This is Suicidal Tendencies in the year of our lord 2016.
The band has been a skate-punk staple since 1980. Wikipedia says they have had no less than 34 members during the course of the bands career.
The constant, is singer Mike Muir, who looks all of about 16 in the photo below, but was actually a student at Santa Monica College when his ‘party band’ became a defining factor of his life.
There has been some hiatus periods along the way, as well as alumni that have come and gone into other bands, like bassplayer Robert Trujillo who has since gone on to play with a little known metal band called Metallica.
There was even a side-project that was basically a funkier Suicidal Tendencies that went under the moniker of Infectious Grooves (which featured the afore-mentioned Trujillo and Stephen Perkins of Jane’s Addiction) that dropped a few albums to moderate success.
September 30th, 2016 saw the release of the band’s 12th studio album, “World Gone Mad”.
Notable new member: drummer Dave Lombardo (Slayer, Testament, Fantomas, Misfits, Apocalyptica)
The timing is right. The metal armies are forming underground. The kids are dissatisfied with the manufactured see-through pop, while any sense of danger has long been commercialized and sold right out of hip-hop… leaving metal to once again rise up and serve as the voice of dissatisfied youth.
And Suicidal Tendencies are in fine form to lead the charge.
Check the first single, ‘Clap Like Ozzy’ (which is funny as shit if you get that reference)… a blistering metal punk shredder. Between the Lombardo pounding and the intensely aggressive bass playing of Ra Diaz, the foundation is set ablaze for Muir to come along and spit fire with some old school speedy thrash punk vocals. Classic ST… even with Muir putting on a fake British accent to punctuate the joke on the chorus.
Another dose of the new album… a big stomper of a title track, ‘World Gone Mad’.
The band is on tour with Megadeth through October 2016… with a killer lineup.
And for so many of us… the love of this band began with wanting just one Pepsi… (still their most viewed video to date).
One more from the flashback vault as long as were are going old school ST…
And just so nobody walks away thinking Suicidal was making fun of Ozzy… their friendships go WAY back…
