In the wake of vocalist Mitch Lucker's passing, a lot of fans were left to wonder if Suicide Silence were just going to hang it up or continue on with a new vocalist. As we all know by now, the band opted for the latter and chose former All Shall Perish vocalist Eddie Hermida to fill Lucker's rather large shoes.
Recently, guitarist Chris Garza sat down with Music Feeds and talked about the decision to keep the band going. He said:
“We never talked about continuing and we never talked about quitting. So it was like an unspoken thing, because with some people, a tragic happening, the last thing you want to do is like talk about it. When everybody sat down, ‘are we gonna quit?’, ‘are we gonna keep going?’ It was an unspoken thing, like, let’s just let time have its place, and let everything happen organically. And once some time really passed and it was getting closer, it was time to start thinking. I, personally, there was sometimes I went, ‘Alright, I think it’s time to fucking hang up.’ But you know if I want to continue the band or not, you know, I have no choice. I think keeping the SS brand going and the name going keeps Mitch alive. And I think it would be completely disrespectful to Mitch and everything that he worked for if we stopped going or we changed the name, etc. etc.”
I can see both sides of this argument but I definitely get why Garza and the rest of the dudes want to keep it going. Especially if Hermida brings the same passion to the music as Lucker did, then why not? Garza also talked about the band stopping drinking and doing drugs after Lucker's passing:
“I was pretty, like, in shock with myself at like how much you can get done in an effective manner when you’re not always drunk. I’m like ‘oh shit’—you know, that’s why people stop drinking and stop doing drugs; because you get a lot done. It was nice to share that with most of my band. I think Mark, especially, he stopped a lot of stuff and Alex too and it was nice to be in a band again and us all have fun and be happy. All those positive vibes really came out in our music.”
“Unfortunately, it took one of our best friends passing for us to get our heads out of our ass, for us to really take our job seriously again. We all have positive vibes, the whole camp you know, like us, the crew, the management, the label, it’s all very positive.”
You can watch the full episode of Music Feeds with Garza below.
[via The PRP]
