After helping to establish Sepultura as the greatest Brazilian metal export ever with thrash classics like Beneath The Remains & Arise, Max went on to form SOULFLY in 1996/97 & to date has released 5 albums that carry on the spiritual musical tradition that he began with in the 80’s.

METAL HELL: What’s going on lately?

MAX CAVALERA: Right now I’m getting ready to go to start a US tour. Soulfly was in Europe for 3 months doing all the festivals & we did some touring with KoRn & the last thing was the Dana tribute show in Phoenix, which is the 10th year anniversary of Dana’s death. There were a lot of jam sessions and the main thing was my brother (Igor) flew in and played 2 Sepultura songs with Soulfly and that was the highlight of the night, people were tripping out. Including me, cause I haven’t seen him in 10 years. It was awesome. It’s cool that my relationship with him is great again cause, it’s blood, it’s family, so we’re good. Soulfly is getting ready to go on a full US tour & then we’re going to Australia with Megadeth in and then getting ready to make the new record for next year.

MH: I know the jam with Igor meant a lot to the fans. Do you think the chemistry was still there?

MC: Oh hell yeah. It was emotional but at the same time it seemed like 10 years never was between us. It clicked right away, I just looked at him and we started playing. People were saying how awesome it sounded & that it sounded like thunder coming out of the drums. It was cool because I love what I did & I love what I do. I love my stuff with Sepultura. I’m very proud of it & I love Soulfly, so having those 2 things together in a Soulfly night was important to me and to the fans. I think the fans understood more where I’m coming from with that. It was really special and I think the fans were happy to see that. It looks like a cool upcoming year next year with a lot of cool stuff going on in our camp.

MH: That’s a lot of history on one stage.

MC: Yeah, it’s too bad because people from everywhere wanted to see that.  We had to pick one place to do it for the first time (that) we played together in so long but I think it was the right place because it picked up exactly where I left off. Because when Dana died was where the Sepultura split happened. Getting back on a stage with Igor made sense. It was the right thing to do. I think everything has worked out this way for a reason.

MH: How much do you think the current Soulfly line-up will influence the next album?

MC: We’ve toured a lot. For 3 months we were in Europe doing all the festivals & we went to Russia. We played some amazing festivals in Russia, Turkey & some crazy cities that I never heard of. In the mean time we were jamming a lot. There’s a cool chemistry inside Soulfly now. I’m getting along great with all the guys. We’ve been talking about some stuff that we wanna do. I’ve been joking around telling people that the new Soulfly will make Dark Ages seem like a pop record. That’s what I’m into right now. I’m into heavy stuff. I’m going backwards. Everybody my age gets old & gets mellow. I’m trying to get more wild & more into the heavier sounds. I’m listening to a lot of classic stuff like Napalm Death & Brutal Truth.  When I was in Europe I did a jam session with Danny Lilker from Brutal Truth & SOD & all we played was thrash and death metal songs & hardcore. I’m this opposite guy, getting older & going into more extreme music. Rather than getting old & getting more mellow. I don’t work like that.

MH: I’ve noticed in the set list you’ve brought back some Sepultura classics.

MC: Yeah, I love that shit man, and I have a band that loves to play that stuff. Marc Rizzo is a huge fan of the thrash era. He loves Beneath The Remains, Arise & Reign In Blood. I love all those records too but he is a huge fan of playing those solo parts. I like that too, I like that chaos. Music gets boring after a while. I noticed some of the music lately is becoming a little more traditional & shit. I miss the chaotic element. I like the shit out of control. I love mosh pits. I love circle pits. We saw plenty of that on the last tour in Europe. Some- times 5-or 6 going on in the same show. One time we were doing the drum jam, which is just drums & there was a huge circle pit of 200 people going on during the drum jam. It’s on video. I’ve got to put this on the next DVD. That was really neat cause it’s brutal & tribal. I’ve never heard of that in my life. For me a circle pit had to have guitars & riffs. When I saw them doing that without guitars it was a whole other level. It was like going back to ancient rhythms & tribal shit, the heavy way. It was great. I was so glad we got that on camera. It’s gonna be on the next Soulfly DVD for sure.

MH: What do you think of 2006 being the 20th anniversary of thrash albums like Reign In Blood & Master Of Puppets?

MC: I’m actually having a good time with my son Igor, who is only 11, but he’s a big fan of that phase of music & we do compilations together. I’ll say okay I’ll show you some stuff, so I introduced him to everything from Kreator, Destruction, Exodus Bonded By Blood, all the early Slayer; Hell Awaits & Show No Mercy, which is my favorite Slayer stuff & also hardcore stuff, like Bad Brains & Cro-Mags & Napalm Death.  It’s fun to have a son that’s 11 years old that likes Napalm Death with you. There are fans out there that are the same way. I meet a lot of them on the road & they’re like me & my son love Sepultura & Soulfly & I understand more now than I did, now that I’ve listened to music with my son, it’s so much cooler. It’s cool that he’s into Napalm Death instead of Christina Aguilera. That fucking rules.

MH: What did you think about “Desperate Cry” turning up on the soundtrack to Taladega Nights?

MC: I heard about that. I didn’t see it. My kid’s friends & my son, Richie, who sings on Dark Ages, they all talked to me about it when I came back from Europe; you gotta go see this. I like Will Ferrell a lot. I like his Saturday Night Live shit. I was pretty surprised to hear Sepultura was on there, very cool.

MH: Do you usually write out of improvised jams?

MC: No, I work very similar to how I did in Sepultura. I write stuff on my own, a lot of it on 4 tracks. I love old 4- tracks. I love the vibe of those things. I used some of that on Dark Ages. Some of the sounds you hear I didn’t re-record. I used it straight from the 4- track right to the album, on some of the intros like “The March.” With 4 tracks I lay down riffs & use drum machines. With the first instinct, a lot of times those are the best ideas. Sometimes musicians forget that & they try to remake it better & better & they ruin it where the first thing was the best that you could come up with. I’ve learned that through the years. On a lot of vocal lines, my favorite things were the first try. Somehow it’s killer like that. When you try to do it again it’s not as good so I’m making the albums more like that now. The Soulfly albums are more like that. A lot of the Sepultura albums were like that too. Producers like Ross Robinson or Scott Burns or Andy Wallis will record my first things & I’d be insecure like I don’t know it was the fist thing, we could do it again right & they were like no, it’s great the way it is, so I like that. Soulfly works a lot like that. With Marc, on the leads, he does some stuff & then re-records it & that’s cool because that’s more elaborate. The guitar stuff is note by note. He wants to get the right notes & he tells us it’s not quite there yet, I’m gonna re-do it & I let him do his thing. I don’t have to stress. I just say do it & when you think it’s right just show me & he does that. But with my parts, like riffs & vocal parts I like the first things. Normally they’re the best. The first primal instinct, 90% of the time they’re the best ones. Even if it’s off the beat a little bit, that’s why I don’t record with click tracks. If you record with a click track you’ve got to stay with the click track & I say fuck that. I’m pretty sure that 90% of the good thrash records were not done with click tracks, cause those bands start at one speed & end it like twice as fast by the end of the song. That’s the beauty of it. You cannot re-produce that, it’s natural. That’s how it’s supposed to be, so I like that stuff.

MH: Pro tools can perfect things to where it doesn’t sound anything like the band sounds live.

MC: Yeah, we don’t use that much at all. My records all the way back to Sepultura, Nailbomb & Soulfly is analog rolling tape. I use pro tools very little to fix a couple things that may be a time consuming thing. For intros & space between songs, that’s where I use that. But I would never consider using pro tools to do a guitar riff or anything like that. That’s absurd man. You gotta be a band, you gotta play. That’s missing in a lot of the metal-rock today. You can hear the plastic sound on the guitar & you know that the guy’s not even playing. It’s on a pro tool, somebody’s just sampling that riff. You can hear the digital guitar sound. To me that sucks, that’s not where I’m coming from. I’m coming from Black Sabbath, real live shit played live & loud. The Soulfly recordings are real loud & not the typical things you would expect.

MC: People come in the studio & say you guys record too loud. That’s how I like it & that’s how it’s supposed to be. It’s supposed to be almost on the edge & almost live, like the live atmosphere.

MH: The old SABBATH albums were recorded that way & those will out-live everything.

MC:  I love the way those records were recorded. The Sepultura records were all based on that formula. A little experimentation came later with Nailbomb. That was using the sampler different from the way people do today. It’s using it as another instrument & that’s cool. I don’t have a problem with that. My problem is when people start using pro tools to change their voice. So many singers do that now. The pro tool actually changes it & makes them sing better than they actually sing. It’s like yeah c’mon that sucks! If you’re gonna do a record that you can’t play live, that’s a failure right away.

MH: Do you hear a progression with any of the older songs with the current line-up live?

MC: The songs got better live. They’ve got different vibes. They’re faster sometimes & have a better approach.  It always is like that. Live you play a little bit different from the record with the same elements but applied a little bit different. With some songs that turn out to be huge songs I wouldn’t expect it. For some reason. “Primitive” from 2000 is a huge song now, probably the strongest song of the whole set & I really don’t know why. I have no answer for that. It’s a cool song, I like it, I wrote it, It has a cool vibe to it but I never thought this is gonna be a cool live song. It never crossed my mind. I’ve been playing that song live now & it’s insane. Every time I play “Primitive” anywhere it’s like the whole show just starts over.

MH: Sometimes fans like the most basic songs.

MC: Yeah, I’m having fun with the Soulfly stuff. It’s cool hearing Marc putting new stuff on top of it. You can hear “Primitive” or “Last Of The Mohicans” and we add things to it & make it even more exciting than the record versions. On the next tour when people come to see Soulfly they’re gonna be surprised at how it already sounds different from the last time they saw us. It actually has grown & it’s stronger & bigger sounding & more kick ass sounding than the last time. I think it’s important for bands to keep growing. Even when you tour you should keep growing. Don’t play the song like you’re playing golf or whatever. It’s good to go on tour & make the songs even better & more powerful. I like the element of surprise. I like to fuck up set lists. I actually do that on purpose. Set lists in the Soulfly camp are a joke. When they bring the set lists, everybody laughs. They’re like set lists? Max ain’t never gonna follow that! And I never do really. I think over the last 10 years I played two- set- lists right. I purposely misbehave & change the set list every night. I piss everybody off but it’s kind of cool (laughs). I’ve seen other bands that turn it into a factory job & the last thing I want to do is that. I try everything that I can think of. Ideas keep coming. We started the drum jam & I got bored with the drum jam & I was like I’ve got to do something with this fucking drum jam, we’ve been drumming this shit for a couple of years & it’s kind of stale so I thought I’ll pull somebody from the crowd & have them come play drums with me & that’ll be kick ass.

I started doing that in the last year & it’s great. It’s one of my favorite parts of the show. It’s already started riots. In Russia we got a riot. It makes the life of a roadie more of a nightmare but I don’t give a shit man. I look at it like hey you came in here, this is no fucking Madonna show man, this is Soulfly & shit’s gonna get crazy so it’s fun man. I love pulling people from the crowd to play drums. I really get off on that.

MH: Any plans for a DVD from this tour?

MC: I’d like to do a continuation of The Song Remains Insane, which came out after Prophecy, which didn’t really cover everything that Soulfly is about. It covered like half of it, but that was a cool DVD. A lot of people told me how much they liked it cause it gives an in depth look at the inside of Soulfly. I’d like to do a part 2 & show people more of that. There’s some cool stuff that people haven’t seen. The recordings of Primitive for example were insane. When we recorded “Terrorist” with Tom Araya we built a wall of amplifiers & it was me, on one side & Tom on the other side. We were screaming right at each other. It was one of the sickest things I’ve done in my life. People in the studio were like man this shit is intense. Then playing some crazy places, like the Marine bases last year. Our drum riser was a tank. With shit like that people have got to see it, cause that’s part of Soulfly. That’s really what made me want do this. I’d like to do a continuation of that & then a new album cause I’m never satisfied. I’m always thinking I’ve got to do more. There’s more music to be done.

MH: What inspires you to stay so creative?

MC: Because you can never let what’s around you bring you down. I remember writing Chaos A.D. when grunge was all that people cared about at that time, in the press & the media. I look back on Chaos A.D. with pride. We were writing “Territory” & “Bio-tech Is Godzilla” when the grunge shit was around. We were on another plane. We were in a different planet. I’m so happy we did that & we didn’t get caught up in that shit. To me it doesn’t matter what’s popular to do or selling a million records. I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing. The fans know it, I know it & we’re gonna keep doing it. Like I said I’m going more & more into crazier sounds & heavier sounds. I say I’ll rest when I’m dead. I’ll slow down when I die. Fuck slowing down, let’s do it right now.

MH: Any messages for your fans out there?

MC: Just thanks to everybody that’s been behind me when everything got done. I’d like to say they’re welcome to come see Soulfly on the upcoming tours. I have a commitment to metal, to heavy music & I’ll never stop doing it so I want to thank the fans for being there. Without the fans I wouldn’t give a shit about ever picking up a guitar so I want to thank them for being the fire I need to get up every day & do what I do. When I mention the music in general, I mean everything, Soulfly, Nailbomb, Sepultura, Slayer, Hellhammer, Prodigy, whatever the fuck you listen to. I’m just so proud to be part of something like this. I wouldn’t change my life for nothing. Maybe I missed out on making billions of dollars being some kind of famous engineer or doctor or whatever the fuck, but I wouldn’t trade it for nothing. This is what I came here to do & I’m doing it. And I wanna say thanks to you for spreading the word. We need more people like you. There’s just too much bullshit out there in music right now so we need more people like you. It was guys like you back in the Sepultura days that helped me get through it, along with other bands. We survived the bullshit trends, but we didn’t do it alone, so that’s one point I make. I cannot do it on my own. So I wanna thank you & the fans & everybody that supports the heavy music. Fuckin’ A.

 

* Interview/photo-Joe D.