MAX CAVALERA: Why Now Was The Right Time For Me To Publish My Autobiography

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

Metalshrine: You're just two years older than me and I just feel that there's so much time left for you to put out cool music and have more cool stories. What made you [write your "My Bloody Roots" autobiography] now?

Max: Well, it was an idea that kinda came out of nowhere, actually. I thought it was a good time for it because of what happened with the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame. What happened was that the notebook that I wrote SEPULTURA on for the first time, the schoolbook, we actually donated it to the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in Cleveland and they displayed it together with Dimebag's [PANTERA] guitar and a bunch of stuff from other metal bands. I think that kinda led to the idea of now being a good time to do a book. I came all this way from being a kid in Brazil to be part of the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame. That's a huge journey, but you're right. There's a lot more to be done and the story will continue for many more years, but we just felt that it would be good to tell the story right now and we had Joel McIver, who's a really good writer. He approached us and offered to write the book for us and we saw what he'd done. I read parts of his METALLICA book, the Randy Rhoads book and the MOTÖRHEAD one and I really like how Joel writes. We started working on it and it's out in Brazil, finally, and it will be out in the rest of the world in January 2014. It's a very cool book with cool stories and a lot of great people involved. Dave Grohl [FOO FIGHTERS] wrote an amazing introduction. People in Brazil are really digging it. It was a good time for it now. I'm 44 and let's just see what happens from now on.

Metalshrine: Did you sit down with Joel or was it mostly done via phone or Skype?

Max: We did most of it over the phone, but I sat down with Joel twice. We were touring a lot, but he came to two of the shows and we sat down during the day and we talked a lot. But a lot of it was done by phone. It was like an hour-and-a-half phone calls and three times a week. It was horrific and I did not look forward to them. It was, like, "Oh no, the phone call's coming!" and I had to try and remember everything that happened during all these years. It was like therapy sessions.

Metalshrine: Were there things he brought up that you had forgotten about?

Max: Yeah. He was trying to get as much as possible. We ended up forgetting a couple of things, which is really amazing to me. For example, SEPULTURA toured with the RAMONES and that's not in the book. Incredible that I left that I forgot about that. How could I? [laughs] It was just too many stories, too many things, but that's why it's so cool that Gloria [Max's wife and manager] has her blog that tells all these other stories that are not in the book. The making of the book was a long, long process and I think it took about three years all together. Gloria found a lot of cool pictures. There's pictures of my grandfather and pictures of my great grandmother, who was an Indian, so there's a really cool picture of her. Then there's pictures of us as kids in Brazil and my mom and my dad and our teenage years and SEPULTURA. You see the whole madness developing. It's really cool.

Metalshrine: This project you have together with Greg Puciato (THE DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN),Troy Sanders (MASTODON) and Dave Elitch (ex-THE MARS VOLTA),have you recorded everything [for your debut album]?

Max: We're still recording and we're actually going to the studio right now. I have to finish two more guitars and we're singing today, which is cool. All the drums are done, twelve songs. There are some great songtitles like "Set Fire To Your Flag" and "A Throat Full Of Broken Glass" and some other crazy titles. I think it's gonna be really, really cool. It's really energetic and there are all these melodic parts that troy's gonne be singing and bring that kinda MASTODON vibe to it. It's exciting and it's a combination of all the bands involved. A little bit of DILLINGER, a little bit of MASTODON, a little bit of SOULFLY and a little bit of Dave playing as in THE MARS VOLTA. It doesn't really sound like any of those bands but you can hear parts of them. A cool fact is that the three of us are gonna sing on every song and that's gonna make the singing really exciting. It's like a metal version of THE TRANSPLANTS. It'll probably come out late next year, because [SOULFLY's new album] "Savages" is just coming out and we're gonna let it take its course and we're gonna tour for a long time. After that we'll probably release the project.

Metalshrine: Are you doing a new CAVALERA CONSPIRACY album before or after the project?

Max: After. CAVALERA CONSPIRACY is taking quite a long break right now. It's good though. That's the way CAVALERA is created, no stress. There's no pressure and we can do it anytime we want. It's SOULFLY now and then the project and once that's settled, we can work on the new CAVALERA CONSPIRACY album, which is probably gonna be towards the end of next year or beginning of the year 2015.

Metalshrine: Why don't you just call it THE PROJECT?

Max: Yeah, we don't have a name yet, but that's a possibility. We're totally running out of ideas.

Metalshrine: Who's producing it?

Max: We have this guy Josh Wilbur. He produced LAMB OF GOD's last records and the last GOJIRA record. He's a very cool guy and very young. He's only like 35 and very energetic. He's doing a great job so far and he's been able to get a lot out from us and the music is really coming out great and powerful. I think it's gonna be a great thing.

Read the entire interview at Metalshrine.