MAX CAVALERA Says He Handled Split With SEPULTURA 'The Wrong Way'

ARTISTdirect recently conducted an interview with Max Cavalera (SOULFLY, CAVALERA CONSPIRACY, ex-SEPULTURA). A couple of excerpts from the chat follow:

ARTISTdirect: What was the creative process like for CAVALERA CONSPIRACY?

Max: Well, it's moved very differently, just because I'm playing with Igor [Cavalera, Max's brother] again. That's a huge thing in and of itself. We spent more than a decade apart. For over 10 years, we didn't speak or see each other. When the idea came to do this album, I was very excited. So I wrote a lot of riffs and lyrics. I wanted to do something different from what I normally do in SOULFLY. I like both, but SOULFLY's more experimental. This is Igor and I going back to the roots of metal, punk, death metal and the shit we grew up with. I just threw down 11 classic metal songs and recorded them [laughs]. We had some good people working with us, too: Marc Rizzo, my guitarist in SOULFLY, is in the band. Joe from GOJIRA, a French band I like a lot, is playing bass. People are talking about the album a lot, and I'm very happy to be doing this.

ARTISTdirect: Was writing riffs different? This album feels thrashier.

Max: Not too much on my part, because my riffs are very basic, man. I cannot riff any other way. I play four strings, and I don't play lead. Even when I try to do something different, it always has that Max sound to it. It's good and bad, I guess. I think what's different, is Igor and I are together again. The songs have Max and Igor's secret playing style, which nobody can figure out — even us! When we play together, there's something cool that happens. It's very special. The brutal parts are super fast, but there are a lot of cool grooves too. Being from Brazil, we both are very into grooves and percussion. That's all I can think of as to why this project is different from SOULFLY, or even SEPULTURA. We're doing this right now, and we've been interested in all kinds of different music. I always let music influence my shit all the time. I'm not afraid to capture new music, so I think that's what's different. It's very thrashy, like you said. People are also saying, "It's the heaviest shit, I've ever done." So I'm good with that.

ARTISTdirect: It's very passionate, too. You guys just went into the studio and captured what was going on in the moment.

Max: It is, man. It's hard to understand, but my emotions are going really deep on this record, because I'm back with a brother I grew up with. Because of the music we loved so much, we didn't speak for 10 years. We were separated for this long period of time. The album's brutal and all, but inside of this brutality, there's emotion. It was a fucked up time for Igor and me, but we made it through together. We are brothers. It all shows on the record. So, I'm glad for that. It's definitely special. I'm always going to like this record a lot, because it's the first thing I've done with my brother in so long.

ARTISTdirect: Do you feel like your bond with Igor is stronger than ever now?

Max: Yes, because we've grown up beyond the bullshit that we let bring us down at the time. If what happened in '96 was going on today, I honestly would've handled the situation differently, and we probably would've never split. I was younger, though. It was a crazy time. It was just a brutal time, involving death and a lot of crazy shit. SEPULTURA was blowing up. At the same time, my family had a big crisis with the death of my stepson, and I really couldn't handle all of it. I handled it the wrong way, I guess. Now it's cooler, because of that. We really appreciate each other as people. We try not to let that bullshit interfere. We just get to play together and be brothers. We both have other projects, which is also a cool thing. When we're not doing CONSPIRACY, I'm doing SOULFLY, and Igor's doing MIXHELL, the DJ project that he has. It's better now definitely, yeah.

ARTISTdirect: This album wasn't really planned, right?

Max: Nah, and it's pretty amazing how much time it took. All of Igor's drum tracks were done in 10 days. So that's basically more than a song day, because we ended up recording 13 songs. There are 11 on the album, but there are two b-sides. One is a POSSESSED cover we did for "Exorcist" and another song. It was really fast. The time used was really good. We didn't fuck around too much. We just went to record, jam and work on the songs a lot. Somebody pointed out to me that some of the songs seems like they took us a long time, but they didn't. I think it's really cool it happened that way. We wanted to make a straightforward metal album. I just wanted to make a good heavy metal record that you don't think about too much, even if it did take a long time to compose the songs. It blows my mind that it feels like some of the songs took months to make. Some of the time changes are just weird and crazy. That was the thing I liked most about the record, the way it came out. It even surprised me in the end.

ARTISTdirect: It's a record that, as a fan, you can listen to over and over again, and find something different each time, because you guys captured that natural sound.

Max: I hope so. I think that was the goal. This album has the songs that rip your head off right away, and it's good for that. It's not just that though, because if it were, you'd probably get tired of the record really fast. There are the songs that are more elaborate, and they're going to stay with you longer. I think that's a good formula. NAILBOMB had some of that, and SEPULTURA's "Arise" had some of that. When you look at "Arise" it's a really fast song, and then you get "Desperate Cry", it's a slower song. Usually fans like "Arise" first, but then later, they like "Desperate Cry".

Read the entire interview at www.artistdirect.com.