STATIC-X Frontman Talks New Album, Upcoming Tour With MUDVAYNE

Glam-Metal.com recently conducted an interview with STATIC-X frontman Wayne Static. An excerpt from the chat follows below.

Glam-Metal.com: You said you were going over to Europe in a couple weeks or so, how popular is STATIC-X over there?

Wayne: We have fans there, we do okay, we're not as big there as we are here in the U.S. because we haven't spent as much time over there. The big thing about Europe is doing all the festivals, so most of the shows are festival shows. That's really the way to do it because you get tens of thousands of people everyday.

Glam-Metal.com: Yeah, sure. Now when you come back from Europe, you're starting a tour with MUDVAYNE and BLACK LABEL SOCIETY. There's very few details of that tour that have been revealed. Can you tell us what size venues you're playing and approximately when the tour is going to start?

Wayne: The approximate start date is July 22 but I don't have any like, you know, official routing or official dates or anything like that. They're still putting it together but the tour is definitely going to happen, I know that. And I haven't seen any of the venues yet either.

Glam-Metal.com: So do you know if it's going to be amphitheatres or bigger clubs or you don't yet?

Wayne: I think it's going to be bigger clubs, I mean bigger theatres. I don't think we're going to do it in clubs.

Glam-Metal.com: Yeah, that's pretty cool. Your most recent CD, "Cult of Static", I feel is the most solid release. of your career. How difficult was it to write and record this CD for you?

Wayne: Well, thanks for the compliment, I feel the same way. I think it's the best thing I've ever written. I took a bit longer writing than normally and it was a little bit different this time around, you know, Tony [Campos, bass] was gone on tour with MINISTRY the whole year. I just moved the studio to my house and basically wrote the whole record by myself. You know, just worked every night, late hours, that kind of thing. I spent a lot of time on it.

Glam-Metal.com: The music industry has really changed from the way you recorded your very first CD. to the way your recorded this CD., it's really changed quite a bit hasn't it?

Wayne: Yeah, I mean, with "Wisconsin Death Trip", we actually recorded on an old two-inch machine, analog tape, you know, and everything; well, I guess "Machine" we did the same as that but everything since that we've done with Pro Tools. I try not to get too over-indulged in the whole Pro Tools thing; I really don't like to try to over-edit things and make things sound too perfect or anything like that. Other than "Machine", with the device we recorded on, we really haven't changed the way we record very much.

Glam-Metal.com: "Cult of Static" was produced again by John Travis. What kind of role does he play as far as producing the CD? I mean, obviously you are the brains behind the project, but what does he add to the sound?

Wayne: Yeah, well, you know, I like to have a good engineer there, of course, someone there to make it sound good. I like to have another guy to work with, to kind of throw different ideas there and a different perspective on things. I co-produced all the records. I like having another partner there to keep things in check and throw different ideas in. John kind of comes out from a different perspective, he's not really a metal guy, he's more of a rock 'n' roll/punk rock guy so he has different ideas from some of the other people we've worked with in the past.

Read the entire interview from Glam-Metal.com.

Video footage of STATIC-X performing the song "Stingwray" on May 28, 2009 at The Village in Little Rock, Arkansas can be viewed below (courtesy of Arkansas Rocks! Entertainment).