OUTBURN #42
INTERVIEW WITH MITCH LUCKER
MAKING A KILLING IN THE UNDERGROUND,
Suicide Silence is in the verge of bursting into the mainstream metal scene. The Southern California band’s debut on Century Media, “The Cleansing,” has already made a substantial splash due in part to Suicide Silence’s must-see live show filled with devastating performances. Refusing to be locked into any one sub-genre, Suicide Silence—vocalist Mitch Lucker, guitarist Chris Garza and Mark Heylmun, bassist Mike Bodkins, and drummer Alex Lopez—embraces all forms of metal. Lucker speaks about the joys of fatherhood, the rising tide of American Grind/Death, and why sonic violence is a very good thing.
HOW IS BEING A NEW FATHER WORKING OUT, SINCE THE BAND SPENDS SO MUCH TIME ON TOUR?
Me, my girlfriend, and our baby live in Southern California, where there are always shows. On every tour, we play 3-5 California shows, so I get to stay home for several days or a week and get to spend time there. We get two weeks off here and there, so it all works out well. My daughter was born before our record came out, so we were in the studio and I had some time off to spend with her. This could have not come at a better time. This band is my only source of income, so I have to be on tour to support my baby. And that is why we do this band 100%, because it is our livelihood.
SUICIDE SILENCE MAKES AGGRESSIVE MUSIC. DO YOU THINK FATHERHOOD WILL AFFECT THAT?
I don’t think so. My lyrics are about personal issues and stuff that has happened before she was born. She has made things amazing. But in music, I try to write and point out flaws in humanity and make people aware of how ignorant other people are. No one will stop me from my campaign of showing how ignorant and idiotic people are.
WHY DO YOU HAVE THIS ATTACK ON HUMANITY CAMPAIGN? WHAT INSPIRED IT?
The fact that there are so many people who have insane beliefs about things they don’t truly understand. There are so many versions of the same people. It’s hard to describe. There are so many ignorant people who automatically believe what they’re told, and they have no idea why they are believe it. Maybe to fit in? I’m not sure. I like calling people out on that. If they take the time to read and investigate what they are being told, then they might open their eyes.
IS THIS ABOUT RELIGION OR POLITICS?
Sure. Religion, politics, everything. Anything that can be flawed is usually flawed. People destroy things without caring. There is rampant pollution and new problems being discovered. The amount of people that do care about this stuff is slim.
WHAT ARE SOME OF THE SPECIFIC ISSUES ON YOUR NEW ALBUM, “THE CLEANSING?”
On the record, I do talk about things that have to do with religion, and that is a personal thing with me. I cannot understand how people can pray and pray. The song, “Unanswered,” is about how people can spend so much time praying and never have their prayers answered. Not saying that God exists only to answer prayers, but if you pray your whole life for things to go right but things only go wrong, aren’t you wasting your time? It’s something to think about.
NEO-DEATH/GRIND IS THE HOTTEST THING IN METAL RIGHT NOW WITH JOB FOR A COWBOY, THROUGH THE EYES OF THE DEAD, AND BRING ME THE HORIZON. DOES SUICIDE SILENCE FIT INTO THAT EXPLOSION OF BANDS?
We came out around the same time as those bands and we all hit the market at one time with a similar sound. It categorized us for sure. What the kids categorize according to now is the vocals. I hate that. When we wrote our record, we didn’t want to just be death metal. We wanted to use all the riffs we came up with, and we didn’t turn any riff down. We wanted to switch it up so that our record was something that any fan of metal could headbang to. We wanted it to be for our fans of nu-metal, hardcore, anything.
NU-METAL? THAT’S LIKE A DIRTY WORD.
If you think of 90% of metal or what’s heavy, so many people want to say, “nu-metal is gay.” But all heavy parts sound like nu-metal riffs to me. Nu-metal is just a new version of classic metal. I hate that term too. It’s just a different type of metal. Any type of metal is good metal for Suicide Silence. Anything you can bang your head to is good metal for Suicide Silence. We love to mix metal genres. We want to mix it up as much as possible. It’s violence. We want everything to be violent.
WHAT DO YOU FEEL HAS REALLY ELEVATED THE BUZZ ON YOUR BAND?
It’s a combo of us touring our asses off. We are on the road nonstop, and we play our asses off on stage. We go nuts. You do not have to like the music, but if you come to one of our shows, you will be captured by what we do on stage. You can hate metal or death metal, but watching our show is badass. We gain fans by an intense-ass live show. We work our asses off period.
“THE CLEANSING” IS EXTREME MUSIC, SO WHY DO YOU THINK A MORE MAINSTREAM METAL FAN MIGHT GET INTO THE RECORD?
“Hands of a Killer” has a riff that you would not find on any death metal record. A lot of riffs we use and all the influences we have are different. The guitar players in this band didn’t write riffs to be death metal. They wrote to not sound like death metal and then we put death metal drumming to it. “The Fallen” has a sound in it that might even sound like a Korn song to someone. I used to listen to Korn when I was younger and I liked those sounds. The thing that captures someone like a radio listener would be the intensity of the songs. Everyone looks for something heavy, from punk to hardcore to metal to death metal. The next extreme sound is what people look for, and that’s another step in the direction. You start out with bands like Pantera, Slipknot, and the Deftones, and they shared a lot of the same fans. Then something new comes out from that scene and grabs people.
ON YOUR WEB PAGE, THERE’S A TEDDY SITTING ATOP A BIG HEART WITH YOUR LOGO. WHY DO YOU USE IMAGES SO DISPARATE FROM THE MUSIC?
If you view a lot of web pages of other bands, all you see are skulls and crossbones, dead bodies, and assorted gory images. We want to have all the listeners possible. There are girls and young kids who listen to us and we want to make sure we appeal to them too. If you want to support Suicide Silence without having to wear some blasphemous picture on a t-shirt, they we also have a cuddly teddy with a heart image. We use Family Guy samples live to take away the seriousness that occurs at a metal show. We want you to come to the show to have a good time. The kids at our shows know the sample we use and scream them.
DO YOU ATTRACT LOTS OF FEMALE FANS?
There are a lot of female fans at the shows. And they’re not just holding their boyfriends’ coats. We had a headlining show in Florida, and half of the front row was girls singing along as much as the guys were. It’s crazy. Our shows are not just a bunch of dudes in wife beaters. When I’d go to shows, guys would go to shows because cute girls would go and vice versa. I am sure that still happens, but there are a lot of girl fans. I check our myspace comments, and there are a lot of girls leaving them.
MUSICALLY, WILL YOU RAISE YOUR DAUGHTER ON A DIET OF METAL?
Ah, I don’t see why not, as long as good new music comes out while she’s growing up. Metal got me through life and I have made it pretty far. I think that I have done a lot with my life. I’ve gotten nothing negative from metal. She can listen to whatever she wants. I listened to metal, and I am fine.
-AMY SCIARRETTO
INTERVIEW WITH MITCH LUCKER
MAKING A KILLING IN THE UNDERGROUND,
Suicide Silence is in the verge of bursting into the mainstream metal scene. The Southern California band’s debut on Century Media, “The Cleansing,” has already made a substantial splash due in part to Suicide Silence’s must-see live show filled with devastating performances. Refusing to be locked into any one sub-genre, Suicide Silence—vocalist Mitch Lucker, guitarist Chris Garza and Mark Heylmun, bassist Mike Bodkins, and drummer Alex Lopez—embraces all forms of metal. Lucker speaks about the joys of fatherhood, the rising tide of American Grind/Death, and why sonic violence is a very good thing.
HOW IS BEING A NEW FATHER WORKING OUT, SINCE THE BAND SPENDS SO MUCH TIME ON TOUR?
Me, my girlfriend, and our baby live in Southern California, where there are always shows. On every tour, we play 3-5 California shows, so I get to stay home for several days or a week and get to spend time there. We get two weeks off here and there, so it all works out well. My daughter was born before our record came out, so we were in the studio and I had some time off to spend with her. This could have not come at a better time. This band is my only source of income, so I have to be on tour to support my baby. And that is why we do this band 100%, because it is our livelihood.
SUICIDE SILENCE MAKES AGGRESSIVE MUSIC. DO YOU THINK FATHERHOOD WILL AFFECT THAT?
I don’t think so. My lyrics are about personal issues and stuff that has happened before she was born. She has made things amazing. But in music, I try to write and point out flaws in humanity and make people aware of how ignorant other people are. No one will stop me from my campaign of showing how ignorant and idiotic people are.
WHY DO YOU HAVE THIS ATTACK ON HUMANITY CAMPAIGN? WHAT INSPIRED IT?
The fact that there are so many people who have insane beliefs about things they don’t truly understand. There are so many versions of the same people. It’s hard to describe. There are so many ignorant people who automatically believe what they’re told, and they have no idea why they are believe it. Maybe to fit in? I’m not sure. I like calling people out on that. If they take the time to read and investigate what they are being told, then they might open their eyes.
IS THIS ABOUT RELIGION OR POLITICS?
Sure. Religion, politics, everything. Anything that can be flawed is usually flawed. People destroy things without caring. There is rampant pollution and new problems being discovered. The amount of people that do care about this stuff is slim.
WHAT ARE SOME OF THE SPECIFIC ISSUES ON YOUR NEW ALBUM, “THE CLEANSING?”
On the record, I do talk about things that have to do with religion, and that is a personal thing with me. I cannot understand how people can pray and pray. The song, “Unanswered,” is about how people can spend so much time praying and never have their prayers answered. Not saying that God exists only to answer prayers, but if you pray your whole life for things to go right but things only go wrong, aren’t you wasting your time? It’s something to think about.
NEO-DEATH/GRIND IS THE HOTTEST THING IN METAL RIGHT NOW WITH JOB FOR A COWBOY, THROUGH THE EYES OF THE DEAD, AND BRING ME THE HORIZON. DOES SUICIDE SILENCE FIT INTO THAT EXPLOSION OF BANDS?
We came out around the same time as those bands and we all hit the market at one time with a similar sound. It categorized us for sure. What the kids categorize according to now is the vocals. I hate that. When we wrote our record, we didn’t want to just be death metal. We wanted to use all the riffs we came up with, and we didn’t turn any riff down. We wanted to switch it up so that our record was something that any fan of metal could headbang to. We wanted it to be for our fans of nu-metal, hardcore, anything.
NU-METAL? THAT’S LIKE A DIRTY WORD.
If you think of 90% of metal or what’s heavy, so many people want to say, “nu-metal is gay.” But all heavy parts sound like nu-metal riffs to me. Nu-metal is just a new version of classic metal. I hate that term too. It’s just a different type of metal. Any type of metal is good metal for Suicide Silence. Anything you can bang your head to is good metal for Suicide Silence. We love to mix metal genres. We want to mix it up as much as possible. It’s violence. We want everything to be violent.
WHAT DO YOU FEEL HAS REALLY ELEVATED THE BUZZ ON YOUR BAND?
It’s a combo of us touring our asses off. We are on the road nonstop, and we play our asses off on stage. We go nuts. You do not have to like the music, but if you come to one of our shows, you will be captured by what we do on stage. You can hate metal or death metal, but watching our show is badass. We gain fans by an intense-ass live show. We work our asses off period.
“THE CLEANSING” IS EXTREME MUSIC, SO WHY DO YOU THINK A MORE MAINSTREAM METAL FAN MIGHT GET INTO THE RECORD?
“Hands of a Killer” has a riff that you would not find on any death metal record. A lot of riffs we use and all the influences we have are different. The guitar players in this band didn’t write riffs to be death metal. They wrote to not sound like death metal and then we put death metal drumming to it. “The Fallen” has a sound in it that might even sound like a Korn song to someone. I used to listen to Korn when I was younger and I liked those sounds. The thing that captures someone like a radio listener would be the intensity of the songs. Everyone looks for something heavy, from punk to hardcore to metal to death metal. The next extreme sound is what people look for, and that’s another step in the direction. You start out with bands like Pantera, Slipknot, and the Deftones, and they shared a lot of the same fans. Then something new comes out from that scene and grabs people.
ON YOUR WEB PAGE, THERE’S A TEDDY SITTING ATOP A BIG HEART WITH YOUR LOGO. WHY DO YOU USE IMAGES SO DISPARATE FROM THE MUSIC?
If you view a lot of web pages of other bands, all you see are skulls and crossbones, dead bodies, and assorted gory images. We want to have all the listeners possible. There are girls and young kids who listen to us and we want to make sure we appeal to them too. If you want to support Suicide Silence without having to wear some blasphemous picture on a t-shirt, they we also have a cuddly teddy with a heart image. We use Family Guy samples live to take away the seriousness that occurs at a metal show. We want you to come to the show to have a good time. The kids at our shows know the sample we use and scream them.
DO YOU ATTRACT LOTS OF FEMALE FANS?
There are a lot of female fans at the shows. And they’re not just holding their boyfriends’ coats. We had a headlining show in Florida, and half of the front row was girls singing along as much as the guys were. It’s crazy. Our shows are not just a bunch of dudes in wife beaters. When I’d go to shows, guys would go to shows because cute girls would go and vice versa. I am sure that still happens, but there are a lot of girl fans. I check our myspace comments, and there are a lot of girls leaving them.
MUSICALLY, WILL YOU RAISE YOUR DAUGHTER ON A DIET OF METAL?
Ah, I don’t see why not, as long as good new music comes out while she’s growing up. Metal got me through life and I have made it pretty far. I think that I have done a lot with my life. I’ve gotten nothing negative from metal. She can listen to whatever she wants. I listened to metal, and I am fine.
-AMY SCIARRETTO
