This approach absolutely does produce static web sites, just like any other static site generator. The querying of a back-end database doesn’t take place when a page gets loaded, it takes place when the static site is being built.

This article is just talking about one approach to taking one’s content and assembling it into a static website. The same basic workflow one should expect when dealing with any static site generator, the only difference being in the particulars of content aggregation and the build process.