Messed!Up
Static-X’s roots trace to the Midwest, where vocalist/guitarist Wayne Static grew up in Michigan and drummer Ken Jay in Illinois. They ended up in Chicago separately and met at the record store where Jay worked, introduced to one another by future Smashing Pumpkins vocalist Billy Corgan (who was in the band Deep Blue Dream with Static). Static and Jay decided to head west to California and start up a new band. Shortly after their arrival, Osaka native Koichi Fukada responded to the duo’s ad and became their new guitarist, as well as programmer. Bassist Tony Campos, the only true Californian, was the final piece of the puzzle.
Signed to Warner Brothers in February 1998, Static-X debuted with Wisconsin Death Trip a year later. The album was a hit and eventually certified platinum, bolstered by the strength of the singles “Push It” and “Bled for Days.” Despite the success, founding guitarist Fukada briefly left the group in 2000, replaced by Tripp Eisen (ex-Dope) for 2001’s gold-certified Machine, their highest-charting effort to date. Further lineup changes followed, as drummer Jay left after the 2003 album Shadow Zone. Soon after, misdemeanor charges forced Eisen to leave the band in 2004 (he was later convicted and spent a year in prison). Still, Static-X was undeterred. Static tapped Fukada to rejoin on guitar and programming in 2005, while touring drummer Nick Oshiro took over full-time.
In June 2005, a rejuvenated Static-X returned to recording with Start a War, home to the single “I’m the One.” Fifth album Cannibal arrived in 2007, charting inside Billboard’s Top 40. The band toured and released a CD/DVD document, Cannibal Killers Live, then settled into the recording of their sixth studio album, Cult of Static. Released in March 2009, it debuted inside the Top 20, their second highest showing to date. The group went on hiatus not long after finishing a lengthy tour, with Wayne Static announcing a renewed focus on his Pighammer side project, with contributions from his wife, Tera Wray. In 2011, Pighammer appeared as a solo album under his own name. A year later, he re-formed Static-X – minus any of the original members. The lineup, which consisted of his solo backing band, mounted a tour but broke up by 2013, and a year later, Wayne Static was dead of a drug overdose at the age of 48. Just over a year after that, his widow Tera Wray took her own life.
This tragedy seemed to spell the end of Static-X, but a few years later, the remaining bandmembers patched up their differences and decided to see if they could salvage anything from past recordings. Starting from a slew of unreleased demos, the group went into the studio, once again with Ulrich Wild, where they stripped Wayne’s vocals from the demos and composed entirely new tunes around them. The resultant album, Project Regeneration, was released in two volumes, with Vol. 1 arriving in the summer of 2020. To support the release, the band embarked on tour with a new, masked frontman named Xer0 (the identity of whom most fans have already figured out). Lead single “Hollow” crashed the U.S. Dance/Electronic chart, peaking in the Top 15. With a well-received tour under their belts and an extended stint with Sevendust carrying them into 2024, they returned to work on the sequel Vol. 2 in January. The set included the single “Z0mbie” and a cover of Nine Inch Nails’ “Terrible Lie.”
After last summer’s success in Germany, the band return for another for dates, starting in June.
GIG DATES
- 7 June at Columbiatheater, Berlin
- 12 June at Backstage Werk, Munich
- 23 June at FZW, Dortmund
- 24 June at Gruenspan, Hamburg
