Suicide Silence recruited All Shall Perish vocalist Eddie Hermida in 2013 after the death of their founding vocalist Mitch Lucker the year prior. Suicide Silence came out of the gate with You Can't Stop Me in 2014, and followed that up with their extremely ill-received 2017 self-titled album. While the former remained heavy, the latter employed a lot of clean vocals and fans did not react positively to it.
Metal Hammer posted an interview with Hermida on their site that was published in the magazine a few months ago, and Hermida tells the publication that they that the backlash was way stronger than the band expected and it certainly affected morale.
"We took a lot of heat for the last album and the backlash was much more severe than we thought it would be. That definitely affected us personally. You can’t just shrug this shit off and go, 'OK, this is just the breeze in the sky. Whatever.' No, it’s not 'whatever.' This is our livelihood and our art. It’s everything we’ve poured our soul and heart into. So, yeah, some of that negativity affected us but it affected us in a way that gave us trajectory and fueled the new record."
Guitarist Chris Garza explains the shift in sound, basically saying the band felt it was unsustainable to keep trying to do what they were doing with Lucker
"It became very apparent, after we did the first record with Eddie, that the foundation we built with Mitch was no longer stable enough for us to remain standing if we kept going that way. We knew we needed to start over and we were willing to do whatever it took to accomplish that no matter the cost. We realised we needed to change right away if we wanted to be around later."
Still, Hermida said loves that album later in the interview.
"I still love that album. I turn it on today and it still gives me that rush of emotions that I was going through back when I dreamed of being in a band. But we knew that it was going to make waves, which was good. Waves destroy things in their path, but they also clear space for other things to develop."
Guitarist Chris Garza was asked if knowing what he knows now, would he have recorded that album, he responded:
“Here’s the thing,” he says. “Most bands won’t try anything drastically different because they’re afraid to lose momentum and confuse people. We’re not afraid of that. We went into this and saw a huge peak in the distance, but there was a big-ass valley in front of us. We were willing to go through that valley because there was a greater goal, which was to reach the far-away peak. And running through that valley was hard, but it brought us all closer together even when it was threatening to tear us apart. It was almost like we put ourselves through this personal test of walking through fire and knowing that we were going to get burned in order to get out stronger on the other side.”
Suicide Silence recently returned to being heavy with their new record Become the Hunter.
