ROB ZOMBIE Says 'Venomous Rat' CD 'Was Conceived As A Concept Album'

"Venomous Rat Regeneration Vendor", the eagerly awaited new album from ROB ZOMBIE, will be released on April 23 on Zodiac Swan/T-Boy/Ume. The CD was produced by Bob Marlette, who has previously worked with everyone from BLACK SABBATH and ALICE COOPER to WILSON PHILLIPS and LYNYRD SKYNYRD.

Asked what the story is behing the album's title, Rob told Revolver magazine: "There's no real story behind it. I just thought of it one day. With every album I've ever made, we'll get it basically one hundred percent done and everyone will go, 'OK, what's the title?' And I'm like, 'I don't know what the fuckin' title is yet. It hasn't hit me.' And then one day I'll just blurt out, 'La Sexorcisto: Devil Music, Vol. 1!' or 'Hellbilly Deluxe!' It's the same with this one. I have it written down somewhere, but I don't remember doing it."

He added: "Truthfully, the whole record was conceived as a concept album. But I'm not really selling it that way. I was getting obsessed watching things like 'Tommy', 'The Wall', 'Quadrophenia', where you have a movie to go with the album and it's a whole big concept. So I thought I'd write this album with that in mind: That maybe one day — it could be a year, it could be 10 years — I could turn the concept of this record into a movie. That being said, nothing about the concept of the record will make any sense to anyone until it's a movie. The band doesn't even know the storyline. No one does, except me. But I won't discuss it because it'll all make sense someday. Or it won't. [laughs] lt doesn't matter. The songs work fine even if you don't know the concept."

Regarding his decision to include a a heavy-duty cover of GRAND FUNK RAILROAD's "We're An American Band" on "Venomous Rat Regeneration Vendor", Rob said: "I've never recorded a cover song as a solo artist, and I only recorded a few with WHITE ZOMBIE [KISS' 'God Of Thunder', BLACK SABBATH's 'Children Of The Grave' and KC AND THE SUNSHINE BAND's 'I'm Your Boogie Man']. But you always wanna add new songs into your live show, so [Zombie's guitarist] John 5 and I would always sit in the back of the bus listening to stuff we could cover, but it was always like, 'Nah, that one's not right.' Cover songs are tricky. You gotta find just the right one. 'We're An American Band' hit us because it just felt so much like our life. We're a quintessential American band — everything that's right or wrong in Americana in one band. It wasn't like we were trying to say anything deep or meaningful. [laughs] It was just like, 'Yeah, we're in a rock band. Fuck you — it's awesome.'"

"Venomous Rat Regeneration Vendor" track listing:

01. Teenage Nosferatu Pussy
02. Dead City Radio And The New Gods Of Supertown
03. Revelation Revolution
04. Theme For The Rat Vendor
05. Gong Gang Gong De Do Gong De Laga Raga
06. Rock And Roll (In A Black Hole)
07. Behold! The Pretty Filthy Creatures
08. White Trash Freaks
09. We're An American Band (GRAND FUNK RAILROAD cover)
10. Lucifer Rising
11. The Girl Who Loved The Monsters
12. Trade In Your Guns For A Coffin

Zombie told The Pulse Of Radio what goals he set for himself in making the new album. "I wanted someone to hear it and go, 'Wow, I haven't heard that before,'" he said. "I wanted it to be just different. We really went out of our way with the sounds, so every song has a very different sound, a very different guitar sound, drum sound, just everything, where the sound, the actual sound becomes very important. You know, after all these years you want to still try to feel that you can break through new, creative areas in your own mind, and that's really what we're just trying to do, you know."