Anyone who knows a thing or two about heavy metal knows that the late ’90s were a very exciting time. The Los Angeles music scene had just recently produced a slew of new acts offering a unique interpretation of the genre, led by the distorted, dark and beat-driven stylings of Korn.

Of the bands that rose to prominence during that era, most have died off or refuse to die — unabashedly opposed to the expiration date long ago given to them by press and public alike, and some have managed to stay relevant in an environment that has long since decried their genre.

Static-X represents a little of both of these scenarios. Led by their stoic, zany-haired frontman Wayne Static (real name: Wayne Richard Wells), Static-X was swept up in the singing frenzy that took place shortly after Korn and peers alike gained notoriety. While it may have been easy for the industry to lump the band in with groups like Coal Chamber and Limp Bizkit, Static-X’s success and continued relevance is a byproduct of their ability to recall the glory days of bands like Ministry and Nine Inch Nails.

But then again, Static-X isn’t really like those bands either.

Give a listen.

Recently I had a chance to talk to their frontman about the band’s new album, Cult of Static, and their journey from jaded nobodies to Industrial Metal superstars:

Wayne Static: It doesn’t bother me!

WS: [Laughs] That’s funny because the last interview asked me the exact same question.

WS: [Laughs] It was in ‘94 and I don’t know. The best way to do it would probably be to go on Wikipedia and look at it there. At this point, it’s really hard to remember and it’s probably in better detail there than I could provide.

WS: Well, ‘94 was when the band actually formed, and then we got signed in ‘97. We recorded our first record in ‘98, then it came out in ‘99. So that’s the timeline.

WS: When we started touring, that’s a different story. There’s kind of two parts to that. Before we were signed in the mid-’90s, we just started the band for fun, so I wasn’t too worried about what other people were going to think. But the scene in L.A. was pretty cool at that time. Korn was just getting started, System of a Down wasn’t signed yet, Coal Chamber wasn’t signed yet — all these bands that were heavy-sounding but different. We were all involved in that scene. Once we started playing, we were pretty well-received, and that’s why we ended up getting signed. We would go on tour and play for other people’s crowds, and people dug it. It was kind of a long, growing process.

WS: Yeah, that’s the whole idea. When you first get started, you just need to stay on the road and play with as many different bands as you can because…nobody knew who we were so it would make no sense to go to a town and play to nobody, because no one would come because nobody knew who we were! We went from tour to tour starting with Fear Factory, jumping on to a Slayer tour, then jumped on to a Megadeth tour, did another Fear Factory tour…and you just keep going, and after a while, you can headline once enough people see you and remember your music.

WS: Yeah, we were very stoked. It went gold in less than a year, and then it was platinum a few months after that. We didn’t expect any of that, really. Like I said, we just started the band for fun; we didn’t expect to get signed. I had given up on getting signed at that point.

WS: I was completely jaded. I had spent my whole life trying to get signed. So after a while, I was like, “Fuck it. I don’t care any more. I’m not even going to bother. Let’s just have a good time, write some fun music, try something different that we like and…go out, play some shows and have some fun doing it.” We got signed with zero press, zero photos and a demo that we made by ourselves that we gave away at our show.

WS: People can pick up on that, though. They can pick up on the fact that you’re having fun. On the other hand too, if you’re desperate, people can tell.

WS: We didn’t try anything Earth-shakingly new. It does have to sound like Static-X, you know? I do write within a certain world, within certain boundaries. I guess the main thing on the new record was that I wanted to make things moodier, darker and trancier. I did a lot more work on the keyboards than I have in the past and took a lot more time recording. We recorded a lot of it at my house, so we were able to take our time. There’s more hours of writing and recording that went into this record, by far, than any of our other records.

WS: Yes. When we finished the record and were trying to come up with a title, we started talking about release dates, and I noticed March was coming up. As it turns out, we would be able to release the record almost ten years to the day after our first album was released. This got me to thinking about our fans and how they are so loyal that they’re almost like a cult. So it’s really a thank you to our cult — our fans — and that’s how we came up with Cult of Static.

WS: There’s really no pattern to that. Some songs come together in a day or two, and some songs I spend months on, literally. So there’s really no pattern to how much time you spend on a song and which ones turn out to be the favorites.

WS: Probably the last Ozzfest that we did, which was 2007.

WS: Not only was that a great tour and we had a great spot on the main stage, but I met my wife on that tour. It was just a lot of fun.

WS: We all just do our own thing. I myself party and get fucked up as much as I can to alleviate the boredom of sitting around the bus all day. We just try to have a good time. Being on the road is like the vacation part of my whole job. Being home is the work part, and being on the road is the vacation part, so we treat it as such.

WS: Yes — heading straight over to Europe for a couple months — doing a bunch of festivals, a few club shows and then coming back to the US and making another run here.

WS: Absolutely. I’m really going to try and make that happen in the next couple years. I really wanted to get this Static-X record out of the way so I could figure some more things out. I have to make some serious time for it in the next couple of years.

As I hung up the phone and raced out to the street where my car lay bent and twisted at the hands of a wayward Acura, my mind was still very much on my conversation with Wayne. Even still, as I beheld the destruction, I was drifting in memory to Alpine Valley, Wisconsin, 1999, approximately 11:00 a.m. A pale man with a black Epiphone Flying V and the craziest hair you have ever seen strolled on stage with three others as the first band of that year’s Ozzfest and proceeded to give the best wake-up call performance I have ever seen.

Recalling the fervor with which Static-X was met during that 25-minute performance — no one in the crowd knowing who they were — leaves me still unsurprised that they have managed to stay both popular and relevant when so many of their peers have either thrown in the towel or drifted so far into obscurity that few can recall their existence.

Static-X has created a cult, and this cult will ensure that whatever town this band sets foot in, the welcome will be as explosive as it was ten years ago when Wayne and his troop turned nu-metal and industrial flat on their fucking heads.

Link to oringinal article at Buzzine: http://www.buzzine.com/2009/05/the-cult-of-static/