All photos by PUNKassPHOTOS

Thanks for doing this interview. I know you don’t do many.

I actually appreciate it, especially for the situation we’re doing, it’s such short notice. It’s weird because a lot of times we do things that are not very smart. Sometimes you have to do things that are a little bit stupid! You have to challenge yourself a little—not always take the easy way. Sometimes things just work out a certain way for a reason. A lot of times people try to make everything have a reason and I don’t believe it does have to, I think there are a lot of things that don’t happen for a reason. You have to make them actually make sense; make the best of a situation rather than try to lie to yourself and go ‘oh it’s just meant to be’. For us to do something that all our intelligence says is not smart—set up something like this two weeks before—if somebody else was trying to do that I’d say ‘you’re pretty stupid man’ (laughs). To actually do it that’s just being honest. It’s good for us.

You’re going to preview the new Suicidal record?

Yeah. There you guys have that thing called ‘spoken word’ that’s like the word ‘punk rock’ to me, it’s one of those words that I hear and I just go ‘arh!’ ’cause I know what people are saying and it’s definitely not what I’m not about. Years ago they talked about doing it [a spoken word]. It’s really funny when you start and you hear the reason why people want you to do it. They go on and on, you know what? The more people talk the more you realise ‘this isn’t me’.

I think there’s a certain validity to certain things. There comes a point in life when you realise in order for things to change you have to do something different. Unfortunately if you do something different and it works – I’m not just talking about this situation – but if you do something and it works then other people are going to try to do it and do it in a different way to make it work better. Better is totally different. It’s all in the definitions.

For us it’s amazing how time changes. We’ve got the big election here and it’s amazing how people lie blatantly. You sit there and people talk based on what you want to hear and you’re going ‘man you’re too smart for that come on’. They get surprised when you take an opinion that isn’t just the popular one or the accepted one. That’s pretty damn scary because of the same people that will talk crap about religion I’ll be ‘look at how you’re taking your politics’. When I come down there [Australia] there are a lot of things I’m going to say and people aren’t going to like it but I’ll say it anyhow. Until someone can tell me I’m wrong and prove it to other people in an intellectual way then I got the right to say it.

To a certain degree right and wrong are subjective depending on who’s using it. We all have our own ideas of what is right and wrong.

The problem is that people try to use the little bit of intelligence that they have to justify why being wrong is right. It’s a completely different thing. It goes to morals. Everyone can quote why this is wrong or that’s wrong whether its philosophy or politics or this or that but the bottom line is right and wrong there isn’t a fine line—there’s a big valley between the two!

My Dad said, ‘This is what morals are, this is when you’re a sinner.’ It’s when someone does something to you and you don’t like it and then you go do that to someone else. You’re a sinner. That’s morals that’s where you’re wrong. That’s hypocrisy. That’s where people don’t want to take responsibility. There are so many people saying ‘I am this way, this is the way I want to be. People don’t understand about this and this and that.’ I go, ‘You know what? You take yourself when you were eight years old or ten years old and show video footage to that person the way you are now and you’d be in tears. Don’t tell me that’s the way you are! That’s the person that you become and you’ve lied to yourself so much that you’ve accepted it. It just shows your weakness rather than your strength and determination.

I noticed that you quoted your dad. I’ve also read other interviews where you have quoted him. What’s one of the most valuable things he’s taught you?

The thing about my dad is there are so many things. I spent so much time when I was young trying to prove him wrong. Then I realised that the effort I was using to try to prove him wrong was actually hurting me and not benefiting me. There’s a point where you fight just for the sake of the fight. That’s what my dad taught me: you don’t fight just to fight; you fight because you’re right.

The biggest part about fighting is that whether it’s physical or mental or whatever people are thinking, can they win? My dad said ‘If you’re right you fight if you’re wrong move along.’ Too many egos get involved rather than the situation where I think the smartest thing—the first sign of intelligence—is to admit your ignorance and go ‘I don’t know’, to be able to sit there and go ‘I can say I’m wrong!’

There are so many cases with politics, a lot of times people can see it in politics but they can’t see it in their life. Will there be a situation that “the other party” will talk crap but it was their party they’d be justifying it. They’re just taking the stance based upon party lines. It carries over into music. It carries over into everything. People take that little stance and they get behind it so much that they don’t sit there and think ‘Is this stance really right?’ People like to have blinders on. That works with horses at the racetrack but in life it doesn’t work. That’s thing my dad taught me, a lot of people look around because they’re so paranoid of what’s going on and a lot of people choose not to see things so they have an excuse when it goes wrong. My dad always taught me: know what’s going around. There are certain times where you won’t know what everyone does but you can learn from it. Learn from other people’s mistakes. Learn a way to do it better and hopefully to make other people’s lives better. That’s the true sign of what life is.

You’ve had surgery recently. How has your back been?

I had the first operation then after I got out I was in post-operation in the op room and they’re doing the whole thing and told me ‘move your leg’. I was going, ‘I can’t!’ They went ‘Are you trying?’ I go, ‘Yeah, this is the way I used to move it before’. They were a little concerned which made me a little concerned. They went and did another one [disc]. There was some hemorrhaging and a blood clot. It actually worked out good for me because they ended up working on another disc. In the long run it was cool.

I just had another MRI two weeks ago and went to my neurosurgeon and he said everything’s great. I’ve been back at the gym… moving on with life. It’s not something you’d want to happen but it did happen. There are a lot of people in the hospital and they don’t want to be there and I didn’t want to be one of them either but you take from it, you learn and now I have to do something a little bit more careful and smarter. I’m a lot more appreciative.

Did having the surgery change your outlook on life in general?

For me I’ve always tried to take care of myself. I’ve always said I’m going to be a hundred years old and be able to do anything that I want. An analogy my dad uses is: when you’re old and you’re in a rocking chair and your body can’t move but your mind can, that’s hell! You’re thinking about all the things that you wish you did. When I’m older I want to be able to do everything and anything that I want to not sit there and end up watching TV.

When it comes to the point ‘what did I do?’ and you realise there’s a lot of people that had situations that they didn’t do anything, that’s just the way it is. You try to educate yourself, do what you need to do. I told them, ‘You tell me when to stop.’ I don’t want to do something and not know if it’s the right thing to do. If you tell me it’s good to do, I’m going to do it. I’m going to get up in the morning and I want to go and live my life.

I got hit by a car and had a couple of car accidents when I was younger when I couldn’t walk very well for quite a while. I had big back problems, it’s not cool. That motivated me to appreciate what I had a lot more. Same thing with this, I’m fortunate that I had a really good neurosurgeon and that it wasn’t worse. The best thing is that I’ve seen a number of people and they didn’t know that I had back surgery and I told them I did and they didn’t believe me. That ultimately makes me feel good.

I totally understand appreciating what you have. I hurt my back at work not long ago and it made me realise that. You don’t realise how much you need your back to be working. You take it for granted a lot.

I’ve always known that. An analogy I use a lot is: when you’re sick, you may be sick three or four days out of the year and you’re sitting there going ‘why me?’ Then you think of all the things you can’t do because you feel like crap but the days that you feel good, which is the vast majority of your life, you don’t sit there and go ‘wow, I can do anything’.

A lot of times people see things completely backwards. We focus on the negative more than the positive and we’re not able to sit there and take the negative and see the positive in it.

Going back to when I was on tour and it actually happened, I got five cortisone shots and it was miserable. I did a show and it got to the point where people were like ‘dude I don’t think you’re that hurt’. I get back and it’s like I should have flown home already but we were headlining the tour and it would have screwed everything up. When I had back surgery it was like ‘now everyone knows my back was messed up’ (laughs). If I didn’t have the surgery people would have been ‘oh he’s just complaining’. You can’t win it just goes to show.

You seem to be so positive and have so much energy, how do you keep that up? Are there times when you don’t have that?

I think so. That’s why I prefer to have it. I realise now too there are a lot of ways to screw with people. You could put me anywhere in the world and I could watch someone for five minutes and I know a way I could get a reaction out of them. Getting a reaction is not what life’s about though. It’s making people revaluate what they are doing when they’re doing something wrong and them sitting there and forcing themselves to admit ‘this isn’t cool’. That’s the reaction people should strive for. There so many words like my dad says, ‘Don’t let Webster’s dictionary definitions affect your life.’ What is success? You have to have your own definition of what things mean. My dad said, Don’t stupefy yourself, don’t create things to fit your inability.’

I come to the point where I think there’s so many great things about life and there’s so many bad things. I realise that everyone has their points of view but I get more verbal especially at this time in America when they have elections. It really is amazing how much emphasis people put on things that aren’t going to affect their lives. A lot people will be pissed off when I say that because I’m taking it totally out of context. Rather than for one day, they should be putting an emphasis on every day—an emphasis on making the world a better place. Taking control of their lives rather than giving it up.

A lot of people subliminally don’t realise the process that they’re doing. It’s to the point that the more I talk the more people get pissed off. Just the other day I was with a bunch of people. I went on my tirade because they went on theirs. I alienate a lot of people and they go ‘I can’t believe you’re saying that’. Afterwards someone always goes ‘I don’t want to agree with what you’ve saying but a lot of it does make sense and I can’t argue that fact’. I can respect people’s beliefs quite happily but I don’t have to accept their motives, its two different things.

In previous interviews I’ve read you dislike doing interviews?

There’s two parts. My dad said, ‘If you don’t like something you don’t need to do it.’ To a certain degree I agree with that, to a certain degree I don’t. The whole point with interviews is that there’s a reason people do it. It’s a charade. At the beginning of this I’m like, I know why I’m doing this, and it’s in my best interest. You’re not supposed to say that. When the tape goes off you’re supposed to say that. It’s the point that doing something on short notice it’s a very word of mouth kind of thing. Word of mouth takes a lot more time being in a magazine a lot more people will see it and know about. It’s something that’s important. As far as actually doing interviews, in the sense of promoting records, it goes back to me and the way I was. I never read an interview and said ‘I’m going to buy that record’. I’ve always bought records because I heard the music that someone liked it so much that they’d go ‘hey check this out!’

I’ve always been my worst enemy I’ve tried to say things that won’t impress people and they be like ‘who the fuck does he think he is?’ Ultimately I don’t want people to buy a record because of something I said. I want them to appreciate music the way I did. There are only three or four bands that I’ve heard that I went ‘whoa!’ It made me sit there; it affected how I went about my life. It made me reevaluate things. That’s what I wanted Suicidal to be. If we wanted to be a pop band then I would say all the right things and I would look at it as a necessary situation. For people to like you, you have to come off good. Tell them what they want to hear. That goes back to the whole election thing. That’s what a politician does. The truth is not electable. You have to tell people what they want to hear. I don’t like to tell people what they wan to hear because where I grew up, if someone was fucking up you tell them they’re fucking up. They’ll be like this or that is bullshit and I’ll be like ‘the only thing that’s bullshit is what you’re doing. I’m not going to let you sit there and put the blame on someone else. You’re screwing up your whole life!’ That’s how I was taught, not to be there and be a shoulder to cry on, slap them upside the head a get them to think. I realise I’m out of tune with most people in the world. For me to be effective in other people’s worlds I can’t really speak otherwise I’d feel like a hypocritical liar.

Photo: Mike & Miss Bianca – Brisbane, Australia taken by Karli (I miss you lady r.i.p)

more to come…

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