Bringing Metal To The Children: The Complete Berserker’s Guide to World Tour Domination. Rob Zombie

      METAL. DID IT COME FROM THE BOWELS OF THE EARTH FULLY FORMED? Or was it a gift from the god Odin, handed down from Valhalla, forged into his son Thor’s mighty hammer, known as the Mjöllnir (a hammer that would one day inspire the title of the telltale book Hammer of the Gods)? Or was Metal birthed across the ocean by Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath and driven across the world on the iron-horse track they laid for every Metal band to follow?

      Because this is my book, I’m going to start where I believe Metal begins in all of us, and that is the exact spot where your stomach ends and your bowels begin. That twenty-eight-some-odd feet of smaller and larger intestines that end at your colon is what I’m referring to here. I’m sure you are familiar with the phrase Metal up your ass. I stand here before you in true testimony—they weren’t kidding.

      You go into Metal wanting to be the best musician you can be, practicing until your fingers bleed and grow calluses, studying the masters of your newfound craft. You shell out for the best gear your wallet will allow, and you associate with others in search of that same holy grail. But beyond that, the rest is one unbelievably rude wake-up call. Anything that you actually take seriously, that you hold sacred to your heart, goes straight through your bloated sack and right into the fuckin’ shitter, and your lower intestine actually disembowels itself. That’s when you know you’ve made it in the world of Metal.

      But fear not, my fellow Berzerkers and Berzerkerettes, for you shall receive no such colonic intrusions here. Much like Jesus bore the cross so that all of us wouldn’t have to suffer his burden, I’ve already taken it for the team so that none of you have to endure the monstrous ass-reaming of rock ’n’ roll. Well, I haven’t taken all of it—you’ll get your fill of musical cock and balls. And when you get poked and prodded in all the wrong ways, hopefully, after reading this book, it will be more like Jenna Jameson’s pinkie rather than Brock Lesnar’s fist. I’m about to share some of my musical conquests and follies and a few words of advice to help shorten that lengthy path of musical doom you are about to embark upon.

      There is one thing I want to mention before you embark upon your quest for the holy grail of Metal. And that is the ongoing theme throughout the pages of this book: the numerous degrading, belittling, and morally unpleasant references to one John DeServio. My comments are obviously not to be taken seriously. JD and I have been best friends since we were kids and I love him like a brother, which is exactly why I like to ridicule him to no end, with as many cheap shots, punches to the rib cage, and insults as I can drop upon his pathetic and fatigued person in my book. And someday when JD gets his own book, which would most likely be titled How to Ruin Everything, I would expect nothing less from him than a full-blown, cover-to-cover literary retaliation. Although I know in my heart that pigs will spread wings on the day that JD actually gets a chance to write a book, and his odds of successfully mocking my greatness are even less.

      At this time, you might feel inclined to ask me, “Hey, Zakk, where did you learn to become the mighty Berzerker you are today?” Well, I studied in school just like everybody else did. But instead of Berklee College of Music or MIT, I’m a Delta Tau Chi graduate from the University of Ozzy Osbourne. And now I’m working on my PhD in Black Label Global Domination.

      Everybody would like to get signed at eighteen years old, sell twenty million fucking records, and throw down for massive crowds at Donington, but that ain’t the way it works. This is when fantasy ends and the harshness of Metal reality begins. You know that shitty taste of tinny metal you get in your mouth from some piece-of-shit beer can of whatever the hell you’re drinking? That’s where it started for me.

      Welcome to the Wonderful World of Showbiz

      MY MOTHER WAS IN SHOW BUSINESS. SHE USED TO DO CASTING CALLS TO place kids in commercials. You know how the BFGoodrich commercials use little babies to show that their tires will keep your kids safe? Stuff like that. She was responsible for many of the Oscar Mayer wiener kids as well. I can still hear the jingle ringing in my head: “Oh I wish I were an Oscar Mayer wiener . . .” Just glad she never placed me as one of the kids desiring to be a wiener—even though since childhood I have thoroughly enjoyed pounding my wiener into submission until I’m legless and in complete vertigo. But she did get me my first gig as a musician.

      My cousin Karen, who had been working at the Playboy Mansion in the Pocono Mountains, had brought home this guy named Jerry. I didn’t know much about cocaine at the time, because my buddies and I were just into drinking beers and playing music. A few of them might have smoked weed, and I remember one or two of them snorting Freon or some stupid air-conditioning shit like that. Freon and weed were the only drugs I’d ever seen. Obviously I knew what cocaine was, but I was never interested in that shit and even if I was, none of us ever had the money to afford it. So I had never actually seen the abundance of sweat that pours from the body of a true GAC hound—a bona fide fuckin’ cokehead.

      My mother and father came from the Sinatra generation and my dad was a World War II veteran. The only thing they knew about copping a buzz was drinking highballs, and the stories they’d heard about marijuana were from the Vietnam generation. They knew fucking nothing about drugs.

      That said, Karen brought home this drug-riddled motherfucker she had met at the Playboy estate. I’ve never seen anyone polish off as much booze as this motherfucker! He literally cleaned out the liquor cabinet that was usually reserved for fifty people coming over for the holidays. Later in life I learned that any of my friends who did do cocaine could fuckin’ drink until the cows came home and never cop a buzz! They could drink all fuckin’ night, drink Jack Daniel out of booze if they had enough cocaine to hold the story—a Titanic full of fuckin’ whiskey—and not even get the least bit sloppy.

      So this cat was telling my folks that he was a producer and about how he was making a record at the time. These were big words flyin’ around for my mom, her being in showbiz and having a sixteen-year-old son who played the guitar. Obviously my mom jumped at the opportunity to let him know that her son played the guitar. And he instantly invited me to be on his record.

      I had never