Suicide Commando It has become an absolute benchmark in the electro industrial scene throughout its more than 30-year career.
Johan Van Roy, its founder is one of the current pillars of the movement and will return to Mexico this year to head the first edition of the BlackStar festival, trying to make amends for his past visit that was tarnished by a serious leg injury.
Todavía estás promocionando tu último álbum, “Forest of the empaled”. ¿Puedes describir en tus propias palabras el sonido y el concepto detrás de este disco?
“Forest of the empaled” It's probably the darkest album I've ever made. Writing the album was a therapy that ended a very dark period in my personal life, I think you can feel a lot of this pain and sorrow in the songs in this work. There was no real concept behind the album, but it is obviously a lot about pain, fear and death.
“The pain that you like”, fue un éxito rotundo. ¿Cómo decidiste lanzar ese tema como sencillo?
This song probably became the most accessible song on the album. I have known Jean Luc from Front 242 for quite some time and have long asked him if he would like to do vocals on one of my songs, but somehow it never worked until I was writing the music for this song. I thought the song would fit perfectly with Jean Luc's typical voice and style and he immediately embraced the idea, and so the song was born.
With over 30 years on the scene, how do you stay with the same passion and dedication when making music?
For me it's pretty obvious, this kind of music is (a big part of) my life, it's in my veins. I couldn't imagine making other music or not making music at all. So for me it's all about passion and love for this type of music. He saved me a couple of times already, so for me it's not only my passion, it's also my therapy.
We know that they return to Mexico, as one of the main attractions of the Blackstar Fest. What have you prepared for this show?
There are still a few weeks to go until the show, so it is still a bit early to go into details, but since we have not toured Mexico with the new album, it will obviously have a lot of new material, most obviously great hymns like “Bind Torture Kill” or “Die Motherfucker Die”.
“La música me ha salvado un par de veces, no solo es mi pasión, es mi terapia.”
The last time we saw you, you had a severely injured leg. You have to promise to take care of yourself to come with everything on this visit!
Oh well, I know why you say so. I usually forget all of this once I'm on stage. Up there, adrenaline takes over, so sometimes I can do stupid things when I'm in my own world. This is how I hurt my knee on that occasion. It happened a few days before playing in Mexico City, during our show in Los Angeles, I jumped off the stage and while returning to the stage I severely damaged my knee. But with all the adrenaline in my blood, I wasn't even aware of how serious it was, so I even jumped on the drums and jumped again before it finally broke. Final result: torn ligaments and torn meniscus. I still did 5 shows with this injury, but as soon as I got home I received urgent surgery and it took about 1 year to recover.
What do you remember most about your last visit to our country?
Para ser sincero, no tengo tantos buenos recuerdos de mi última visita a la Ciudad de México, debido a esta estúpida lesión de rodilla. Pero todavía tengo muchos buenos recuerdos de nuestra primera visita a la Ciudad de México en 2012. Eso fue realmente increíble, un lugar agotado con más de 1000 personas. Eso fue una locura. Pero estoy feliz de finalmente regresar y tomar venganza por mi último “mal” espectáculo (risas).
Suicide Commando made a remix for C-Lekktor, one of the most emerging bands in our country. How did this collaboration come about? And what can you tell us about the final work?
I have known Markko for many years and we both have a lot of respect for each other's work. Markko is a very nice guy and he's done some great remixes for Suicide Commando in the past, so he must somehow return the favor. It took a long time to finally finish this remix, but we finally made it.
Finally. Do you want to leave a message for the people who are waiting for you here in Mexico?
I really want to see everyone at our 2 shows in Mexico (Mexico City and Tijuana). To me, it seems like an opportunity to make up for the last show that unfortunately had to happen under bad circumstances. I really hope to connect with our Mexican fans and friends as it will probably be our last visit to Mexico, at least for a long time. Come have fun with us! You will not regret it.
