Trivia / Suffocation

• Artist Disillusionment: At the core, this is what happened with Guy Marchais and Frank Mullen (albeit to a much lesser degree with the latter). Both were sick of lengthy drives and seemingly neverending interconnecting flights and airport terminal downtime, and Marchais experienced a series of major life changes (namely inheriting his mom's house down on Myrtle Beach and getting married) that made him realize that his heart simply wasn't in Suffocation any more. As for Frank, his day job's increasing inflexibility indeed played a major role, but he also just didn't want to deal with all the bullshit that touring tends to bring any more and opted to stick to recordings and very infrequent live appearances until he left for real in 2018.
• Creative Differences: The gist of what happened with Mike Smith and Ricky Myers.
  • By Blood Oath, Smith was basically his own camp and had a largely adversarial relationship with Hobbs and Marchais, and by the end of his run, he was a truly toxic presence and it's quite possible that the band would have broken up again had he stayed. While he went out on an incredibly bad note (destroying your bandmate's guitar cabs out of spite will do that), he at least ensured the band's survival.
  • Myers, meanwhile, had a huge falling-out with most of the band around the end of 2016 and left with a bunch of drama, though amends were made and he happily returned in 2018 after Kevin Muller decided not to continue.
  • Averted with Marchais, as he had just gone through a bunch of major life changes and was also done with touring.
  • Also averted with Culross, who was in a truly awful relationship that was going to destroy his entire life if he stayed and had to basically flee Long Island and start over.
• Creator Backlash: Several.
  • Their distaste for how Breeding the Spawn turned out is legendary, which led to their decision to rerecord the material on future releases.
  • The band as a whole does not particularly like ...Of the Dark Light for multiple reasons. Much of it is with the production, which was far cleaner and more polished and modern than they had wanted when they recorded it, but they also feel that it is too technical and flashy for its own good.
• No Export for You: The Japanese release of their Self-Titled Album featured two re-recordings of Breeding the Spawn tracks: "Prelude to Repulsion", which was released to all regions, and "Anomalistic Offerings" which remains Japan-exclusive.
• The Pete Best: Todd German and the unknown drummer.
• Promoted Fanboy: Boyer (whose mother even remembers how he got in trouble for carving the band's name into a desk at school when he was fourteen), Myers, Errigo, and Muller.
• Troubled Production / Screwed by the Network: Breeding the Spawn is known for its awful production, which was all due to Roadrunner refusing to pay for another recording session at Morrisound (where Effigy was recorded). This wound up being part of the reason why Smith initially quit; while Roadrunner kept the band signed (unlike Malevolent Creation, who went through the exact same thing with Stillborn), they jumped ship not long after Pierced from Within was recorded. Most of the Breeding tracks have been re-recorded on other albums, so it stands to reason that they'll all turn up in a rerecorded fashion somewhere down the line.
• What Could Have Been: Jared Christianson was very nearly their full-time live fill-in vocalist instead of Ricky; Derek Boyer apparently witnessed Arkaik's performance in Brooklyn, liked what he saw, and told Jared that Frank's ability to tour was going to become very limited very shortly and asked him if he wanted a live position. While Suffocation was Jared's favorite band of all time, he knew that it would limit his activities with Arkaik after he had spent ten years busting his ass just making them a name and thus decided to decline the offer. Steve Tucker was apparently also approached, but it's not certain whether he was ever a viable candidate or not. Lastly, Alex Pelletier was approached to do the 2016 Summer Slaughter Tour after Talley left, but couldn't do it due to having a family and a full-time job (also why Despised Icon can't tour full-time); instead, Alex Erian recommended Eric Morotti and the rest was history.