California-based thrash/punk act SUICIDAL TENDENCIES have issued the following update:

"February 18 is the Chinese New Year. This is the year of the "Boar". Hopefully it will also be a great year for "Cycos". The band is off tomorrow to Australia to do the first shows since (frontman) Mike Muir's last back surgery. Everyone is quite excited and we like to thank all the Aussie's for their emails and support...even the ones that were mad the band wasn't playing near them. This will be the first time back to Australia and many years and it's always a favorite spot. The band will also be starting an Australian Suicidal Records and is getting the street team going too. If you are from Australia or New Zealand you can email Lorenzo (Lorenzo.Meroni@eu.sony.com) from the European street team, or Stigfamilia@aol.com . The band got added to this festival late, but is happy that a show could be added in Melbourne (which the festival missed) and gets to do a club date in Perth the night before the Perth festival. This should be quite a blast and W.A. will be off the hook for a Cyco weekend. Hopefully this festival will be a great re introduction to Suicidal for the people down under and the band will be back later with a full on headlining tour and dates in New Zealand too. In April the band will be going to France to do some festivals and some headlining dates. Since the dates were first announced we've been getting bombed with emails about touring etc. There's a lot of interesting dates being discussed and some not so interesting, lol. A lot will depend on how these dates go. Then the band can safely make further commitments and plan the release schedule. There's several projects the band has been working on and most a couple will be completed after the band returns from Australia. Yes the live DVD from the Olympic will be released this year. Yes, a new ST CD will be released....and there's several more projects that will be released by Suicidal Records in the next two years. So thanks again for all your support and patience. The band is looking forward to going Cyco Worldwide. Hope to see you there. We know the Aussie's will kick it off right!"