Static-X: An Interview With Wayne Static

May 8th, 2007 by Romperchic

The Evil Disco music in 1999 that Los Angeles based STATIC-X executed to perfection on WISCONSIN DEATH TRIP has been intertwined with a dirty, raw, simple and direct sound in the 6th studio album CANNIBAL. Wayne Static perfectly defined the sound as the most metal, heaviest, back to basic sound of the bands career. CANNIBAL is stripped down and in your face with tracks like CANNIBAL, FORTY WAYS and CHEMICAL LOGIC.

I had a chance to sit down with Mr. Wayne Static before their show in Providence, RI. We hit upon topics such as the new disc, new writing, touring and biggest challenges he went through to make this new disc.

HOW’S LIFE TREATING YOU WAYNE?
It’s great, complicated

LIFE’S ALWAYS COMPLICATED, THAT’S WHAT MAKES IT AMAZING
Yeah. It’s good though

IS NICK BACK PLAYING BECAUSE WHEN I SAW HIM A BIT AGO HE LOOKED LIKE HE WAS ALL HEALED UP?
No, we still have a fill in.

HOW’S THE NEW GUY WORKING OUT AND DID IT FEEL LIKE A FIRST SHOW HIS FIRST NIGHT OR WAS HE ALREADY FAMILIAR WITH EVERYTHING?
It’s going good. Bevan has been with us a week now. No, it doesn’t really feel like a first show because both of the guys Will and Bevan are that good, that they can step in and rock it. It’s a little bit different, every drummer has a little bit different feel but they’re both so good that I don’t even notice some times. I miss like the certain fills that Nick always did, ya know, but it’s good.

WHEN DO YOU THINK NICK’S COMING BACK?
A couple of more weeks

HE BROKE IT PLAYING OR JUST FOOLING AROUND?
Fooling around.

BREAKING AWAY FROM YOUR PRODUCER ULRICH WILD THIS TIME WAS THIS SOMETHING THAT YOU WERE FEELING WHEN YOU GOT DONE WITH THE LAST RECORD?
We did one record with somebody else also, we did SHADOW ZONE with Josh Abraham. So, it’s not like this is the only time we’ve ever done anything and I wanted to produce the record mainly and I wanted to bring someone in who I hadn’t work with just to have different ideas. I had a very distinct idea of what I wanted the record to sound like and I just didn’t hear it as Ulrich making the record with me.

WHAT DID YOU THINK THIS NEW GUY WOULD BRING IN? WAS THERE ONE CERTAIN THING THAT HE HAD THAT YOU LIKED ABOUT HIM?
He has a more like rock n roll sensibility where Ulrich is more a metal guy.

OK, BUT THIS IS LIKE THE HEAVIEST RECORD YOU GUYS HAVE MADE!
But I wanted it to sound like old school, AC/DC or something, ya know. I wanted to do a little dry and less polished.

YOU HAVE ALWAYS HAD YOUR HANDS IN CO-PRODUCING. IS THIS SOMETHING YOU HAVE A TRUE PASSION FOR?
I’ve CO-produced all the records. This is just the first one that my name is listed. The difference with this record was that I was there every second of every day, when every note was being played, I really put the time in.

IS THIS SOMETHING YOU WILL DO IN THE FUTURE, WORKING WITH ANYONE ELSE?
I would like to at some point in the future when I’m older when I’m not doing as much and I’d have time to do it, it takes a long time to make a record. Three or four months of your life you have to devote to it, so I don’t have that kind of time right now but I’ll produce our next record too. I think this record turned out really great, I’ll probably work with John Travis again on the next one.

WHAT WAS THE MAIN FOCUS GOING IN TO RECORDING, YOU ALREADY HAD A VISION OF WHAT YOU WANTED IT TO SOUND LIKE, DO YOU THINK YOU MET THAT BY RECORDING THE WAY YOU DID?
Yes, I think we got it. I was just being very careful when we were putting down the drums making sure they sounded the way I wanted them to sound. Get the studio that had a real small room, not too live sounding, that was the main difference sonically the drums on this record and my guitar is what it is.

STATIC-X RECORDS HAVE ALWAYS FOCUSED ON GUITAR TONES AND PROGRAMMING, WAS ONE THING MORE PROMINENT IN THE WRITING PROCESS THAN THE OTHER THIS TIME OR DO YOU THINK IT’S THE SAME?
I think it’s all in the mix. In a lot of the songs I tried to do some more metal style guitar riffing, fast picking and things like that, that we’ve never really done before in this band and a good mix of guitars and electronic stuff together.

DO YOU STILL START OFF WITH A PROGRAMMING PART AND WRITE THE SONGS OVER THE PROGRAMMING?
I tend to do it at the same time. On this album, I started with drum beats and put a couple of guitar riffs in there, put some programming in there so the song starts shaping up, ya know, and then if it seems cool, I’ll put the effort in for writing lyrics for it, it’s got to be slamming otherwise I don’t want to waste my time.

DO YOU TEND TO START AND FINISH A COMPLETE SONG BEFORE MOVING ON TO THE NEXT?
A lot of times, that’s the case, I usually work on one song for a few days and just finish it. Some of the songs I had worked on over several weeks. I’d get to a point where now I’m stuck on this thing, I don’t know what else to do, I don’t know how to finish this out but it’s good, so I’ll let it sit for a while and then come back to it so it goes both ways. Like DESTROYER, I wrote that song in two hours. Lyrics and all, everything. Some songs are like that.

I’VE ALWAYS ENJOYED YOUR LYRICS SINCE 99. DO YOU FEEL YOU LEAVE MYSTERY IN YOUR LYRICS OR DO YOU THINK THEY ARE POINT BLANK OBVIOUS?
Thank You, I try to make them interesting. Some of my songs are obvious, some of them aren’t, but it’s good to be able to read into it.

HAVING KOICHI BACK, WHAT WAS HIS BIGGEST MISSION GOING INTO THIS RECORD?
His responsibilities on this record was guitar solos, period.

AND HE ROCKED IT OUT!
Yeah

DOES HE WRITE HIS GUITAR SOLOS?
We work on them together. There is a few of them, he came up with them on his own, most of them he had just some starting ideas, some of them he had no idea but usually myself and John Travis just sat down and we did like a solo a day, pretty much and worked on it for hours and hours. Some of them, we just let him jam for a while and go Oh, that’s cool We just worked on them like that.

SOUNDS EASY ENOUGH!
Yeah, easy for us, not for him (laughing) He was the one having to shred for four hours a day

HE SHOULD KNOW THEM BY HEART NOW, RIGHT! SO, IF HE MESSES UP
Yeah (laughing)

VOCALLY, I KNOW ON SHADOW ZONE AND START A WAR, YOU WERE MORE MELODIC, THIS TIME YOU’VE GONE BACK TO THE EDGINESS, WAS THAT SOMETHING LIKE BACK TO BASICS WHAT YOU WANTED TO DO?
Yeah, I just felt like it, ya know. I wanted to make a really heavy record, a loud record and as I was writing the songs I just really never seen any room for melodic vocals, I don’t know.

WERE YOU JUST ANGRY?
I’m not angry at all. Just having a good time. I want to do what’s right for the song and all these songs just sound like so full ahead and full on and so intense that it just feels like the right thing to do.

WHAT WAS THE BIGGEST CHALLENGE YOU HAD VOCALLY?
Some of the songs are pretty intense, something like FORTY WAYS was just like this long non stop thing with full on screaming and stuff, there’s a few songs which took me a lot of time to get it, just because you can only scream for so long and when your doubling all your parts, you got to do so many takes before you really got the right one and yeah, some of the songs took a couple of days.

DO YOU DO VOCAL TRAINING BEFORE YOU START RECORDING?
Nah. I Just do it.

SO TAKE THE SONG FORTY WAYS WHEN YOU GOT DONE RECORDING IT OR EVEN WRITING IT, DID YOU ALREADY KNOW THIS WILL JUST BE AN ALBUM SONG AND NOT PLAYED LIVE SINCE ITS TRICKY?
I knew it would be challenging live. I try not to really worry about that kind of stuff too much when we’re making the record. I used to worry about it in the old days more, the first record in particular because I knew that was all we had and we would have to play all of it. Now, I worry about making the song as cool as I can and if we decide to play that song, we’ll figure out a way to play it..

WHAT WAS YOUR INSPIRATION LYRICALLY? DO YOU HAVE ONE INSPIRATION FOR EACH OF THE SONGS?
Every song is different. For songs I like to pick titles first, then try to write lyrics to extend upon the title.

I LIKE YOUR THING ABOUT REPTILES, YOU BEING EATEN BY A REPTILE!
Yeah, good example

DID YOU HAVE RE-OCCURRING NIGHTMARES ABOUT THIS?
No, it just seemed like it fit the music (laughing)

DO YOU CONSIDER YOURSELF A SONG WRITER BEFORE ANYTHING ELSE?
Yeah, yeah, I’m not a great musician.

IF YOU COULD CO-WRITE A SONG WITH ANYONE DEAD OR ALIVE, WHO WOULD IT BE AND WHY?
I would write a song with Steve Perry. He’s my favorite singer of all times.

YOU SHOULD DO A COVER OF OPEN ARMS!
Yeah, I know, I can’t sing like him though. Very few people can, that’s why his voice is so special. I would love to write a song with him.

GO BACK, WHEN TRIPP WAS IN THE BAND, I KNOW HE HAD TO WRITE A LOT
He contributed, I still wrote the songs. Basically, the way it worked was I write the songs but if you want to contribute, make me a demo of your guitar riffs with a drum beat and give it to me. Then if I find something on there that I think is cool, then I’ll make a song with it or use it with something and that was the case with Tripp and then Tony actually did that, there are three songs on this record that Tony actually wrote the guitar riffs for.

DID TRIPP WRITE LYRICS WITH YOU THEN?
He gave me a lot of his lyrics that he had written over the years and I used some of them, yeah.

DO YOU THINK YOU’VE BROADEN YOUR SONGWRITING OR LYRICAL ABILITY BECAUSE HE BROUGHT IN A DIFFERENT ASPECT?
No, honestly, I think this album is the best lyrics of all the records because I wrote every single word on my own. On the first album Ken contributed some lyrics and maybe a little bit on the second album, not so much.

WELL, I WOULD THINK TOO, AS A SINGER YOU WOULD WANT TO SING YOUR OWN WORDS?
Yeah, I mean, I’m not all hung up on that really. If I think stuff is cool, I don’t mind using it.

HAVE YOU EVER JOKED ABOUT KEN COMING BACK INTO THE BAND AND BEING YOUR OLD BAND AGAIN?
No, I can’t even think about it.

YOUR CONTENT THE WAY YOU ARE!
Absolutely. The drummer we have now is better and makes us a better band.

YOUR VIDEO FOR DESTROYER, DESCRIBE IT IN THREE WORDS!
(laughing) Roller Derby Chics. That is what it is!!!

DID YOU FILM THAT IN LA?
Yeah, it was a good time. It was a lot of fun, it was the easiest shoot we’ve ever done because the band wasn’t the focus of the shoot, so basically we were sitting around watching girls fight, so it was cool.

I HEARD YOUR WRITING NEW STUFF
I have a lot of ideas brewing

I WAS GOING TO ASK YOU, IF YOU COULD, PAINT A PICTURE OF WHAT YOUR VISION IS FOR THE NEXT RECORD?
I can’t do that (laughing) That would take a lot of time, ya know.

WHAT, JUST A SCRIBBLE!
I’d have to figure it out and think about it
OK. (as i give him the sad pouty face)
I have fears of commitment

OH, YOU DO?
I can’t just do something on the fly and then that’s not what I really wanted to do after I thought about it.

OK. YOUR OFF THE HOOK THIS TIME BUT DO YOU FEEL YOU HAVE A VISION THAT MIGHT DO WITH MORE EXPERIMENTING THIS TIME AROUND?
I’m going to continue where I left off on this album and see where it goes. Our albums seem to be shaping up in pairs. The first two seemed kind of close, the next two seemed kind of close, so it takes two albums to get a certain thing out of my system.

YOU SHOULD DO A DOUBLE ALBUM!
It takes too long. I can’t add that fast. (laughing)

SO IT’S TIME TO PLAY A GAME. WHEN I SAY THESE THREE WORDS I WANT TO KNOW THE FIRST THING THAT COMES TO YOUR MIND?
OK? HONESTY
(laughing) Really

REALLY?
Yeah, that’s my word (laughing)

OK??? COURAGE?
Hmmmmm

REALLY! (laughing)
(laughing) Victory

PASSION?
Love

AWWW..THOSE ARE THREE WORDS I USUALLY LOOK FOR IN A BAND. THAT’S WHAT MAKES THEM STARS IN MY EYES!
Oh. Yeah, honesty to yourself and your music and that type of thing

AND A LOT OF TIMES THE EVIL RECORD LABELS TAKE THAT AWAY!
Well, ya know, it can happen

YOU’VE BEEN WITH WARNER FOREVER, HUH? HAPPY, CONTENT, EVERYTHING’S GOOD?
Yeah. I’m as happy as I can be with a record label, ya know, there’s bad things, there’s good things, if I have to be on a label, Warner is a good label to be on.

HOW IS THIS TOUR GOING?
Excellent, every show has been sold out, it’s awesome.

GREAT. DO YOU HAVE ANY FAMOUS LAST WORDS?
(laughing) No, I don’t

YOU HATE THAT QUESTION (laughing)
(laughing) Yeah

ALL RIGHT, SO, NO LAST WORDS
No

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