FearNet interviews Rob Zombie at Comic Con 2012

Rob Zombie was at Comic Con 2012 this past weekend, where he opened up for VH1’s Dawn of the Con. While there, he was interviewed by FearNet’s Joseph McCabe and spoke about his forthcoming movie The Lords of Salem and the recently announced co-headlining tour with Marilyn Manson.

SD Comic Con 2012: Rob Zombie on ‘The Lords of Salem’ and Manson – Joseph McCabe

Before he hit the Petco Park stage at Thursday night’s “Dawn of the Con” concert at Comic-Con in San Diego, I spoke with horror musician/filmmaker Rob Zombie about his next movie, The Lords of Salem, as well as his upcoming worldwide tour with fellow spooky rocker Marilyn Manson. Here’s what Zombie had to say…

“I’m really excited about Lords of Salem. I was looking at it today, because we’re just finishing the sound design and the sound mix and all that stuff. It’s a really different movie. Because the last couple of movies I’ve made have been these very handheld, rough, and physically violent sort of films. This isn’t like that at all. It’s a very slow-paced, psychological, specifically composed sort of movie. It’s almost the exact opposite of what I’ve done before. So I’m really excited to get it out to see what people think. It’s not what they expect it to be.

“It starts in 1697 in Salem, Massachusetts. The basic idea is that back then, when the witch trials were going on, obviously there were innocent people being killed as witches. But there was a group of people who were not so innocent, but were murdered and put to death. They, before they died, put a curse on Salem, which is now coming true in modern times. Most of the movie takes place in modern-day Salem. I’m trying not to spoil things…

“That’s the problem with things like this – you always have to explain it. But I’m trying to keep something secret so when people see it they don’t go, ‘Oh yeah, I knew all that.’ Because when there are no surprises it kind of ruins it.”

As for his tour with Marilyn Manson, Zombie said, “It’s probably not unlike when I did the tour with Alice Cooper. What I like about these tours is that it’s a co-headlining tour, so both acts do the full show and their full set. Nobody has to sacrifice anything. Alice and I are good friends and it was one of the most fun tours I ever did. But of course there’s gonna be this fun rivalry, because nobody wants somebody else to upstage them. So that’s fun, and I assume it will be more of the same with that.”

If Alice Cooper’s collaboration with Zombie was a case of “Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man,” how would Zombie describe his tour with Manson?

“’Frankenstein versus the Bride of Frakenstein’?” he laughed. “Because Marilyn is a girl’s name…”

“No,” he added, “I can’t wait to do it. It seems like one of those tours that’s so obvious, like we would have done it before. But we haven’t… I’m kind of glad we haven’t, because there are still exciting things to do. It’s gonna be good, because we’re going to do it here and in Europe, and it will go for a while.”

“So I hope we get along,” he laughed again, “because there are a lot of shows!”