Rob Zombie

After becoming a major force in alternative rock and metal as the leader of White Zombie, Rob Zombie went on to become even more successful as a solo artist, as well as becoming a high-profile horror filmmaker. He was born Robert Bartleh Cummings on January 12, 1965 in Haverhill, Massachusetts, and relocated to New York to study at Parsons School of Design.

In 1985 he started White Zombie with girlfriend Sean Yseult on bass, Ena Kostabi on guitar, and Peter Landau on drums. With a sound that blended alternative with noise rock and metal with a horror film aesthetic, they self-released their 1985 debut EP, Gods on Voodoo Moon, that same year.

Their first LP, Soul-Crusher, arrived two years later, but it was the band's third album and major-label debut, La Sexorcisto that broke them to a wider audience, reaching No. 26, earning a Grammy nomination for the single "Thunder Kiss '65, and eventually going double Platinum. The 1995 follow-up, Astro-Creep: 2000, was even more successful.

Zombie had already started cutting his first solo album, Hellbilly Deluxe, before the band's 1998 split, and he released it that year, achieving even more success than White Zombie, reaching No. 5 and eventually earning triple Platinum status.
2001's The Sinister Urge fared similarly, but after that he focused more on film for a while, tapping into his lifelong love of horror movies and directing his first feature, 2003's "House of 1000 Corpses" followed in 2005 by "The Devil's Rejects."

Zombie released 2006's Top 5 album Educated Horses before shifting back to film for the 2007 remake of the classic horror movie "Halloween."
Thereafter he would continue to pursue his dual loves or music and movies, constantly shifting back and forth between the two, but never losing his status as a hard-rock icon.