Rob Zombie shares the ultimate Halloween playlist

Rob Zombie knows a thing or two about getting spooky — peep these album names from his time as White Zombie frontman as well as a solo act: Soul-Crusher, Make The Die Slowly, La Sexorcisto: Devil Music, Vol. 1, Hellbilly, and The Sinister Urge. (Better yet, check out their lyrics.) He’s also got various creepy movies like Halloween under his belt.

So when it came time for an EW Halloween playlist, there was no one better to turn to than the master himself. Below, Zombie picks his insanely catchy picks for Halloween.;

Zacherele, “Dinner With Drac”

“Zacherle was and is a very popular horror movie host on the East Coast. ‘Dinner With Drac’ is a ‘Monster Mash’-type song in that it’s very innocent sounding but also totally encapsulates Halloween.”

The Misfits, “Halloween”

“The Misfits have always been one of my favorite bands — they’re one of the best horror-type bands. This song is really more of a demented song but it really captures the vibe of what the holiday is to me: cold, rainy, fall leaves, foggy…that’s what this song feels like.”

Screaming Lord Sutch, “Jack The Ripper”

“Screaming Lord Sutch were sort of Alice Cooper before there was Alice Cooper. He’s quite an interesting character — watching the old videos of him performing this song…he’s just so out of touch with what’s going on back then. I mean what the f–k? He’s crazy and amazing. The crowd doesn’t even know what to make of it, they’re like terrified.”

The Cramps, “The Creature From The Black Leather Lagoon”

“This is a pretty random choice, I admit. But you could easily put any Cramps song [laughs]. I just have always love the Cramps — before Lux died, they would always play on Halloween night and I went many, many times. I’ve even played with them on Halloween, they opened for White Zombie like twenty years ago. They encapsulate that vibe 24/7.”

Roky Erickson, “I Walked With A Zombie”

“Rocky Erickson’s an interesting character. He had his band the 13th Floor Elevators in the ‘60s before being on his own, and he has schizophrenia, and there’s an amazing documentary called You’re Gonna Miss Me that you should totally watch. He always has the radio going and the TV going to try and block out the voices in his head. And he stopped playing for a long time but he came out to one of our shows and he performed this song — he hadn’t done it in a million years.”

Southern Cult On The Skids, “Werewolf”

“They didn’t do the original, but I really like their version. About 18 years ago, I put out a Halloween compilation record called Halloween Hootenanny, and they did this song for my record. It’s an amazing track and they’re this Southern sort of rockabilly band.”

Blue Oyster Cult, “Godzilla”

“I was just trying to think of something that was from my childhood and I grew up loving Blue Oyster Cult as a kid of the ‘70s. They have a lot of good monster songs but I thought ‘Don’t Fear The Reeper’ was too obvious so it was like, ‘Oh, god, yes, “Godzilla”’ [laughs]. Plus my dog is named Godzilla.”

Captain Clegg and the Night Creatures, “Transylvania Terror Train”

“Captain Clegg are a fictitious band that I created for my movie Halloween 2 — they play in a party scene in the movie. But they were an actual musicians, it’s this guy named Jesse TJ. He’s a country artist and he put together this fake spooky band and they wrote an entire album that they put out to coincide with the movie. They wrote these great songs, like this one. And then I took Captain Clegg on tour. So we made up a fake band and it became a real band, They were great.”

Buck Owens, “It’s A Monsters Holiday”

“This a a crazy song, it’s actually really hard to find. I first heard it when I got the Buck Owens box set like 15 years ago, but it’s an amazing tune. He’s just singing about Frankenstein, Dracula, and the Wolf Man. Buck Owens just didn’t give a f–k. I saw him play just before he died at the House of Blues in LA and he was just a f–king badass.”

Ramones, “Pet Sematary”

“I was always a huge Ramones fan and got to be good friends with them and tour a bunch. They have a lot of great songs i could have picked but its very rare that a band can write a song for a movie and it works. But this song still sounds great, it fits with the movie, but it’s cool on its own too.”

Bobby “Boris” Pickett, “Monster Mash”

“I just picked that because that is the Halloween song. It’s become a cliche, but if you really sit there and listen to it you can’t help but think, ‘What a genius f–king song!’ There’s a really funny clip of him on American Bandstand when the song first came out and it’s just so great and odd. I couldn’t not put this song in there.”

45 Grave, “Party Time”

“45 Grave is just another one of those bands for me. Like the Misfits, there weren’t a lot of punk-rock bands that had a horror theme to them, and they are such a good one. A couple years ago I was doing a Halloween show and I put them on the bill just because I wanted to see them. They’re just once of those things that meant so much when I was young and it’s never gone away. I still love them.”