Bringing Metal To The Children: The Complete Berserker’s Guide to World Tour Domination. Rob Zombie
know it! So to prevent this from happening to you, just play the fucking music that gets your dick hard—or your labia swollen.
I remember when I played in a called band Zyris. We were playing our songs and at the end of the show one night we played “Rock and Roll” by Led Zeppelin. Right then and there, I asked myself, “How come our music doesn’t move me like this? We should be doing kick-ass fucking music like this instead of music that we think is gonna get us a recording deal or on the radio that has absolutely zero fucking passion in it.” So ask yourself, “Why am I doing what’s popular when I can’t stand playing this shit?” When you play what you love, then it’s fucking real. You’ll know the difference. Lesson number one—don’t ever forget that.
While you’re finding your signature sound, you’ve also gotta have the balls to stick to your game plan. What would have happened if Chris Cornell had turned on the radio and heard “Cherry Pie” by Warrant and went for what he thought would be popular at the time? Instead of Soundgarden it would have become Spandex-Hairspray Garden. He may have known what the fuck was going on, but he was like, “I can’t stand this shit.” He played and wrote the shit he dug and steered the ship steady. Nothing for nothing, so did Warrant. They didn’t give a fuck what anybody thought about them. They were like, “This is us. You don’t like it? Go eat a bag of fucking dicks.”
Not to get sidetracked, but since we mentioned Chris’s name here, I’ve got a pretty fucking funny story.
I remember getting completely hammered and making the usual roll-through-your-fucking-phone-book-until-somebody-will-deal-with-your-drunken-bullshit phone call. Well, on this occasion, I happened to get Father Edward Van Halen on the other end of my stupidity. Anyway, Ed told me that he had been recording a bunch of new shit and was really happy with the way it was coming out.
“Awesome, I can’t wait to hear you killin’ it, as always, Father Edward!” I said.
At this point, Gary Cherone was no longer singing with the band. So I asked Ed, “Who’s singing?”
Ed said, “We’re thinking about asking Chris Cornell to be the new lead singer.”
“Oh cool,” I said, “Chris is fucking unbelievable!”
And then it dawned on me: “Wait . . . How in the fuck is this gonna work?” Then I’m trying to picture Father Cornell jumping around in spandex, doing splits off the drum riser, and then walking up to Eddie and going, “Ah . . . I reach down in between my legs, ease the seat back . . .”
You gotta be fucking kidding me! It would be a toss-up to see what the fuck would be funnier, this musical comedy delight or seeing George Carlin do his stand-up routine. I love David Lee Roth; nobody can do it like Dave. Chris is the complete fucking opposite of DLR.
I said, “Cool, Ed. Chris is the man.” I wasn’t about to piss on Ed’s parade by saying, “Ed, have you heard some of Chris’s lyrics? Nail in my hand from my creator. You gave me this life, now show me how to live. You know . . . then just transition into Got a drink in my hand, got my toes in the sand, all I need is a beautiful girl—fucking classic! Hopefully between the fucking spandex and the titanic vats of booze and weed, nobody will notice a fucking thing. After I pissed and shit my pants from envisioning this musical comedy that could only be rivaled by Chappelle’s Show, I thought, “Why the fuck stop here?”
Hey, Chris, if you’re reading this, here’s a short set list that me and your army of fans would all love to hear you sing. These are very much in the spirit of the musical stylings we would expect to hear from you. These songs obviously represent every ounce of integrity for which you’ve worked so hard for throughout your career:
“She’s Only Seventeen,” Winger
“Unskinny Bop,” Poison
“Talk Dirty to Me,” Poison (They’re so fucking badass, I had to list Poison twice!!!)
“Cherry Pie,” Warrant
“Wango Tango,” Ted Nugent
Now, if your life has been sucking balls lately and you’re contemplating committing fucking suicide, trust me, after you hear Father Cornell singing these classics Cornell-style on an acoustic guitar, all of your troubles will just melt away, as your only problem will be trying not to die from fucking laughter. The point is, all of these artists that I mentioned are successful. Whether it’s talent, hard work, luck, or whatever the fuck it is that gets you to Madison Square Garden, there’s one thread that ties all of these artists together—they love and believe what they’re playing. Remember, you gotta play what you love and what moves you. Which brings me to another classic moment in the music business history of unimportant people making important decisions.
Unimportant People Making Important Decisions
THIS WHIM OF STUPIDITY HAPPENED TO BEFALL ME SOMEWHERE RIGHT around the birth of the almighty Black Label Society.
At this point, I had signed with Geffen Records after the multiplatinum success of No More Tears with the Boss. I was kind of viewed like a number one draft pick in the NFL—I had all these meetings with all the legendary record company people and everybody in between. It was wonderful, with everybody blowing smoke up my ass and telling me how great I am and asking how one human could possibly contain all the cute and cuddly and flat-out fucking adorable qualities that I possess—and telling me that their record company would be the best home for me.
When all this goofy business shit was settled, me and Barbaranne decided Geffen Records would become our new residence. So off we rolled into the land of a gazillion records sold, packed sold-out stadiums, private jets, the whole fucking nine yards, right? Not quite. Actually not even fucking close.
After my first two albums—Pride & Glory and my solo record Book of Shadows, both of which I am still very proud of to this day—didn’t go into the charts at number one and stay there selling more records than Thriller and Back in Black combined, when it came time to do record number three, Geffen bought me out as opposed to me even making another album. As I signed the release contracts with Barbaranne at my side, it was bittersweet. Me and Barb were getting a nice chunk of change for us and the kids to live on for a bit. But I was now viewed as a bust. In the NFL that’s a big number one draft pick that can’t get over the hump and make the transition from college to the pros, or gets injured before he even enters the NFL. At this point, you could say I was a bit of both. So instead of getting fucking pissed off at anybody or feeling fucking sorry for ourselves because me and Barbaranne couldn’t invest in our dream of opening up our own restaurant called Schlongs—which is the opposite of Hooters, where the guys have to be built like brick shithouses with a six- or even an eight-pack of abs, and cocks ten inches and over, where Barbaranne gets to interview them and sleep with each and every one of them, which you’ll read more about in my next book, How to Keep Your High School Sweetheart Happy—what did we do? We went out and took our record buyout money and got our first Rottweiler. I had always wanted a Rott as a kid because they represented strength to me. So we found this little guy with paws bigger than his body, whose birthday was January 14, the same as mine, and he was born in Freedom, Oklahoma, which represented our being free from the Geffen contract, with the world being ours for the taking.
I named him Dorian after my favorite bodybuilder Dorian Yates, who represented strength not just in his physique and blood-and-guts training style, but in his mentality and mind-set of overcoming injuries and setbacks only to destroy all and everything in his path to conquering six Mr. Olympia titles. So we drove little Dorian home and plotted our next move.
Like I’ve said, along your musical fucking journey of doom, don’t get pissed to the point where you’re smashing shit, blaming every fucking thing with or without a pulse for why shit didn’t pan out for you—because it does fuck-all. Trust me, I’ve tried it. Not so much blaming other people for my not achieving my goals. I dump all my excuse-riddled pathetic bullshit on my loving wife, Barbaranne. She could very well thank me exclusively for her conversion to Buddhism—serenity now. By the way . . . you’re welcome, Barb.
Anyways,