MAX CAVALERA Hasn't Heard Any Of The Albums SEPULTURA Recorded After His Exit From Band: 'I Have No Interest'

In a new interview with Scott Itter of Dr. Music, SOULFLY mainman Max Cavalera was asked if he has heard any of the SEPULTURA albums that were recorded following his departure from the group. He responded (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "I haven't. It's like… People say if you break up with your wife and she marries somebody else, you don't really go on Facebook and go see what they're doing. [You keep your] distance. I feel kind of like that. So I have no interest. I've got a lot of stuff to keep me busy. It's a fair question, and I'm sure a lot of people wonder about that, but, yeah, I haven't [heard anything]."

Max previously addressed the question of whether he has heard any of the music SEPULTURA recorded after his exit from the group nearly three decades ago in a 2015 interview with Sticks For Stones. At the time, he said: "Fuck no! I don't give a shit about SEPULTURA or what they're doing. I just heard from fans that people don't like their albums, and they're shitty, and the band's just going down and down, and, I don't know… I really can't care, can't care less what they're doing. It don't concern me at all. I've got my things going, and, for me, it's just so sad to see a band that was so important and special in the '90s turn to shit like that so fast. But whatever, that's what they're doing. But I've got my things, I've got my things to do, and I'm proud of what I did with them. We did great records and we did cool stuff, and that's there forever, and I'll leave it at that."

Asked if he would still call his former bandmates in SEPULTURA friends, Max said: "Not really, 'cause there is a lot of animosity and bad vibes in that camp, and a lot of bad things happened between us and them. So, yeah, I wouldn't, man. I really don't care. Like, life goes on. For me, it's, like, I'm more focused on the moment, what I have in front of me and I have a lot in front of me. A lot of projects… So, I've got to move on forward."

SEPULTURA fell apart in 1996 with the exit of Max after the rest of the Brazilian four-piece split with the vocalist/guitarist's wife Gloria as their manager. Max's brother, drummer Igor "Iggor" Cavalera stuck around with the group for another ten years before leaving SEPULTURA and re-teaming with Max in CAVALERA CONSPIRACY.

Max discussed the possibility of a classic SEPULTURA lineup reunion in a February 2023 interview with Thomas S. Orwat, Jr. of Rock Interview Series. He said: "I'm very, very busy right now with all the projects, 'cause I've got so many — SOULFLY being my main band, but also GO AHEAD AND DIE with my son Igor, and KILLER BE KILLED. And I'm already playing a lot of the old stuff with my brother; that, to me, right there, it fills the void anyway.

"So, yeah, I don't think about that at all," Max said in regard to a SEPULTURA reunion. "At this moment, I don't need to do anything like that. I think at this moment I'm so busy with the stuff that I have in front of me, and the fans love all the stuff that I've been doing anyway. There's no point, really. 'Cause I haven't even thought of that idea in a long time. But I think that my main thing right now is SOULFLY… And I love the fact that SOULFLY just keeps getting stronger and stronger with every record. And I look forward to the time to write the next one. It'll be another challenge and another chance to make something good again."

In the summer of 2022, Igor told the "Mike Nelson Show" about the possibility of him and Max returning to SEPULTURA: "I have to be honest with you, man. The reunion, in my opinion, it's me and my brother — that's the person that I wanna be united with. So, for me, if the other stuff, it doesn't happen, I can't really be too bummed about it. Of course, it would be amazing, but the real reunion for me is just me and my brother being together. That's what makes me happy."

Although SEPULTURA has maintained a diehard fanbase in all parts of the world throughout the band's nearly four-decade history, Max-era albums "Roots" and "Chaos A.D." were by far SEPULTURA's most commercially successful, having both been certified gold in the U.S. for sales in excess of five hundred thousand copies.

Max was asked in a December 2021 interview with "General Population With Marco Lesher" what he thinks of his replacement in SEPULTURA, vocalist Derrick Green. "It doesn't bother me," he insisted. "It is what it is. At the end of the day, the fans know what the band was and what it is now, the difference [between the two]. And I really don't care. I'm not bitter. They do what they do; I do what I do. It's been like that for a long time now. But you can't touch the classics; those records that we did [in the 1980s and 1990s]. It still goes, but it is what it is.

"If you wanna really hear something that sounds close to what it was, you have to come see me and Igor play," he added. "That's the only thing that is gonna be close to what it was, to that time."

Igor and Max have spent much of the last eight years celebrating the 20th anniversary of SEPULTURA's "Roots" and 30th anniversary of "Beneath The Remains" and "Arise" albums on tour all over the world.

In 2020, SEPULTURA bassist Paulo Xisto Pinto Jr. said that he has had "zero" contact with Max, adding that a reunion with the band's original frontman would have to happen "naturally."

Back in 2017, Igor told The Salt Lake Tribune that he and Max "believe SEPULTURA doesn't really make sense nowadays, to do what they're doing." The drummer also downplayed the possibility of a reunion of SEPULTURA's classic lineup, saying: "Unless it's something really solid — and we haven't seen that from their part — of doing something totally professional and coming together, trying to do something like that. At the end of the day, it would be special for the fans, so it's not like a closed door, but at the same time, we have no time to spend energy with this kind of thing. So we just move forward."

Max echoed his brother's sentiments, telling The Salt Lake Tribune that he doesn't even think about his former bandmates much. "For a time — for a long time — there was a war in the press, like, 'He'll talk this, I'll talk that,'" he explained. "I got really tired of it, honestly. I'm not gonna do that anymore. So let them go their way and do their thing, and we're gonna do our thing, and I think that's the best for everybody."

While stopping short of completely ruling out a reunion of SEPULTURA's classic lineup, Max said: "Right now, we don't even need it. It's been so much of that kind of bad vibes through the years that I don't even know how that would even really work out. I think what [Igor and I] are doing is the closest thing to that, and it works great, it works like a charm. It's amazing."

Last month, SEPULTURA announced that it will celebrate its 40th anniversary this year by embarking on a "farewell tour" which will cover the entire globe. Starting in March 2024, SEPULTURA will spend 18 months celebrating the band's past and the present one final time.

In the works for two years, SEPULTURA's final tour, titled "Celebrating Life Through Death", will start with dates in Brazil, and will include shows in Latin America and the United States, with the promise of additional dates to be revealed soon.

SEPULTURA's current lineup comprises guitarist Andreas Kisser, vocalist Derrick Green, bassist Paulo Xisto Pinto Jr. and drummer Eloy Casagrande.