Wayne Static Dead at Age 48

We've got sad news to report from outside the world of classic rock. Wayne Static, frontman for industrial metal band Static-X, has died of unknown causes at the age of 48.

Static, born Wayne Richard Wells, formed the group in 1994. They are best known for their platinum debut album, 1999's 'Wisconsin Death Trip,' which featured the song 'Push It.' They released five more albums before breaking up in 2010. Static began his solo career with the 2011 album 'Pighammer,' then briefly reformed Static-X with a different lineup in 2012. After being forced to drop out of a tour in the fall of 2012 due to unspecified health issues for Static, the group disbanded again in June of 2013.

Static had been scheduled to tour with Powerman 5000 and Drowning Pool this winter.

As Static explained to The Five Count, he was born in Muskegon, Michigan into a musical family, reportedly receiving his first real guitar at age seven. "So it wasn't really wasn't if we were gonna play, it was kind of what we were gonna play. We all played at church together and that kind of deal."

At age nine he discovered Kiss and, as he joked during the same interview, "that just ruined my life, of course. ... I saw the cover to 'Alive!' and I was like, man this is it, it's all over with, I want to be Paul Stanley. ... I had these delusions that he was gonna quit the band and Kiss was gonna ask me to replace him and no one would know. I practiced my Paul Stanley makeup and my poses and started a cover band -- and it was just Kiss, Kiss for four or five years. That was my life."

Despite his band's much heavier and more aggresive sound, Static's love for classic hard rock clearly remained intact. At various points in their career, Static-X recorded covers of Motley Crue's 'Looks That Kill,' Whitesnake's 'Still of the Night,' Poison's 'Talk Dirty to Me' and Black Sabbath's 'Behind the Wall of Sleep.'

Hear Static-X Cover Black Sabbath's 'Behind the Wall of Sleep'