SOULFLY's MAX CAVALERA Talks About His New Collaboration With Brother IGOR

SOULFLY's official web site, Soulfly Web, has been updated with a new question-and-answer session with the group's leader, Max Cavalera. It follows here in its entirety:

Soulfly Web: Can you tell us what what you're going to be up to this month?

Max: Yeah, man, this week is actually really exciting. The date today is 7/7/7 and tomorrow we are starting to record on the new project that I'm doing with my brother Igor. I've talked about it a bit last year and throughout this year, and now finally we are pulling through with it and we're entering the studio tomorrow morning — and it's just going to be some brutal, aggressive, out-of-control shit.

Soulfly Web: Have you been jamming with him at all, or is the first time you guys are playing together going to be in the studio?

Max: Nah, we're going to do it all in the studio. I think it's sounding like a combination of things I've done with NAILBOMB and SEPULTURA, and even SOULFLY, of course, but these songs are coming to be more live on the spot. I recorded some simple four-tracks for a lot of them, similar to the ones that people may have heard through the SOULFLY MySpace, and I sent out a CD to everybody about a month ago with like 10 songs, but at that time I didn't even know exactly who else I'd be working with in the project. I knew that Igor would be doing drums and percussion, and I'd be doing vocals and guitar. Now Marc Rizzo is going to be playing lead guitar and and the bassist and vocalist from GOJIRA will help us out to give it a bit of a different vibe. I like GOJIRA a lot — they're a fucking kick-ass band. It's a special album for me because it's a very global group of musicians. One from France [from GOJIRA], one from the U.S., and two from Brasil. I think that's going to add something very cool, even trippy, and definitely my style.

Soulfly Web: Who are you going to be working with in the studio tomorrow?

Max: The album's being done Logan Mader and Dirty Icon in L.A., where I did the last two things that I've recorded in the studio. I just did the "Beautiful People" [MARILYN MANSON] cover for Kerrang! that came out a couple of weeks ago, and and I also did four lines for a rapper named ILL BILL from the East Coast. It was very cool — I'm not usually very big into rap, but he contacted me, he's a fan of mine from way back, and he actually met me and Igor way back on our first U.S. tour with SEPULTURA. So he sent me a copy of this song he did called "War Is My Destiny" — and it's fucking kick-ass. It's the most evil rap I've ever heard in my life — both the music and the lyrics. So when I was here last time, I recorded a couple lines and added some stuff on top of it. All of this shit was recorded with Logan — who has played with MACHINE HEAD and with me in SOULFLY right after the first record — out here in L.A., and it's really cool to work with Logan as a producer because he's an amazing engineer, we know him already, and it's fit perfect. I give my respect to Gloria [Cavalera, wife/manager] because it was all planned very well and she did a fucking kick-ass job finding the right people for the studio. All that's left for us to do now is to go into the studio tomorrow and jam out a sick-ass record, and that's what we're aiming for.

Soulfly Web: Do you think SOULFLY's going to be working on their new album with him this fall, as well?

Max: It's still too early to say. Right now this project is literally consuming all of my time. I'm still writing for the next SOULFLY, and Marc is, as well, and so are Bobby and Joe. We've all been in good contact over the break and we're all excited to be going into the new SOULFLY album, but that's going to be a chapter of its own that will have its own time. I like to keep touring, but I'm the kind of guy that likes to focus on one of my projects at a time to give it its own attention. I did NAILBOMB at nearly the same time that SEPULTURA was recording "Chaos A.D.", but they still had their own time for me. So yeah there's idea floating around, but as far as technical things like which producer, where to record, or even the general vibe of the CD — these are things that we haven't decided yet. I think it's going to be very cool, and in fact, this project will probably have a strong influence on what comes out of the next SOULFLY album. I know that NAILBOMB strongly had an influence for me in the "Chaos A.D." recordings, and even on into "Roots". I hope this project is going to do the same for SOULFLY, and it's going to provide some excellent inspiration.

Soulfly Web: Is this project going to be similar to NAILBOMB in the same way that you won't be performing live, or do you have plans for more shows than you played with NAILBOMB?

Max: We're going to try to play more shows than me and Alex [Newport] did with NAILBOMB. NAILBOMB was very unique the original idea between me and Alex was that we'd never play live and it's what we believed while we were making the songs in the studio. But we received a request for Dynamo Open Air that we just couldn't refuse. For them to put NAILBOMB in front of 120,000 people on the bill was incredible, and we were like, "We've got to do this one, man!" It's not everyday that you get to play in front of 120,00 people so we went ahead and did the show, but originally we never thought we play live. So this should be a bit different — I'm liking the material we've got so far quite a bit and it'd be very fun to do more live shows. My goal in the end would be to play a couple of shows in North America, a couple of shows in Europe, a couple of shows in Australia, a couple of shows in South America, so that all the fans of me and Igor's shit can get the opportunity to see what we're doing together live. It'd be fairer to my fans to play more than one show this time around, so we'll try to do a small number of shows, but play them all over the place.

Soulfly Web: You mentioned that you're going to be on ILL BILL's next album, "The Hour of Reprisal". Does Igor's collaboration with ILL BILL's little brother and fellow hip-hop artist NECRO have anything to do with your decision to record some lines for Bill, or is your only connection with him the chance meeting you guys had when you were in SEPULTURA?

Max: Igor working with Necro actually had nothing to do with it. Bill called me completely out of the blue. When he sent me the CD, I'm going to have to be honest, I didn't know much about what he did. The only thing that I did know for sure was that he had met me and Igor in New York on our first or second U.S. tour and we went to get some pizza with him. He grew up as a metalhead and a SEPULTURA fan I thought that was pretty respectable coming from someone from the rap world. He does something very different from a lot of the bullshit that's out there in rap. This is rap with a very different, almost "metal," attitude woven into it and it sounds very fucking cool. He told me it was an honor to have me on his record, but as far as I can tell, I don't think Necro working with Igor really had anything to do with it. I haven't met Ill Bill for quite a while though, and we're going to get to reunite at a festival that we're both playing at over in Europe this summer. The guest spot was his idea, he contacted me, and I put some vocals on top of it. Since he was a big SEPULTURA fan, I decided to do something I normally don't do, and I took a couple lines that fit his song from "Arise" and "Chaos A.D.", and I screamed those over the top of the rap that he's doing. It's going to sound fucking wild when it's done — lots of intensity and some very evil rap. Even if you don't like rap, I'd suggest giving Ill Bill a try, because it's a lot closer to some of the things that we do in metal than you might think.

Soulfly Web: Finally, do you have anything special in mind for SOULFLY's short European tour in August or for the 11th annual D-Low Memorial show that SOULFLY's scheduled on August 31st in Tempe, Arizona?

Max: Whoa, yeah, you know, we've got a lot that we're doing all at once right now, between the studio and touring in Europe, and of course, the Dana memorial show. The one thing that I think would be cool for this year's D-Low Memorial Show would be to have our new project play live at the show before SOULFLY. Every year the D-Low show is a very special one — at last year's show I talked to Igor for the first time in person in 10 years. My fans here in Arizona deserve that and I think SOULFLY fans are going to fucking love it if it happens — yeah, we'll get to SOULFLY the end, but before that we'd hopefully play through some songs from the project. The bill isn't completely confirmed yet, but we're working on it, and we hope to get some guests who have known Dana in the past to come out. 90% of the people I've worked with have had some type of connection with Dana — from the first D-Low show when the DEFTONES played with DUB WAR until now. Throughout the years most bands that have played have met Dana, or they know about it, and it's important to keep that involved. That awareness is what the show is really about — it's an opportunity for us to remember Dana as a friend. He was a very awesome metal fan, he was here for the music, and that music was his salvation from all the bullshit. He stayed away from shit like drugs, stealing, and all of that crap because he had music, you know? He loved music more than anyone I know and I hung out with him everyday playing music; he was one of the best friends that I've ever met. It fucking sucked to lose him, so I'm just trying to do my part to let people know about Dana. I don't want to let the world forget Dana ever — the impact he made and the memories we share — and that is the most important thing that this show will be about.