ROB ZOMBIE Explains New Album Delay

At the 2015 Loudwire Music Festival, Rob Zombie spoke to Loudwire about his next album, upcoming film projects and his "kill your idols" philosophy. You can watch the chat below.

On the subject of why his new studio CD has yet to see the light of day even though it was completed several months ago, Rob said: "I would like to put it out sooner than later, but I have this idea that I really wanna make a visual component that goes with the album, and I don't have time yet, 'cause I'm in the middle of editing my movie ['31']. So I didn't wanna just throw the record out there and there's no videos, there's no nothing, so I'm, like, I'd rather just hold it and do it properly. And so, that's really the only reason; I mean, it's nothing else. I mean, the record's done. Which is kind of nice, 'cause we recorded the record over a really long period of time — like, a year. But we weren't in the studio every day. We'd work for a couple of weeks and leave for a couple of months and come back, and it really gave you time to live with it. 'Cause one of the things you do sometimes, you just go into the studio and plow through a record, and at the end of it, you kind of go, 'That last track is kind of bullshit,' or, 'I wish we'd cut that part down.' But we were living with it for a long time, and it really… I think it made the record so much better."

Zombie also spoke about how the songwriting process works in his band. He said: "The way [guitarist John 5 and I] really do it is we'll just lay out really loose structures. We piece together something pretty raw, and then we'll let it sit. And then I'll usually do vocals over that. Because until you put the vocals in, it's really hard to know where it's going. You just don't know. 'Cause sometimes a riff that sounds super exciting is really difficult to sing over, and then something that sounds like nothing, once the vocal hook gets on there, is really catchy. So you really don't know where it's going. And once I get the vocals in there, then usually John will come back and then he'll add another layer where he'll then play guitars that go along with the vocals or accent things. So we kind of just keep bouncing back and forth."

Rob Zombie's new solo album was produced by Chris "Zeuss" Harris, who has previously worked with HATEBREED, ALL THAT REMAINS and SHADOWS FALL).

Asked by "Loudwire Nights" host Full Metal Jackie what makes him confident enough to say his upcoming album will be his strongest so far, Rob responded: "I hate talking about this stuff, because it sounds like absolute nonsense.

"When was the last time you ever interviewed anyone from any band ever and they told you this isn't their best album? It's a cliché thing, right? But I really felt with the last album, 'Venomous Rat', that somehow, you don't consciously think you're off the tracks and you're veering off — you're just making music and you're doing your thing. You don't see your life from the outside point of view that other people will view you in your music. But I felt like with 'Venomous Rat' that somehow we had gotten back on track; it actually felt that way. Like, 'Wow! This feels like it did years ago.'"

He continued: "This record is just continued further down that road where it feels like you're inspired. You don't feel like, 'Ah, God, we have to write some more songs.' Every song seems different and exciting; it seems like the old days."