330 million Spotify streams, by far his most well known song and a track that gets dancefloors flooded at rock and metal clubs from the moment it kicks in. All great albums have strong openings, and Hellbilly Deluxe is no exception, to the point that it nearly derails everything after it… but only nearly.
In 2023, Rob Zombie is still one of the biggest names in the worlds of goth, metal and industrial, along with being a successful film director, but there’s no doubt Hellbilly Deluxe has played arguably the biggest role in his continuing appeal and career longevity. As the summer ends, the nights draw in and Halloween appears on the horizon, you can be sure this record will be blasted from speakers once again. Dig through the ditches and burn through the witches indeed.
Hellbilly Deluxe was originally released on August 25 1998 via Geffen Records.
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