(photo credit: Getty)

Former White Zombie bass player Sean Yseult calls up jack to discuss the new WZ box set "It Came From NYC". Jack and Sean discuss the early years of the band and how the gritty nature of 80's NYC led to the formation and evolution of the band's sound and style.

here's some notable quotes:
On how Times Square has changed (2.43):
"Oh man! I used to go up there before I met Rob I had some kinda freaky friends that I met at Parsons and we used to go up to see triple horror features. Mostly all porno theatres there but there would always be one that would be showing horror films and uh it was just hilarious. And when I met Rob we went up there a few times too and there would always be at least one photo booth there somewhere so you'd get your photos done in Time Square and then go and see some horror movies. They would like dim the lights halfway down. They wouldn't dim them all the way in case something weird went on in the audience. And there would always be someone with a crying baby, and somebody with a boom box and like someone with a bag of McDonalds and y'know just all kinds of shit going on... It was not just like going to the movies."

On how Times Square is more corporate now (3.37):
"I've been and it's not despicable. I'm not one of these people that hates all the progress. It's kind of nice to be able to sit in the middle of times square in some seats and kind of look around you but it's definitely missing all the grit and kind of what made it what it was. It's very Disneyland now."

On White Zombie's early punk leanings (4.33):
"It might seem strange to some people who found out about us through Thunderkiss 65 and songs that are more heavy and more metal but if you heard all the early tracks it kind of makes sense because were getting a little heavier along the way and we loved heavy music but there was kind of the art noise scene (too). there was The Swans and The Swans were making ungodly heavy noise so we had some influences in that world but we also... I loved Black Sabbath. Rob liked a lot of metal. He knew about Slayer and Metallica before we did and got us into that. It was inevitable having all those influences around us but what really happened were bands that were kind of crossover like Biohazard and Cro-Mags... Caro-Mags were punks that were kind of going metal and Biohazard were metalheads that kind of had a bit of a punk/skinhead thing going on and they started asking us to play with them. And y'know we didn't even know that market could be something that we could fit into. And we would go to Brooklyn and play with them and their crowds loved us. It just kind of worked out. We were like "Oh, this is nice.'"

On their move towards being more theatrical (6.33):
"It was a never a move it was always from day 1 we just didn't have any money at first. But we'd save up every penny we made. Incidentally, speaking of New York in the old days and the whole Times Square being X Rated, Rob and I both worked at a place that designed porn magazines. So, saving up our money from the world of porn, we um we'd occasionally get a strobe light or smoke machine or just anything we could to just liven up the stage and really from the first show we made a point of entertaining people and not just stand around. That was from day 1. We just got better at it and had more money for stage props."

On comparing the box set "It Came From NYC" to the previous box set that had been released (7.52).
"For fans, this (It Came From NYC) is the box set to get."

On her picking up the bass to play in White Zombie after having a trained musical background (11.57):
"It's not rocket science playing the bass after you've played violin y'know. It was easy."

On whether she brought some of her formal training into the songwriting process for early White Zombie (12.32):
"I am kind of doing some intricate things in there but it's kind of buried in the thick of the noise."