ROCK N ROLL EXPERIENCE - Exclusive Interview with ZIM ZUM!

The world was introduced To Zim Zum via Marilyn Manson's AntiChrist Superstar CD & Tour, & upon completing the recording for Mechanical Animals, Zim decided to jump ship & reclaim his life from the jaws of self destruction. I've had the priviledge to interview Zim Zum twice now, & I talk to him on a regular basis & we both share alot of the same qualities which makes him a really great person to deal with. Zim has no attitudes, no ego's, or any of the other things that go with Rock Stardom. Zim Zum has a new band called Pleistoscene, & Pleistocene is:

I feel extremely priviledged to be one of the first people in the world to get to interview Zim Zum & T.J. together, & also that Zim let me hear 2 songs from the band. Well, I've laid down the basis for what went down, so the guts of the story...enjoy! Rock N Roll Experience: I just listened to the 2 new songs, "The Day I Died" & "The Disillusined Revolution" & I enjoyed them

Zim Zum: Cool, you're pretty much one of the first few people outside of the band that has got to really hear that. We figured at this point..there's a ton of songs, even the last time that I talked to you, there was a ton of songs, so there's way more than that now. What we're doing is taking some of the songs that no doubt are going to be released, and giving people a little bit of a sample of them to kind of base if off of, because I'm sure it's much easier to do an interview having heard the music.

Rock N Roll Experience: I found the new songs to be a mix of like Brian Eno meets Ministry

Zim Zum: That's a good thing too, I'm a huge Brian Eno fan

Rock N Roll Experience: Tell Me About the song "Disillusioned Revolution"

Zim Zum: The song itself in it's entirity is only about 3 miutes & 57 seconds long, but when the songs comes to what would be the completion of a normal song, the song changes & it's the same version of the song, but yet it's completely scored with orchestra so it's actually part A & B though they both go together into one song, the second half is the same thing scored. We're playing with alot of different ways to approach music, alot of different ways to listen to it too.

Rock N Roll Experience: Are there any guitar solos in the new songs?

Zim Zum: Actually there are, there's not as many as I think people would be expecting because as much as my role in the public is guitar player with songwriter coming into play in various songs & stuff with Marilyn Manson, you know "Suck for your Solution", with Mechanical Animals, I've leaned more towards..if there's a spot in the song that to me it feels like there should be a guitar solo in there..if the song peeks to such a level that it's almost bordering on getting out of control in song, than I'll put a guitar solo in there because that's exactley where it should be, but if I'm concentrating on the song as a whole & to me conceptually it doesn't feel like it really needs to be because to me the chords & the progression & the general arrangements & orchestration of the song to me is as much of a guitar solo highlighting the guitar as a solo itself.

Rock N Roll Experience: What is the "Day I Died" about?

Zim Zum: It is basically extremely personal, it comes off of...each person in the band can have a slightly different interpretation of each of the words as applied to them personally, but coming out of Marilyn Manson & coming out of something that was just so massively on the brink of destruction almost on a second to second basis, drug fueled, completely out of control, never really thinking about tommorrow, but coming out of that & dealing with being back in reality, being completely secluded from society & dealing with mental oddities is really the only way I can word it, that's what the song approaches...If this is the Day that I Died...looking at every day like..how far do I need to push the envelope..you know, wake up sooner or later...is it going to be too late when I finally realize it, so it plays off of things that generally people don't really talk about because the way we approached it is really open to a point where it might make you disturbed if you really pay attention to the lyrics because it is everything, especially in the lyrics. I'm doing alot of writing on the lyrics, Nixon (vocalist for the band) does alot of writing too, In some aspects, we almost write a sentence of him writng one word & me writing the next word & interpreting things in a different way & taking them in different directions, so the one thing that's continuous pretty much through all of the music is that it's almost like an open journal & it's extremely personal, not really hiding anything because the band itself is like Therapy so talking about these things & being open about them....the audience that I have that has followed over from Manson is a volatile audience & they're one's that are looking for answers & they find them in strange places & they find them in things that weren't neccessarily meant the way they take them so I figured being as open as possible about these things....I'm not looking to do them any good, it's just I'm not going to mix words, I'm gonna let them know exactley what we are saying so that it can't be really misconstrued or taken in a different way, like them thinking, "Well he's telling me to Kill Myself", It's not going to be something like that all..it's basically telling them that I almost did that to myself & Had I did that I wouldn't be doing Pleistoscene & non of this would be happening, It's not the wisest choice, everybodies got to deal with things & go through things on their own pace.

Rock N Roll Experience: What's "The Disillusioned Revolution" about?

Zim Zum: That one is more aggressive & was based on a concept of Even though we're living in massive technology & everything is supposed to be wide open & creative possibilities are endless, it pretty much seems like everything is degenerating rather than re-generating & everything is kind of being torn down & what people thought was a cause worth believing in one day isn't the next day. It's really hard to have a goal, or to find something to focus on, or that motivates you...it's basically a general rip on Utopian society that everyone thinks that we live in right now because it's far from it. This is not the 2001 that I expected when I was a kid & saw the movie 2001...It's far from it, so to me it's almost like we're de-generating, it's just the opposite of what I expected. I guess the only alternative is to just make it your own, what everybodies individual reality is is completely different from everyone else's...maybe some people are living in the 2000 Space Oddysey but the world I see is far from it

Rock N Roll Experience: Did you listen to Holywood?

Zim Zum: I heard it once but I havn't listened to the thingall the way through, I've heard little snippets & stuff like that but it was generally to get a feel of what was left over from Mechanical Animals & what made it on to Holywood.

Rock N Roll Experience: What did you think of Holywood?

Zim Zum: I don't know, I'm not really a critic, I don't really review....I don't know, It's hard for me to listen to it at all really, because I'm not so sure that I really listened to Marilyn Manson before I was in the band, I mean there wasn't that much Marilyn Manson that was out at the time, but I don't know, I think I would really have to sit down & listen to it a few times & it's really not something that I want to listen to as far as music goes because it's just my past with it so I guess I may never have an opinion on it because I may never actually give it the time to form an opinion

Rock N Roll Experience: Did you write the song "Diamonds & Pollen"?

Zim Zum: Not that I'm aware of, I'm not even sure what song it is.

Rock N Roll Experience: Did you play on the cover of "Golden Years"?

Zim Zum: Yes, there's an acoustic part that runs through the entire song, that's me. That took me all of about 5 minutes to record that setting on the Dust Brothers couch

Rock N Roll Experience: Are there Any songs off of Mechanical Animals that your sorry you didn't get to play live?

Zim Zum: I would say maybe "Fundamentally Loathsome", "Mechanical Animals" itself because it was one that I did the largest amount of writing out of any song when I was in Manson, "Fundamentally Loathsome" just for the sheer guitar solo, the solo is about 2 minutes long. Not that I could see that song being played live because they're not the kind of band that spreads out the focus, so 2 minute guitar solos I don't see floating live

Rock N Roll Experience: Will you be touring in February?

Zim Zum: What we're doing is because of the recent press explosion & the general interest in the band, it was a little bit sooner than I wanted which isn't a bad thing because we're pretty much ready to go at anytime, but we do have the tour layed out & what we're doing right now is going over what's turned out to be a ridiculous amount of options on commercially releasing the album on a major label & especially with the way the music industry is right now, the details that go on behind the scenes are just extremely extensive so finding the right home, I mean to me it would be home, so finding the right home for Pleistoscene is really important. If there's an open slot, any type of open slot, the first thing that we're gonna do is immediatley go out & play shows, non-label. We'll probably end up doingit anyway, I know we're gonna do a couple of shows here in Chicago that probably won't be announced & then the tour is still set up...It's probably not gonna happen in February, because what we've done is with the recent influx, we have 2 options: We have the option to go on tour on our own & do it that way, or we have the option to think about how quickly do we want to get this out on a major label, do we want to reconsider & do some of these major summer festivals that are going on, the options that have opened up are pretty extensive.

Rock N Roll Experience: I could see you guys Playing Ozzfest this year, that would be great

Zim Zum: That's one of the options. It's a very testosterone based concert & it's not to say that there isn't alot of intellegent bands, more so you get to see some new stuff on the second stage & I've heard talk of a 3rd stage this year...so it's like where exactley could we fit in to the entire circle of Ozzfest is the only thing that I'm questioning. There's no doubt that we could play Ozzfest & play a heavier set than anybody on any of the 3 stages, but that's really only one side of the band. We would want to do some of the not quite so heavy songs, song of the more experimental & more emotional songs, so it's up to deciding whether or not Ozzfest is right venue.

Rock N Roll Experience: Do you want to respond to the remarks that Manson made towards you & Daisy not having any new material available to the public

Zim Zum: What that is is just insecurity, that's proabably the last ime that he'll ever be able to say that. he knows as well as I do that he spends alot of time paying attention to exactley what Pleistoscene & I think he's probably saying that more with his fingers crossed than anything because I'm not aware of what Daisy is doing, I'm fully aware of what I'm doing & he's about to be aware of it too so that's pretty much all I have to say about that

Rock N Roll Experience: Do you sing on the new music?

Zim Zum: Yes, Initially like some of the tracks intially had me doing lead vocals on them but I'm not ready to really approach that with this, this is a band, it's not the "Zim Zum Experience" so I wanted to have a band vibe, I wanted to have people that what they do in the band, they do even more so live, so 4 out of the 5 people will be doing background vocals, the possibility of switching up like a verse being sung my Nixon the vocalist, & then maybe a verse being sung by me, or it being double in sort of a...I wanted a really modern take on bands like the Beatles, & bands that there were muli member vocals. Each person in the band is such a unique personallity that we have the ability to do that & just because I'm in the band doesn't mean that everybody else hasn't stepped up to the same level, they wouldn't be in the band if they didn't.

Rock N Roll Experience: How come there were never any pictures of you in the Marilyn Manson CD's?

Zim Zum: I don't know, Maybe I was too good looking, ha ha ha ha, I don't know, I never really had any control over that, I'm not sure. I'm sure on Mechanical Animals it was out of spite because I did do the full Mechanical Animals photo session with the rest of the band, a few of those pictures leaked out, they had to definitley come from him because I never had any, which is kinda strange in itself, but I've never really had any input on the albums sleeves. There was talk of actually me being on the Antichrist one, it was just a good jesture because I was there for 6 months out of the year for the recording, but I would imagine the reasone for Mechanical Animals is pretty obvious

Rock N Roll Experience: Do you mind still being associated with Marilyn Manson?

Zim Zum: I don't know, it's part of what I was, I'mnot so sure it's part of who I am...If it's taken within the context of listening to an album, listening to Mechanical Animals, or listening to the songs that I played on, or watching one of the video tapes or stuff like that I've got no problem with that, because It's a piece of time & it was a very important piece of time too, so that association is fine. I don't want to be associated with anything that he's doing now or from the day that I left..that was the end of my continuing association, if it's pre-dated, that's fine, but now it's no reflection on me whatsoever

Rock N Roll Experience: Does the new Pleistocene songs work unplugged as well as electric?

Zim Zum: I would say yeah, because they're based in heavy orchestraiton & arrangement so we probably could go that way..I never thought about it. Generally what we do, we have the songs that are extremely intimate & then there are teh songs that are a completely different emotion & I think taking one of the heavy songs & playing it unplugged would take away from the general vibe, so I wouldn't expect something like "The Disillusioned Revolution" to be an unplugged song because it has to have the angst behind it & acoustic guitars sometimes just don't project that angst.

Rock N Roll Experience: Did you go to the Last Smashing Pumpkins conert?

Zim Zum: No I didn't actually. In Chicago you pretty much can't miss stuff like that, I opted not to go to it because I knew it would be a little bit too crazy, but I've seen Billy since out drinking actually, so I mean to me, even though the Pumpkins to the rest of the world aren't really around, I live in Chicago, they are around everywhere I go.

Rock N Roll Experience: How did you find the band members of Pleistocene?

Zim Zum: T.J. was the first to come along, I got a phone call from a friend of mine, there's a builiding called The Water Tower Place smack in the middle of downtown Chicago & a friend of mine called me & told me about somebody that was basically a street musician almost, not a homeless person, a street musician, & right around Water Tower Place is a super sorta up-scale neighborhood, so I guess if you're going to be a street musician anywhere's that's the place because you can probably buy a condo with the money that you would make out there, but I got a phone call & they had said that they had seen somebody that was getting some attention as a street musican in front of Water Tower Place & it was somebody that I should check out

T.J.: I was working down in front of Water Tower Place & I had a little battery power casio keyboard that I was working, doing percussion loops on it & Street Wise, it's a homeless magazine that the Homeless sell themselves to make money, Zim came over & one of the Street Wise sellers tried to move in on my corner & I didn't take that too kindly & I got into a little tift with him...

Zim Zum: You have to picture that in front of Water Tower Place which is an upscale neighborhood, there are various street musicans playing trumpets, acoustic guitars, & then there's T.J. with this Casio Keyboard playing like Bossa Samba loops & playing keyboard on it, so by the time I got down there I walked into..I had no idea what was going on but to me it just was offensive because it looked like a brawl between a freak & a homeless guy so I'm thinking why did this record label guy send me down here to do this, but in the long run it actually turned out to be beneficial because if there's anybody that seems to fit in perfectley it's gonna be this guy, not to mention the fact that I kinda felt bad because when all was said & done I don't know who got the better of who out of it, but ..

T.J.: He broke my keyboard

Zim Zum: Yeah, he broke his keyboard, so it was like & then from there I found out that some of the places that I generally go to hang out, T.J. was at some of the same places, but I guess we were never there at the same time so the Keyboard position to me was one of the hardest that I thought would be able to find someone to do it, because there's alot of sounds & engineering & manipulation going on so T.J. was the first one to come into the band & then through a recommendation of T.J. of a drummer that he had known, piece by piece each person came in. I heard the story about an electronic drummer that was like making electronic drums out of Radio Shack parts so each of the individuals in the band are very unique in their approach, but even though their approach is somewhat bizzare, it's extremely professional, like 2 of the guys, T.J. & Crispin have more equipment than I do, & I was on the road with Marilyn Manson for 2 years, so with the bass player the same thing, it was through recommendation Taylor cam along that way & Nixon was the one that, basically the rest of the band was established, & then with bringing in a singer & having vocals on the songs already, having everything already written we really did sort of put him through the paces, it wasn't so much an audition as it was an ongoing series of things that we played together for about a 2-3 week period, just generally taking him out with us having him here while we were recording, it was more of seeing what each of the people were like as a person after knowing a person as a musician. I have, to me, assembled the perfect cast of characters.

Rock N Roll Experience: What song did you do with Korn?

Zim Zum: I did a remix for "Got The Life", it's on the disc called All Mixed Up, it's the Josh Abraham mix. Basically what they did is I went to the studio because I'm friends with the guys from Korn, especially Jonathan & at the time Jonathan had been talking to me about an album that he wanted to do & I told him that I would do whatever guitar he needed but then it worked into them coming out with the new album & I went into the studio & they had stripped off all the guitar from the track & then just let me basically play over it a few times & literally it only took me about 20 minutes to a half hour & I did some basic tracks, everything was played on a Baritone guitar because I figured if I'm going in to redo guitar tracks on a Korn song I'm going to go in & do them heavier than they do, so I played them on a Baritone guitar, did a bunch of noises, & just set down & cut everything up & put it in the song as a remix & Josh Produced it on All Mixed Up.

Rock N Roll Experience: Which Cher song did you play on?

Zim Zum: I played on the soundtrack to Walk on the Moon, it's a cover of "Crimson & Clover", it's a duet between Cher & Eliza, her son, & I played the guitar on it

Rock N Roll Experience: Is Pleistocene doing any cover songs?

Zim Zum: That is a question that everyone likes to ask just because they're kinds curious which direction we'd go with it...we really haven't...there's a few songs that we had thought about but I think if we do, it would be something that we would only play live because there's alot of bands that come out these days & their big hit is a cover song & it over shadows the rest of the original songs, I mean you can name any newer band these days & you can name the cover song that they did that was the first song you heard by them, so we'll probably shy away from it. If we do do it, it'll be something interesting, it won't be an obviouse one.

Rock N Roll Experience: What was the first song you ever learned to play on guitar?

Zim Zum: It could have been "Since You've Been Gone" by Rainbow, or it might have been "Just What I Needed" by the Cars, "Sweet Leaf" I think was the one that stuck out, it was the first song I ever played live in front of anyone when I was 16 at a talent show in high school & it was a Lutheran High School, so they weren't really big on the whole "Sweet Leaf" thing, but I don't think the y quite understood what it was all about, but the first one I ever played live in front of anyone was "Sweet Leaf"

Rock N Roll Experience: What was the 1st record you ever bought?

Zim Zum: I actually didn't buy it, I stole it from my Mom & there was 2 of them & to this day she's still pissed at me...it was Pink Floyd "Dark Side of the Moon" & David Bowie's "Ziggy Stardust & The Spiders From Mars". I think the first one that I actually bought was probably either AC/DC "Back In Black" or "Dirty Deeds".

Rock N Roll Experience: Can you tell me what drugs you were addicted to & how you stopped using them?

Zim Zum: There wasn't....I don't know if I would go so far as to say addicted, I don't have an addictive personallity, One day I'll smoke & then I won't smoke for 2 weeks, cigarettes, or anything for that matter. When I was in Manson the obvious drug of choice that ran rampant through the entire band was obviously coke. When I left the band that was one of the facters in there, I mean there's only so far you can go with that before...who's going to be the first to go? When I left the drug use was, as I looked around, the drug use was going to a stranger level, one that I was absolutely not down with. I've never shot drugs, I've never done heroin, nothing like that. There's no way you can perform at a level & do the things that you have to do in a band, especially a band like Marilyn Manson, or evenn what I'm doing now because there's just too much riding on it for anybody to be a Fuckhead & be that irresponsible, but going from something social to something different was the key to the door of my exit of Marilyn Manson. They tried to tag me as more of a scapegoat & that was the farthest thing from the truth so it's funny how like when one person is sober, how it's not such a friendly environment to the people who aren't

Rock N Roll Experience: How long have you been into the internet?

Zim Zum: Initially, when I was in Manson I didn't really have a whole lot of time other than setting in hotel rooms, that's initially when I got a laptop which was probably like '96 & actually saw it first hand, now I have my hands farely deep in the internet because even though to me it's more of an alternate reality, It's an interesting one, It's a bunch of people that put on a persona, you don't see these people really, some of them you do because they plaster pictures up on their web site & stuff like that, sometimes you see a little bit too much of those people, ha ha, but to me it's really interesting because I don't think people push it as far as they could, you don't know who the people are on the othere side of the screen, it's just words, it's very non-emotional & very numb which naturally is just one of those self destructive & interesting things, but I think what it's becoming is just the biggest advertisement in the world, any body can do anything, anybody can be anything, anybody can become anything on the internet & that's really interesting because you're becoming something or you're basing your entire income on something that's not really reality. You can get a physical product out of the internet, but chances are, in a digital domain, it's not physical, so it's really bizzare if you look at the underlying themes to it. As far as like the freedom of speech & to do whatever you want on there, that's extremely interesting because at this point in time I think people should enjoy that because I don't know how much longer that's going to last.

Once again, I have to thank Zim Zum & T.J. for the great interview & the opportunity to be the first person outside of the band to get to hear the new music & the first person in the world to interview Zim & T.J. also. This is a high energy band that has an ecclectic sound that ranges in emotion from heavy to heartfelt & you have to check this band out to believe them. Check out more on Zim Zum's Pleistoscene by Clicking Here.