MAX CAVALERA: I Never Wanted SOULFLY To Have The Same Members On Every Album

SOULFLY will film a video for the title track to their forthcoming album, "Prophecy", sometime in February.

"Prophecy", due in the spring through Roadrunner Records, was produced by mainman Max Cavalera and was mixed by Terry Date (DEFTONES, PANTERA) at Studio X in Seattle, Washington. The album was recorded, engineered and edited by John Gray at The Saltmine Studio Oasis in Mesa, Arizona.

Joining Cavalera on the album are guitarist Marc Rizzo, formerly of ILL NINO, returning drummer Joe Nunez, former MEGADETH bassist Dave Ellefson and ex-PRIMER 55 guitarist Bobby Burns on bass.

"I decided to do something different on this album," Cavalera explains in the band's new official biography. "This is an approach that I've wanted to do for a while. I never wanted SOULFLY to be a band like METALLICA, with the same four guys. On every SOULFLY album, we've changed the line up and it will probably continue that way. In order to do that, I had to start from the inside out and bring in people who caught my attention, that I had never played with before, and create this."

While it might seem unusual to employ two people for one job as bassist on "Prophecy", Cavalera insists that it gives the album distinct flavors. "The bass changes from song to song, and you can tell when it's Dave playing as opposed to Bobby, and that is what I wanted. Dave is old-school MEGADETH, which I love, and Bobby is new school. I like the old and the new together."

For "Prophecy", Cavalera journeyed to Serbia to work with native musicians. He was inspired to do so after many trips to the country and experiencing the culture. "I spent a week in Serbia, and then experimented in the studio, and I'm happy with what came out of it. That's shaking the ground. Yes, the album has trademarks that the fans want. There are the hooks that people like to sing along to, more here than any other SOULFLY album."

While SOULFLY doesn't skimp on their classic bombast, the experimental and world music vibes assert themselves much more prominently on "Prophecy". "When you get to 'I Believe', the album takes a different shape. It's a very spiritual, and one of the heaviest songs. It's about the faith that I have and that the fans have. It's an open song that I wanted to write for a long time, with a talking part in the middle. It's my own confession that I have faith in God. It's just my belief. It leads into 'Moses', which is the first exotic song on the album. I did it in Serbia with EYESBURN, a Serbian band. I've been called 'The Bob Marley Of Metal', so I wanted to do it right. It's seven minutes, it refers to the Bible and it's an epic song."

The fact that Cavalera went to a different country where he didn't speak the language lends an element of wonder to "Prophecy", which was mixed by Terry Date (DEFTONES, PANTERA, WHITE ZOMBIE),"It's got a legit dub style, with the basslines and horns, I never had a horn section on a record. But these are apocalyptic horns. Again, it's new." Cavalera also employed instruments from the Middle Ages and things like bagpipes made out of sheepskin while working with a Serbian professor of music. "They were the dirtiest instruments I have ever seen," Cavalera recalls. "Through the record, you hear them and get a world music feeling." There's even a guitar-less song recorded with Serbian gypsies and a song from World War II that you'd expect to unearth on a world music record.