Static Interview

STATIC: SUBLIMINAL SATANIC SUBLIMATION
By Prince of Darkness

STAT-IC, noun. Definition: noise produced in a radio or television reciever by atmospheric or various natural or man-made electrical disturbances; also the electrical disturbances producing this noise.
Date of definition: 1913

STAT-IC, noun. Definition: four member Hollywood based band special-
izing in musical cranial assault.
Date of definition: 1998

Thanks to a combination of always intense, always quality live performances, groove laden yet heavy tunes and one of the most widely distributed demo tapes in recent memory, all of which have generated incredible word of mouth, Static's popularity has rapidly snowballed to where it is now over a mere matter of months. They can now officially add a deal with Warner Bros. to the list of current achievements. However, theirs is a classic scenario of an "overnight" success that has been over two years in the making - and that's only the current lineup. There's more to the story than that, and Prince of Darkness was just the man to uncover the whole shocking story. But to do that He would have to infiltrate their world... and escape with his sanity (among other things) still in check.
The skies opened up on P of D the night in question, officially becoming a torrential downpour by the time He arrived at the palacial Static estate nestled comfortably in the middle of Hollywood.
He rang the code. The door buzzed. He entered. It all seemed innocent enough...
Inside was complete insanity. Blaring music, people everywhere, beer, food, animals (no livestock, visible anyway) running around like they owned the place. P of D felt right at home. It took a while with the strobe light going but He managed to spot and subsequently round up the four participants responsible for this madness.
Wayne - vocals/guitar/programming; Tony - bass/backing vocals; Ken - drums; Koichi (pronounced Ko-ee-chee) - guitars/keyboard make up Static now, but the saga actually begins in Chicago. "Ken and I played together for years there, but the last band we were in over there (not called Static, by the way) was totally Spinal Tap!" says Wayne, making a timely reference as the film in question suddenly appears on a television screen in the room. "We were in the band for a year and there were at least three different lineups."
"It's funny to think about it now," Ken adds, "but Wayne and I joined the band and slowly kicked everyone out. Then when the whole lineup had changed, we quit! We ruined the band, ruined everyones lives and left town."
It turns out that Chi-town just didnt have much to offer the two musically anymore. "There was nothing going on there, it was pretty much dead as far as I was concerned," explains Wayne. "It was thriving for a while with Ministry and the whole Wax Trax heyday in the mid 80's. But that was long gone."
So they quit their jobs and made their arrangements to come to L.A., which they did two weeks after the earthquake in '94. "I gave my two week notice like that day and my boss, this short little Louie De Palma lookalike tells me 'You're going THERE? You gotta be out of your fuckin mind!'" recalls Ken.
Once settled in our sleepy little town, they worked on a few things here and there in the studio, then got the itch to play as a band again and actually started rehearsing without a bass player for a project that would eventually be called Drill.
Enter Tony.
"I worked with Tony and knew he was a kick ass bassist," Ken says.
"At the time I was still jamming with a death metal band and told him no because I liked what I was doing, even though we weren't playing or rehearsing much," clarifies Tony. "He kept asking me to come down to their space and check out what they were doing, and I just kept telling him to give me a demo."
He continues, "A few weeks later I thought to myself, you know, I'm not doing shit with these guys. We're not practicing, we're not accomplishing anything. I just said fuck it, I'm going to go jam with Ken and see if I can do something different other than (insert death metal growl here)."
It turned out to be a perfect fit. Now all they needed was a guitar player but it wouldn't be as easy to find this piece of the puzzle, as Wayne remembers. "We had just been through a string of three or four guitar players in a matter of a year and I was beginning to wonder if we would ever find one that clicked with us. It was getting too reminiscent of the previous situation in Chicago."
"I was getting very skeptical."
Little did they know, the solution to their problem was right under their noses - or right across the hall of their rehearsal space, to be exact, the whole time. "The band I was in at the time had to move out of our space and we ended up at the same studio they were at," Koichi recollects. "I remember I would pass by their room while they were jamming and always thought, what a cool band! My project (which included Greg from Mygrain on drums) was having difficulty getting a lineup together as well. One day I spotted an ad looking for a guitar player on the studio bulletin board so I decided to check it out, and once I approached the room I realized it was THAT band!"
"He walked in and announced, 'I'm your new guitar player.' It's funny to look back on that now." Ken says.
Tony adds, "When he came in he was confident, but not obnoxious confident. It was more like, 'Excuse me, I'm your new guitar player.'"
"Koichi is probabably the most polite man alive!" Ken explains with a story. "Here's an example. He fell down during a show at the Troubadour and he apologized to us! I thought that was the coolest thing. The SpineShank guys were up front and heard him. They were shocked, like 'Did we hear that right?'"
They gave him three songs to learn which he did immediately, then showed him more which he had down the next day. "The point was that he picked everything up just like that," Ken says with a snap of his fingers.
"That was over two years ago," Wayne interjects. "But he was in the band for about 8 months and was out for a year before he came back."
They played out as a three piece, getting some good shows. Koichi eventually returned, and it was back to the business of doing that voodoo they do so well. But what are Static musically? Prince of Darkness, never one to play the label game, simply calls them good. The band has other ideas. Wayne: "We're a disco band." Ken: "We're a heavy disco band." Tony: "We're a heavy, evil disco band."
At that point, a couple (male and female) who had been playfully wrestling came literally crashing through the door, taking it off its hinges and ending up in a heap on top of it laughing hysterically. It was time for a change of scenery, and after leaving the keys to the kingdom to a trusted family member, the meeting was moved to the quiet serenity of Toi on Sunset.
Back to the matter at hand. All joking aside about what to tag what they play ("Techno up your ass" being another that was tossed around) , there is something about Static's music that grabs you on the first listen and hooks its claws deeper and deeper the more you hear it. They have concocted a volatile musical cocktail, the recipe of which consists of equal parts heavy, electronic, groove and, most important, a loose pour of plain ol' good chemistry. "We were always of the idea that everything should have a groove to it," says Ken. "Also, we try to add a human element to electronic music."
Wayne adds, "If you strip it down to the bare bones, we're a really heavy rock band that you can dance to. For example, at the New Years Eve Whisky show our taped programmed stuff is non-existent for the first song. I don't know if the sound guy even knew we used anything liked that. Anyway, we watched that show on videotape later and it sounded heavier. So even if you take away the whole electronic element, it's still Static, that part of it is not enitrely what we are all about."
"At the show Wayne was talking about we could tell it kind of threw people in the crowd for a loop since the first song was 'I'm With Stupid'," Ken replies. "There's basically two songs of ours that people who come to our shows know well right now and those are 'I'm With Stupid' and 'Push It'. When they don't get to hear that Shovel Lady stuff it really bums them out!"
Ah, yes. The Shovel Lady. Anyone familiar with Static's six song tape is an unofficial member of The Shovel Lady fan club, even though nobody outside of the band's circle knows where the now infamous "Grab my shovel..." dialogue originated. Cool people that they are, they decided to let Prince of Darkness actually view the videotape that contained the footage from whence the sample was lifted. Unfortunately, the contents of the tape were so shocking and disturbing that this highly controversial subject matter cannot be revealed in these pages.
Video, while not the type just mentioned, is an area that intrigues the band. "One of the things we would eventually like to do is incorporate video imagery live," explains Ken. "Several bands have done it, but we would like to get away from the type of show where the bands down here, two huge screens are up here, and everyone ends up focusing on the video instead of the performers."
"We're just going to go step by step with that one, though," Wayne exclaims. "We have other things to to focus on now."
Of course, he is talking about going into the studio to record their debut CD. The band knows the pressure's REALLY on now. "We have things in perspective," Ken remarks. "We realize it's a great thing that this label wants us and it's a great thing that we're signed, but we have not sold one record yet. There's still an incredible amount of work ahead of us. We knew it would take hard work to reach this point,and we are prepared for whatever we have ahead of us."
"We have always been a tremendously efficient band in the studio because we had no budget. Now we will have one for the most part, but we plan on taking the same approach."
So even though it's extremely early in the game, what can people expect? "Everything that's on the demo will be on the CD with some minor changes, mainly on the programming," Wayne explains. "Head" is the oldest song we play, that one has been around for two years. It has evolved since then, but the way you hear it now is the way we plan on it sounding on the album. We've also got some other new songs that I'm really excited about. We haven't played them out because they are slower paced, moodier." (One of these songs, titled "Stem," was played at their last Troubadour show mid-February after this interrogation was taped)
Producing the effort will be Ulrich Wild, who has worked under Terry Date on various projects including White Zombie. "Needless to say we're thrilled to be working with him," affirms Wayne. Work on the disc is scheduled to begin mid-March and continue through May, which will keep them off the stage for a while.
Live performance has been the main tool Static has used to build their fan base. The energy they eminate is contagious and spills from the stage to the crowd, although they say the opposite is true. "It's still weird to me because I'm not used to being in a band where people know the words and sing them back to me," says Wayne. "It's extremely cool and I know I speak for the rest of the band - because we've talked about this before - when I say that we gain vitality from the crowd. We feel we owe it to them to put out more energy than they give toward us."
"It's fun, because these are really fun songs to play," adds Ken. "I still have fun playing them at practice."