Rob Zombie

Zombie was born Robert Bartleh Cummings in Haverhill, Massachusetts, on January 12, 1965, the oldest son of Louise and Robert Cummings. His younger brother, Michael, uses the stage name Spider One and is the lead singer of Powerman 5000. Growing up, he had a fascination with horror films and "always wanted to be Alice Cooper, Steven Spielberg, Bela Lugosi, and Stan Lee". He has said of his childhood, "I didn't aspire to be anything. I was just a dopey kid. Basically everyone seemed amazing to me as a kid. I grew up in some nowhere town... anybody that even seemed remotely famous just seemed like they were on another planet." Zombie's parents worked at a carnival. In 1977, when he was 12, his parents chose to leave after a riot broke out at the carnival and tents were set on fire. He said of the experience, "Everybody's pulling out guns, and you could hear guns going off. I remember this one guy we knew, he was telling us where to go, and some guy just ran up to him and hit him in the face with a hammer—just busted his face wide open. My parents packed up real quick, and we took off." He later elaborated, "I think someone just got ripped off for a lot of money on the gambling tents and they came back later and set the tents on fire [and] it turned into this big riot. [...] It was super violent and crazy and I think that was when my parents were like, 'You know what? We might be able to find something better to be doing here.' Because me and my brother are in the middle of this. Things are on fire, people beating the crap out of each other." Cummings graduated from Haverhill High School in 1983. He moved to New York City and began attending Parsons School of Design, where he met eventual bandmate and girlfriend Sean Yseult. Before the success of White Zombie, he worked as a production assistant for the children's show Pee-wee's Playhouse. He took the stage name "Rob Zombie" from Bela Lugosi's 1932 horror film White Zombie, from which he also took White Zombie's band name. The name first shows up on White Zombie's 1989 EP God of Thunder. He had previously used the name "Rob Straker" on the White Zombie LPs Soul-Crusher and Make Them Die Slowly. In 1996, he made "Rob Zombie" his legal name.