INTERVIEW: Mike Muir - Suicidal Tendencies

Suicidal Tendencies are returning to Australia for the mighty Download Festival in Melbourne and none are more excited than the hardcore punk/thrash fans that have followed the Southern California veterans over the years. The band have a new EP ‘Get Your Fight On!’ coming out March 9th as well as a new album to follow and with lots of touring on the schedule, there was much to talk about as frontman Mike Muir tells us in our recent chat.

Andrew: So how’s things with you and the rest of the guys at the moment?

Mike: Pretty good, nothing to complain about.

Andrew: You guys been on the road much lately?

Mike: We were on the road quite a bit last year, we took a stop in Japan and took a little time off at the end of the year and finishing up the record and stuff and then we go out and do a festival in New Zealand and do the Australian dates and then go straight back to Japan and then we’re rolling to Mexico, Cuba, a couple of festivals in the States, Canada, Europe all through the year.

Andrew: Sounds like a busy year. You obviously have the new EP coming out and a new album coming out as well so a lot of things are happening with you guys at the moment.

Mike: Yeah it’s pretty busy and on all fronts it can get a little confusing with all that’s going on, all the flights and everything. Sorting out everybody and getting the crew and all that stuff but it’s all good.

Andrew: Definitely and we’re excited to see you back in Australia, it’s been a little while since we saw you last time. The Download Festival is the big event over here in March so yeah, good to see you back again.

Mike: Yeah definitely excited about it obviously, having lived there and been promoting with the vast Australian scene and stuff like that, the festivals have kind of gone under and that type of thing. We did Download last year in England and Spain and we heard rumors that it would come out to Australia so obviously we were very keen to want to do that. Didn’t think we would be on the bill but someone did a flyer and our name was on there so a lot of our friends were emailing, ‘Now we’re gonna see you!’, and I’m like, ‘What are you talking about?’ But we ended up on the bill so we’re quite excited about coming back.

Andrew: You also have a couple of side shows as well, coming over to the west coast and doing a headline show in Perth which is always good to see you doing your own club shows.

Mike: Yeah always a lot of fun, always love going to the west coast too with all our friends and the places and the Perth crew. The first time that we came to Perth it was on Scarborough Beach, I’ll never forget it, it was 1993 and we were sitting there going, ‘Is the air different? What is this?’ [laughs]. We came back to the hotel and everybody was in a different timezone and going, ‘Man is this because we’re on the other side of the world? I feel like I’m getting high!’ A bunch of the people don’t do drugs so I don’t know if it’s psychological or what but I just feel so good! But yeah I really love it, it’s really beautiful and when we went there everybody was beautiful and at that time in 1993 it was a lot different with the average Aussie bloke so people would come up and say, ‘Hey mate hows it going!’ It’s like Wow, the nicest people! They didn’t know who the band was and we were all trippin’ on it so it was a really good vibe and in Australia in general too.

Andrew: Sure you’ve had quite a big history with Australia over the years, was there any particular highlight or stories you want to share that were quite special or unique in your travels here?

Mike: I lived there for 6 years so I have a lot of experiences but my kids were all born there and going to school. I was up at the Sunshine Coast and there would be months and months before I would ever see police which is totally different to where I come from! One day there as I was taking them to school they decided they were going to give tickets or something and this guy from the police was giving a ticket and this lady had dropped her kid off and she was digging into the cop like, ‘You fucking piece of shit!’ She was going off! You know in the Wizard Of Oz where they go you’re not in Kansas anymore, well you’re not in America anymore [laughs]. So I had my car parked right next to hers and she looked at him and she was like, ‘I’m done with this, I’m out of here’. I called my friends up and said, ‘Yeah I like this place’.

Andrew: Well it’s great to see you back in Australia and playing at the Download Festival this year. Obviously there’s a big difference between a festival show and a club headlining show, do you have a preference between the two types of shows at all?

Mike: Well one of the things that stands out to me and I’ve seen this before in the States and festivals in Europe and through South America, it enables you to be able to keep going and come back just because they like Suicidal Tendencies a lot of times people would never be exposed to the band but they’ve seen the shows, they see the hats and they see other people that all like it and they never heard it but they start in that circle. So we play a festival and they’re like, ‘Alright I’m going to check it out’. So they might not have gone to see you if you played some other gig and afterwards they go, ‘For some reason I didn’t think I would like you guys and wow this is great’. So the new generation of people that have actually gone to see other bands end up seeing us so that’s a great experience and you’ll see people come back and they always say, ‘The first time I saw you 20 years ago’, or 10 years ago or 5 years ago, a lot of times it was opening up for other people. So that gives us an opportunity for people to hear us where they look at a picture and say, ‘I don’t relate to those people’, and then they go to the show and they see it and they relate a lot more to it than they think so I like that. Of course doing our own show is easy as, it’s a lot of fun and it’s a celebration type of thing so it’s great to be able to do what we do and to do it for as long as we have and to be aware in what I saw a lot of other bands are. They’re nostalgic acts, they’re going through the motion and they’re just there because they have no other place to be and we want to show everyone where we are at, that this is where we want to be. We may miss our family and miss this and that but we want to be here and we’re here to make a statement tonight and that’s when people can say, ‘Oh I finally saw Suicidal’, and be like, ‘Dude when you coming back?!’ And that’s what it’s about.

Andrew: Yeah I’ve always thought over the years that Suicidal Tendencies had a very strong family vibe with the connection to the fans so I guess it’s always been an important aspects of what you guys do.

Mike: Well I think one of the things that’s kind of the way I was brought up with my dad and family was communication, you speak to people. In this day and age a lot of people only want to hear what they want to hear and that’s no good and my dad always said, ‘I’m not going to tell you what you want to hear because that’s no good’. If you’re eating what you want to eat you’ll be eating sugar and donuts and that’s not good for you, we tell you what you need to eat so you’ll appreciate that. My eldest is 13 now but when I was his age my Dad said to me, ‘I’m going to tell you things because one day you’re going to be bigger than me and if what I say isn’t true and isn’t in your best interest, you’re going to come back and say, ‘Dad what was that crap you were saying?’ And my son is almost bigger than me now and I always tell him what Grandpa said and it’s not to be mean because it’s what I would want him to know if I was you. It’s not like I’m better, it’s like, I was there! So I just communicate and I don’t try to be theatrical so I say if this never happened etc. So I think first there’s a certain modesty that people understand that, you’re going to get put down for it and people don’t understand. People get upset about it, all that terrible stuff which stopped for a while but now it’s started up again. People I know have had certain things like, ‘Oh my kid got suspended again for wearing a Suicidal shirt’, starting to do that crap again which was like when I was young. ‘It’s triggering people!’ and all this fucking shit, like you’re out of your fucking mind, people are crazy! It’s ludicrous, it used to be adults attacking us, now it’s kids trying to have an agenda and be in that victimisation, it’s really unfortunate. So now I try to bring my kids up in a way that, ‘Hey we want to be victorious, we don’t want to be victims’. That’s a different mindset and I think that’s a mindset that needs to be brought up in people embracing victimhood now rather than, well me being against you, you gotta work harder! That’s not old school this and that, it’s like dude you gotta depend on yourself, you can’t depend on someone else. You have to be able to have that inner strength and there’s nobody that can even point to a certain time, it’s not a difference in time, it goes in all time. So it’s all good, it’s fun to talk to people and my friend’s kids and stuff and like, ‘Dude, I need you to talk to people man, you should hear the crap they’re hearing at school!’ [laughs]. They would hate you because it doesn’t go with an agenda and I always say don’t follow an agenda, follow your heart and there’s not enough people following their heart. They’re following the path that other people led for them but they’re not smart enough to realize that and people are taking advantage of people. They don’t want people to be strong.

Andrew: Yeah I agree and it’s certainly an interesting time in the world with what’s going on and especially in your own backyard as well. It’s certainly heartbreaking to see some of that stuff where people are not thinking in the right way but what can you do.

Mike: Well I think with our bass player being from Chile, Dave Lombardo was born in Cuba and we’ve literally had family members killed so it’s coming from a different perspective of government. I’m not fond of a lot of the stuff that’s going on, I’ve never been fond of a lot of the stuff in previous years but it’s hard to explain to my kids. But in the same sense we got other countries that love it because it’s a diversion from what’s going on in their own countries and I think we can see this finger pointing type stuff so I say don’t let it cloud what’s going on and stuff. Everyone has a responsibility to be smart and strong and unfortunately the one that I’ve learned is that people are more convinced than ever that they are right and everybody else is wrong and the only way to save the world is to do it their way. People talk about fascism but there’s a lot of little fascists when they talk about all this and you talk to them, ‘Dude you’re more fucking fascists than anybody!’ And they’re like, ‘We need to do this and that and I don’t care!’ and I’m like, ‘Dude you’re crazy, more crazy!’ My Dad always said never become the person you hate and there’s a lot of people that I think that are maybe on the other side of the political spectrum but they used to say years ago when I was young, if fascists were killed by communist, they’re both dead. And I think if you get bombarded by stupidity by either side, it’s stupidity because it’s all about control and so that goes back to the point that people are strong and smart and stand up for themselves and believe in themselves, that’s the most powerful political statement that can be made.

Andrew: Well it’s always great chatting to you, we are looking forward to seeing you back in the country. Thanks for your time, really appreciate it!

Mike: Cool thanks a lot man! Good talking to you and we are definitely looking forward to it.

SUICIDAL TENDENCIES Australian Tour Dates:

Wednesday 21^st March – GOLD COAST – Coolangatta Hotel
Thursday 22^nd March – SYDNEY – The Metro Theatre
Friday 23^rd March – BRISBANE – Eatons Hill Hotel
Saturday 24^th March – MELBOURNE – Download Festival
Monday 26^th March – ADELAIDE – The Gov
Tuesday 2^7th March – PERTH – Capitol