SUICIDAL TENDENCIES Frontman: 'We're Not A Lottery Band'

Iann Robinson of CraveOnline.com recently conducted an interview with frontman Mike Muir of the long-running Venice Beach, California thrash/punk band SUICIDAL TENDENCIES. An excerpt from the chat follows below.

CraveOnline.com: I've heard whispers of a new SUICIDAL record. Why wait so long to put one out?

Mike Muir: We waited to do new stuff because we wanted it to be right. When I was laid up with my back problems all these people wanted me to a record and put it out really fast before it was too late. I didn't want to do that, none of us did, that's not what SUICIDAL is all about. We've spent the last few years showing people why they love SUICIDAL TENDENCIES and we didn't feel the need to rush new material.

CraveOnline.com: Is the new material written? Where are you with it?

Mike Muir: The new stuff is all written but we're putting out some other stuff first. The first thing is we're releasing a new recording of the old NO MERCY and some of the "Join The Army" songs. This is album I call the Mike (Clark, guitar) record. See, the second NO MERCY album was actually half of the songs that went on "How Will I Laugh" ("Tomorrow When I Can't Smile Today", third SUICIDAL TENDENCIES album). I told Mike we should go back and but a spotlight on those songs but not repeat them, rather take the playing to a new level. Mike's challenge here was to play the stuff better than he had before, which isn't easy. The second thing we're re-releasing the first NO MERCY CD, which is out of print. After that the new album will come out.

CraveOnline.com: How has the writing process been?

Mike Muir: Over the years we've been recording stuff and then putting it off to the side. When we were ready to record the new album we came back to the songs and re-evaluated them. We did changes to them, fixed stuff, re-worked aspects we didn't like. It's like a girlfriend; when you first get with her, you love her because you don't really know her and then you get to know her better and all the things you don't like come out. We were looking at these songs the same way. Sometimes when you first write something you love it and then later when we'd re-examine it, I would think that I still love the song but it's not for a SUICIDAL record. Some of the other stuff we hated early on but now we love it. That's how it goes, y'know. The other thing is that we're doing this for us. We're not worrying about record sales, we never have and we don't have to.

CraveOnline.com: Has the perception or sales of punk and metal affected you or how the band writes music?

Mike Muir: No. When we came out, the punk rock purists were bragging if they sold 5,000 copies. Once bands starting getting more success, they started worrying about SoundScan and what to do to sell. I never looked at it that way; to me, I make the music I want to. I love when people love our music, but you can't make it for that reason, you can't just try to make music people will like. It's not really about sales; it's about how many people are listening to it 10 or 15 years down the line. We're not a lottery band. We don't have to worry about how many we sell. There are very few bands that have the amount of fans that have the kind of the fans we have.

Read the entire interview from CraveOnline.com.