Suicidal Tendencies Vinyl, CD & Tape

The worst band in California

Fights at concerts, rumors of gang affiliations and a sensational band name – Suicidal Tendencies didn‘t have an easy time entering the music business when they started in 1980s California: the local punk magazine Flipside gave the group around bandanna-wearing frontman Mike Muir the title “Worst Band/Biggest Assholes,” but that hardly stopped them from taking what was initially intended as a “party band” to the next level. Their first hardcore punk record was released in 1983 on the indie label Frontier, and it quickly became a punk classic thanks to its mixture of evil guitar riffs and depressive, political and self-deprecating lyrics. The music video for their song Institutionalized then was the first of the hardcore punk genre to be shown on MTV in the same year – Suicidal Tendencies became internationally known. Skate-core, hardcore punk, crossover thrash: wherever the four put their feet, they caused a stir. The band’s performances remained controversial, and after a concert at which fans ripped rows of seats out of the floor, the group was banned from Los Angeles concert halls. In 1987, after a long break and lineup changes, Join the Army, their second long-player, was released. The band entered the Top 100 charts for the first time with a record between punk and thrash that paved the way for many new thrash bands. With tracks like Possessed to Skate, Muir and Co. wrote anthems for the skate community, but their riffs now lured the metal scene into the concert halls just as much.

Thrash permanent guests on MTV

With their third record How Will I Laugh Tomorrow When I Can’t Even Smile Today in 1988, Suicidal Tendencies finally redefined themselves – away from punk and into metal. With speed guitar riffs, extensive solos and Muir’s humorous lyrics, they maintained their legendary status in the scene. The 1990 record Lights…Camera…Revolution! continued just that, the band advancing here with more traditional thrash forms and some funk influences, and tracks like Send Me Your Money and You Can’t Bring Me Down made them perennial guests on MTV. Suicidal Tendencies scratched the rock mainstream here and took home a gold record. In the wake of the emerging grunge wave, the band went into the studio in 1992 for The Art of Rebellion and showed their most experimental side: somewhere between thrash and alternative, with hints of funk and even pop music, the band achieved their biggest chart success to date and went on stage with Metallica, Guns N‘ Roses, Kiss and many other greats. And yet, alongside all the mainstream success, the hardcore scene threw sellout accusations at them. That triggered them. And it made the band take a U-turn and come up with Suicidal for Life, an inaccessible record that disappointed some fans. “We’re not for everybody, we never were supposed to be, we’re not supposed to be a big band,” Muir said about it.

The fathers of crossover thrash

Exhausted from their climb to the top, the band was initially declared disbanded by Muir. All members now focused on side projects, and nothing was heard from Suicidal Tendencies until 1997. Then in 1999, with a new lineup around Miur and guitarist Mike Clark, the eagerly awaited comeback album Freedumb was released: with a back-to-the-roots approach, the band found its old skate-punk strength again, and the same with the follow-up Free Your Soul and Save My Mind a year later. Over the next few years, no further album was released, but the crossover legends were now touring non-stop. With 13, released on March 26, 2013, the band brought out the first original material in 13 years, and with World Gone Mad and Still Cyco Punk After All These Years the fans were still supplied. Suicidal Tendencies have maintained their legendary status over the decades, and even the likes of Green Day, Skrillex and System of a Down have acknowledged the influence the “fathers of crossover thrash” have had on them.