Credit: Matt Zane PhotographyStatic-X‘s 20th anniversary Wisconsin Death Trip tour — which also pays tribute to late frontman Wayne Static — kicks off Tuesday night in Tempe, Arizona. The trek will feature the band’s three surviving original members — bassist Tony Campos, guitarist Koichi Fukuda and drummer Ken Jay — playing together for the first time in over 15 years to both celebrate their 1999 debut album and to honor Static’s memory.
“The first time the three of us got in a room together again, it was just, like, ‘Yeah, this feels right!'” Campos tells ABC Radio.
“But it’s bittersweet at the same time,” he adds. “We’re missing a pretty important guy, and unfortunately he’s not around.”
That guy, of course, is Static, who died November 2014 at age 48. Campos believes that if Static was still alive today, he’d be the one leading the band in celebrating 20 years of Wisconsin Death Trip.
“I truly believe that had Wayne overcome his demons and gotten clean and sober, and distanced himself from the negative people in his life that were encouraging his addictions, if all that had happened, I truly believe that Wayne would be here with us right, doing this,” Campos says.
Static-X will be paying tribute to Wayne with a mysterious singer referred to as “Xer0,” whose identity is concealed by a mask designed in Static’s likeness. With Xer0, combined with a variety of production elements, the band hopes to honor Static’s love of horror movies and his “dark sense of humor.”
“We’re doing this as big and as high-production as we can, ’cause I think it deserves it,” Campos says. “So we got a lot of really cool stage production, big LED walls.”
“It’s gonna have that cool, evil-disco vibe,” he adds.
A new Static-X album, featuring Wayne’s final vocal recordings, is forthcoming.
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