Ah, the flash and glitter of rock ‘n’ roll, the glamor of travel, the pleasures of easy money.
All this surely can be found by a successful rock band on a sellout summer tour, right?
Don’t answer until you’ve spent a couple of days on tour with White Zombie.
White Zombie is a punk/metal/trash band and though you may not have heard of them yet, this New York-born group is quite the sensation.
The band’s first major-label record, “La Sexorcisto: Devil Music Vol. 1” (Geffen), has sold nearly 300,000 copies, and is moving back up the Top 200 album charts, 15 months after its debut.
The band members have spent almost 12 months straight on the road (touring with heavy-metal groups Danzig, Pantera, Testament and Megadeth), and in late July, the Zombies started a six-week tour with the thrash band Anthrax.
But where bands like Metallica fly to every gig, stay in expensive hotels and take two-week vacation intervals, bands like the Zombies get tents for dressing rooms and are completely at the mercy of the headliners when it comes to stage setup, show length and the travel schedule.
We joined the Zombies at the beginning of their tour in Chicago, where they played the Aragon Ballroom, and went on to Detroit, Cleveland and New York to learn what working a tour is all about.
Saturday in Chicago
“Hurry up and wait, hurry up and wait, that’s how you describe a tour,” grumbles lead singer Rob (Straker) Zombie, 27, as he stands in the deserted Aragon Ballroom on the afternoon of their show on the last day of July.
The Zombies arrived at the Aragon around 3 p.m., hoping to get a sound check for their 8 p.m. show. It never happens. So they hang around, waiting.
“When we’re a bigger band, maybe we won’t do this,” says Sean Yseult, 27, the bass player and the lone woman in the band (and on the tour). “Like, with Anthrax, you don’t see those guys until just before show time. But we ride on the same bus with our crew, so we don’t have any other way to get around.”
Yseult and Zombie formed White Zombie in 1985, after meeting at a New York club and moving in together. (Yseult and Zombie had a “mutual parting” last year, Yseult says. “The whole band and the business just got somuch bigger than any relationship,” Yseult explains.)
After a succession of drummers and guitarists, the band found its current lineup: drummer Phil (dubbed Philo) Buerstatte, 26, of Madison, Wis., and guitarist J (Jay Yuenger), 26, of Chicago. (J is the son of Tribune foreign editor Jim Yuenger.)
About 15 minutes before the band’s 7:50 p.m. curtain call at the Aragon, the band members change into their stage clothes, or stage rags-otherwise known as torn cutoffs and T-shirts.
Before the show, Rob Zombie is, as always, quiet, but onstage he turns into a completely different person, running across and leaping off the platform. To his left, Yseult pounds her bass, swinging her long blond hair around and around; on the right, J stomps the stage while Buerstatte hides behind his drums.
After the show, the band members are fairly exuberant, but there’s not a lot of time for partying tonight. They have to be on the bus to Detroit by 7 a.m.
Buerstatte is the band’s party machine, the only “real rocker,” the Zombies all say. Buerstatte always goes out after a show, this night to Leona’s and a few nightspots.
Zombie, who considers himself downright anti-social, retires to his room at the Days Inn at Diversey Parkway and Clark Street. “I’ve got LSD,” he explains. “Lead Singer’s Disease.”
“I’ve never understood what that `on the road’ lifestyle was; we never fit the bill there,” Zombie notes.
“The crew, more than anyone, probably enjoys the rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle-y’know, drinking and girls and partying. The work is the best part for me. I just go to my room.”
Meanwhile, Yseult meets with a few friends, J grabs dinner with his family and hits a show at Metro; both retire at decent hours. “We’re pretty boring,” J notes, shrugging.
Hitting the road early
At 7 a.m. Sunday, the band is ready to board the tour bus for Detroit. J stumbles out of the hotel, eyes still closed. “I’m going straight to sleep on the bus,” he says, mumbling. The other band members eat breakfast at the hotel and bunk it as well.
The bus is good for sleeping-that’s all it’s good for. The 12 bunks-for the three crew members, the tour manager, the band and suitcases-are like little coffins, each about 6 feet long, 3 feet high and stacked three high.
The ride through Michigan is uneventful and the Zombies are grateful for simple pleasures-like a bus driver who drives gently. “The last one we had-man!” Buerstatte says. “Stop, go, stop, go-we were practically flying out of our bunks.”
The band awakens at 3:30 p.m. outside Phoenix Center Amphitheater in Pontiac, Mich. Yseult and J step off the bus first and, though show time is hours away, a throng of teenagers awaits.
“Sean, Sean! Rob, Rob!” they start calling.
“I’m J,” J says, pointing to a patch on his jacket that clearly spells his name.
“J! J!” the kids cry in response, thrusting pens and disposable cameras in his direction.
Two girls are waiting for Yseult, asking her questions and peppering her with compliments.
“People always ask me what it’s like to be the only girl in the band, but it’s the only band I’ve ever been in, so I don’t know any other way,” Yseult says. “People have seen our videos but sometimes they meet me and they’re still surprised. They’re like, `Hey, you’re a girl!’ “
After the autograph session, the Zombies see the arena for the first time. It’s a paved parking lot with a stage with a tent set up as a dressing room. The band has to park about a quarter-mile away and walk through the crowd to the backstage area.
J and Zombie immediately have to do a video interview for a local rock show. “You have to go about your normal routine of getting the tour done and all the while people are stopping you for autographs or interviews,” J says. “You step off the bus and-wham!-you’re on.”
Zombie wanders outside to make a phone call and a kid spots him. Before Zombie can make it back to the tent, he’s surrounded by 20 kids. He spends more than an hour frantically dashing off autographs.
“I never looked up once,” he recalls later. “You can’t. There’s just this endless supply of kids. Some of them don’t even know who it is. It’s like, `Hey, there’s a signing machine over there!’ “
Buerstatte is also trapped. “Fans in Detroit always push it for one more thing,” he notes.
“Rob, let me kiss your hand,” one girl begs of Zombie. He obliges, but rolls his eyes as she attempts to seduce him.
He gamely signs the dollar bills the kids use as pseudo autograph books. “Sometimes I think of how much money I would have if I kept all the dollar bills I get handed to sign,” he says.
Money is an issue for a breaking band like White Zombie; the members each get about $400-a-week salary during the tour.
“When you’re on a tour, everyone has a good idea of how to spend your money,” Zombie notes. “Everyone thinks there’s so much money to be had because certain huge bands flaunt it. But if you sell 500,000 records, you probably break even.”
Zombie’s not complaining, just taking care of business. “This business leaves you nothing to fall back on,” he notes. “No dental plan, no medical insurance. . . . There are rock stars now, people that should be living in mansions, that are on welfare.”
The band finally takes the stage and the show is a major success. The full house of about 2,500 kids are moshing and leaping and falling over the barriers as security guards attempt to hold them back.
After the show, another local video network corners Zombie and J and asks them to step outside the tent for an interview. They are quickly spotted and the crowd of about 200 breaks through the security and encompasses Zombie and J, shrieking for autographs.
For J, all the attention is a shock. “It’s never been like this before,” he gasps afterward. “A girl tried to pull off one of my dreads!”
Yseult has been hiding in the tent the whole time, exhausted. Now she ventures out.
The reaction she gets is more polite, but there’s a lot of puppy-love adoration from the fans. Male fans grasp at her hands and beg her to sign their bare chests or their T-shirts. Several ask for hugs.
Finally, tour manager Ted Keedic tells the band it’s time to clear out. “Man, that was crazed,” Zombie says. He’s smiling.
Making an impression
The next morning, the bus again pulls out around 7 with everyone sleeping. The band gets to Cleveland by 11 a.m. and checks into a Holiday Inn. During break time, J cruises a nearby mall, where he buys cappuccino and compact discs.
“The worst thing is when you have a day off and you’re stuck in a hole town,” J says. “If you’re outside of a major city, you’re stuck in your hotel like it’s a cell block. You go to a lot of malls because that’s all you can find.”
J’s long dreads, tattoos and nose ring attract attention at the Cleveland Gallery mall. “I’m so used to being in New York or L.A. that I forget how I look,” J says, as passersby stare. “In L.A., people look at you and think, `Oh, that must be his particular music subculture.’ Here, they think I’m some dreadlocked freak from outer space.”
At 2 p.m., it’s off to the Nautica Stage. Another parking lot. Another outdoor show. But tonight, it’s not so great. The Monday night crowd is cold.
The Zombies are disappointed by the reaction. Afterward, in the dressing room, Zombie wants to leave, while the other band members want to stick around and watch Anthrax. “I don’t feel like it,” Zombie says. “My middle name is not fun.”
“Tomorrow’s a day off,” Yseult says. “What’s the point of us sticking around if they (Anthrax) don’t even know we stayed for the show?”
They stay. Anthrax puts on a great show. Ministry frontman Al Jourgensen shows up to guest on a song and invites Zombie to come on stage with him and Anthrax; Zombie declines, but, in the end, relents and rushes back to the dressing room to find his Anthrax CD. He doesn’t know the song-better learn fast.
Zombie is a hit with Anthrax. After the show, Anthrax’s Scott Ian tells Zombie he’s welcome to join them onstage to rap “Bring the Noise” every night for the rest of the tour. It’s a big sign of acceptance.
A week later the Zombies are back in their old home base of New York City, where they eked it out for years before moving to Los Angeles in 1991. If the crowds in Cleveland are cold, the ones in New York are too hot.
“I hate playing hometown shows,” J says minutes before showtime at the Roseland concert hall. “Everyone you know is out there.”
The show is a screaming success. Mike Judge, the creator and voice behind MTV’s “Beevis & Butt-Head,” is in the Zombie dressing room for hours, which is a thrill for the band since it was that show that helped them gain acceptance on MTV.
Since the tour began, their album has jumped another 19 spots on the Billboard charts and is at No. 93. The band’s manager, Andy Gould, pours champagne for everyone.
“Every night, they just get better and better,” Gould notes proudly, watching the Zombies as they toast their success. Next time around, they’ll be the headliners.
