In the first of a new series, we sit down with Suicide Silence to talk about their first records, first gigs and first tours. Expect stories of weed and violence!
The first album you ever bought?
Mark: “Coolio’s Gangster’s Paradise and it was the shit. I also bought Blood Sugar Sex Magik by the Red Hot Chili Peppers at the same time so I was a weird wigger funk rapper kid.”
Eddie: “The first record I ever bought was Bone Thugs-N-Harmony’s Art Of War – I stood in line to get it. I think that was the first – I’ve bought a lot of records and don’t pay attention to what I buy when.”
The first single you ever bought?
Mark: “Hanson MMMBop. I was never really into singles ‘cause my parents gave me a $20 allowance a month and if I bought the single I wouldn’t have the money to buy the proper full-length when it came out.”
**Eddie: **“I don’t think I ever bought singles, I think I just stole them from the store ha ha.”
Mark: “I used to steal them from my sister ‘cause she’s older than me so she got a $50 allowance a month so she could afford CDs.”
Eddie: “Singles for metal bands didn’t really exist but they’d have the extra CD in the jewel case that was the single. I remember Spineshank doing that and thinking ‘What the hell is this? Why is there a single and so many remixes?’”
Mark: “Singles were expensive. They’d have three tracks and cost like eight bucks and then the album was sixteen bucks.”
What was the first gig you ever went to?
**Eddie: **“A Venezuelen pop singer called Miguel – all love songs and stuff. It was a free show at a theme park. The first show I paid to go to was Family Values where Limp Bizkit headlined and it was a fucking badass show. Staind opened up and I walked in as they were playing Mudshovel and I’d never heard bass so deep or music so loud – when the heavy guitars kicked in it sounded like an explosion. I was pretty much hooked since then, I’ve been to fucking millions of shows now.”
Mark: “I had a lot of weird first gigs – lots of local punk shows, I can’t even tell you who was playing. I went to high school band performances. But my first real concert was Ozzfest 2001 and I went only for Sabbath. I was that elitist kid, but I kinda secretly liked Slipknot at the time and Mudvayne played too who I kinda liked but I wouldn’t admit it. It was when nu-metal was dying out but I saw Hatebreed and they were fucking sick.”
Eddie: “I was actually at that Ozzfest too, which is weird.”
**Mark: **“I wasn’t in Suicide at the time but I know that Garza, Bodkins and Mitch were all there too.”
Eddie: “We probably pitted together at one point.”
Mark: “I remember the whole place smelling of weed but ‘cause I was with my dad I couldn’t smoke any.”
**Eddie: **“I got high as fuck!”
What was the first gig you ever played?
Eddie: “An impromptu lunchtime show. We just rushed the main court stage at high school with my garage band and we just said ‘Fuck it, we’re gonna play.’ We went up there, plugged everything in and just started jamming as loud as we could and kids came up and started moshing a bit. About four songs in security came and shut us all off. It was great.”
Mark: “There was this band called Kettle Cadaver, if you want to get scared look ‘em up. They’re fucked up – the singer used to nail his dick to boards and shit. He was a really good friend of mine and he supported everybody in the area and he built this thing called The Mower Shack. The stage was four feet deep and the crowd area was three feet deep so you could play a sold out show in front of 16 people. My first shows were at The Mower Shack – he’d charge five bucks at the gate, there’d be endless beer, and we’d play at least once a month. I played there with every band I was in up until Suicide Silence. I probably got my first blow job there.”
How was the first Suicide Silence tour?
Eddie: “The first real US tour we were actually on together.”
Mark: “All Shall Perish were our main support and it was fucking sick. The tour came about ‘cause we played random shows together in California and we hung out every time and thought it would be cool to go and play the States together. We did 56 shows in 60-something days and every single day was awesome except for one day when Brad Lawson – who now works for our management company – booked a show in buttfuck nowhere. And they called us the next day and accused us of stealing all the potato chips!”
Eddie: “That tour was the first time I’d seen a true fight in the crowd. I hadn’t experienced it ‘cause back home the death metal pits were relatively calm – you’d pick each other back up. But this was the first time I experienced a lot of hatred in the crowd and I didn’t know what to do while I was on stage singing. It was also the first time I saw a proper riot go down – all the bands got pepper sprayed in a room together. It was brutal shit, they put it in the air and it fucked everybody up. Then we flipped out and destroyed the whole venue, I think we beat up the promoter – I don’t really remember. It was all over the news in Miami.”
**Mark: **“We had to be in Florida for the next two days so we were freaking out that cops would be at the next venue. We were all 18⁄19, it was good.”
Suicide Silence’s new album You Can’t Stop Me is out on Monday. Pre-order it here.
