MIKE MUIR Says DAVE LOMBARDO Adds 'An Intensity' To SUICIDAL TENDENCIES' Sound

John The Ninja recently conducted an interview with SUICIDAL TENDENCIES frontman Mike Muir. You can now listen to the chat below. A couple of excerpts follow (transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET).

On former SLAYER drummer Dave Lombardo being part of the current SUICIDAL TENDENCIES touring lineup:

Muir: "Well, I think there's two parts. One, there's obviously… there's a name, so people were excited. Initially, obviously, people said, 'Oh, wow! Actually, I can see that.' The other is when you actually see it and you hear it. And there's a lot of times when people quote-unquote get together and it's for fun and they don't take it serious. The thing about Dave is he's very serious. It's not for me to quote him, but he loves the band. So he goes, 'I love the music,' and you see that when he's playing. I can't fake what I do; he can't fake what he does. He's up there and just doing his thing. And it sounds so good, and it's so fun. I mean, that's one of the things with this tour [the recently completed North American run with MEGADETH]; it's just refreshing that it's, like, 'Bam!' We just do it. And every night, there's the people that obviously are anticipating it; there's the people that are excited about it; the people that are, like, 'Okay. I'm gonna check it out.' And still to this day, some people don't know. Even yesterday, I went out in the crowd afterwards, and someone was, like, 'Man, your drummer is amazing!' And I said, 'Yeah. Dave Lombardo.' 'Yeah, I know Dave Lombardo. That was Dave Lombardo?' I mean, it was a big place and they are in the very back and you can't really see it.

"It's been great. It works. He's a great person. So it's just been a lot of fun. And it definitely does add an intensity. I mean, going years back, I've always known, obviously, SLAYER and Dave, and I've always kind of said, 'Wow! If we had someone like Dave playing [with us].' You know, you do those little things sometimes in your head. And now we actually do."

On how the latest SUICIDAL TENDENCIES, 2013's "13", was received:

Muir: "Well, I think for us, there was just a lot of issues. The record… I mean, we still go out there now and there's people that don't know that we've put out a record, because we didn't promote it and do all those types of things and stuff like that. I think one of the most difficult things about it is we were recording songs — so many songs from so much time — and then trying to put songs together that were recorded at completely different times with different people and trying to get other people to play on it [so] that their feelings aren't hurt and this and that. It gets away from what music is, to a certain degree. I think it's one of those ones that you go back, and if I had to do it over again, I think I would have done it the way that we've traditionally done records. We do it when we love it, and we love it. And it's, like, 'Okay, we've gotta re-record it now for this person or that person,' I think, was probably a mistake. Not that it made it not as good or something like that, but we just spent so much time trying to make other people happy rather than just keeping that time on making it so that we loved it and stuff. Most of the time was spent on the wrong reasons, I think."

Lombardo recently told Metal Wani about ST's forthcoming album, for which he laid down the drum tracks: "I think it's very typical and very traditional SUICIDAL TENDENCIES. It's that style. It's Mike Muir and he was a very special style in which he writes his music and his lyrics and his structures. And I love it; I love it. It takes me back to how it all started, which was that punk attitude. I'm very happy to be a part of his organization. I feel very welcomed. I feel very much appreciated, and there's a lot of respect amongst the musicians, and camaraderie. We have a really good time together. We hang out as a band, which is important; I feel it's very important."