It’s difficult to put to words just how popular industrial metal was in the early 00’s.
Partly because so many of the bands from the era have since added their bones to the pile. Static-X was not one of them, and with their on-going worldwide tour, they’ve been demonstrating why.
Numbers certainly help paint a picture – Even still, so many industrial metal bands never had an album go platinum, but yet again, Static-X is not one of them. In fact, Static-X enjoyed many spoils denied to their ilk and they’ve got the album chart real estate to prove it.
Static-X successfully bridged the decade, though their trajectory was keeled with the tragic passing of vocalist Wayne Static in 2014. But this wasn’t to be the end of the story. Long after, the band soon discovered a trove of untapped vocals from Wayne, a deluge of original material that would go on to form 2020’s Project: Regeneration Vol. 1, and more to come with Project: Regeneration Vol. 2 expected out this year.
The universe would conspire for the Regeneration project to coincide with the 20 year anniversary of their debut Wisconsin Death Trip, and after a few false starts, a celebratory tour would kick off with vocalist Xer0, putting the past, present and future of Static-X on the same stage.
With Australia now in their sights, BLUNT magazine spoke with founding member Tony Campos about how that feels.
It must be a cool feeling to know that your ideas don’t just work, but your ideas stand a test of time. Is that how you see it?
I’m blown away. So 20 years plus after the fact, people are still rocking out to our songs and yeah, it’s a pretty cool feeling. We expected none of this from day one. Our highest aspirations were getting to tour in a pickup truck pulling a trailer. We could all sleep in the back of the truck. That was our high aspiration. That’s much as we expected.
There has been a tonne of love online from the shows so far. Are you feeling in your bones that these shows have been special?
There was some scepticism of whether or not we were going to do the tours because we had to postpone twice. When we actually got the first show out and done, people were like, “Okay, this is really happening.”
It’s been killer, man. We’ve been out for a little over a month and the vast majority of the shows have been sold out. The package has been killer. I’m doing double duty every night with playing with Fear Factory and Static X, and it’s been a blast, man. Having a good time. Once you get up on stage and see the audience reacting you get a pretty good sense of how everything’s coming together and how everyone’s enjoying all the work you put into it
While you’re honouring the legacy of Static, you’re also working on new material. I imagine that must be kind of weird being in the past, present and the future of Static X at the same time. Is that a head trip?
Well, we’re already performing a couple of songs. They’re loving it, man. It’s really cool. In a way, even this new stuff is a nod to the past. Just how it all came together and how Wayne left us with all this material to work with. So even though it’s new, it’s still a nod to the past, so to speak.
We finished all the tracking right before we left on this tour, so it’s now in the hands of our longtime producer, Ulrich Wild, and he’s mixing it currently. So, hopefully, by the time we get back, we’ll start getting some mixes to listen to.
Static-X Australian Tour Dates
Featuring Soil
Friday 19th May
Northcote Theatre, Melbourne
Tickets: Phoenix
Saturday 20th May
The Metro, Sydney
Tickets: Phoenix
Sunday 21th May
Eatons Hill, Brisbane
Tickets: Phoenix
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