DJ Ron Slomowicz: First, let me just say it was great to meet you at the Winter Music Conference last year for the simple reason I didn't think you existed. I thought Static Revenger was a pseudonym of Richard 'Humpty' Vission.
Static Revenger: Yes, a lot of people thought that.
RS: So you're a totally different person, how are you and 'Humpty' Vission related or are you?
Static Revenger: Richard 'Humpty' Vission ruined my career as a rock star.
RS: Really?
Static Revenger: I had a band in 1996 signed to Mercury Records called Charm Farm and we had a song called Superstar that was one of these English dance rock band kind of tracks. Vission got his hands on the vocals, somehow.
RS: Did he steal them from your studio or something?
Static Revenger: No, and mind you, we're very good friends and I tell this story to this day with him in the room. It's more fun when he's here to hear me tell the story. In truth, the record company sent him the vocal tracks. I was the lead vocal and there was a girl background vocal. He ended up taking my vocal out altogether and with Pete Lorimer, made the tackiest and most commercial kind of dance top forty remix you could possibly imagine.
The record company was saying they were really excited about it, and 'hey, what do you think.' I knew it was a smash and it would destroy my career. I refused to let the record company release it. Well, Richard started playing it on his radio show because when you do a track – you start playing it out. The reaction was huge. When he found out the record company wasn't going to release it, he went ahead and pressed them up. Long story short, that mix of the track ended up being the number one requested song of the entire year on Apollo 106. It was huge out here. So everybody knew that version and when the rock band would show up and play our version they'd be like, 'what the heck is this?' After that, the Charm Farm just didn't make any sense as a rock band anymore. Like, ain't this a bitch?
RS: Yet, the two of you are friends now?
Static Revenger: I moved out to Los Angeles about six years ago and we connected, and doing some good work together. I got to know him and he's really great. We don't work directly on mixes so much anymore but we're real active on each other's tracks. I can honestly say that neither of us have had a mix finished until the other guy said it was finished. We make sure that each of us is working to our fullest potential. It's easy to get lazy when you're in the studio by yourself.
RS: I read in your bio that you were part of Inner City, which was one of the seminal Detroit techno bands. How did you go from Inner City to Charm Farm? There's a big jump there.
Static Revenger: Yes it was. Actually, I had Charm Farm as a band and as a recording project going back to about 1986 and I was trying to be like Primal Scream or INXS. I got a loft downtown in Detroit and there were four rooms in this building, Then these other three guys (Juan, Derrick and Kevin) got lofts there immediately after I did and they were also music guys. I'd be in other studios while they were doing their work, and I'd play my tunes and they'd do their stuff. It was sort of a mutual curiosity because I was doing my stuff and they were doing studio stuff. Kevin's music got so big - Inner City with "Good Life" and "Big Fun" were such big hits that the track date tours that they'd been doing in England weren't going to cut it anymore, they needed a full band. Because I was the kid upstairs doing music anyway and he had signed me and my friend Duke to KMS Records, we were the natural musicians for the band. That's how I landed in Inner City, and when I finished my tenure with them, I went back to the business of trying to start up the Charm Farm..
