Wisconsin Death Trip

About

Wisconsin Death Trip is the debut studio album by American industrial metal band Static-X, released on March 23rd, 1999, by Warner Bro. Record. The band was formed after lead singer Wayne Static and drummer Ken Jay met at a Virgin Records store in Chicago. After being introduced by the Smashing Pumpkins lead singer Billy Corgan, the two decided to head out west to California to enlist a lead guitarist and bassist. Once in California, Koichi Fukuda became guitarist, and not long after, they discovered Californian Tony Campos to complete the lineup as their bassist. Warner Bro. Records discovered the band in California and signed them in February 1998. Wisconsin Death Trip peaked at number 107 on the US Billboard 200 and number one on the Top Heatseekers chart, and was certified platinum by the RIAA in 2001. Three singles were released from the album: "Push It", "I'm with Stupid", and "Bled for Days". The album was produced by Ulrich Wild in eight weeks with a budget of $50,000; the band originally wanted Terry Date to produce, but couldn't afford him, so they opted for his assistant Wild. The band wanted very "machine-like" sounding drum, but without the use of a drum machine: instead, they built their own triggering system from pieces of plywood and piezo microphones to record the kick, snare and toms into Opcode Vision. The cymbals were then played separately on top. Samples were programmed in by Static in an Alesis HR-16, while synth lines were produced by Fukuda with a Roland MC-303. It features a song written by vocalist Wayne Static and drummer Ken Jay's former band Deep Blue Dream, titled "December". The crash-landing scene from the 1968 film Planet of the Apes was sampled in the intro of "Sweat of the Bud". The intro for "Stem" was sampled from the 1989 experimental horror film Begotten. A sample of dialogue from actress Linnea Quigley from the 1988 film Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama appears in the outro of "I'm with Stupid". The album's title was taken by the band from Michael Lesy's 1973 book of the same name during a stay at Static's sister Lisa's apartment during a tour when they spotted the book on her table. Originally, the band - at the time called "Static", which management deemed too common to be service marked - wanted to use the title as the band name, but the label deemed it too long. .

via Last.fm

The Clerk says

Start your shelf to read the full take →