Why Rob Zombie Refused to Play With Korn on the Family Values Tour

Bill Ebbesen, CC BY 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons
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At the height of the 90s, few heavy metal tours were as iconic as the Family Values Tour.

Launched by nu-metal legends Korn, the Family Values Tour kicked off in 1998 and featured musical acts from the world of nu-metal, industrial metal, metalcore, hip hop, and more.

The first year of the Family Values Tour included Korn, Limp Bizkit, Orgy, the rapper Ice Cube, and Incubus (who actually replaced Ice Cube when he was due to start working on his film Next Friday).

While this tour made for an incredible experience, there was one other artist meant to be part of the lineup: Rob Zombie. The horror-rocker ended up dropping off the tour and was replaced by Rammstein. Per a past MTV report, tour organizers claimed that Zombie complained about the production design associated with the tour; they also claimed that they thought they booked all of White Zombie, but then came to realize they only booked Rob Zombie.

But, among all the rumors that came about, the most controversial of them was that Zombie thought rock fans would not be pleased to see hip-hop present on the tour.

Tour organizers made claims that Zombie and his team “repeatedly lectured that rock kids don’t like hip-hop.”

Remember, this tour took place in 1998, which was a golden age for nu-metal and rap metal, and between the mega popularity of Korn and Ice Cube alone, this first run of the Family Values Tour grossed over $6 million. So Zombie’s team’s alleged assumptions may have come from an outsider’s perspective, not being aware of how well rap and metal work together.

However, it’s important to note that Zombie denied these rumors regarding his alleged “complaint” about rock and hip-hop, calling them “lies” and saying the statement absolutely “sickened” him.

In a conversation with MTV News where he addressed these rumors, Zombie not only shared that he was a fan of Ice Cube and owned several of his CDs, but that Cube was the only artist on the tour who he was actually a fan of.

Zombie went on to say that his decision to step away from the Family Values Tour was due to due issues involving the scope of production.

Years removed, however, it’s clear that there were no hard feelings between Korn and Rob Zombie. In 2016, both acts embarked on a massive co-headlining summer tour with In This Moment, and both acts have played numerous festivals and one-off appearances.

Whose side of this story do you believe?

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