{"id":5280,"date":"2011-02-21T07:00:41","date_gmt":"2011-02-21T11:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/southeastofheaven.com\/?p=5280"},"modified":"2011-03-28T20:19:24","modified_gmt":"2011-03-29T00:19:24","slug":"blowin-wind-with-former-white-zombie-bassist-sean-yseult","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/?p=5280","title":{"rendered":"Blowin’ Wind With Former White Zombie Bassist Sean Yseult"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Former White Zombie bassist Sean Yseult recently put out a new book called “I’m In The Band” that features many great stories and photos of her time as the bassist for White Zombie. I reached out to Sean to do an interview and she was gracious enough to talk on the phone from her New Orleans home. We had a great time talking about Beavis and Butthead, touring with her heroes The Ramones and her thoughts on bands charging fans to meet them. We also talked about her current music projects and her new line of bass guitars coming out this year. This was a really special and fun interview for me and I hope you all enjoy this as much as I did. Enjoy!<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Hey Sean, this is Don from The Great Southern Brainfart. How are you today?<\/strong><\/p>\n

[laughs] I\u2019m good.<\/p>\n

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Yeah, I usually get a chuckle when I say the name of my blog.<\/strong><\/p>\n

[laughs] The full title, yeah [laughs] . That\u2019s great!<\/p>\n

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Thanks for doing this.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Thank you so much. I\u2019m always happy to do an interview.<\/p>\n

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How\u2019s New Orleans treating ya these days?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Oh great. I love it here. Ever since Hurricane Katrina it\u2019s just gotten better and better to be honest.<\/p>\n

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I was actually born and raised in Metairie. I saw many great old metal shows like Razor White, Lillian Axe and Kirk\u2019s old band Victorian Blitz.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Oh wow, I never even heard of that one [laughs].<\/p>\n

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Yeah, it was his Judas Priest\/Iron Maiden cover band. <\/strong><\/p>\n

Wow. That\u2019s awesome. I\u2019ve heard people call Metairie \u201cMetalrie\u201d [laughs].<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

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Congratulations on the success of your first book \u201cI\u2019m In The Band.\u201d How did the book tour go for you? <\/strong><\/p>\n

Thanks. Yeah, I\u2019m still doing some stuff but so far it\u2019s been going great. Every time I do an in store they sell out of books so I can\u2019t complain [laughs]. It\u2019s been a great turn out and a great experience.<\/p>\n

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I was bummed you didn\u2019t make it to Atlanta. Will you be doing any more signing dates?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yeah, I\u2019m still planning stuff. It\u2019s funny with books. The life of promoting a book is kind of long so I think I\u2019ll still be doing stuff for the next few months. I\u2019m hoping to do a weekend where I\u2019ll come to Atlanta and Athens. Right now I\u2019ve got another New York weekend coming up and I\u2019m trying to plan a Chicago\/Detroit weekend and a Texas trip. There\u2019s still some stuff coming up though. So far I\u2019ve some stuff in New Orleans, North Carolina, New York and LA twice now. Hopefully I\u2019ll spread out to few other cities after this.<\/p>\n

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That would be great to meet you again. The last time I met you was many years ago when White Zombie opened for Anthrax here in Atlanta.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Oh wow! That was our big breakthrough tour. That was a big tour for us. That was right when Beavis and Butthead started playing us a lot on MTV [laughs]. That was a great tour for us.<\/p>\n

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What inspired you to release \u201cI\u2019m In The Band\u201d and why now?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It all stemmed from our White Zombie box set. Our management had called me up to try and find some old bootleg VHS tapes that I had to send them and get them converted to DVD for the box set and I had to go into storage and pull all these boxes out. I moved to New Orleans in 1996 as soon as we finished our last tour. We were taking a year off but we kind of knew we were breaking up also at that point. I was like, \u201cI\u2019m going to New Orleans for the year\u201d [laughs]. I moved here and I just rented a furnished place in the French Quarter for a year and then when we did break up at the end of that year I had all my stuff sent here and got a house. I put all of our boxes in storage and I hadn\u2019t looked at those things since 1996. I had to start digging through them for the box set and once I started digging through them it was amazing. I totally forgot that I had kept tour diaries every night on the back of the tour itineraries. They give you these tour itineraries and on the back page I\u2019d write down everything that had happened that night. I found those and at least two full photo albums just filled with photos of the tours with Pantera. Tons of photos of backstage antics and craziness. It was just so much and it brought back so many good memories. I just thought, \u201cI want to put this all in one place.\u201d To be honest, I started off just making a book for myself and people started telling me that I needed to get it out there. That\u2019s how it got started.<\/p>\n

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White Zombie was a very visual group. Is this why you chose to do a more visual layout to the book as opposed to a text heavy biography?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yeah, at first I thought I was just going to make this crazy coffee table book filled with photos and tour diaries and scraps and fliers. I wanted to make that way. I did go to school for design and photography. That\u2019s where Rob (Zombie) and I met. We were both at Parsons. He was in illustration and I was in the graphic design program. I started off as a photo major so I took photos all the time. I took the first photos of the band and I kept taking just snapshots backstage and I just had so much stuff to work with. I wanted it to be this visual kind of coffee table book but as I started laying it out and writing a little bit, the people who were reading what I wrote said, \u201cYou have to write more!\u201d [laughs]. The writing really came secondary but it did start out as just a visual coffee table book.<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

There is so many cool things in this book. It\u2019s really a great way for fans to see things that they never would\u2019ve had the chance to see. It\u2019s really quite a voyeuristic peek into the band\u2019s life.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yeah, a lot of people don\u2019t know anything about our first seven years as a group. There\u2019s a lot of stuff in there from the early days that\u2019s pretty obscure unless you had all my boxes of stuff [laughs]. I\u2019m pretty much the only one that photographed and documented that stuff back then.<\/p>\n

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I really found some humor in the title. You were always referred to as \u201cthe chick in White Zombie.\u201d How did you feel about being known like that? Most women can\u2019t stand the word \u201cchick\u201d. <\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve got no issues with that word. I know some women have all kinds of hang ups but I\u2019m fine with the word chick and I don\u2019t care about the word \u201cbroad\u201d [laughs]. Some people are easily offended but I use those words and I don\u2019t find them offensive. Whatever. I thought it was funny. That\u2019s just what I was known as because that\u2019s what Beavis and Butthead called me and every time I see people they say, \u201cHey, it\u2019s the chick from White Zombie\u201d [laughs]. It definitely isn\u2019t derogatory.<\/p>\n

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So are you a Beavis and Butthead fan at all?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Oh yeah! That shit was bad ass when it came out [laughs]. Beavis and Butthead gave a thumbs up to Iggy Pop, Butthole Surfers. We were keeping excellent company as far as I was concerned. That show was hilarious. The timing of it was just perfect.<\/p>\n

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Now that I look back on it, it\u2019s quite scary because it hits pretty close to home. That show was basically me and my friends sitting around watching Headbangers Ball on Saturday nights.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Really? [laughs] That\u2019s funny! I thought that show was great. Mike Judge was pretty much a genius so.<\/p>\n

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So I have to tell you. Back in 1992 when I was as senior in High School, I sent both you a letter asking you to my Senior Prom. Did you get it? <\/strong><\/p>\n

[laughs] Wow! See, I never got that. I always knew the record label was withholding mail from me [laughs]. I wish I had got that. That\u2019s very sweet. I didn\u2019t even get a chance to contemplate it. Sorry [laughs].<\/p>\n

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You\u2019ve toured with some pretty amazing acts in your time. Which ones stand out to you as being the coolest experience?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Probably the most fun and amazing experience was always touring with Pantera. We toured with them so often and they were just like family. Phil and Darrell are two of the funniest motherfuckers you\u2019ll ever meet in your life [laughs] . They would constantly do anything to make you laugh. The whole band was such great guys and it was always so much fun with them. They would pull me up on stage to sing a chorus and Phil and Darrell would come no stage in goofy costumes trying to throw us off. There was always interaction between both bands and it was so much fun. I\u2019d have to say that the most amazing experiences for me were getting to tour, actually we took these bands out as openers which was crazy for me because I worshiped both of these bands but was taking out The Ramones and The Cramps on tour. I have a holy trinity and it\u2019s The Cramps, The Ramones and Motorhead. We never got to play with Motorhead but I used to see Lemmy all the time in Hollywood so that was fun. To tour with the Ramones was like a six week tour so we were hanging out with them day in and day out. They\u2019d invite them to ride with them in the van. I got to ride from gig to gig with them and it was just amazing. Joey was so sweet and was always giving me gifts and they were just the greatest guys. For a band I grew up worshiping that was insane. And then we just did a few Halloween shows with The Cramps but that was amazing. I got to be good friends with them after that and I actually ended up being their bass player on their very last tour right before Lux (Interior; lead singer) died so that was special.<\/p>\n

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In the book you say that towards the end of the co-headlining tour with Pantera that you had a feeling that you were going to go home and the break up. At what point did this start to look like a reality of happening?<\/strong><\/p>\n

That whole tour for the Astro Creep record, Rob wasn\u2019t talking to any of us, he was traveling in his own tour bus and doing all the kind of lead singer things that lead singers do. That\u2019s usually a good sign of the beginning of the end. We toured for Astro Creep for a year and a half and during the making of that record and the beginning of that tour we kind of know that that was probably going to be it [laughs]. It wasn\u2019t like that summer all of sudden we realized we were breaking up. It was kind of a long thing.<\/p>\n

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In all honesty, would you attribute the break of White Zombie to Rob catching a bad case of Lead Singers Disease?<\/strong><\/p>\n

[laughs] Yeah, it\u2019s just a typical pattern. The singer figures he can go solo and they do and it saves them money. They\u2019re not in a band anymore [laughs].<\/p>\n

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I\u2019m sure you get asked all the time about the \u201cR\u201d word. Is a White Zombie reunion something you would consider?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It would definitely be hard for me and J (Yuenger, former White Zombie guitarist). There\u2019s definitely some hard feelings there with behavior that was going on that lasted for the whole Astro Creep record but I would consider it. The ball would definitely be in Rob\u2019s court. He would have to actually start up some sort of dialog. He hasn\u2019t spoken to any of us in ages so that\u2019s his issue not ours [laughs].<\/p>\n

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After White Zombie parted ways you moved to New Orleans in 1996. What about that city made you want to live there?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I love this city. Everything about it. The architecture, the culture, the food, the nightlife. It\u2019s so exciting. Every time I came here I\u2019d run into at least five people I knew. There would always be bands here making records or passing through on tour. It\u2019s just always so much fun and you never have to plan anything. You just kind of show up and things just magically happen. It\u2019s still like that here and I love it. You just wonder out and you might end up at a crawfish boil down the street [laughs]. You just never know what\u2019s going to happen in this town and everyone is kind of in this festive mood. I\u2019m a huge history buff and this is pretty much the oldest rural city in America. The architecture alone is amazing. I constantly go on bike rides and just study different houses every day. It\u2019s great for me on a lot of levels.<\/p>\n

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I agree about the history of that city. I love reading about it and I love those old cemeteries. Last time I was there I had to go to one and take some photos. <\/strong><\/p>\n

That\u2019s funny! That\u2019s what I\u2019m doing later today actually [laughs]. I\u2019m doing collaborative work with in artist in North Carolina where I grew up. He\u2019s requesting photos of some cemeteries and I\u2019ve done it some many times on so many different cameras and I just went through all my files and I can\u2019t find them. I think it was back when I was shooting with real film and negatives [laughs]. I\u2019m going to go out because I\u2019ve got a high end digital camera and do another photo shoot today. The first time we came through here that\u2019s the first thing I did was to go to a cemetery. I love the cemeteries here. Actually, my guitar company Schecter that did my coffin bass for me are going to do a limited edition bass and start making them this year. I\u2019m looking into different New Orleans donations from the sale of the guitars and I\u2019m looking into \u201cSave Our Cemeteries\u201d which I thought would be appropriate for the coffin bass [laughs].<\/p>\n

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Well there\u2019s no shortage of vampire bands around these days so I\u2019m sure they\u2019ll buy them all up.<\/strong><\/p>\n

[laughs] I\u2019m excited. I\u2019m actually working on a headstock design this week. I\u2019m trying to make it look like a fleur-de-lis so we\u2019ll see how that turns out.<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

That\u2019s cool that you\u2019re still really into designing and art. I used to love those old hand drawn White Zombie fliers. They were so graphically awesome. In this day and age of computers and Photoshop, do you feel the magic has been taken away from the flier art form?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Things are much slicker than they used to be. You\u2019re never going to have those fucked up, grainy old xeroxed fliers like you use to have. Back then we were trying to make them look nice and we were doing as good as we could back then [laughs]. Now it\u2019s just different. I\u2019m not going to say it\u2019s better or worse. It\u2019s just different. It\u2019s interesting that the average joe who doesn\u2019t have a design degree or whatever can get in there and do all these crazy things in Photoshop now. You definitely get some unusual results and I think it\u2019s good. I think it\u2019s great that everybody has access to make their own record or make their own artwork or whatever they want on their computer. Power to the people! [laughs]<\/p>\n

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Obviously heavy metal is the kind of music you are mostly associated with. Are there any other kinds of music we\u2019d be surprised to hear you were a fan of?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I like so many different kinds of music that would confuse just about anyone [laughs]. I love heavy music but I grew up in North Carolina and hearing bluegrass. I have a banjo and I\u2019ve been playing since I was 12. I love bluegrass and I love classical. I grew up playing classical piano and violin. I love surf music. I do love different kinds of music. It\u2019s not like one thing only for me.<\/p>\n

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Besides the book keeping you busy, what are you currently working on musically?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I just started a band with some of my friends called Star and Dagger. We have a Star and Dagger Facebook page and you can download five free songs. We got together and recorded five songs out in Joshua Tree not too long ago and we\u2019ve got about 10 more songs that we\u2019re working on right now. We might actually get out and play some songs [laughs]. I\u2019m also still playing locally with Rock City Morgue. I\u2019ve been with them for eight years now.<\/p>\n

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Oh I love Rock City Morgue! What a great band. I can\u2019t wait to hear this Star and Dagger stuff!<\/strong><\/p>\n

Oh thanks! My friend Donna She Wolf plays guitar and this girl from New Orleans Von Hesseling is the singer and she\u2019s just amazing. She\u2019s got an incredible voice. There\u2019s not a lot of female vocalists that I love but her voice is just perfect.<\/p>\n

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If Hollywood was to make a movie about you, who would play you on the big screen?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Hm, wow. That\u2019s tough [laughs]. Well, once I was waiting in line to see \u201cAlmost Famous\u201d and somebody said, \u201cOh, you\u2019re the girl in the movie!\u201d so maybe Kate Hudson [laughs].<\/p>\n

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If you could come back as a ghost (think Beetlejuice), who would you haunt, and annoy the fuck out of and why?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Oh wow. These are great questions but I gotta think for a minute [laughs]. That\u2019s a tough one. I\u2019m trying to think of who I\u2019d want to annoy.<\/p>\n

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It could be Rob if you wanted!<\/strong><\/p>\n

[laughs] No, I definitely don\u2019t want to be meddling in his business [laughs]. I\u2019m really not someone who likes to waste time messing with people but it would be fun to just be a ghost to float around and check shit out [laughs]. Go to some free rock shows. Scare some people who don\u2019t believe in ghosts [laughs].<\/p>\n

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I\u2019d love to ask your opinion on something. It seems to be a trend lately for bands to charge a fee for their fans to meet them before or after shows. Even your former singer is guilty of this. What\u2019s your opinion on that? <\/strong><\/p>\n

Yeah, I saw that. Oh I hate that. I think it\u2019s disgusting. Is there no end to people being greedy? It\u2019s so gross. We used to do meet and greets all the time and we didn\u2019t charge people. You\u2019d go outside by the tour bus and we\u2019d sign stuff for like an hour or two and we\u2019d meet the fans. Why would you want charge them? They already bought your tickets, maybe they bought a t-shirt. I just can\u2019t believe that they\u2019d do that. It\u2019s like one step away from prostitution really. It\u2019s like, \u201cPay to meet me.\u201d and then what? [laughs] I think it\u2019s unbelievable. I\u2019ve seen some where you can sit down and have dinner with a band. What\u2019s next? A bubble bath? [laughs] I just don\u2019t get it and I think it\u2019s really disgusting. It kinda reeks of some form or prostitution. It\u2019s super lame.<\/p>\n

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What does 2011 have in store for Sean Yseult?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been traveling all month doing promotion for the book and a I have a few more things planned in the next couple of months. I\u2019m working on this design for the coffin bass and getting that in production soon. I\u2019ve got a line of new stuff I\u2019m doing with my design company and I\u2019m working on new songs with my band Star and Dagger so I\u2019m keeping busy. I\u2019m really excited!<\/p>\n

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Is there a place where folks can go to purchase some of your artwork\/designs?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yeah, if you go to my website http:\/\/www.seanyseult.com there\u2019s a few different things you can click on. There\u2019s a design link, a photography link, a music link. There\u2019s a number of different things that I\u201dm doing now. That\u2019s a good place to check everything out. Some people are just wanting these scarves with my graphics on them that I\u2019ve been doing for a while and those are over at http:\/\/www.yseultdesigns.com.<\/p>\n

**************************************************<\/p>\n

Sean, thanks so much for doing this interview. You\u2019re a really sweet person and this was a blast.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Awesome. It was very nice to talk to you Don! Take care.<\/p>\n

For More Info On Sean Yseult:<\/strong><\/em>
\n Sean Yseult Official Website<\/strong><\/a>
\n Sean Yseult\/White Zombie on Facebook<\/a>
\n Star & Dagger on Facebook<\/a>
\n Rock City Morgue<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Former White Zombie bassist Sean Yseult recently put out a new book called “I’m In The Band” that features many great stories and photos of her time as the bassist for White Zombie. I reached out to Sean to do an interview and she was gracious enough to talk on the phone from her New Orleans home. We had a great time talking about Beavis and Butthead, touring with her heroes The Ramones and her thoughts on bands charging fans […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[194],"tags":[559,560],"class_list":["post-5280","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-interviews","tag-sean-yseult","tag-white-zombie"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5280","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5280"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5280\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}