The journey to Astro-Creep: 2000 was long and storied for White Zombie. The LA-via-New York quartet were flying high on the success of 1992’s La Sexorcisto: Devil Music Vol. 1, which saw them abandoning their unhinged noise rock origins for a chunky garage metal sound. The album was a hit, in part due to the love given to its big single, Thunder Kiss ’65, by Beavis & Butthead. At the same time, frontman Rob Zombie remained unsatisfied, telling Rip Magazine in 1995, “I was never that happy with it. In some respects, it was probably the best thing we could do at the time under the circumstances.”
For their fourth album, the band switched around their line-up, bringing on Exodus and Testament drummer John Tempesta, and employed keyboardist Charlie Clouser (known for his work with Nine Inch Nail and Rammstein, among others) and producer Terry Date. They downtuned their guitars, focused on lyrics more driven by horror and sleaze than ’70s psychedelia, and combined stripped-down song structure coupled with lush production.
“At this point, the band had just turned into this huge machine that took over our lives,” said Sean in White Zombie: It Came From NYC, the book accompanying the band's vinyl boxed set.
Of course, there was no way a record this amazing was made by happy people. The band members were frustrated with each other behind the scenes, and the writing and recording process was grueling. Zombie insisted that Sean and guitarist Jay Yeunger write and record their riffs to electronic beats rather than build them from scratch, as they had done previously. By the time the album was complete and White Zombie began touring again, Rob was riding in a separate bus from the rest of the band.
“[White Zombie] was never a barrel of laughs,” says Rob Zombie in It Came From NYC. “It was always a struggle… I couldn’t see how this band could continue any further with such dysfunction. Better to go out on a high note and leave them wanting more than let it all crumble.”