16 NEW CUTS
AM
liberator
LIBERATOR
CHICKENPOX
CYCOMIKO
CPA
Mike Muir doesn't drink Pepsi anymore. He
was pounding down Diet Cokes at his record
company the day we met up to talk about his
new group, Cyco Miko
"To me, 'Institutionalized' was the perfect
radio song because it didn't fit in." Muir is
speaking of Suicidal Tendencies' landmark song
that made the band famous in 1983 with their
debut on Frontier Records. "It stuck out!
People wouldn't play it because it didn't fit
their "foonat. But every
station that did play
it, it was the most
requested. That was
alnost thirteen
years ago.
Nowadays. Mui
has forged his own
personal war against
the so-called alter-
native scene by
forging Cyco Miko
"Ik people are
confusing pop with
altemative." Cyco
Miko's Lost Mu
Brain! (Doce Again)
picks up where
Suicidal left off, with
more personal bent.
"Quite honestly, I come from a place where
what I do musically, it's not for everybody
Some of the biggest compliments I have
are when people say they don't like the
band. I don't want to be liked by everybody."
Muir's never been satisfied with gliding
through life. He likes to take it by the throat
and shake it. "The last group that I thought
was really cool was the original PIL. I didn't
even know if I sked it. I couldn't even under-
stand it. I thought, "What the hell is this?" Then
I realized it was just beyond me. And that's
what I like to hear is music that's beyond me.
Which brings us back to Cyco Miko's Lost My
Brain! (Doce Again). The album was recorded
with the help of bassist Robert Trujillo, who
recently left to join Ozzy Osbourne's band, gui
tarist Dave Kushner, members of the band, My
Head; Dave Silva on bass, Greg Saenz on
drums: guitarist Adam Siegel, a founding mem
ber of Excel and Infectious Grooves; plus Steve
Jones of the Sex Pistols.
Steve Jones' trademark guitar sound haunted
Muir, who dreamed of having Jones play on the
Cyco Miko track "I Love Destruction." "I finally
got the courage to call him. I felt pretty stupid
like. "Hey, dude, I'm doing a record. Come
down and play. Like he doesn't hear that from
all kinds of people. So, I sent hin a tape. He
liked four songs, came down, and played on
them. Then, after he was done, he said, 'Want
me to play on anything else?" So, he ended up
playing on nine songs, seven of which are on
the record. It was a good situation." Muir's
proudest moment was "getting to carry
[Steve's] guitar to the studio."
Last year, Cyco Miko made their live debut
touring Australia and Europe, opening for
Infectious Grooves. Enough groovin' to make
your body shake for two hours-plus. Original
Suicidal guitarist Mike Carr has been filling in
on bass for the Ozzy-bound Trujillo. Live, the
Cyco Miko set is "half Cyco Miko, half old
Suicidal a treat for many a hardcore fan.
In the early days. Suicidal Tendencies was
alnost synonymous with the hardcore skater
scene. "Where we were from, before you went
to school, you knew how to skateboard. That
was the transportation."
Today, Muir "very rarely" picks up a board.
"You get to be 200 pounds, you fall down, go
boom. It hurts." But Muir still has his hand in
the nineties skate scene, thanks to his ex-pro
skater brother, Jim Muir, who just happens to
be one of the owners of Dogtown Skates. "I'd
be going to those contests, and these little
ten-year-old kids would be getting ten feet of
air, and they're looking up at you. It's like.
Dude, I can't do that!" People just assume
you're good at this. My brother was a pro.
but I wasn't."
Another deterrent was an accident back in
the early eighties where skateboarding proved
treacherous for Suicidal. "When we did our first
tour, we were at this half-pipe, and our drum-
mer fell and yelled, "I broke my wrist! It was
one of the first shows, and we were supposed
to be out there for a couple of months. Skating
changed in the eighties. We'd skate vertical, or
down the hill, or we were racing. It was a whole
different thing. Skating's evolved a lot.
Lisa Johnson
SOUNDGARDEW
DOWN ON
THE
UPSIDE
Hear it. 1-800-556-ROCK (code 905)
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Produced by Soundgarden. Co-Produced and Engineered by Adam Kasper.
©1995 A&M Records, Inc. All rights reserved.
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