White Zombie - Astro Creep: 2000

When Ivan de Prume left White Zombie to start Burning Sound studios, they needed a drummer who could handle the new direction the songs were taking. Everything was getting faster and heavier with more industrial straight time rhythms, rather than the grooves that had made La Sexorcisto so successful. Everyone had their eyes on White Zombie, their low budget major label debut had surprised everyone, and with enough money and time to make the follow up, Astro Creep: 2000, they had to step it up, so they hired John Tempesta.

John was no stranger to heavy music, he had began his professional career by joining Exodus, eight years after their inception, moving on to Testament for their 1994 album Low. White Zombie did things differently than most metal bands at the time, it was metal, but it was also kind of dancey, kind of psychedelic and kind of psychobilly-esque. His parts had to have power but also had to keep the pulse going, and judging by the success of this album, he pulled it off nicely.

What I like about his playing on Astro Creep is the way he works a lot of toms into his playing. The beginning of Electric Head pt. 1 sounds like a big drum roll, but it takes shape as the basis for the rhythm, and when he returns to it later on in the song it has much more force behind it. Blur The Technicolor has a very tribal beginning, with deep, guttural toms leading into the first verse. Tempesta's kick/snare patterns are fairly standard, but it's the stuff he's doing between them that drive the songs. Super Charger Heaven keeps the snare on 2 and 4 for the entire song (except for the tag leading into the chorus), but his snare rolls and tom fills layer everything with just enough extra percussion to drive the song.

On Creature Of The Wheel the rhythm is jolted out of place by a five stroke tom roll that matches the guitar and bass. It tags the end of each bar in the verse but it never gets tiring, it keeps the listener focused and locked in. There are great examples of metal drumming all over this record, I Zombie, More Human Than Human, Blur The Technicolor, all are displays of drumming that is extravagant when it's supposed to be, but always locked on to the pulse of the songs.

Tempesta went on to play on Rob Zombie's solo albums, another Testament album and currently plays for The Cult. This record will live on as my favorite performance of his. White Zombie was just a slight enough deviance from his metal background to take advantage of his power and skill and warp it into their own brand of psycho-discobilly hard rock. I hope he made a lot of money for it, because he deserved it.

Now since I love seeing the pros make mistakes (hey, it happens to everyone) this first video shows Tempesta miss the hits at the start of More Human Than Human. Maybe his monitors were too low, maybe the keyboard loop was off, but either way the look on his face is that "aw, fuck" look that every drummer gets when he knows shits gone wrong. I love it.