SUICIDE SILENCE Decided To 'Test' Its Fans With More Melodic Approach On Self-Titled Album

Australia's The Rockpit recently conducted an interview with guitarist Mark Heylmun of California deathcore masters SUICIDE SILENCE. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

The Rockpit: I think you have ticked off a lot of people [with your new, self-titled album] and, may I say, kind of divided people as well and made them think, perhaps.

Mark: Absolutely, yeah. All they are doing is thinking and freaking out and just feeling things they probably never felt before — not every one of these people, but the majority of these people, judging by the way it is on Instagram and Facebook. They're still young and still listening to music that is very fresh and new to them. They're waiting for new records and expecting something out of it and they have not yet encountered a band that is going to test them like we have decided to do. It hasn't happened in a while, and it's pretty much the intention behind it — to make people think, feel and do exactly what they're doing, which is okay by us. We didn't expect everyone to love it; we already knew if we started using clean vocals alone, that would fucking piss a lot of people off. So if anything, it's working out perfectly. We're seeing how much people really give a shit, and if they give a shit enough to go online and fucking hate and create memes all day, then it's working out."

The Rockpit: I seem to remember that one of you guys said in an interview that writing this album was taking a complete 180[-degree turn] and crashing it sideways and this is the end result. I would say, from a listener's point of view, you've definitely created that. How did it feel to just sit down and write something so far left field for you guys? It must have been almost catharctic to a certain degree maybe.

Mark: Oh yeah, you're dead-on. It inspired us. It did what every one of our records has ever done to us, because here's the thing: all of our previous records we absolutely have been writing from the heart. There's no difference between our previous music and now except there was some resistance to trying new ideas on all of our previous music. So every record has inspired us to write the next record, and this record, basically, opened us up so wide and we could look and see that if we put everything aside — we put opinions, we put fears and resistance and hesitancy to trying new things — we put that shit aside and we go in there and we pretend that nobody is going to hear this music and we would be doing this for fun, it creates a very safe place for us as individuals and then when you're done and the record is done and you're kind of settled that you just did something that isn't exactly what you pretended it to be and people are going to hear it, it creates this huge new world of inspiration. I'm incredibly inspired by the fact that we all are so willing to do what we just did and I can't wait to do it again now as it's opened up our door to whatever we're going to do in the future. And yeah, it's absolutely it's fucking religion. It's catharctic — exactly what you said. It's fucking art, man. It's anything that the creative spirit is the only fucking God there is. The only thing we can definitively call God is us creating something out of nothing. We're manifesting music, we're manifesting paintings, we're manifesting these things that didn't exist. We're creating things in the image of what is real."

The Rockpit: So what was inspiring you for this album musically that stood out for you? Or was it basically just locking yourselves in and putting pen to paper?

Mark: "I would say the second — it was definitely locking ourselves in and putting pen to paper. I guess a lot of inspiration and music and people that's inspired us is so deep inside of us already that we've been kind of waiting to show some of that and that's where this record came to be. It's finally filling other sides of us that people haven't heard; it comes through on it. Everyone is already like, 'Oh it's KORN, it's kinda DEFTONES, kind of SLIPKNOT.' So I can't really say exactly what music exactly. There was a lot of life influence. A lot going on in our inner circle world that made us just want to say, 'Fuck it! Let's all follow this path and do something strange.'"

Read the entire interview at The Rockpit.

"Suicide Silence" was reased on February 24 via Nuclear Blast Entertainment. The CD was produced by Ross Robinson, who has previously worked with KORN, SLIPKNOT, LIMP BIZKIT and SEPULTURA, among others, and was mixed by Joe Barresi (KYUSS, MELVINS, TOOL, QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE).