Rabbit Interview with Mark from Suicide Silence

The Perth metal team, Gareth and Darrian had a chat to lead guitarist Mark Heylmun ahead of their upcoming tour in September which will see the boys hit all states on a national tour around Aus land. 

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Gareth: How’ve you been, what’s been happening?

Mark: Shit dude, I’ve been really good, man where do I even start? I feel like we’ve been on this Suicide Silence wave since about the end of 2014 when we finished writing 'You Can’t Stop Me', and then we went and did, ah 2013 I should say, we ended the sessions of 'You Can’t Stop Me' and had a record and went to Soundwave and that was our first tour with Eddie and we’ve just been nonstop pretty much since then, like we’ve been just playing all over the world, getting back on it with the new singer, getting the band back slowly, it’s just been a hell of a ride, and it’s crazy to think where it all kind of came from and you know how far it’s came since Mitch passed and fucking everything, it’s literally out of control, and we’re stocked to get back down, headlining in Australia everything is just rolling and badass.

Gareth: Yeah man, I’ve been watching a few documentaries around and just the stuff that you guys have done as a band in a short amount of time, going from just playing local shows then going off doing your own tours in America and Europe completely funded by yourself it’s absolutely phenomenal man, like you don’t see many people that have the courage to put everything on the line and just do it.

Darrian: And keep going.

Mark: It’s funny like you know, I’ve been doing a slew of interviews for the past couple of hours back to back and what you’ve just said is like exactly what I’ve been saying, everybody always asks, what’s the advice you have for up and coming musicians and I always kinda have, it’s good advice but bad advice at the same time because my advice is that, fucking sacrifice everything, lay it on the line and do it all yourself because no one else is going to do it for you, and unless you wanna do this you’ve gotta give everything to it you know, there’s nothing that’s gonna come your way until you start making sacrifices and until you start making sure that if music is what you want to do and playing in a band is what you want to do, it’s up to you to do it, no one’s gonna fucking do it for you, it’s all, it’s up to you, it why you’ve gotta do it yourself, DIY is the way to go.

Gareth: Yeah definitely, definitely man

Darrien: So, what’s it like knowing you’ll be back in Australia, where everything came back together for you guys in the band?

Mark: It’s cool man, it’s exciting to, one remember we were hitting the stage with Eddie for the very first time in Australia, and that was by choice, we knew that Australia was a great place to play and an accepting fan base and a bigger, one of our large fan bases and it was great to be able to do that there, and now you know going back a few years later after playing a bunch more shows and getting more comfortable on stage with Eddie and all that, it’s going to be a good time, we plan on giving the Australian fans a really  good headlining show and just in general, bringing back that fucking, it doesn’t sound that metal but bringing that love of music and the love of being able to get on stage and just rock the fuck out, just bringing that shit down there and sharing it with everybody and having a good ass time because fucking every night is Friday night on an Australian tour so it’s gonna be a good time.


Gareth: We’re keen to have you back here man, it’s been a while, been jamming that 'You Can’t Stop Me' album non-stop so I thinks it’s about time we come down and get you guys over and have a big, bigass party.

Mark: Hell yeah man, really excited, cannot wait.

Gareth: Where would you say your favorite place is to play in Australia, are there any particular cities that stand out?

Mark: I really like, I mean of course Brisbane and Melbourne are really cool and they have the big metropolis city area, but uhm some my favorite memories have been in Perth and liken out in the sticks and when we played in like New Castle one time which I don’t think is that large of a city, I really don’t know but I think it’s a little further out, when we played Parkway Drive’s high school in Bristol? I don’t even remember the name, Byron?

Darrian: Byron Bay
Gareth: Yeah Byron Bay

Mark: Yeah when we played Byron Bay high school gymnasium which was fucking really cool, anywhere in Australia is gonna be fun but I do particularly like to get out away from cities and to people who are living out in the middle of nowhere and are slightly off, it’s pretty awesome

Gareth: Alright man, is there anywhere you’d particularly like to go while you’re here? Any restaurants or general places were your just like I want to go back there?

Mark: Uhm what do you call it, the place where Little Creatures is and Bon Scott’s memorial

Darrian: Fremantle
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Mark: Fremantle yeah, yeah Fremantle is cool, that would be really cool, that was really nice.

​Gareth: We’re gonna dig into some a little bit more humorous here, has there been any mornings on tour when you’ve woken up thinking to yourself “fuck, I partied too hard last night”?

Mark: Yeah, there was probably a few years like that just from like probably 2009 right up to about 2013 I’d say there was a stint of extreme partying, like shit that you’d, like  dark partying like what the fuck happened last night type of partying.

Gareth: Those are the memories I suppose everyone has to get at some point, even though they’re not ones you remember
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Mark: yeah those are the memories that created this black of memory.

Darrian: So apart from that, what else do you like about being on tour?

Mark: I like being out of my comfort zone, I like not waking up at home, I like the routine being hard to establish because as soon as you start to establish a routine it gets kind of boring doing the same thing all the time, and waking up in a different place every day, just all around, everything about touring is just adventure, and I’d probably if I wasn’t touring in a band I’d probably just be a vagrant, homeless, wandering person anyway, wandering the Earth, and I think travelling in general is the purpose of life and you’re sitting in one city and your feeling like you’re stuck and anything like that, there’s nothing better than leaving and just going and getting away from where you are for a while because it will either make you fucking see you don’t ever want to go home again or make you see how much you fucking love where you live, either way you’re gonna get perspective and anything about travelling is just what I’m all about, I really couldn’t have a better job.

Gareth: Yeah man for sure, we’ve just got a little question for some of the more musically inclined who are going to get in on this interview, but what type of guitar rigs and gear are you guys packing on stage and in the last album to really give that Suicide Silence sound.

Mark: We only use Mesa, Mesa Boogie heads, I recently started using this Mark 5 head, which I was always using the triple rectifier two channel, like an early nineties rectifier which has been in the bands possession the whole time we’ve been a band basically, and that’s on the new record, just the two channel triple, the Mark 5 is on the record and the other thing that is always Suicide Silence, which we did stray for a second and we were using Axe Effects, just for effects, not for tone, but we were using Axe Effects for all of our affects and shit like that but we switched back to analogue and you would laugh at the amount guitar pedals we have, like there are so many guitar pedals, something that I don’t really think that a lot of bands are really doing too much of anymore, everyone just like we were, using axe effects because it just makes sense, but we’ve got pedal boards that are just fucking huge and we’re tap dancing all over the place and that’s one of the things at Suicide Silence that we pride ourselves in is that we try to be a real band that practices and jams and we try and use real gear and not like digital shit, which I guess one of our signature Suicide Silence-isms.

Gareth: Fair enough man, sounds like it’s a beast of a set up to be dragging around the world.

Mark: It is, and a lot of it breaks.

Darrian: Are there any memorable moments that you had while writing and recording the latest album?

Mark: The whole thing man, we lived on the beach in Venice together in a house, writing and jamming and playing music pretty much every day together, I think that literally, we would always go to the corner store and get cookies and coffee, almost everyday the walk to the corner store and we’d get a cookie and a coffee on our break is probably gonna be some of the fondest memories we have which is just like us walking down to the beach to Nick’s, walking to Nick’s to get cookies and Coffee.

Gareth: It’s the little things that count

Mark: It is, and that’s what you’ve gotta remember.

Gareth: What would you say your favorite song off of the last album was?

Mark: There’s a couple I mean like Ouroboros is like a really weird one that was fun to put together, Inherit The Crown was really cool you know seeing how it started and what it ended up being and I think Inherit The Crown probably takes the cake just because we worked together on the lyrics and the song in general and it just became the centerpiece of Eddie joining the band and us moving forwards and moving on and it turned out to be a really cool song and it’s fun to play live.

Darrian: What song just destroys the room when it’s played?

Mark: Dude You Only Live Once goes fucking off

Gareth: When can we expect to hear more or new music from Suicide Silence?

Mark: I would really hope that we can get a song or a couple new songs out before the year is over but I don’t see the new record coming out this year, probably be early next year.

Darrian: And are we gonna see any new changes to the sound of Suicide Silence on the new record?

Mark: Ah, I think that what this record is really going to do as far as new Suicide Silence sound is you’re gonna hear more emotion that got put in the record, the topics and the lyrics and everything that we worked on together, like I said we were living in this house together and worked on it as a group and as a band, we all can relate to it, no other record we can do that together we know what every song is about, we know every underlying message is and all round it’s just going to show a I guess a deeper side of Suicide Silence that we’ve always been trying to get into it as creators and artists and musicians we always want to express ourselves to be true and honest to ourselves, that’s where this record has really taken us, to the truest and honest representation of who we are and what Suicide Silence is as of now.

Gareth: Alright man, it sounds pretty good, that’s pretty much all we have time for on our end so thanks a lot for letting us call you and have this interview with you and I guess we’ll see you in a few months when you hit the Australian shores.

Mark: Yeah man, yes sounds really good we’re super stoked to come down there, especially headlining, I mean Australia is our favorite place so we’re really jazzed, it’s going to be a fucking good time mate.