Whole families bond over Tendencies
Thirteen years. That’s the amount of time it’s been between albums for Suicidal Tendencies. “It’s been a whirlwind of emotions,” Mike Muir says during a recent phone interview. “We’ve been away from making new music for so long, that we were bursting at the seams.”
Muir is the vocalist for the legendary crossover thrash band. It has been making music since 1981; and Muir is the leader and its only permanent member.
Suicidal Tendencies rose to fame with its 1983 self-titled debut album, which spawned the single “Institutionalized.” That single was one of the first crossover metal videos to receive substantial airplay on MTV.
The album “13” marks the band’s ninth studio album and was released on March 26. Muir says finishing the album took a lot of hard work and dedication.
“We’ve been recording music for a few years now,” he explains. “But when you’ve recorded well over 100 songs at various times, it’s hard to narrow it down. That was the major challenge for this record. So we picked the best group of songs that fit together and ‘13’ was born.”
Muir says he hopes that 20 years down the road the album still will be able to stand on its own.
“The hope that I’ve always had for the band is to never sound dated,” he explains. “Sure some songs will remind you of a time when you listened to them, but when you see our show it’s totally different. We take the time to bring the tracks into the present so that they don’t feel dated.”
Aside from being back on the music map after 13 years, Muir and crew are experiencing another great moment — a new generation of fans.
Muir says he and the band, which includes Dean Pleasants, Eric Moore, Tim Williams and Nico Santora, went out on a short tour earlier this year and were surprised at the span of ages in the audience.
“There are kids coming up to us and telling us that they came to the show with their parents,” he says. “And then the parents will chime in and tell us that we were their first show. It’s really cool to see the parents passing along our music to the younger generation.”