The word "simple" has been used to describe the band’s approach to the music they play. However, while you probably could break each song down to a simple guitar line and basic drum beat, the end product sounds anything but simplistic. With Wayne’s vocals, the two guitars, and the programming used in the arrangements, the tunes have weight and depth to them. You can play the CD dozens of times and continually pick up new things in the songs. Static-X songs are larger than life.

The band’s first album, titled ‘Wisconsin Death Trip," has gone gold. The first single from the album, "Push It," is currently in rotation on the LA station KROQ, and is at #20 on the active rock charts. "Push It" also has a video which is currently in heavy rotation on MTV, and look out, because the guys just completed a second video which we will no doubt see on MTV as well.

The Scene had the extreme pleasure of speaking with the band’s front man himself, while they are at home here in LA on a short break from their tour.

TS - I have read about your finding the book that became the namesake for your album. Why do you think '‘Wisconsin Death Trip’ made such a strong impression you?

Wayne - There’s not a lot of books that really interest me, I don’t read very much. There’s something about this book that’s so dark. It has such a dark feel about it. It wasn’t just some crap that somebody made up - it’s all real. I think because the photos are real it makes them that much scarier and spookier. The title of the book just has this great ring to it. It just sticks in your head. I’ve always wanted to use it for something. I wanted to name the band that originally, but we thought it was too long and too "death".

TS - Could you please explain your " simple is better" approach to music?

Wayne - We try to keep everything as simple as possible, because while we’re writing the songs we’re thinking about playing them live. We’re imagining someone who knew nothing about us, or knew none of our songs, having to come in and watch our show for the first time. A lot of times bands make their songs too complicated. When you’re playing it live, the PA may not be really great and it just tends to sound like this jumbled mess that you can’t really understand. When we started playing in this band we were playing in really small clubs with crappy sound. We wanted to make sure that no matter where we played, what we were doing could be understood, and have a really high impact. So, that was the reason for the real straight-ahead drumbeats and very broken up guitar lines and stuff like that.

TS - Could you tell me about some of the sound effects you and Koichi like to use in the programming? For instance there is a sort of whistling sound running through the track "Wisconsin Death Trip." How did you do that?

Wayne – I didn’t have a lot of money a few years back, when we were writing these songs. I didn’t have money to buy any kind of sound module. I didn’t even own a sampler. I had this Alesis DM5 it was actually a drum sound module. What I would do is stack up like five different sounds, and mix them all together and it would create a new sound. A lot of the sounds on the record are actually just from a $300 Alesis DM5. When we recorded the album, we just played with the EQs to make them a little different. I was just trying to create something with what I had at the time.

*TS - It's been said that you like to think of the band as just one big rhythm section. How much tougher or easier does it make a song not having as many guitar/drum solos as say, Metallica?

Wayne – It’s not tougher or easier, it’s just a different way of looking at things. Instead of a guitar solo we’ll have a section where the keyboard will do something. It’s just a different way of approaching things. I am not a very good guitarist. I can’t really play solos anyway. We wrote most of these songs before Koichi was even in the band. We were just a three piece, so there was really no way of having guitar solos. How am I gonna compete with Eddy Van Halen, or Ace Frehley or Dime Bag? There are so many great guitarists who have just kicked ass! I want everything we do in this band to just totally smoke and just be amazing. I can’t play an amazing guitar solo, so why even try?

TS - Static-X is taking heavy music in a completely different direction from anyone else these days. After your days in Deep Blue Dream, what influenced you to develop your current style?

Wayne – After Deep Blue Dream, I got into death metal and grind-core, and really deep into the metal thing. We did that for a few years. Ken and I did that with a couple of different bands and lots of different members until we just kind of played that out and decided that, "you know what… this isn’t happening any more." It goes back to [the fact that] you can’t outdo a band like Pantera, or you can’t out do Suplutura. Those bands wrote the heaviest, sickest riffs, those are the Gods of Metal. So we decided we have to do something totally new that no one else has ever done before. That’s the only way we’re ever gonna outdo anybody, ‘cause there’s no one to outdo yet. We just started experimenting. One day I was listening to some old records and pulled out an old Ministry record, and something just clicked in my head. I just realized "hey we could do something sort of like this, but still have more of a metal influence to it." I pulled out an old drum machine that I had just been collecting dust, and started programming some stuff. It just felt magical the first day that we hooked it all up and started trying this song. It felt so magical, and we knew we had something there, and we just kept building on that idea.

TS - What are some of your musical influences?

Wayne – As far as metal bands, I’m really into Prong, Pantera, and White Zombie. I also like a lot of the new electronic stuff. All the Prodigy stuff is great, Crystal Method, and things like that. Then all the old industrial stuff like Ministry, and Skinny Puppy, that stuff had an influence as well.

TS - When asked about the meaning of your lyrics, Ken said that the song "Fix’ has been misquoted as being about drugs. What is the song about?

Wayne – "Fix" is definitely not about drugs, although it could be about drugs for you, if that’s the way you want to interpret it. I actually wrote "Fix" for my girlfriend. It’s just about something or someone that you are really fixated on. You know, when you’re in love with someone and you just think about them all the time, and you just can’t wait to see them again. That’s what I had in mind when I wrote that song, but it could be about anything that you’re in love with, or anything that you can’t wait to do again.

TS - I heard that you just filmed the video for "I’m with Stupid." Could you tell me a bit about the video, and is the rumor true that you featured an actual "Evil Disco" in the video?

Wayne – Yes. We taped it last weekend. It went great, it was really interesting! Our Director David Mayers is really creative and had a real good eye for framing things. I think it’s gonna turn out really cool. It’s gonna be very different, and should be a very entertaining video.

It takes place in an actual "Evil Disco," which we created in this old theater here in LA, the Orpheum Theater. We have a cast of evil characters. They brought in lots of bones and disco balls, and stuff like that. We had a lighted dance floor under the band. It turned out pretty cool. The rest of the video deals with the "Shovel Lady," who we created as this backwoods serial killer who kills people with shovels. She’s just insane, and she has this trailer out in the woods with shovels, and bones all over the place. She is hunting down Static Man throughout the whole video.

TS - Do you enjoy the experience of making videos?

Wayne – I enjoy coming up with the concepts. I enjoy seeing my vision come to life. But the actual labor of it is very tedious, boring, and tiring. If I could just skip all the work, it would be fine.

* TS - What do you think about Ministry getting nominated for a Grammy?

Wayne – It’s pretty cool. I think Rob Zombie got nominated as well. I think it’s very cool that a huge organization like that is actually taking notice that bands like Ministry and Zombie are really having an impact on the music scene. They are very underground if you compare them to the pop scene of today, with the Backstreet Boys, and N’Sync. They have definitely had a huge impact on the music world over the years.

* TS - How hard was it to actually get the record contract and get to where you

are now?

Wayne – I don’t really know, it just took so long. I feel sorry for bands that are just starting out, ‘cause even if they’re good, it is so hard and it takes so long. Even if you get a record contract the chances of selling a lot of records is slim. We didn’t really worry about getting signed or anything like that, because I knew how hard it was. We just worried about trying to create something new, and having fun while we were doing it. Tried to put on good shows, and tried to make our own little thing happen here in Los Angeles. It took us a few years to get that together. Once we started creating a buzz here for ourselves, the rest of it just fell into place. It was not hard at all to get a record deal once we had done all the groundwork.

* TS - What would you tell someone that's just getting started?

Wayne - I would advise people not to worry about getting a record deal right from the start. Just worry about writing some cool songs and creating your own sound. Generate buzz about your band in whatever town you live in.

* Contributions by Adam Bowman

Special thanks to Monica Seide at Warner Bros. for making this interview possible.