EXCLUSIVE: SUICIDAL TENDENCIES – The ABORT Interview (Issue 15 Preview)
January 16th, 2010 Filed under: 21 & Under With..., Exclusive! by admin
ABOVE: Suicidal Tendencies in 2010
Suffering from member and label changes, physical damage and constant touring, the current line-up of Venice, California’s legendary Skate/Thrash/Hardcore Kings Suicidal Tendencies are back and heavier than ever. With 2 new albums on the horizon and a slew of tour dates, vocalist Mike Muir spoke with ABORT Magazine’s E.S. Day to give him the lowdown on their new Live DVD and all things Suicidal (and Infectious Grooves) for 2010.
E.S. Day: We are here with legendary vocalist, and singer-songwriter Mike Muir, how are you sir?
MIKE MUIR: Doing really good. Long story short, I’m just sitting at home in Venice, California
ABORT: The first ever DVD “Live at The Olympic Auditorium” is in stores January 26th on Suicidal Records I had a peek at it this morning…fucking brilliant!, truly captures the essence of Suicidal in their purest form, not grainy, choppy, great camera work and well worth the wait. So my first question Mike, what the fuck took so long?
MM: Well, as I said everything is a little bit of a long story, but basically, the Olympic Auditorium, going back in history, was originally built for the Olympics and was the biggest venue in LA at the time, then over the years it has gone into disrepair, to the point that in the early 1980’s, they actually let bands do big punk rock shows, which wasn’t very common. It was a great big building, basically a fortress that could put up with anything. They did a lot of boxing, roller derby, that sort of stuff. Then we got a call, saying ‘They’re selling the Olympic Auditorium, there hasn’t been any shows there for a while, we want you do headline one last show’ which is all good and would have been a no-brainer, but I just had back surgery…
ABORT: Oh fuck!
MM: … We got another call about headlining a festival in Columbia, so we did the festival, headlined to 95,000 people, the week after that, the Olympic show. Two days before, I wake up, and I cant walk. Because of all the stuff going on, we decided to go ahead and do the show, and afterward, I had to have another back surgery.
ABORT: Well you could have fooled me! After watching a raucous version of “Institutionalized”, you’re jumping around like a motherfucker! That must have hurt, because you were going hard!
MM: We had decided to film it, because I noticed that there was a lot of people doing documentaries, writing books, and since I had people asking me about certain things, I would ask them “Where the fuck did you hear that? That is not true” Turns out they read it in some book. It goes back to what I learned a long time ago. Just because something is in a book, doesn’t mean its true. I went through that with the Dog Town, my brother was one of the original Z-Boys, and that whole thing (Lords of Dogtown) caused a lot of controversy because it was one person’s version of what was happening.
(cont.) That’s part of the reason we wanted to film it. Not to go back to 1984, but to basically show a little bit about where suicidal came from, to capture it, and show why we’re still a band
ABORT: You guys are as fresh, and as vibrant as you were back then, and it’s fucking wicked.
MM: Funny story, we were in France, and they had me go to this doctor, who was the national rugby physician, and I walked in, and the guy is not the typical person you would think who knows Suicidal Tendencies, but he looks at me and says, You’re Mike from Suicidal Tendencies! You may not know it from looking at me, but I am a Suicidal fan.
ABORT: No fucking way!
MM: He looked at me right away, and knew I needed surgery, but I had another week of shows. As a doctor, he told me I should jump on a plane, and just head home
ABORT: Drummer Eric Moore is absent from the drum throne, what happened there?
MM: The footage was actually from 2005, so pre-Eric. Back when Suicidal was touring in California, Eric came to the show, he was friends with Steve, asked me what we were doing with Infectious, and if we ever did anything, he wanted to try out. We gave him the call, got him in the band. It was one of those things that was just too obvious. When we went to Europe, I had people coming up to me saying ‘You’re bringing Eric to Suicidal, aren’t you?’ We just did a show at Long Beach arena, we had the drummers from the other bands filming him, going ‘Dude, that guy is insane!’ and I think that is what Suicidal should be.
ABORT: New Suicidal album when and who’s producing?
MM: We haven’t done a record in 10 years, but we have done a lot in that time. We have people coming up to us saying ‘You know, you guys are doing shows, why don’t you put a record out and tour off that?’ That’s not what Suicidal is about. Its not doing it just because you don’t think you will get another chance, I want to get out there and prove we are better than we ever were. So going out there the last two years, we have kind of re-baptized the converted, reminding people why they love Suicidal, get them on the phone after the show calling up their friends. If you don’t have that excitement, there is something wrong. We’re getting that excitement out there, where people are really excited about a new record. We’re kind of putting out the old stuff, clearing the deck, like with the DVD, we’ve got a live CD straight from the board from 1995 when Infectious grew, Robert Trujillo on bass and stuff, something straight off the board that you can say, wow, that was 15 years ago.
With Suicidal, we have two CDs coming out, the one, I call it the Mike Clark record, and I call it that because we got Mike (ST rhythm guitarist) into Suicidal after working with him and the band No Mercy he came in on “How Will I Laugh Tomorrow” after 1987’s “Join the Army”. Half of ‘How will I laugh’ was actually songs for No Mercy. That was another no brainer, like with Eric, why weren’t we using this for Suicidal?
We re-recorded some of the No Mercy and Join the Army songs with Mike Clark, who isn’t on the originally recordings. With him, we take it to a further level, that’s why I call it the Mike Clark record.
And of course, there is the new Suicidal Record coming out at the end of the year, which everyone is always asking, does it sound old, does it sound new, and for me, I think the whole thing with doing a record, is ultimately having people know it’s Suicidal. Suicidal in a sense that its different than what other people are doing. Some people wont like it because of that, but ultimately, I think 15 years from now people will still be listening to it, and saying wow, that was a really fucking crazy record.
“Live At The Olympic Auditorium ” is in stores January 26th, 2010
READ THE ENTIRE INTERVIEW IN ISSUE 15 OF ABORT – OUT WHEN IT’S READY
By E.S. Day
Transcript – Scott Alexander
myspace.com/infectiousgroovesofficial
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[...] » EXCLUSIVE: SUICIDAL TENDENCIES – The ABORT Interview Suicidal Tendencies名義では、久しぶりのオリジナル・アルバムに加えて、スイサイダルが80年代後半に発表したアルバムの楽曲を新たにレコーディングした作品をリリース予定。88年の『How Will I Laugh Tomorrow When I Can’t Even Smile Today』に収録されている曲は、もともとMike MuirとMike Clarkによるスラッシュ・メタル・バンド、No Mercyのために書かれたものが大半だったそうですが、この頃Mike Clarkはスイサイダルに移ってきたばかりだったため、実際のアルバムでは彼が書いたフレーズの大半を当時のギタリストであるRocky George（現Fishbone）が弾いていました。これを今のMike Clarkの手でもう一度再現し、さらに彼が加入する前に発表された『Join The Army』の楽曲も録り直して、一つの作品にコンパイルするとのこと。 [...]
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