MAX CAVALERA Says Touring With RAMONES In Brazil Was Career High Point

Live-Metal.net's Jeff Maki recently conducted an interview with Max Cavalera (SOULFLY, CAVALERA CONSPIRACY, SEPULTURA). A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

Live-Metal.net: I was actually listening to "Roots" on the way here and I think it's an amazing album. Is it in your opinion that "Roots" is lesser of an album or is that just what you hear from fans' perspective?

Max: You have SEPULTURA fans that like different records. Some of them like "Arise", some of them like "Chaos A.D.", some of them like "Beneath the Remains". Some of them like "Roots" — different albums for different people. I'm glad that they like it — they like the album, so I think that's what matters.

Live-Metal.net: Like NAILBOMB, "Roots" was kind of unexpected — it was full of surprises for me.

Max: We took a different approach to it. The whole trip to the Indians [the Xavant tribe in Mato Grosso, Brazil] and the whole thing was really unique — the look of the album cover with the Indian, that was unheard of in metal. I think even Dave Grohl said that that was the album for him that changed metal. He said that on an interview, so I thought that was cool, coming from someone as high as him. So I'm glad that the album did all that and I still play "Roots [Bloody Roots]" every night — the song "Roots" is a classic, it's something that I gotta play — a "mandatory Max" song. I have a kick doing it, really.

Live-Metal.net: What has been your highest and lowest point of your career with SEPULTURA or SOULFLY?

Max: Lowest was the death of [stepson] Dana [Wells] and the breakup of SEPULTURA, which happened both at the same time. That was the lowest point. At that time, I even thought about giving up music for a while — just really depressive times. Highest ... I think with SEPULTURA it was the tour with the RAMONES in Brazil. That was awesome. That was only five shows — it was the "Chaos A.D." tour and the promoter decided to bring the RAMONES to do five shows, co-headline, SEPULTURA and the RAMONES. And it sold out, spread out like wildfire. And for me it was a legendary tour, touring with a legendary band like the RAMONES, sharing the stage with them. They were real nice guys, really cool guys. That tour was great. It was in my country. And I played my hometown. I think the hometown show was probably the highest point. Five thousand people show up in my hometown, all SEPULTURA fans, so that was great.

Live-Metal.net: Talking about the new SOULFLY album, I've seen a few things recently but any song titles or album names you wanna throw out there?

Max: No, it's kind of early. I don't have anything yet. I'm working on the riffs right now. I'm separating the riffs that are gonna become songs. So I made a CD for everybody that everybody has listened to on the bus. And then in November we're going to go in the studio and those riffs are gonna become songs. And then I'm gonna name them and everything, so it's too early right now.

Live-Metal.net: CAVALERA CONSPIRACY, is that another thing like NAILBOMB? A one-off thing?

Max: No, actually, CAVALERA CONSPIRACY is actually gonna to continue. It's something that I'm gonna carry on for a long time—I think for as long as I can. It's great to play with Igor [Cavalera]—it's my brother and it's a huge connection to the past. And it's great to make records with him. I loved doing the "Inflikted" album. It was so much fun to record with him again. No pressure, it was just fun. It's fun to be in a studio with him and bang those songs out and just watch the album come alive. And a lot of people are asking me for the second one. It's in the works. Sometime next year or whenever.

Live-Metal.net: Obviously, you're really busy, but you've had a lot of collaborations in the past, so is there anything you can see in the future? Any particular bands or artists that you'd like to work with?

Max: At the moment, I'm just still getting ready to think of a new SOULFLY album. But there's some people I'd like to have on the album, but I haven't talked to them yet. Like [Mike] Muir from SUICIDAL TENDENCIES. This was one of the ideas I thought would be really cool. I love SUICIDAL TENDENCIES. I think that bridge between metal and punk could be even cooler. Because I did that with SEPULTURA with [ex-DEAD KENNEDYS vocalist] Jello Biafra on "Biotech Is Godzilla". So I still believe in that bridge between punk and metal, and that's still alive today. So to do something with [Muir] might be cool, but I haven't had the time to ask him yet.

Read the entire interview from Live-Metal.net.