Spider One: Talent is overrated

Powerman 5000 frontman Spider One says musical talent is “overrated” and admits that he's always been out of step with current trends.

The singer – who is the younger brother of Rob Zombie – formed the band in 1991. This month they released their seventh album Builders Of The Future.

And the self-confessed geek admits he has always relied on attitude over talent when it comes to his songwriting.

Spider One tells Capital Chaos TV: “There was a couple of different kinds of music that inspired me to make music – punk rock and hip hop. Those were the two kinds of music, from my perspective, where I didn’t need to be the best guitar player or the greatest singer in the world.

“It was about an attitude, an idea, an energy. That’s the kind of music that always inspired me to this day. I can appreciate talent for sure, but I always say talent is overrated. Especially in rock ‘n’ roll. It’s not classical music, it’s not jazz, it’s about an attitude. I thought if those guys can do it, fuck it, so can I.”

Powerman 5000’s early music saw Spider combining beats with Charles Bukowski-inspired poetry before he eventually recruited a full band. But he never wanted to fit in with whatever scene was happening at the time.

He adds: “I’ve always been, for better or worse, out of step with what’s going on at the time. When I started to form the idea of Powerman in the early 90s, it was all about grunge. It was Nirvana, Soundgarden and Alice in Chains – very organic, traditional rock bands.

“And here we were doing this thing that was so not that at all. So I always feel like I’m just not doing the right thing, but I figure that’s probably a good thing in the long run.”

In the rest of the interview, below, Spider discusses the origins of the band’s name and how he watched way too much TV as a child.

Stef wrote close to 5,000 stories during his time as assistant online news editor and later as online news editor between 2014-2016. An accomplished reporter and journalist, Stef has written extensively for a number of UK newspapers and also played bass with UK rock favourites Logan. His favourite bands are Pixies and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. Stef left the world of rock'n'roll news behind when he moved to his beloved Canada in 2016, but he started on his next 5000 stories in 2022.