Suicide Silence Guitarist Mark Heylmun Shares Band’s Mindset + Plans After Mitch Lucker’s Death

The past year has been a difficult one for Suicide Silence, who lost their frontman Mitch Lucker in a tragic motorcycle crash on Halloween night. In the period since, the band have been mourning his loss, starting with a major memorial show last fall featuring a number of rock's top names, then in private.

The surviving members of the band made a rare public appearance in the period since, taking part in the 2013 Revolver Golden Gods festivities. The band members walked the black carpet and guitarist Mark Heylmun briefly spoke with Loudwire about their current mindset and release plans in the wake of Lucker's death.

Hey Mark, welcome. With the Golden Gods going on, who are you most excited to see?

Well obviously we want to see Metallica, you know. It's gonna be insane and I don't know exactly what they're going to do, but I don't expect it to be a simple Metallica show. It's going to be a commemoration and it's a small venue, so it couldn't be better.

We're also here celebrate the lives of those who passed this past year. You know our singer passed away at the end of last year and we're going to go out there and make a little speech with a video.

It's been very moving to see the support and watch how people have rallied around your band given everything you've gone through with the loss of Mitch [Lucker]. Can you talk about where your mindset is at at this point, with a little separation from his death now?

Well the mindset right now is that none of us really have the energy after all of this. From going 150,000 miles per hour in the band, going to a different country every week and going at it so hard, then all of a sudden stopping. We don't want to do anything. We don't want to think about what we're going to do. We want to chill out for a little bit and then if something happens, it happens, if it doesn't, it doesn't. It's as simple as that.

I know you say you don't want to think about what's next, but might there be some hidden tracks or compilations in the works that could keep fans involved while your taking the time to figure out that next step?

We will definitely be releasing a memorial DVD from the memorial show we did for Mitch. We played in California last year and that will definitely be coming out, so we definitely have at least a couple of more releases in the coming year -- DVD stuff and you know, like we said, we don't have plans on anything else.

And if you could, take me back to that show. Great lineup of musicians to turn out and emotions were riding high. What was that night like for you?

It's insane man. It's crazy to think how it all came about because we met up the day of and we made the plans. We wanted to put it together the best we possibly could and we couldn't believe that we made up all these plans and it pretty much fell into place. Pretty much everyone we asked wanted to do it and it was killer and it was one of the most special things that we've ever done and it was unreal.