Guy Marchais Opens Up on His Departure From Suffocation [Exclusive]

Back in May, legendary death metallers Suffocation uploaded a band photo without longtime guitarist Guy Marchais. Fans have been confused as to why no official announcement has been made, as Guy spent a total of 16 years in the band. We were curious too, so we called up Guy and he gave Loudwire the scoop on his departure.

When a longtime band member is seemingly written off without explanation, it’s not unusual that internal conflict played a role in the split. However, Guy Marchais assured us this isn’t the case with Suffocation. Marchais says he left on good terms with Suffocation and simply could no longer handle the band’s hectic touring schedule.

“I’m still friends with all the guys and there’s no bad blood or anything like that,” Marchais explains. “I moved down to South Carolina after my mom passed away and I was living down here and traveling back to New York with the band. I met a girl down here and wound up getting married. I really got tired of all the flights and all the traveling. It was a hard decision, kind of, because I did it for so long with them. I had been thinking about it for more than a year.”

He continues, “I still love playing and I loved playing live onstage with the band and I loved hanging out with them, but airplane flights are just crazy sometimes. When you’re spending more time in the airport than you are on stage, it takes a toll on you. When you’re not in the tour bus, you’re in a van. Certain tours would be in vans and different types of traveling and staying in hostels, all kinds of stuff. It just added up over the years.”

Marchais went on to open up about vocalist Frank Mullen’s diminishing role in Suffocation's touring. “Frank has been tired of touring since like 2009 or earlier. [Laughs] He’s just been done with touring. That’s why he only does local stuff,” Guy says. “His job used to let him go whenever for tours, but he tells us now they don’t let him go. I don’t know if that’s true or not. That’s why he still does local stuff; because he enjoys playing live in the band but just not the extensive touring.”

“I’m just done. I’m not willing to put in the work that it takes,” Guy admits. “Terrance [Hobbs, guitar] puts in like 150 percent, Derek [Boyer, bass] puts in 150 percent. Right before I decided to leave I wasn’t putting in anything. They were writing the new album and my brain wasn’t in it. I wrote some stuff but I never even showed them. I was just somewhere else thinking about not doing it anymore.”

Finally, we asked Guy to give us a good memory about touring with Frank Mullen. As we guessed, he didn’t disappoint. “We’ve left Frank at a lot of places while we were on tour,” Guy laughs. “We left him in France once and he made it to Belgium or wherever it was, however many hundreds of miles away. He finally made it to the show right before we were about to go onstage. He couldn’t communicate with whoever was driving him, it was some fan or something. All he had was eight Euros in his pocket and he didn’t have a phone or nothing. At rest areas he always seemed to get off [the bus] and not let anybody know that he got off to use the bathroom. Then the bus driver would just leave. [Laughs] Another time, we were going to Colombia from Ecuador or something and he wound up going to use the bathroom when they called us all on the plane. We were all just eating lunch and all of a sudden we’re like, ‘Where’s Frank?’ Next thing we know, we’re taking off and Frank wasn’t on the plane.”

Suffocation are currently working on their eighth studio album. The death metallers will be taking part in this year’s Summer Slaughter tour, so click here for the full list of dates.

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