SUICIDAL TENDENCIES Frontman Says Next Album Won't Come Out Before 2012

KillYourStereo.com recently conducted an interview with vocalist Mike Muir of the long-running Venice Beach, California thrash/punk band SUICIDAL TENDENCIES. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

KillYourStereo.com: Is there anything you can tell us about the new album?

Muir: One of the things we've realized is when you're young and put out your first record and start playing it to people, you are never thinking about thirty years down the track. I mean that's twice as old as you are at the time. What we've learned is that when we do a new record, we know what we're doing, we know it will be a great record and we're not going to worry about what people are listening to at any given time. We just have to make sure we like it and we're not trying to be some kind of a tribute to something else. An album has to be a statement of what we believe in. Consequently, I think our music has obviously held up against the test of time. The new record will be the same; we're not going to try and fit in with what other people are doing. It's something that we are going to think very strongly of and that 10, 20 years later it will still sound good to someone who is hearing it for the first time. I think that's the most important thing.

KillYourStereo.com: How long have you been writing new material for?

Muir: Well, we have our own studio back home in the States and being our own label and with the way music is now, we don't have to worry about putting something out by a certain time. Right now we have so much music, and we'll play stuff and people will be like, "Fuck, what's that?" and one of us will be like, "I don't know, man, just some stuff I've been working on" and then (they would ask) "When's it coming out?" and we'd be like, "I don't know, man. I don't even know if it will!" We're not really worried about "the game" as much as we are about the music. I think that will probably come across when the next record comes out. Probably early next year, I would imagine. I think in October I'll be doing a CYCO MIKO record which will have a taste of new SUICIDAL, old unreleased SUICIDAL, new INFECTIOUS GROOVES, old INFECTIOUS GROOVES and a bunch of other stuff as well. I think that will give people a taste of what's to come and also surprise a few people with some of the stuff that we never put out.

KillYourStereo.com: Have you got anything planned for the band's 30th anniversary?

Muir: Nah not at all, I can't see us doing anything like that. I'm not a ribbons-and-balloons kind of guy, I think my last birthday party I was 8 years old! I don't really get into that kind of thing. I'm not a sentimental sort of person.

KillYourStereo.com: Do you think since [former SUICIDAL TENDENCIES bassist] Robert Trujillo joined METALLICA, many new kids discovering METALLICA and doing the bookwork have latched on to your band that way?

Muir: Not really, man. It's hard to say, really. We've done shows and met the younger people who have been like, "Oh, dude, I brought my little cousin to come check you guys out and now he loves you guys." I've never heard someone say, "Dude, METALLICA's my favorite band so I'm coming to see you guys." [laughs]

Read the entire interview from KillYourStereo.com.