1983

          I met Rob Cummings when we were put together as roommates at Parsons School of Design in New York. He and I were both majoring in Illustration, and we hit it off right away, having the same taste in music (metal, hardcore, blues, reggae) and horror films, and art. No dredlocks and tattoos on Rob in the beginning—he just looked like a good little boy from Boston, with short blond hair.

           Another roommate of ours was a bass player, Jim Spadaccini, who played in a Connecticut hardcore band named the Vatican Commandoes. (This turned out to be where Moby first showed up. He played guitar on their first EP called "Hit Squad for God". I have a copy signed by Jim S). Rob did the art work for their second 7" album called Just a Frisbee.  On the back you can see his credit using his real name Rob Cummings.

1984

          The second year of school, Rob and another friend Mark Matcho (bassist for a Washington D.C. band called "Bodycount" and who also shows up playing bass on Robs solo album Hellbilly Deluxe) and I moved off campus into an apartment in Jersey City, New Jersey. It was a very run down and shity part of New Jerseys water front. We commuted from there to School in New York.

          We fucked around in front of my camera a lot. Dressing up and taking silly ass photos. Rob loved anything to do with Halloween and having the opportunity to put on a costume. He also started to grow dreadlocks during this time. His natural hair was too straight, so to achive dreadlocks, he would put elmers glue in his hair and twist the hell out of it.

1985

           Our junior year, Rob meet Sean Yseult, who was also going to Parsons, but was in the Graphic and Communications Department. They hit it off as boyfriend/girlfriend and moved into an apartment on the lower eastside of NYC. He came up with the idea for the band here in 1985 and found a guitarist named Ena Kostabi, and a drummer named Peter Landau. Sean was on bass. They recorded their first Demo tape with the Name White Zombie,  which I still have one copy of. This is the very first printed material with the name of the band on it. The tape has 2 songs that have never been released, “Black Friday” and “Dead or Alive”.

           Rob Eventually got some of the songs pressed onto a 7” EP which was called"Gods on Voodoo Moon" . 300 copies were pressed. I have a copy, along with a few other people, but Rob has the remaining 200 copies to this day. It includes Side A: "King of Souls" and "Gentleman Junkie," Side B: "Tales from the Scarecrowman" and "Cat's Eye Resurrection." It was recorded 10/18/85 at Batcave Studios in NYC. But after that they didn't do much more. They never played live. Rob was dissatisfied with the drummer, and the guitarist, so Rob decided to replace them. 

1986

            This is when Rob gave me a call asking if I wanted to play guitar in the band. I wasn’t playing with anyone at the time, and I said yes. So I became White Zombie's second guitarist. I started to get together with Rob and Sean in their lower east side apartment writing songs and practicing without a drummer. Then Rob found Ivan Deprume who live in Brooklyn and we started to go to rental studios in the city to practice for live gigs. We made a few demo tapes over the next few months.  Rob came up with all of the song titles, lyrics. Sean and I wrote all of the music. We had a blast. We got along fantastic! Sean was an excellent bassist, Ivan was great on Drums, and Rob was a fucking trip to play with. I would come up with some heavy acid rock rhythms, Sean would write some funky-ass bass line to follow and Rob would just starting spitting out these amazing horror vocals to go with the music. It was the strangest combination of rock, funk, metal, hardcore, and blues. And it worked! People loved it, because it was so different.

           We gigged CBGB's April 28th 1986. This was the first live performance of White Zombie. We went on last at about 12:00 pm and kicked ass. The crowd loved us. Our next show was at a place called the Lismar. Rob came up with "Straker" as a stage name because "Cummings" didn't sound evil enough. In between we recorded the "Pig Heaven /Slaughter the Grey" EP at "6 and 8" Studios in NYC on Broadway and Houston street. We recorded 4 songs in about 2 hours. Other songs we recorded include: "Follow Wild," "Rain Insane," "Paradise Fireball," "Red River Flow." I also have other demo versions of "Pig Heaven" and "Slaughter the Grey" on tape. About this time Rob was dropping out of Parsons and I was continuing on with my degree. We stopped gigging and the band fell apart. After a few months I talked to Rob and he had gotten a new guitarist, Tom Guay.

          The rest is post-me ...

After White Zombie

           When he released Astro Creep 2000, he sent me a copy of the CD with a message on it. It reads “ Tim, you were and always will be the first White Zombie Guitar God we ever Jammed with. CBGB’s 86’ and some other shithole I forgot the name of. Stay sick brother. Rob Z”.
           Rob was a blast as a roommate, band member and a good friend. His innovative style was as unique as it gets. If there was anyone who was going to become successful in Music and art, it was Rob. His determination was not going to be stopped, and his road to success proved it. I continue to play guitar and bass and work in New York City. I have 2 wonderful children Jenna and Harrison, and a beautiful wife Jane.
            I can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it to answer any questions about my time with Rob, Sean , Ivan, and White Zombie.