Interview: Eddie Hermida of Suicide Silence

I had the opportunity to sit down with Eddie Hermida, vocalist of Suicide Silence. After assuring me that he wouldn’t bite and that he wasn’t any different than anyone else even though I own a wallet with his band’s logo on it, we discussed You Can’t Stop Me, the legacy left behind by Mitch Lucker, what Mayhem means to him, dream lineups, and more. Check it out after the break! 

(Vince Bellino is in normal typeface. Eddie Hermida is in italics).

VB: Mitch Lucker died in 2012, people thought it was an impossible pair of shoes to fill. When you perform, does that affect it [performance] or do you feel like you have something to prove because he left a kind of legacy behind with Suicide Silence?

EH: I would say definitely the first batch of shows were like that. I felt like I had to really impress that band. That was the only kind of people that I was worried about, the band and the management, um, because I knew for a fact that they were going to be put in the hardest eyes right from the beginning. As of now, I’ve gotten really comfortable and I feel like Suicide Silence is my band now, so I’m very much comfortable where I’m at. I feel very, very good on stage, you know? More than anything I blank out on stage, I don’t really think, I try not to think a lot, I just go off of instict, but, you know, occasionally I’ll look in the crowd and I’ll see some kid who likes like Mitch or I’ll be singing a song and thinking about a conversation that I had with Mitch, ya know, stuff like that I get a little bit of nostalgia, and it does take me to a weird place, but do I feel like I’m not paying him respect or not paying homage to his show or anything like that? I feel like I’m kicking butt right now and, if anything, I feel like he’s on stage with us every day. 

So were you and Mitch friends before, it wasn’t like you had never met these guys and just showed up in the band?

Yeah, no, I’ve been friends with these guys for a long, long time, I’d say since 2006 when we first got to actually tour together and meet each other and hang out. 

So it was comfortable coming in.

Yeah, man, these guys were a second family to me, aside from All Shall Perish, you know what I mean?

So do you feel like you had to impress the fans as well as the management or were you more doing that for yourself and for the band?

That’s 100% what it is, you know, I’m 100% here for the band. Like, I’m here for Mitch’s family, I”m here for Mitch, I’m here for Mitch’s daughter, more than anything I’m here for the band, the band that was left over. You know, I wanted them to be able to continue their career and if they wanted me in the band, then who am I to say ‘no’ and who am I to stop that? They had 100% faith in me, I was a little nervous like I said at first, when I first walked out on that first stage at first, you know, I was expecting, like, a boo or two or maybe a bad response or something and I would get to turn to the band and be like ‘See, told you guys,’ but, no, the first crowd was awesome and from then on, I never worried about them again. It was like, ‘Okay, cool. They’re stoked, the energy’s awesome, the vibe is awesome, so let’s go out there and crush it every day and that’s what we’ve been doing. 

So you played Mayhem in, I think, 2011 with All Shall Perish. How is it different now that you’ve come back, but now it’s with Suicide Silence, so how is that different?

Well, not very different because in 2011 I pretty much spent my whole time with Suicide Silence. 

So it’s kind of just like coming back.

The only difference is that I’m on stage with them and not with All Shall Perish. In 2011, the band [All Shall Perish] had just lost the drummer, lead guitarist and we’d brought in two new guys and we did Summer Slaughter and the next year we did Mayhem and during Summer Slaughter we were writing This is Where It Ends and on Mayhem we released This is Where It Ends so it was still very much a new rig, we were all still getting to know each other, so there was still all of that and what’s funny is that I found a lot more comfort with Suicide Silence and I would write with them all the time, kind of just hop on their bus. And I remember, I just saw Planet of the Apes with the band and I was getting nostalgic because, you know what?, in 2011 all of us went to see the first Planet of the Apes when it came out on Mayhem and it’s really cool that we’re all getting to do this now. I mean, I wish Mitch was here because he came and saw the movie with us so it was one of those things where it was like, ‘eh, this is crazy,’ ya know?, but good nonetheless. The vibes have been awesome, the shows have been great, the band… the band is fuckin’ awesome. (laughs)

You Can’t Stop Me has received a really favorable reaction from fans and there have been a lot of claims online that it may be the best album to date by Suicide Silence, so does that affect your mindset moving forward in the band now that you know that you’ve been accepted so well.

It might make my big head even bigger, but, no, no, man, humility. Humility’s always been the name of my game, I try not to listen to both sides of the internet, be it the extremely good, which is nice but it’s kinda like, I feel like it’s like a compliment on the street to a girl. It’s like ‘Oh, dang, those tits are nice!’ Ya know, it’s like, it doesn’t have a lot behind it. It’s when you see a person holding the record and they go ‘Damn, dude, this record is, I play it every day,’ you can tell that the record’s just been obliterated, it sits in their backpack, they take it to school, they sleep with it, you know what I mean? It’s that type of, when they go ‘Damn, dude.’ It’s the Suicide Silence fan that has the Suicide Silence tattoos or they look at me and they’re like ‘Dude, you’re killin’ it.” That’s the type of stuff that really makes me go, ‘Alright, cool, I’m killin’ it.’ Stuff online, I take it all with a grain of salt because it’s the internet. People threaten my family on the internet, you know what I mean. If I were to listen to everybody on the internet, dude, I’d be a schizophrenic at this point.

What made you decide to make the jump from All Shall Perish to Suicide Silence. You said it was a positive one, but what made that jump, what was the reason that the jump seemed like a good idea at the time?

Well, it was a good opportunity for a.) Suicide Silence, and for me. I first, I mean it was strictly the amount of intensity that was coming from the guys, because I truly felt that they were going to struggle to find anybody else and I was kind of, it’s like if the first round of the NFL draft were to say ‘No thanks, I’m gonna wait for another call.’ You know what I mean? It’s one of those things where you just don’t ignore it, you know, it was an opportunity for me to…”

Advance yourself and help the band?

For me to help my friend who’d just passed away’s wife and family, his career, all of his goals. He wanted to bring this band, not only just himself but this band to another level and I remember talking to him about this record he was gonna be working on, which is the record we have right now [You Can’t Stop Me] and he was all like, ‘Dude, this one needs to be something else. This one needs to grow, this one needs to be bigger.’ And he had it in it, it’s like anybody else wouldn’t have done justice to the record. I really don’t think that anyone else could have stepped in and done justice to the record, that is why I took it, because, when I talked to my friends, and it was a difficult decision because I had All Shall Perish, like, I mean I told the guys straight up, ‘Look, if I do anything with you guys, I’m not quitting All Shall Perish and that’s the bottom line, whatever you guys want, that’s cool, but don’t ask me to leave my band.’ And they were cool with it, and they said ‘Yeah, sure, whatever you need.’ That helped. Yeah, man, it was an opportunity to advance my career, to do something that was bigger than me and that’s really 100% why, it was just like, ‘This is too perfect.” Does that make sense?

Yeah! Mayhem is toward the second half of the tour, it’s the end of the second half of the tour at this point…

Yeah, we’ve got 10 days left. 

Yeah, so has the experience been a positive one for you?

Positive doesn’t even begin to say what I feel and what Mayhem has done for us. It’s Ozzfest for us, for me growing up, I’m not sure if you guys have been to an Ozzfest or you know what it is. [Steve and I acknowledge that we know what Ozzfest is, though we’ve never been.] I mean, I grew up knowing about Ozzfest when I first heard Slipknot and Hatebreed and they were the Suicide Silence on Mayhem. Does that make sense? It was like I had to go see them. I remember driving down to San Bernardino, it was like an eight hour drive, to go see that show and to go get signatures by the bands and to be a fan, you know what I mean? It’s [Mayhem] one of the best fanfares there is and you get to see fifteen bands that absolutely shred. We’re all really good friends, we’re all kind of in a camp together. Everybody’s on a bus havin’ a good time, kind of enjoying the lavishness of all the hard work we’ve put into our careers, so that’s what it is. We’re having a great time.

Someone pointed out to me that the majority of Mayhem’s dates are outdoors. Sometimes that’s problematic to bands, so do you think about that when you’re playing or do you just go in and play the show?

I just do it for the show. At the end of the day, when there’s a lot of dust, I get affected by it. I’m asthmatic so it starts to, my lungs start to give me crap, but I find that playing outdoors, the only thing that really bothers you is the heat and the sun. When the sun’s lookin’ right at you, it’s kinda weak. (laughs)

If you could have a dream show with any band or bands in the world, who would you play with, if they’re active or not, dead, whatever?

I would love to play a show with The Beatles, Pantera, Slayer, Judas Priest, Faith No More, and Mr. Bungle all in one, all in the same day. 

That’s a sold out show.

Yeah. (laughs)

Suicide Silence’s new album You Can’t Stop Me is out now through Nuclear Blast Entertainment. The band can be seen finishing out Mayhem Festival this summer. Check back later this week for the rest of The New Fury’s Mayhem Festival coverage.