MAX CAVALERA: SEPULTURA Was 'Taken Hostage' By ANDREAS KISSER

Thomas Stanley Orwat Jr. of RockMusicStar recently conducted an interview with Max Cavalera (SOULFLY, SEPULTURA, CAVALERA CONSPIRACY). A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

RockMusicStar: You have recently written an autobiography. When will it be released?

Max: Yes, it's coming out in February in America. It's called "My Bloody Roots", and it's out in Brazil already and Poland, and it's going to come out in America in February. I've been working on this book for the last three years. I did thousands of interviews, and Dave Grohl [FOO FIGHTERS, NIRVANA] did the introduction of the book. He wrote a really cool introduction; it's really funny. It's a great book; it's got a lot of cool people in it, like Mike Patton [FAITH NO MORE], David Vincent [MORBID ANGEL], Sharon Osbourne. It's an amazing book. It's gonna tell my whole story. It's gonna tell about the split; I finally tell the truth about why I left SEPULTURA. All the stuff that happened, all the tragedies that happened, and then there's some funny stuff, like puking on Eddie Vedder [PEARL JAM], and shit that happened in my career and my life. They're all crazy stuff. Everything's gonna be in the book, and it's going to be great for people to read that.

RockMusicStar: Wow, I can't wait. That's awesome. How is it doing in Brazil?

Max: It's doing really good, man. It's gonna probably make the best-selling list of the Brazilian books, and we're very excited about that. People in Brazil are very excited, they are reading the shit out of it. I get a lot of comments on Facebook, from my wife, she does Facebook, and gets a lot of people talking about how much they love the book, and has really, really great reviews. A lot of people especially like the part when I talk about the split from SEPULTURA, because I really explains my side of the story, about how I really felt, and why I left my own band. And a lot of people, after they read that, they will understand. And, for them, it makes sense that I did what I did, that I left SEPULTURA. They would have done the same. After they read it, they understand why I did it, and it makes sense after you read what I said about the split, you'd think that it was the rational thing to do, for me, was to leave them, you know. Even though it was my own band from the beginning, it was kind of like, all of my integrity, you know, and that's why I decided to leave. It's going to be great. It tells all of those stories, and puts kind of a final stamp on the whole "SEPULTURA split" shit, and talks about SOULFLY and how it was created, and how cool SOULFLY was building over the years, and the cool people I worked with. Sean Lennon is in the book, Corey Taylor [SLIPKNOT, STONE SOUR] is in the book, all talking about how it was to work with me, and I think it's going to be great. I can't wait for people in America to read it. It's going to come out through a company called Jawbone. They're going to distribute the book in America.

RockMusicStar: I always wondered about the SEPULTURA thing. I always thought to myself, I mean, I don't know the all the little nuances about the spilt. That's why I'm looking forward to reading your book, but, I always wondered why you didn't just fire everyone from SEPULTURA, keep the name, and find replacements.

Max: Yeah, I couldn't do that. There were contracts and there was a bunch of legal shit like that. My only options were, at that time, was to stay with them and do what they wanted me to do, which was fire Gloria [Max's wife and manager], which I thought was the wrong thing to do, or me leaving. And I was left with no choice, so I ended up just leaving it. I had faith in myself that I would do something else. I didn't know exactly what it was, what I was going to do right away. It took six months to get SOULFLY going. But, I knew in my heart, I always want to make music and I was going to continue making music, and I was going to try my hardest to make whatever band I was going to make next be as powerful as it could be. I'm, you know, in a way, kind of now looking at how it turned out. I'm actually really happy, because, I think maybe, if I would have stayed with SEPULTURA, maybe it wouldn't have been that good, you know? Maybe it would have been too hard to maintain the high-caliber quality that we were used to in all the SEPULTURA records. And SOULFLY is really great for me, because it's really a freedom band that I can do all kinds of stuff that I like to do with metal. I like metal to be different; I like to push the boundaries of metal. I like to bring all world music themes, I like to do all these guest songs, and SOULFLY lets me do all of that. So, in a way, I think it was a blessing in disguise that I ended up leaving SEPULTURA.

RockMusicStar: I do, too. I just don't understand why they go after you in the press, and say things like you "turned your back on them," and things like that.

Max: Yeah, that's all propaganda. Everybody that reads the book will understand why I did it. And, you know, everybody that knows what's going on knows that that band is actually taken hostage by Andreas [Kisser, SEPULTURA guitarist], by guys that weren't even there in the beginning. They were not there in the beginning. SEPULTURA was formed by me and Igor [Cavalera, Max's brother and former SEPULTURA drummer], it had all different people. Paulo [Xisto Pinto Jr., bass] and Derrick [Green, current SEPULTURA vocalist] are not former band members; they are not original band members. The way I see it, they took the band hostage, and they are just using the name, promoting themselves. But they're dragging the name down, because they're getting less and less popular, and I don't really hear anything good about their records. So, it's like, to me, I don't really care what they do. You know, for me there's always the classic SEPULTURA that I love. I think we did some amazing records, but it's all in the past.

Read the entire interview at RockMusicStar.