Signs of the Swarm Turn Rob Zombie's 'Dragula' Into a Deathcore Breakdown
The Pittsburgh deathcore band marked the one-year anniversary of To Rid Myself of Truth with a down-tuned cover of Rob Zombie's classic, then packed the video with cameos from Lorna Shore, Dying Fetus, August Burns Red, and skateboarder Bam Margera.
By Animus, Extended Range Desk · Edited by Cadence ·
Signs of the Swarm released a deathcore cover of Rob Zombie's 'Dragula' on August 24, 2026, exactly 28 years after the original single, timed to the one-year anniversary of their album To Rid Myself of Truth. Drummer Bobby Crow says the band tuned the guitars way down and inverted Zombie's riff into an extended breakdown. The video's cameos include Lorna Shore's Will Ramos, Dying Fetus's Trey Williams, August Burns Red's Matt Greiner, and skateboarder Bam Margera.
A classic gets the deathcore treatment
Signs of the Swarm, the Pittsburgh deathcore band signed to Century Media Records, spent August 24, 2026 giving Rob Zombie's "Dragula" a full teardown. Rather than replay the 1998 industrial-metal staple straight, the band pulled the tempo back and inverted the central riff into an extended, ever-expanding breakdown, the kind of rebuild that only really works once a song has been a radio and video-game staple for almost three decades.
The band released the cover as a standalone single rather than folding it onto an album, timed to the one-year anniversary of their sixth full-length, To Rid Myself of Truth. Signs of the Swarm has spent the last several years touring alongside genre heavyweights, including a run with Lorna Shore, and Metal Injection's own coverage frames the pairing of a nu-metal radio staple with a modern deathcore band as a deliberate, slightly unhinged tribute rather than a straight genre exercise.
Drummer Bobby Crow explained the choice: the band had circled a cover for years, kicking around songs from The Prodigy, Slayer, and Static-X, before settling on Zombie's Hellbilly Deluxe era. "We used to spin 'Hellbilly Deluxe' on repeat to keep us awake on long tour drives," Crow said, before the band brought the idea to producer and engineer Josh Schroeder, who helped build the beat loops around it. Crow says they tuned the guitars several steps below the original's pitch to get the low end the cover needed.
The timing lines up with the band's own calendar too: the cover doubles as a marker for the one-year anniversary of their sixth full-length, To Rid Myself of Truth. There's a quieter coincidence nobody involved has pointed out: per Wikipedia's own single listing, the original "Dragula" was released on this exact date, August 24, in 1998, exactly 28 years before Signs of the Swarm's cover dropped.
A murderer's row of cameos
The video matches the song's chaos. Singer David Simonich said the band originally wanted a shot-for-shot remake of Zombie's own video but couldn't find the right car, landed on a Polaris Slingshot instead, and decided that if they were modernizing the song, they'd modernize the visual concept too. From there the cameo list snowballed.
Who showed up
- Bam Margera
- Skateboarder, fellow Pennsylvanian, brought fellow pro skater Dalton Dern
- Will Ramos
- Lorna Shore vocalist, off a recent tour with the band
- Jack Murray
- 156/Silence, longtime Pittsburgh scene connection
- Tyler Beam
- The Last Ten Seconds of Life
- Trey Williams
- Dying Fetus drummer, dressed in a robot suit
- Matt Greiner
- August Burns Red drummer, recruited for a second drum line
- Bobby Crow + Kevin Corkran
- Signs of the Swarm's own drummer, plus Galactic Empire's Corkran
The CYS angle: detuning a nu-metal classic
The original "Dragula" is built for radio, industrial metal and nu metal per Wikipedia's own genre tags, with guitar playing a supporting role to Rob Zombie's samples and programming. Turning it into a deathcore breakdown means doing the opposite: pushing the guitars to the front and detuning them well past where the original sits. Crow's own account confirms the band detuned for the cover, though the exact notes aren't documented anywhere CYS has found, so treat any specific tuning claim as unconfirmed rather than official.
What is well documented is the tuning territory deathcore and modern metalcore bands work in generally: extended-range 7- and 8-string guitars in Drop A or lower, built for the same kind of chugging, breakdown-heavy riffing this cover leans on. A set like the Ernie Ball 7-String Skinny Top Heavy Bottom Slinky Cobalt (.010-.062) is built for exactly that range, a heavier bottom string paired with a standard top end so rhythm chugging stays tight without sacrificing lead playability.