WEB-EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: SUFFOCATION’S FRANK MULLEN ON WHY HE LOVES WOODCHIPPERS AS A TOOL OF EVIL AND THE BAND’S NEW ALBUM

In Revolver’s October issue, we interview Suffocation vocalist Frank Mullen about his band’s new album, Blood Oath (Nuclear Blast). When we caught up with him, he was in Texas with the death metallers on a headlining stint for the Summer Slaughter tour. For those of you who didn’t get enough (or are too cheap to buy the magazine), here’s the best of the rest of our wide-ranging chat.

REVOLVER You’re in El Paso, Texas. I hope your bus has air conditioning.
FRANK MULLEN Oh, no. Because we’re brutal, we’re doing the van. The air conditioning is working in that. At least that and some good hotel rooms.

Glad to hear that. Since you’re touring, have you seen the mosh pit change in the 20 years you’ve been doing this?
Yeah, in a way. In the old days, it would get brutal. A lot of it was big circle pits, and if somebody fell down you helped them up and everything. Sometimes now it gets just a little crazy. For the most part, the main difference I’ve known is certain places you’ll play where it’s just a free-for-all. Kids are throwing haymakers, and spin kicks and everything. You used to go in there just to kind of enjoy the music and bounce around and move along with the flow of everybody. But now, some places you don’t even want to go in because the chance of you getting clocked in the head with a kick or a roundhouse or a punch to the side of the head, anything’s possible.

What did you want to do differently on Blood Oath from the last one?
Not really anything. We never want to try to do anything differently. With us, it’s always about we have to feel the music before we put anything into an album before we put out a recording. If it doesn’t feel good to us, we’re not gonna put it on an album. With this album, we just continue to mature in different ways and you’ve gotta come up with different things. This is our sixth album, and then we had two EPs. At this point, you’ve got to keep changing a little bit here and there, a little different, but nothing to change what Suffocation’s been over the last 20 years. But you’ve got to keep coming up with some fresh stuff. After putting out this many albums and everything, you’ve got to keep reinventing in a way.

What’s something you did different on this album?
I didn’t do any double-cupping [with my hands on the microphone]. I just sang straight into the mic with one of the filters on it. That was it. No cup techniques or anything on this album.

Is this the first time you’ve done that?
I experimented with it on the last album. Pretty much, I want to always keep it where I like to be powerful and legible [coherent] at the same time. With every album, I’ve done that. With Effigy of the Forgotten it started with doing double cups, then it went with double cups breathing then the single cup, and lately, like the last two albums, have been pretty much singing straight into the mic.

Do you breathe differently when you do that?
Not really. It’s so crazy. I don’t do any type of techniques. I don’t do any warm ups. I don’t do anything. I just get in there and I belt my face off, and I don’t know. I’m kind of amazed at myself, actually, that being almost 40 that I can still do this. [Laughs]

Since you’re turning 40 soon, have you had any moments over the years where you felt you needed to grow up and not play death metal anymore?
I always look at that. Especially as you get older, you want to look at different things. You have to look towards retirement and stuff like that. Will death metal be the career that I will always do? I can’t really say. But can I keep belting my face out when I’m 50? Probably not.

When I was married there was times when I don’t know if I can keep doing this. That was the time that the band did stop playing for a little while there. I was more focused on that, but then that fell apart, so I came back to what I love doing. I’ve always loved playing music, but the hardest part of anything with this business is the touring aspect. And playing death metal, none of us are gonna make millions of dollars; none of us are gonna be rich. You do it because you love the music. That’s the bottom line.

What is something that you know now that you wouldn’t have admitted to yourself at 20, when you were going into this?
I don’t know. I look at everything that we’ve done, and I look at it like I’ve enjoyed every aspect of it. Even from the early days of touring in the vans and box trucks and everything like that. All these shows we’ve played in front of all our fans. I don’t know. I probably wouldn’t change anything. I don’t know if I’ve learned much. One thing is that you still don’t make tons of money. [Laughs] That’s one thing that I’ve definitely learned. You go from maybe playing for free or $200 or $300 a night to now, we can make some money, but it’s still nothing like where you’re like, “You could have a feature of me tomorrow on MTV Cribs and I’ll show you around my crib and I got all these cars that I’m gonna show you.” It’s not like that.

You’re releasing a videogame for this album.
Yeah, that’s in the works. It should be coming out around the same time. It’s gonna be a first-person shooter, PC game, based around the different albums. It’s gonna have elements of the albums in the game. I’m not sure the exact direction he’s going. I think the way they’re gonna do it is as you get to different levels, band members are gonna be like boss levels. You’re gonna have to try to kill me at some point in the game. I’ll probably have a chainsaw and a woodchipper or something. Who knows. [Laughs]

You mention the woodchipper a lot as a weapon in interviews.
I love the woodchipper. If John Deere would endorse me, I’d go around and do the woodchipper tour. I just think the woodchipper is the perfect disposal for anybody. You through somebody in there, and that’s it. You spray it all over the place. Or if there’s a nice party going on. Let’s say you’ve got a wedding or somebody’s Sweet 16 or something you back that thing right up and just start throwing in bodies or whatever and spray everybody, you know? I don’t know. The woodchipper, I like it. But if you’re gonna throw anybody in there and rent it, make sure you throw wood in there and clean it out before you return it.

I take it you’re a Fargo fan?
Yeah, I love that. Outside in the yard there he’s got his longjohns on. He’s trying to fit the body in there, stuffing it in with a two by four.

I know you own a gun.
I don’t go hunting. I like firearms and stuff. I’ve gotta work on getting my handgun license. In New York, it’s a huge process. You’ve gotta submit all sorts of crazy papers, and they have to do a huge investigation into you. To me, the world is crazy enough as it is. And I think it’s only gonna get crazier, especially as things start to happen. Anything’s possible. I just want to be prepared.

I have a shotgun, 12-gauge, pistol-grip Mossberg. I keep that mainly for protection. You come into my house and I don’t know who you are, I’m gonna blow you away. No questions asked. We’ve got a range out on the Island. Some of my friends have guns, too. You’ll see it on the DVD, actually. Me and some friends of mine go down to the range and we fire off some guns and stuff. That’ll be on the DVD.

Some of the Blood Oath bonus tracks you’re releasing on special editions include instrumental versions of that song and “Blood Oath.”
That was an idea that Nuclear Blast came up with. They wanted to do something different for the fans. To me, I’m cool with that. Sometimes, there’s just so much going on with the songs that some people just want to hear the music for just the music without having the vocals over it and following the vocals. It’s a cool idea that they came up with. Something different. Something original. I’m fine with it.

It gives people a chance to do their best Frank Mullen at home.
You know what? There it is. It’s set up so you can do death-metal karaoke. You can just jam it up as loud as you want and just go nuts. I would like to see what different interpretations of Suffocation people could come up with.

Interview by Kory Grow