Rob Zombie: Why I Stopped Collecting Vintage Horror Movie Posters
Rob Zombie's love of horror has followed him not only through music but into his film career as well. But while speaking with Apple Music's Zane Lowe, the singer revealed one aspect of his horror fandom essentially came to an end with the death of longtime friend Johnny Ramone.
According to Zombie, he amassed quite the collection of vintage horror movie posters, a passion that he shared with Ramone, but after the musician's death he just stopped with his collection.
"I am not a compulsive collector anymore. I used to be," stated Zombie. "The reason I stopped is kind of a sad story. But collecting is sort of like a sickness because you somehow... Like, you're never going to get everything. I don't even know why you're trying to get it in the first place. But I have so much stuff."
He continued, "The big thing which you can't see from an angle here was vintage movie posters. That was the big thing I would sink all my cash into. And my other collecting friend was Johnny Ramone from the Ramones. He was another psychotic collector. And the day he died, I remember being over his house and he had died. And I was just like, now what? I swear, I never bought another thing after that."
Zombie admits the loss affected his passion for poster collecting. "It just seemed like, who cares? And I stopped talking about posters with people. I stopped buying them. It was just like, I don't know. You don't realize how much the collecting is connected to a friendship with someone until they aren't there anymore," he explains. "The last poster I bought was... It's over there somewhere. It's this giant French Wolfman poster. But actually Johnny bought it and he had it in his house."
Zombie says even though he was ill, Ramone had recently purchased the poster which he then sold to Zombie. "I remember him saying so clear, 'Ha Rob, right now, you're the fine, proud owner of a fine French Wolfman poster.' But it was like in that last second, I think in a way... Nobody wants to die and I don't think anybody could believe, especially him that he was going to. So he was still collecting right up to the last second. It was very strange."
While Zombie gave up poster collecting, his passion for film and music have continued. Rob's new studio album, The Lunar Injection Kool Aid Eclipse Conspiracy Theory, is set for a March 12 street date. You can pick it up here (As Amazon affiliates, we earn on qualifying purchases)
Rob Zombie Speaks With Apple Music's Zane Lowe