Static-X often get lumped in with the nu metal movement of the early 2000s, but they claim they fit in more with industrial bands.
In fact, even back in their heyday the band tried to avoid the nu metal moniker by creating their own descriptor for their music, “evil disco.” In recent interview with Sense Music Media, bassist/vocalist Tony Campos gave some more details about how they felt:
“Yeah, we did emerge in that scene. But to me, that ‘nu metal’ label, for better or for worse, for me, it was always associated with that rap-rock kind of thing, with the hip-hop influence. And none of us were big hip-hop fans, and that didn’t really make it into the Static-X sound. So for us, it was kind of, like, we got lumped into that category, but I don’t know that we were necessarily in that category.
“We were trying to rip off Ministry and Prong [laughs]; we just wanted to be more industrial era. The other thing that really influenced us was that whole electronica movement that was happening at that time—Chemical Brothers, Prodigy, those kind of acts were big influences on us too, particularly the Spawn soundtrack that had those collaborations with electronica artists and metal acts and rock acts. That was a big influence on us, too.”
Recently, nu-metal has seen a resurgence of popularity among metalheads, but so has industrial, and it sounds like Static-X would be more comfortable getting lumped in with the latter.