Metal Anarchy

As previously reported, Matt Zane is currently working on an unauthorized documentary focusing on Wayne Static (Static-X) and Tera Wray. The self-funded film, which did not receive approval from the late married couple’s families, is also expected to feature previously unreleased music from Static with re-recorded guest vocals. Now, during an interview on the We Were Loud Once Pod, Zane discussed the controversy, while also taking a shot at the band.

Zane said the following about Static-X‘s return:

“I was a little iffy initially because of the fact I knew the real relationship between [Wayne] and Tony [Campos]. But, you know, time had passed. What I was sold on the reunion felt right to me. It was a one-off tour. It was a tribute to him. You know, I was like, ‘Okay, you know what? I want this to be done right. I want to be involved.’ So I threw my hat in the ring, and then we started doing the music videos.

All that footage you see of Wayne and all the new music videos, that’s all my footage. They took it all from my videos. I was co-director on all those videos. I was on every single set from the very first one. I’ve got pictures. I’ve got everything to prove it all. Even though they took my names off the videos. I was the guy doing all of that.

And then they hit me up with some ideas and I just said, ‘Look, guys.’ I go, ‘Here’s the deal.’ This is what happened. ‘How about we just do this documentary? This is what Wayne wanted. You’re doing right by him. You’re doing these tracks. It looks right. It feels right. It’s pretty good.’ I know a people were iffy on the dead face mask.

But me personally, I was like, man, they silhouette them. It’s got the hair. It’s all a tribute to Wayne. It was like, you know what? I’m going with it. And then they’re like, ‘Okay, Let’s do it. Yeah. Let’s do the movie.’ And I said, ‘Awesome. Great.’ We go in, we start shooting it. I’m calling people. I’m doing the story. I’m calling John 5, I’m calling Dave Navarro. I’m getting everybody involved. Their old managers, because I knew all these people.

Because all the guys from Static-X and Edsel [Dope], they didn’t know any of them, because they weren’t around the last five years of his life. They weren’t there. It just is what it is. They needed me to put this together. And they needed the connections. They needed to know how the story actually fit together. So they graciously, you know, were like, ‘Okay, well, what happened next? And who do we call and what happened?’

They were fine for the first part of the movie when they were coming up. That that was really them all. This was all like how it all went down, you know, later for the movie, because the movie was supposed to be like a whole thing. And what ended up happening basically — without getting this to be an incredibly long explanation — was as we’re going on, Static-X is getting bigger and bigger and bigger. It was supposed to be a memorial tour and then they decided, ‘Hey, we’re going to do this again.’ And I was like, ‘Hey, you know, if it went well, awesome. You know, this is keeping Wayne‘s music out there. The fans seem to like it. I’m totally into it.’

But then when they came out with the second tour, all of a sudden now it’s not a dead Wayne anymore. Now it’s a robot. You know, and then they’ve got puppets dancing on stage. You know what I mean? And then they cut the amount of time they showed Wayne on the screen. You know, when they say, ‘Hey, everybody, give it up for Wayne‘… they cut it in half. You know what I mean? And I was just like I was like, ‘Man, you know, like this seems a little weird to me.’ You know, now it’s a robot, now it’s puppets. You know, it doesn’t… like whereas the first thing really felt like Static, but updated. This one didn’t feel quite right.

But you know what though? It’s cool. Now, this is where you would think like… they’d be a dick, I’d be a dick, whatever. I sat them down and I just said, ‘Look, guys.’ I go straight up. ‘Um, this is a little different….’ And and they’re like, ‘Yeah, yeah, it is. You know, we want to go back and shoot some more now. Now, we want to shoot more of the movie about the robot.’

And I’m like, ‘Okay, you know, that’s your right.’ You know, it’s not my band, you know. ‘Okay, let’s shoot the robot. Let’s shoot the puppets.’ And, you know, we’re shooting them. And then they start talking about the puppets, and they start talking about the robot, and they start talking to the people that created the robot. And it just wasn’t sitting right with me.

So, in their defense, I sat down with them and I said, ‘Guys, ya gotta remember like Wayne was my friend. I knew him, no offense. Tony, you didn’t talk to him the last five years of your life. Edsel, you barely knew the guy. I know you knew each other, you toured together back in the day, but you weren’t friends.’ I said, ‘Let’s do this, rather than get at each other’s throats and cause a big problem and, you know, sue each other over each other’s footage.’ I go, ‘Make your movie. I’ll help you make your movie, but I’m going to do a separate movie, but my movie is only going to be about Wayne and Tera.’

Because let’s be honest, guys, you’re giving them about 20 minutes in your movie. I’m just going to make a movie about them that they wanted to be made, that gets their message across. You do your movie first, then I’ll do my movie. And not only will I do my movie after yours, I will help you finish your movie. And they said, ‘Great. Absolutely. Sounds fair. Let’s do it.’

Told Tony, talked to Edsel about it. Everybody was in the know. It was just it was all on the table. All cards were on the table. Everything was great. So where the rift happened was basically this. I finished a current movie that I was working on that came out last year. It made it to Prime — I’m a real filmmaker. believe it or not — I have a movie on Prime. So that counts.

And when it went out there certain production companies saw it and said, ‘Hey, we want to take a meeting with you.’ Absolutely. That’s why I make movies. Sure. [I] took a meeting. They said, ‘We love your movie, but let’s be honest. It’s very niche, you know. Um, it’s kind of crazy. What’s your next project?’ I said, ‘It’s funny that you should ask. I’m just wrapping up this other movie. Did you see the trailer for the ‘Evil Disco‘ documentary?’ They’re like, ‘Yeah, did you do that?’ And I go, ‘Technically, no. That’s their movie, but yes, I worked on it, but I’m doing a sequel, an unofficial sequel with Wayne and Tera.’

They said, ‘We love it.’ They go, ‘Great.’ It was Monday. They go, ‘We’ll cut you a check on Friday.’ And I said, ‘Awesome.’ Great. No problem. Pick up the phone. Call up Edsel. ‘Hey dude, your movie’s 95% of the way there.’ I know there’s a couple of things. We had to get Billy Corgan to do like a pickup shot, you know, and a couple other things, but it was almost done. I said, ‘Here’s my deal. Exactly like we talked about. It’s still going to come out after yours, but I need you guys to sign off and the estates to sign off on what we agreed upon for this movie.’

And then that’s when Edsel plus Tony — because they’re they’re Static-X now — the other two guys are just hired guys, I think that’s public knowledge, they don’t have any [say.] They basically said to me, they said, ‘Sorry, but no, we’re not going to do it.’ And I just said, ‘Well, you know, I just worked for pennies for the last, you know, two years for you guys to make this happen, like less than minimum wage, and I’m broke, and here’s this paycheck that’s also going to allow me not only to live, but to do their movie.

But now you’ve ripped me off. You didn’t pay me what I was worth under the pretense that I was going to be able to sign this movie at the end. And now I’m sitting here broke, and you’re telling me I can’t do this movie, and I have this company ready to sign a check Friday. And Edsel was like, ‘No, no, sorry. You just, you just can’t do it.’ Part of him thought I was like lying or making it up.

So, I set up a meeting with the production company and Edsel and he went down there. First thing he does when he sits down at the table is he says, ‘Is this real? Is this money real? Is this check for real?’ And the company is a $17 million production company in Burbank. He’s down at their studio with like people working in editing labs, and they’re looking at them like, ‘What do you mean is it real? Like this is what we do, of course.’

Like because the production company was at my premiere for the other movie and he told them, he’s like, ‘Yeah I’m not going to do it. Sorry. Not gonna to happen.’ And that was it. That was when they made the decision that basically I could just go… like, ‘Yeah, sorry. Screw you. You’re… that’s it. You’re done.’ And I quit. I quit a couple days after that.

And I just said, ‘You know what, man? Guys, it really sucks, Like honestly, you really you you screwed me really hard on this guys because I worked for you for two years, and I made less than minimum wage, and all this time, and I didn’t have any other clients, and now I can’t do this movie and this really sucks.

And one of the things they did, man, to pay me, was when they were moving out of their old studios, they said, ‘Hey, look, we know we haven’t paid you a lot over these last two years and you haven’t been able to secure your other movie yet.’ So they had all this equipment that they had that they weren’t going to be able to move to the new place, guitars and speakers and recording equipment. They said, ‘As a thank you for what you’ve done for us, here you go.’

And I couldn’t even get it all the way back to my my my place. So, I had to bring multiple cars in to pull it out. But amongst that stuff, I pulled out a bunch of their cameras also. And they’re like, ‘Hold on to those because we got to do more shooting.’ So, when I quit, I just said to them, I go, ‘I quit.’ I go, ‘Look, I know you guys are super sue-happy, so I don’t want there to be any problems. Please send somebody to come get your cameras.’

They’re like, ‘Yeah, okay.’ So Edsel sent over a guy and when the guy comes over, the guy says to me, he knows where I live now. I have all everything there. And he goes, ‘Yeah, dude. I need those cameras.’ I said, ‘Absolutely. Here you go. It’s just a box.’ Yeah. And he’s like, ‘No, Edsel and Tony, they want everything back that they gave you. They want every piece of equipment. Everything they paid you. They want everything back. Everything. Every guitar, every cable, every cord.’

And he goes, ‘Matt, I’m so sorry to do this for you. I was there when they gave it to you.’ I said, ‘Look, dude. I don’t want to get you fired. I don’t want him sending people to my house to cause any more problems.’ So, they brought a massive van and I’m just pulling stuff out and I gave every single piece of equipment back, like everything.

So, they didn’t pay me. They they stopped my deal. They took all the equipment back and that’s where it left it for months. And then I was like, ‘Okay, cool. Whatever.’ And then I thought about it for a little bit and I thought about Wayne and I thought about Tera and I go, Man, this new movie that they’re making, it really isn’t the movie that Wayne and Tera wanted to get out, and now what they wanted to say, it’s never it’s never going to get out there. And I said, you know, Wayne trusted me and he was the first guy ever to like hire me… I’m not going to do this to the guy, or Tera. I said I got to do right by them and they wanted to get this done, and they’re obviously not going to tell the the story. So, I said, screw it. I’m just going to do it.

But before I did that, I contacted the family. And nobody got back to me. And I was just like, all right, well, it is what it is. So, I just went public with it. And that’s where all the lawsuits and the cease & desists, and all the fan hate [came from.] And they sabotaged my Indiegogo campaign, and they told all the fan sites to ban me and they told all the like Edsel Dope fan.com sites, ‘Don’t give money to this man,’ putting my picture up with like banned over me, and they started the campaign to try to kill the funding for this movie which they did and luckily, I’m somewhat talented at what I do.”

He continued when asked about the disagreements the band and estates had with him:

“It wasn’t unfriendly, but I do feel that they knew what they were going to do to me, you know? And they were just kind of like, we need to we need to cripple him to the best of our ability so he cannot move forward with this movie. Because you guys got to understand something. And you know, I hate to pull back the curtain on all the people that love the new Static-X and think it’s in honor of Wayne, but that band is a multi-million dollar business.

And when there’s that much money involved, people are going to go to whatever extent they can to protect that. And you know what? Maybe partially Tony is doing it because it makes him feel better that he can make up with Wayne now, since he couldn’t do it when he was alive. But on Edsel‘s side, Edsel has no emotional investment in this whatsoever. And he has a wife. And he has a young child, and he’s not young. And he makes a lot of money doing this.

And this is an opportunity to put his daughter in a new house in a gated community with good schools and make sure that she’s taken care of because he’s probably not going to be around much by the time she’s 30 years old. And I know I’m bringing up really weird things about it, and I’m not even defending his actions. But it goes to motive, as to why they would want to stop what I’m trying to do from coming out — because anything that could come out could go against the narrative that they’re trying to tell people [and could] jeopardize what they’re doing.

And it does come down to money for at least for one half of those guys in that band. And it’s a lot of money. And they also pay the estates. So, the estates are getting money. And people don’t realize how much money that band actually makes. I saw it and it will change and influence and make people do anything, the amount of money that that band is making.

I don’t want to get too into specifics because I’m not trying to like blow up his personal life or whatever, but like we’re not talking… like we’re talking multiple houses, you know what I mean? This is LA. When you own… When you can do that here, like you’ve got some money coming. So you know that’s why — and I I’m not even saying I believe that — I know that to be true, because there really is no other reason. Why else do it?

But if you were really about, you know, pushing ‘Evil Disco‘ out there and keeping it out there for the fans, and keeping Wayne‘s memory alive, then why wouldn’t you let a guy that actually worked with Wayne, that knew Wayne for 15, 16 years, whatever, knew his wife before Wayne knew [her], knew his wife after, asked him to make this movie, have all the footage to prove it, why wouldn’t you let him tell your story? You know what I mean?

And it’s like there’s there’s no reason. And then secondly, if you were really all about, you know, just pushing Wayne‘s memory and ‘Evil Disco‘, why do you got a robot up there with puppets? You know what I mean? And I’m not saying that that band’s not allowed to do what they want to do. That’s not my band. They can do whatever the f*ck they want to do. Anybody can listen to that. Whoever wants to get into that shit can get into it. That’s their business. I’m not trying to like crap all over that. But don’t say it’s in honor of Wayne. What I’m doing is in honor of Wayne.”

He also explained why the estates pushed back against his documentary project:

“The reason is because Tony and Edsel went to the family and said, ‘You shouldn’t let Matt make this movie.’ ‘Why?’ ‘Well, because he’s going to make Wayne and Tera look horrible. Like just degenerate drug addicts that have no redeeming qualities, that all they did was sex and drugs, and it’s just they’re horrible people and ruin their names and we’re trying to uplift them.’ That’s what they told them. So that turned the family against me.

And they won’t even get on the phone now, the family, with anybody relating to me unless there’s a lawyer on the other line. So, I don’t know what they told them to fear me this much considering the fact that I know some of them, right? Amy, Wayne‘s sister, I was literally in the room with her last year watching the first cut of the official ‘Evil Disco‘ documentary.

Talked to her afterwards, took pictures with her, filmed her for that movie. No problem. She remembered me. She remembered me from the memorial, the original memorial. No issues. So I don’t know what they what they must have told her, Tera‘s parents, Tera‘s mother would write me, thanking me for the the nice things I would say about Tera before all this started, because I was one of the only guys to do it.

But now they won’t even get on the phone with me. So I have no idea what they told them, but they told them something to make them believe that I was the devil, you know?… And then beyond that, like everybody is just like, ‘You shouldn’t do this. You should just let this rest.’ And I’m like, ‘Man, did you know Wayne? Did you know Tara?’ You took a picture with them. You did an interview. You had a meet and greet.

You know, like, no offense, I was there when they got married the day after. I heard “Pighammer” before anybody up at their house. I used to jump on their trampoline with them. You know what I mean? Like we used to go bowling together. I’ve been to their Burbank house. I filmed [him] when he was recording in his back studio in his Burbank house. Like I’ve got video of… I could just go on and on and on and on. Like I knew these people, right?

It’s like why are you going to tell me what you think I should do? You have like this idea of and this connection to these people that you think that you have. And that’s part of Wayne‘s allure and I get it, and it’s part of his power and it’s awesome. But you need to recognize that all you know is minuscule. like I was there. I knew them. I knew what they wanted to get across.”

He also discussed the band’s reasoning for trying to stop the documentary:

“The reason why I think ultimately the band wants this to stop, it’s very basic, and you can’t disprove it. It’s so simple. Whatever Tony and Ken [Jay, Static-X drummer] and Koichi [Fukuda, Static-X guitarist/programmer, etc.] did with Wayne before Tera, it’s awesome. All the credit to them. I actually like those guys. Always got along with them. But the reality is is that the last seven years of Wayne‘s life — the first two with Tera — he already wasn’t talking to anybody. The last five, he literally didn’t talk to anybody. They weren’t in his life. They didn’t know him. And all they want to do is they want to cut off before Wayne changed.

And they want to remember 2007 Wayne and earlier and make that be his life, make that be the relationship. make that be the jumping off point of everything that they’re about and what they’re doing. Because by doing that, they can just say, ‘This is why the band is back together. ‘This is why we’re all friends.’

Because it all happened before Tera, right? Wayne was incredibly adamant about him being done with Static-X, and not wanting to be around those guys and not being involved, and building up his own name, and letting the fans know that he was the driving force behind all the songs that they love, that he was the voice. This is what he wanted people to know.

This is not speculation. These are discussions that we had. These are things I actually have on video. Wayne sitting next to Tera telling you himself, and they don’t want that to be out there. Because imagine Wayne coming out and saying, ‘Oh, this is what happened. This is what Tony did to me. This is what happened with Static-X and this is the way they treated my wife.’

There’s a part in this movie where Tera‘s talking about how they treated her so bad on tour that she would cry every night. And you could see tears well up in her eyes as she’s saying this. And all Wayne can [do is] sit there, he can tell the pain that his wife is having and he’s just nodding his head, understanding what they put her through. And I bring all that to the front.

So yeah, there’s raw moments, but there’s raw moments like that as well, you know, and that was Wayne‘s thing. It’s like, look what you did to my wife. The way you disrespected her, you he wanted all of that out there. He wanted people to know, and he wanted people to know, yeah, I changed. I changed, motherf*ckers. But my point in the movie is he’s a grown f*cking man. He’s not allowed to change? He was almost 50 years old. You can’t change later in life? You can’t fall in love with somebody and then everybody else has got to demonize your wife and treat you like shit.

And then after you’re dead, continue to demonize her with music videos like ‘Monster‘. You know, they make her a Frankenstein and make and make Wayne a drug-taking Frankenstein. Like I mean it’s subtle, the insults are there. You know what I’m saying? So, like this movie, I want to give their humanity back to them. Sure. I want to give the genius back to Wayne. I want to make Tera a person again. Because trust me, man, there’s also a little bit of guilt on my my end as well, because I was there and that last year, I could have been there more and I wasn’t.

I had a lot of go stuff going on myself and and we never split, but we took that break. And that break… when he died, you know, I was so devastated myself and I thought Tera was getting what she needed from her friend Jay’e Jones, who was the girl that found her after she killed herself. I thought that that was all taken care of and and, you know, I feel like I let them down both in a sense as well.

So, this is the least that I could do because Static-X isn’t doing it. Edsel Dope isn’t doing it. The family’s not doing it. And it’s crazy to me that it falls on the on my shoulders, but to get crazy, man. Like, there’s a spiritual element to this that for whatever reason, I don’t think that they’re at rest yet. And for some reason, Wayne knew me back then. He knew something was going on. He was so incredibly perceptive. It was so crazy that that I just believe that part of him knew, you know what? Worst case, all this goes down. like Matt‘s going to be able to handle this, you know, like out of anybody…”

He also added:

“They just want it to be wrapped up in early Static-X and they just want to connect it to what this is going on and and then it to just continue to go on down [the road.]. And you know what? in Tony‘s defense and I’m sure he also regrets the way that it ended and he wants to believe this new revisionist history.

But as far as Edsel‘s concerned, again, money, but in his defense, he’s like anybody else, he wants to make money. He wants to take care of his kid, wants to take care of his family, and he’s not young. I’m not young, you know, like we’re in our 50s.

And again, I’m not excusing his behavior, but in his defense, he’s just doing it. He’s just doing what he does. You know what I mean? Like, and if he wants to make a new Static-X band, like, how many other bands have done it? Like, it’s his prerogative. Like, he’s the new lead singer. It’s his choice. I can’t go against that. The only thing I can say is it’s not what Wayne would have wanted, you know? It’s not about a celebration of Wayne, but bands move on, and they’re allowed to, right?

And again, I’m trying to be as diplomatic as possible, so people just don’t think I’m trying to like attack people because they they made me lose all my money and took all this sh*t back and, you know, all that stuff, you know? So, I see it from their perspective.

But from my perspective, it’s like, look, dude, I get it. You got to take care of your family. Tony, you want to feel better about what happened, but guys, the reality is this is Wayne and Tera. They had a message. They want to get it out, and I’m going to get it out the best I can through the story that I can tell from actually being there and working with them.”

He also discussed the dispute regarding unreleased music from Wayne Static:

“There is unreleased Wayne Static music out there and the families won’t let it come out. And here’s the craziest part about that. I offered to give them all the money. Yeah. I said, ‘Hey guys, one thing that I want, I want it to come out as a Wayne Static solo record in the form, or as close to the form, as he wanted.

Don’t let Static-X get ahold of it and strip it down and take half the publishing by rewriting the music and rewriting it. If you give me permission to finish this, you can have all the money. All the money.’ So, I hope the movie comes out, they see it, they like it. Don’t know how they’re going to interpret it. I don’t know if it’s going to be a little too raw for them.

But I hope that they do and I hope that they come back and say, ‘Okay, we want this music to come out.’ Because when I found the music, I was so excited. The first thing I did was write Amy. I’m like, ‘I have some incredibly exciting news.’ And if it was really all about ‘Evil Disco‘ and Wayne, why won’t they let the music come out? They said, ‘Give the music to Edsel.’ I’m like, ‘Hell [no], not gonna happen, dude.’ Because the last time Edsel got completed Wayne Static tracks, you know what he did?

He stripped the vocals off and rewrote all the music. You know what happens when that happens? That means he gets half the publishing. And he’s changing the original tracks that Wayne was writing. So, I was like, ‘No, that’s Wayne didn’t write this with, you know, give it to Mikael from Mephisto Odyssey.

At least he wrote with Wayne, you know what I mean? Like he did all their remixes, you know? Like sh*t, I even did a couple tracks with Wayne. We never finished them because Warner Brothers stepped in. That’s in the whole movie. But um like dude, you never wrote with Wayne. I’m not giving you those tracks. Not going to happen, you know? But if they told me, ‘Yeah, go ahead.’ All the money can go to [the estates.] I don’t want anything. Don’t want nothing. Nothing at all.

You know, and that’s the other thing that really kills me about this movie, is that in addition to the tracks that I have access to, Amy, Wayne‘s sister, gave Edsel, last year, towards the end of the movie, all these unreleased tapes of Wayne Static. And I was in the room and Amy said to Edsel, ‘Have you had a chance to go through the new Wayne music that I sent you?’ And Edsel said, ‘No offense, Amy, but I’m tired of working on your brother’s music and I don’t want to do it anymore.”

And that stuff, I told Edsel, ‘Dude, I get it. Maybe you’re burnt out. This is what we can do. Give me all the stuff. I’ll digitize all of it. You have first dibs of everything. You pick what you want for Static-X. Just give me a couple tracks for my movie.’ And I had all the tapes. I had them as we were moving and he goes, ‘No, leave those here right now.’ And he taped them all up and he put them in the back of the warehouse on the bottom shelf.

And that’s when I started getting a little iffy, and then when I saw Amy ask him about it and he was just so… Really there’s there’s all those possible tapes, and then there’s this actual finished stuff that he recorded in 2013.

But again, I’m not letting the estates know who has it, where it is, how to get it, because I’m just not gonna give it to them. And they can and sue me all they want because the reality is that they’re not even on my person. You know what I mean?

They’re with somebody else. And I’m keeping those things locked up until the family comes around. And again, I’ll say it here publicly like like you can have all the money, just let them be finished how how Wayne wanted them to be finished.”

[via The PRP]