Last week, rumors started to spread about drummer Mike Smith’s status in Suffocation. While Smith’s cryptic statement hinted that he had departed from the legendary death metal group, the remaining members have yet to release an official statement. However, in a recent email interview with Russia’s HitKiller.com, the band did confirm that Smith is no longer in the band. They also confirmed that he has been replaced by Dave Culross, who most recently performed a few East Coast dates with the group.

The original interview was published in Russian, but here is what Suffocation had to say regarding their current status (as translated by Blabbermouth):

“We want to keep this respectful, so without going into much detail, Mike and the rest of us had serious differences of opinions. Mike did formally resign from the band, and he has since been replaced with Dave Culross who had played and recorded on Despise The Sun.”

Suffocation went on to say:

“For all the people who think the band is splitting up, it’s NOT, except for the one change we already mentioned above. As far as our next move, the new CD is in the pre-production stage and it kills! We would say some of the best material to date. The band right now as a whole can’t wait to get this out to our fans.”

When we reached out to management about the interview’s legitimacy, they told us that “An official statement has not been released, however this was an interview published in an overseas e-zine.” So while it’s safe to say that Smith is no longer a member of Suffocation, chances are this won’t be the last we hear about it.

It’s certainly sad to see Suffocation without Smith, a founding member of the group. However, at least the legendary death metal group will be able to move forward with a familiar face (Culross was in the group from 1996-1998) and will still be releasing a new album later this year.