Static-X - Metal machine music

- Ken: The Static part has no real significance. For the X part, we had to change the name or add something to it because there were so many other Static named bands in the US. One of our manager-friends went "Eh, why don't you choose Static-X, like Racer-X?" You know, there were so many shit bands like Blink 182, who had to come up with a number or something because they're really unoriginal and boring. And they suck and they're bad people too.

- You new album, "Machine", is much more brutal and guitar-oriented than "Wisconsin Death Trip", is it due to the fact that you toured so much in between?

- Tony: That was part of it. By the time we came home, we were just sick of touring and, for the last 2 months, we'd been with Pantera, which rubbed off on us too.

- Ken: If you can't get heavy after touring with Pantera, you're never going to get heavier.

- Tony: It's more like we were when we originally started programming. For the first album, we didn't think to ourselves, "let's just write a pop metal album", that's where we were at the time. It's the same for this one. We were angry.

- How did you feel about the huge success of "Wisconsin…" and the platinum record you received?

- Ken: We were shocked. We didn't count on it. We were just hoping we'd sell enough records to make the record company happy and be able to make another album. Getting a platinum record was way beyond it.

- "Wisconsin…" was based on an old photo book, is there a concept behind "Machine"?

- Ken: Wayne suggested Machine because our idea for this album was to make it more rigid and heavier-sounding, like a machine. It's got a groove to it, but it's a different groove than Wisconsin. Other than that, there's no real concept that goes into it.

- Tony: It's not like Queensrÿche's "Operation: mindcrime". (laughs)

- Ken: There's only been a few bands that have been able to do concept albums and get away with it. They're generally destined for failure.

- It reminded us a bit about Fear Factory's "Digimortal"…

- Ken: Yeah, Fear Factory's a band that can do that, a lot of thinking goes into their albums, which really do tell stories from front to back. All of us have 3 or 4-minute attention spans for our own music, so. (laughs) I don't think we'll ever be able to do a concept album.

- Where did you inspiration come from for this one?

- Ken: Being on tour for 2 years. (laughs) The shows were still fun, but everything else that came around it… Your reality's different and people have a really glamorised idea of what they think we do.

- Tony: Try living on a tour bus, it's really glamorous.

- Ken: A lot of anger went into this album.

- Why choose Ulrich Wild as a producer for both albums?

- Ken: For the first one, we chose him because, when we started looking for producers, the one we wanted was Terry Dave, but he cost too much and Ulrich helped him on all those records that we liked, Pantera, White Zombie, etc.

- Tony: He did a great job and he's been really cool to work with, so for the new album, it was natural to work with him again.

- Do you consider him as a kind of fifth member?

- Tony: Yes, very much so. Especially on this record, he helped a lot with the keyboard parts and some of the programming.

- You've never considered having a real fifth member on stage, doing samples, etc?

- Ken: No, that's not us, it works for other bands though.

- Could you tell us about your new member, Tripp Eisen?

- Ken: Tripp was in a band called Dope that we toured with. When Koichi finally got up the balls to tell us that he quit, we thought, "man, if only Tripp wasn't in Dope, he could be our guitar player". A week later, we got a call, "Eh, I'm not in Dope anymore. I need a new gig." He fits right in, he's the fourth member we've been looking for.

- Tony: He fits a lot better than Koichi ever did. He always kept to himself, he never talked or hung out.

- Ken: And he never worked. For us, the band was our lives, we bet everything on it, none of us has a college degree, we were all working terrible jobs, none of us are rich. If this didn't work out, we were gonna be working the same jobs. We worked very hard. Koichi was never into that. It was like a hobby for him, he never really had to work. He comes from a big business family…

- Tony: I went to his house about a week before we went on tour to pick up one of our wireless systems and I said "What are you doing now?". He said, "Oh nothing, just being retired"… Like he had this big, long career. I've worked for 2 years now I can retire. (roars of laughter)

- Ken: Since he comes from a rich family, it never was the life or death struggle it was for us.

- He had already left the band before…

- Tony: In our 3rd or 4th year of existence, he joined the band and we were still experimenting with our different sounds, trying to find what Static-X was. He'd been in the band for about 6 months and he wanted to quit because he didn't like what we were doing. At the time, we were doing punk covers, like Black Flag. Then, he joins another band, which is a punk-hardcore band…

- Ken: He claimed he didn't like the punk stuff so he joined this band which was alternative then 2 weeks later, they decided to become a punk band, so he quit that. The thing is we just did those two songs to close our set, most of the time, we were experimenting with the programming and it was really heavy. We finally came around to being Static-X. A week before we hooked up with the management, all the songs for the first album were written, except for 2 of them, and he just put keyboards over the top of it.

- You have a DVD out, but it's very hard to find…

- Ken: Yes, there's only about 600 copies out. But there were legal problems with it, so we don't know when it's gonna come out.

- Tony: I don't even have one.

- Ken: We managed to get a limited theatrical release in 6 cities. The critics don't get it, they said it was obvious that we didn't have a writer for it, but it's a documentary, of course we're not going to get a writer. We want the fans to know what we're like, because we don't get to hang out with all of them. We don't make any money off these, you don't make money out of home videos. It's a labour of love, really. Then it gets tied up with legal problems, it's a pain in the ass, really.

- Who drew the cover?

- Ken: We had a contest over the Web site. This was the winning entry, a guy from Ohio who's just out of high school. He did a great job. He's probably gonna do other stuff for us.

- You have a Web site, do you consider it a very important tool for communicating with your fans, giving information, etc?

- Ken: Yes, I think it's better for us to put information there. It's tough to get on the Web site and start answering e-mails, I do get on there every once in a while and answer stuff. People get mad, they think you should spend all your time going through the e-mails and getting in the chat rooms, but if we do that, we don't get to hang out with them at shows. I got an argument with a kid in Atlanta who said "You don't even answer your e-mails". I said "Dude, you're standing here talking to me. If I spent as much time as you wanted me to on the Internet, I don't get to hang out with you." It's important to keep in touch with them, but you also have to have a little time to yourself. The Internet is a great tool for promotion, though, it's very affordable. You can develop a huge following that way.

- What is your next challenge today?

- Tony: Our next challenge is making it through this last week and getting home. (laughs)

- Ken: We're very goal-oriented, it's the small steps. We finish up here, then go back to the States. Who knows after that? It's the music industry, everything can be gone tomorrow… It's going to be interesting to have Tripp for the writing of the 3rd album.

Interview in Paris by Marie Lecocq and JP Coillard

See also the interview by Stéphane Hervé