My earliest memory of anything Rob Zombie related dates back to my freshman year of high school. While attending my older brother’s lacrosse game, as they warmed up, White Zombie’s “More Human than Human” came over the speakers. While I know I’d heard the song dozens of times before, I’d never heard the…noises from the intro. Cue the principal running up the bleachers to the announcers box and I immediately knew I needed to hear the rest of their album.

A few months later, and Rob Zombie released his debut, major-label solo album Hellbilly Deluxe (the full title is actually Hellbilly Deluxe: 13 Tales of Cadaverous Cavorting Inside the Spookshow International). Before my parents were able to figure out we had MTV and cancel it, I was able to catch the music video for the albums lead single “Dragula” and somehow felt nostalgic for classic horror movies. Due largely in part to the campiness of some of the costuming, mixed with modern visual effects, the video was the most accurate representation of Zombie’s album. Camp, creepy-crawlies, and the heebie-jeebies.

While the album was co-produced by both Zombie and Scott Humphrey (who did keyboards on Metallica’s Black Album, the soundtrack to Zombie’s House of 1,000 Corpses, but also produced work by Monster Magnet, Tommy Lee, and was an engineer on…N*Sync’s “No Strings Attached”), Zombie is the sole songwriter on the entire album. That claim, in and of itself, is remarkable in this day and age when Multi-Platinum artists typically have a team of writers to find commercial success with a single song. Hellbilly Deluxe went on to sell over 3 million copies in the US alone.

Combining Zombie’s love of classic horror, metal, and electronica, the songs fit together like a 1950’s Twilight Zone marathon through an LSD trip. A theremin is used in parts, the instrument used to create “flying saucer” noises in classic sci-fi shows, with what sounds like a heavily distorted guitar run through a bit-crusher. It’s gritty, but polished. Dark, gloomy vibes with a stomping precision like aliens marching off the saucer to enslave humanity.

Aside from the familiarity of songs like “Dragula” and “Living Dead Girl” that were on heavy rotation in their day, there are hidden gems like “Meet the Creeper.” The song, if the listener isn’t paying attention, sounds like a scorned ex stalking their lover. Then you realize the “babies” Zombie is singing about is about literal babies. Babies that have knives falling on them.

A song I’d completely forgotten about, “Perversion 99,” sounds like a lost Koji Kondo demo. It made me think of the Typhlo Ruins in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Somewhere between a song the Koroks play and being lost in the…Lost Woods.

Zombie’s career continued in a successful path after the album; a remix of songs from the album was released the following year, a number of solo albums, his move to horror films (including my favorite Halloween movie), voicing the Lizard in the Spider-Man animated series, and directing episodes of CSI: Miami, among others. We’ve discovered that the true deluxe Hellbilly is Rob Zombie, himself.

rob zombie hellbilly deluxe
Geffen Records

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