ROB ZOMBIE And JOHN 5 Go 'Black Metal' In LEVIATHAN THE FLEEING SERPENT Video

Rob Zombie and guitarist John 5 wrote and recorded a black-metal song for the fictional band LEVIATHAN THE FLEEING SERPENT featured in Zombie's new movie, "The Lords Of Salem". The video for the track, called "Crushing The Ritual", can be seen below.

Speaking to Revolver magazine, Zombie stated about his decision to include black-metal imagery in the film: "There's a band in the movie called LEVIATHAN THE FLEEING SERPENT, and they have a music video that they made for a song that's in the movie. It's sort of weird, though-for years, Norwegian black metal was the kind of music where I was like, 'Ah, I don't get it.' Then about five years ago, I was listening to DARKTHRONE or MAYHEM, and all of a sudden I was like, 'I get it now, and I fucking love it!' A switch just flipped in my brain. I like the music, and I wanted to include it in the movie. That character isn't part of any sinister plot in the movie, though. He's just there to add some background color."

Asked what kind of black metal he likes other than DARKTHRONE and MAYHEM, Zombie said: "I like the stuff that sounds really lo•fi. When we [Zombie, John 5 and drummer Aaron Rossi] were recording LEVIATHAN THE FLEEING SERPENT's song for the movie, my comment to the producer was, 'It sounds too good. Make it sound shittier.' To me, when it sounds shitty, it sounds scary. It sounds real. When the production is too good, it sounds cartoony and operatic. But when it sounds like shit, you're like, 'Yeah, this sounds like a bunch of guys who are gonna kill each other.'"

In addition to the LEVIATHAN THE FLEEING SERPENT song, the soundtrack of "The Lords Of Salem" contains classic songs from THE VELVET UNDERGROUND, MANFRED MANN, Rick James and RUSH. Zombie told The Pulse Of Radio how he approached compiling the soundtrack. "I mean, I always like to find songs that can represent the film, so there's at least one song in every movie that when you hear it, it brings back the imagery of the film," he said. "In this movie, it was a VELVET UNDERGROUND song. I always want to try to find that piece of music early on, even in the writing process. For 'Devil's Rejects', it was 'Freebird', strangely enough, and for the last movie it was 'Nights In White Satin'. Sometimes you just hear a song and you go, 'This song sounds like how I want the movie to feel.'"

The soundtrack includes MANFRED MANN's version of "Blinded By The Light", Rick James' "Give It To Me Baby", RUSH's "The Spirit Of Radio" and THE VELVET UNDERGROUND's "Venus In Furs" and "All Tomorrow's Parties".

"The Lords Of Salem" soundtrack arrived on April 16, a few days before the movie opened in limited release on April 19.

Zombie's own new album, "Venomous Rat Regeneration Vendor", is being released today (Tuesday, April 23) and contains songs such as first single "Dead City Radio And The New Gods Of Super Town", "Lucifer Rising", "The Girl Who Loved The Monsters" and "Behold! The Pretty Filthy Creatures", along with a cover of the GRAND FUNK RAILROAD hit "We're An American Band".

Zombie will also receive an honorary award at the upcoming Revolver Golden Gods Awards, which will take place in Los Angeles on May 2.