The horror-obsessed frontman and director started out singing about guts and gore with White Zombie in the mid-1980s.

Since they disbanded in 1998, Rob’s carved out a successful solo career and become a film director, parodying 1970s horror films with House Of A Thousand Corpses and getting his teeth into remaking the Halloween films, all starring his actress wife Sheri Moon.

His most recent project was an episode of CSI Miami starring Malcolm McDowell, William Forsythe (Out For Justice) and Michael Madsen (Reservoir Dogs). He’s also written comics and just released the ‘sequel’ to his most successful solo record, Hellbilly Deluxe. Oh, and he’s fixated with the idea of a Dr Satan…

What was the first horror film you saw?
I think it was King Kong – I saw it on TV when I was three or four years old, and I was obsessed with it. By the time I got to first grade I had this book on horror movies, and I loved the pictures. We didn’t even call them horror movies, we called them monster movies, and they really weren’t scary!

Do you remember your first gig?
It was with White Zombie and we played audition night at (seminal New York club) CBGBs in January 1985. It was strange, because at that point in my life I was withdrawn and didn’t like to speak in front of people, so to get on stage seemed completely insane. But somehow I did it, and now I don’t have a fear of anything. The three people that were there probably thought we were horrible.

Was it really an audition night?
On a Monday night you had to audition at CBGBs! It was hard enough to get the audition, but if the guy running the sound desk liked you, they’d say, “OK, they can play here again”. Then we played CBGBs all the time. The guy running the sound desk was from the metal band Prong, so that was helpful to us. They once opened for us. That was technically our start!

‘More Human Than Human’ is one of your most popular songs. Who does the sex noises on it?
I think it’s a sample from an X-rated film. When I was 20 I worked for porno magazines doing layout and design, and I must’ve got something for free. They weren’t high-end magazines; they had titles like Big Butts and were the magazines you see on the newsstands where you think, “Who would buy that?”

You’ve said White Zombie will never reform because the band didn’t get on. What was the problem?
Bands are weird, because you’re trying to force personalities together. Some bands start cause they’re a group of friends, but these were just the people we could find. I mean, we were successful, but it was never a harmonious experience, ever. Ever!

Sometimes we’d get physical – there was always fighting and screaming and yelling and problems, and it was a drag. Maybe the rest of them are all good friends and get along great, and it was just me! The problem was, I think they were all happy to be in the band and play, and I wanted the band to be huge.

That’s why it’s great having a band now where we’re all trying to achieve the same thing, and people that have played in other big bands such as Marilyn Manson, Ted Nugent and Alice Cooper. It’s a different feeling.

Why did you use the title Hellbilly Deluxe 2, 10 years after the first one came out?
I thought it’d be cool to do a sequel to that record because clearly it’s the one everyone loves most. Everybody has a moment in their career where they put out a record and have an image that tends to define them, whether it’s Kiss and Destroyer or Alice Cooper’s Welcome To My Nightmare. If it was a movie you wouldn’t think twice!

How did you pull Sheri Moon?
We met a long time ago and just hit it off; it was weird. I was in White Zombie but we weren’t popular, we played this crappy club in Connecticut, and Sheri and I just started talking.

When you meet somebody without looking to have a relationship, it just kind of happens when it happens! You gotta be super-cool to get someone like Sheri. She wasn’t with me for money... I was flat broke and had two cents.

You cast Malcolm McDowell as Dr Loomis in Halloween. Are the two of you friends?
Malcolm calls me more than my mom does! He’s just left me this long message, saying: “I’m only doing CSI because you’re doing it! They’re not paying me enough, I’m doing it because you’re my friend!”

His wife was pregnant when we made Halloween and then Halloween 2, so when he calls I usually hear kids screaming in the background. Malcolm has the energy of a 15-year-old; he’s usually bouncing off the walls.

Several of your characters are called Dr Satan. Is it true the name came from a poster you have?
Yeah, it’s from a poster I have for a live show they’d do before films in the 1950s. It says, ‘Live, in person, Dr Satan!’ I like the title because it sounds so stupid – Dr Satan! Hilarious.

I’m waiting for some death metal band to call themselves Dr Satan – a bunch of kids in Florida or Norway.

If you could be a horror film character, what would you be?
Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde had a good thing going on. By day, respected surgeon; by night, party animal!

Do you collect memorabilia?
I used to have a ton of stuff, but you hit a point where you go, ‘What am I going to do with all this shit?” Now I save all the best things from my films: I have all the Michael Myers masks, the knives.

I never try on the masks, because I know how much Tyler (Mane, who played Michael) sweated in them! They smell terrible. Everybody else always tries them on and wants a picture.

How did you feel about people walking out of The Devil’s Rejects (the film include a scene where Otis sticks a gun down Gloria’s knickers and forces her to suck him off)?
I think it’s great! You want a film to be disturbing. The thing about making those types of movies is they’re not for everybody. Part of the problem is that they’ve started watering horror movies down to appeal to everybody.

But going back to films I loved as a teenager, stuff like The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Dawn Of The Dead, people would walk out all the time. It means you made something that’s too intense for them to watch.

What’s your next project?
After CSI, I’m going to go on tour with the record. I don’t know what the next film is. It could be The Blob, or Tyrannosaurus Rex. T Rex is about a washed-up prize fighter who goes to prison for accidently killing someone. When he gets out, his career’s over, so he gets into underground fighting.

Why are you fixated with wrestlers?
When I was a kid, I thought it was real. I got to see (famous Mexican wrestler) Mil Máscaras, and people like André The Giant. Wrestling seemed dangerous and dirty – like most things! Last time I saw a match was 10 years ago. I went to the Staples Center in LA to see Dallas Page, who played Billie Ray Snapper in The Devil’s Rejects.

What’s your next comic about?
I’m finishing a comic called Whatever Happened To Baron Von Shock? It’s a Ghost World-like, slice-of-life story. It’s all about this washed-up actor who played a character on TV called Baron Von Shock. He’s based on someone real, but I don’t want to tell you who – he’d find it insulting!

How did you develop such a vivid imagination?
I don’t know if you can develop an imagination, I just think you have the way you see the world. When you’re young it’s not good, because nobody wants to be the weird kid. But if you can turn it into a career, it becomes a great thing.

Hellybilly Deluxe 2 is out now on Roadrunner