MAX CAVALERA Talks New CAVALERA CONSPIRACY Album, Collaboration With GREG PUCIATO

Niclas Müller-Hansen of Sweden's Metalshrine recently conducted an interview with Max Cavalera (SOULFLY, CAVALERA CONSPIRACY, SEPULTURA). A couple of excerpts from the chat follow:

Metalshrine: Tell me about the new [CAVALERA CONSPIRACY] album and where did you get the title "Blunt Force Trauma" from? That's something you hear every time you watch a cop show, "it's blunt force trauma to the head."

Max: Yeah! (laughs) It's a medical term that I learned and I really liked it and thought it would be a really cool name for the record. It's very strong and when I heard what it means when you get hit in the head with an object that causes blunt force trauma, I thought, "That's perfect! That's the sound of the album!" I just told Igor [Cavalera, CAVALERA CONSPIRACY drummer and Max's brother] about the name and Igor was cool about it, you know. We do everything half and half in the band, so I consulted with him and when I said "I'm thinking about calling the album 'Blunt Force Trauma'. What do you think?" and he said, "Yeah, that's kick-ass!" It's a cool name, so we just went from that. I like it. I think it's an unusual name, more of a medical term. I've never had an album named after a medical term, so first time. There's still some new ideas, believe it or not! (laughs)

Metalshrine: I was kind of wondering about the logo for CAVALERA CONSPIRACY? It's very simple and works brilliantly. Who came up with that for the first album?

Max: That was Igor! He's really good with design and stuff like that. He wanted something very minimal, but very powerful too. I think he was inspired by BLACK FLAG, the four dots they had. He really liked that and he has that tattoo on his arm and he's a big BLACK FLAG fan and when he designed the "Cavalera," I really liked it from the beginning. I thought it was awesome! It's simple, catchy and it symbolizes the band and it's got every element that we wanted. You can spray paint that on the wall and it looks cool! (laughs) We stick to it and I'm glad Igor did that. I'm happy that we work like that. We share everything. We share the artwork, music ideas, song titles. Everything goes back and forth and it's a really cool 50/50 collaboration kind of band. I really enjoy that. Everything is run by both of us, right down to the middle so everything goes through us.

Metalshrine: I just read that you're working on something with Greg [Puciato] from THE DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN and that it'll be a full-length album. Could you tell me anything about that?

Max: It's really in the beginning right now and we've actually just been talking on the phone. Greg loves NAILBOMB and he's trying to get me to do a NAILBOMB kind of project. He's saying we can do something very similar to NAILBOMB where the both of us sing, like me and Alex [Newport of FUDGE TUNNEL did in NAILBOMB] and what we had and it will be what me and Greg have. We're gonna share the vocals and I think the drummer from MARS VOLTA might be the drummer and the bass player from CONVERGE might be playing bass and we're looking for a guitar player right now. But it's gonna be like a project, not a band like CAVALERA CONSPIRACY or SOULFLY. It's gonna be just a one-off album, something heavy to put out there. Something that me and Greg like to do. I had a great experience with him working on "Rise Of The Fallen" [song from the latest SOULFLY album] and we became good friends and he started calling me about this "NAILBOMB part 2" idea and I couldn't say no. I just thought it would be great and I'm really looking forward to it. I'd like to do as much music as possible, so he came with a new project for me.

Metalshrine: Is this something we'll se released before the end of the year?

Max: Ehmmm, no! It's not gonna come out until next year, because it's gonna take some time to get all the people involved and all the writing, we have to write all the stuff and he's actually coming here at the beginning of March and he'll spend one week here in Phoenix with me and we're gonna do the first writing of the stuff and we're gonna take it from there, but it's probably not gonna come out until next year.

Metalshrine: When do you see the new SOULFLY album coming out? Is that next year as well?

Max: I'm just gonna let it roll naturally. Whenever we're ready, we'll be ready. I'm probably start writing at the end of this year in my house and whenever I'm done with the CAVALERA CONSPIRACY tour, it's probably gonna be somewhere around September/October and then I'll probably start writing some new stuff for a SOULFLY record, but I also have the thing with Greg and I've gotta balance both of them and I don't know which one of those two is gonna come first. It'll probably be the project. SOULFLY is on a little break now, so it's probably gonna be a little while until the next SOULFLY record comes out, which I think it's cool because I think it gives SOULFLY some time to breathe. We've been putting albums out every year since '98 and it's been kind of nonstop. It might be cool to have a little break and reorganize ourselves for the next one, which is gonna be the eighth studio album. It's quite amazing to have eight albums with a band, so I'm looking forward to make something special out of that one.

Read the entire interview from Metalshrine.