ROB ZOMBIE's Next Album Will Be His 'Best Record Yet'

Rob Zombie says that his nearly completed new studio album is the strongest effort of his career so far, but has yet to announce a release date for the follow-up to last year's "Venomous Rat Regeneration Vendor".

Zombie, who started putting together his sixth solo CD with his band in January, told the San Jose Mercury News, "I really think this is the best record yet, truthfully. I don't know if everybody says that — maybe they do. But I really feel that way. I'm not sure when we'll put it out — probably beginning of next year, maybe — but it's pretty much done."

Zombie also revealed that his live appearances in September and October will mark his "last tour for a while, actually. Because when this tour is done, I'm starting on a movie."

He added: "It will be an awesome tour. The tours we have done in the last few years have been our best tours ever."

Rob Zombie last month launched a campaign to crowdfund his new movie, titled "31". The film follows five people who are kidnapped in the five days leading up to Halloween and how they must fight to survive in a place called Murder World. In order to stay alive, the hostages must play a game called "31", in which the goal is kill as many opponents as possible — people in clown masks called "The Heads" — in 12 hours.

"Right now I'm in the process of wrapping up the [funding] campaign that we started for the film," Zombie told the San Jose Mercury News. "Hopefully, we'll start shooting in February. That's the goal."

Zombie recently told The Pulse Of Radio about the upcoming album: "I don't want years and years to go by between records, even though somehow it always seems to happen. And, you know, we're really excited because we really felt that for ourselves as a band, the last record really kind of got back to something that I was looking for, and we were just excited to take it to the next level. When you're feeling inspired, you kind of want to go for it, because sometimes you don't feel inspired."

"Venomous Rat Regeneration Vendor" sold 34,000 copies in the United States in its first week of release to land at position No. 7 on The Billboard 200 chart. The record arrived in stores on April 23, 2013 via Zodiac Swan/T-Boy/Ume.