INFECTIOUS GROOVES: Making Your Body Move (2024)

By BRIAN GIFFIN

MIKE Muir was only in Australia late last year when he toured here with his groundbreaking crossover act, Suicidal Tendencies.

Next week, he’ll be here again with his punk-splattered funk metal combo Infectious Grooves on their first shows anywhere since 2019.

“Infectious is a very difficult thing,” begins the former Queensland resident and bandana-wearing motormouth, warmly, “and difficult is a word you can define a lot of ways, but it starts with, obviously, everyone’s schedule – especially Robert [Trujillo]’s. The last show we did, which was the first one in a while, we headlined a festival in Brazil at the end of November 2019. Metallica was off-cycle and we had a bunch of festivals in Europe for 2020, and COVID had other ideas. So it’s really hard to find time with Robert and Metallica’s touring dates. It’s a job and a half because he’s constantly doing things.”

Finally, Trujillo had a “two week window” where doing shows with Infectious Grooves could become a reality, and Muir suggested they do them in Australia. Fiercely independent, he wanted to do it without the backing of big name promoters. On his recent visit with his other band, the singer made the necessary connections for it to go ahead, but during the intervening time, something else happened they had to contend with.

“I talked to Brooks Wackerman, who’s the drummer, and he said ‘Yeah’, but then he came back and said Avenged Sevenfold has just added a bunch of dates. So he couldn’t do it.” 

Fortunately one of Muir’s sons had a suggestion, and wouldn’t let go of the idea: Jay Weinberg. Fired from Slipknot last November, Weinberg has since been recovering from heavy surgery that’s restricted his ability to play, but Muir’s son was pretty insistent.

“I hadn’t talked to him since his first tour with Slipknot,” Muir says. “Suicidal was on that. Robert got in touch via email, Jay was cagey because he’s not supposed to be playing until at least April.”

After some consultations with his physiotherapist, however, Weinberg was keen.

“He was out here for the Grammys, we got together and practised, and it was so much fun!” Muir doesn’t even try to hide his enthusiasm. “Dude’s a gnarly drummer! It’s great because I’ve got to play with, in Infectious, Stephen Perkins, Jane’s [Addiction] drummer, played with us, and we replaced him with Josh Freese when he was 17, and now he’s in Foo Fighters and he’s played with Guns N’Roses, Sting…everybody, and then we replaced him with Brooks when he was 14! So I’ve played with a lot of great drummers, but it’s interesting when you play a song you haven’t played for a while, and then you hear his interpretation it’s like, ‘Yeah!’”

What’s even more important for Muir is having great people around him. Muir himself has often decried and shied away from mass fame, even going so far as to make sure the 1994 Suicidal Tendencies album Suicidal for Life was as deliberately offensive and commercially inaccessible as possible to counter the popularity they had attained with Lights…Camera..Revolution! He sympathises with his friend Trujillo, who has to battle mass recognition wherever he goes and yet remains the same person Muir met back in 1989.

“Robert’s one of my best friends,” he says with genuine affection. “He’s a great person, and being in a band like Metallica, and seeing from the periphery how much people expect from him and how gracious he is with things … I couldn’t do that! He’s a great person. Robert…he’s in the biggest heavy band in the world, by far, plays in front of 60 – 80,000 people a night, but he’s so down to earth. It’s not an act. He’s the same person that he was when we first got him into Suicidals. That’s amazing, as a human being. So I think I’ve been very fortunate to be around not only great musicians, but great people. And I can say that because I’ve been around a lot of people who are not great people!”

He goes on to retell the now well-known story of Trujillo filling in for his son in Mexico when ST played a private show for Vans.

“Well, we didn’t even tell the band [at first] because Metallica is effing HUUUGE, not only around the world, but, in Mexico, crazy fanatical huge, and Robert’s Mexican, so he’s a saint!”

After the show, the Vans team had to smuggle the bassist away from the venue in a separate vehicle so he wouldn’t be mobbed. For Robert it was just another day at the office.

“It’s hard to be patient and put up with that. When you go somewhere and there’s thousands of people, and they see you, and they think you’re there just for them and they expect that moment to last forever. I can’t put myself in anybody’s shoes, but I would have a hard life as Robert. He can’t go anywhere.”

Next week, Muir and Infectious Grooves – which along with Trujillo and Weinberg also features ST guitarist Dean Pleasants and former Velvet Revolver member Dave Kushner – make the trek to Australia where they will be appearing on the final night of the Byron Bay Bluesfest. Muir is familiar with the area from his time living on the Sunshine Coast when he organised a show there, and knew a little about the festival. It wasn’t until he got talking to the promoter of his last tour that the idea of playing there manifested. Obviously, Suicidal Tendencies wasn’t going to be on the bill.

“I have heard of it. I hadn’t heard about it for a while, but Brad was talking about some of his favourite festivals and he was saying how much he loved Bluesfest, but then said, ‘You’ll never play that!’. But when it came to Infectious, he said, ‘You know what, it’s not what they usually do, but do you mind if I talk to them?’, and I go, ‘No, please do!’”

So it came to pass that a funk/punk metal band came to headline the closing night of Australia’s biggest rock music festival. 

“I think there’ll be a lot of people who’ll be like Sesame Street – one of these things don’t belong!” He chuckles. “But I think a lot of people are definitely going to rock along and it will be a memorable ending to the night, and the festival. And to be able to do something like that is great, and that’s what I love about Suicidal. The World Championship of Surfing, we’re playing that, we’re playing the skateboard championship, we’re playing the action games thing, we’re playing a punk rock festival, then a metal thing…it’s great that we’re able to bridge that and do a lot of different things, and it’s the same with Infectious, too.”

These shows will be the first Trujillo’s played in Australia since Metallica’s last tour here in 2013. He’s not committing to it, but his friend Mike Muir reckons Trujillo might be back here with his far more famous band fairly soon.

“I don’t know this,” he says, as carefully as he says anything, “[but] If I was betting money and I wanted to put it on a sure thing, I’d bet that they are going to be there in 2025. I’d put money on it.”

INFECTIOUS GROOVES AUSTRALIAN TOUR

30/3: The Forum, Melbourne

31/3: Fortitude Music Hall, Brisbane

1/4: Byron Bay Bluesfest

4/4: Hindley St Music Hall, Adelaide

5/4: UNSW Roundhouse, Sydney