Frank: Max, you’re currently slaying across countries in Europe right now with Cavalera Conspiracy. I know that you basically live on tour, but how has this particular run been treating you so far?
Max: Well, this one’s been great, man. It’s been a while since I was here in Europe, especially for the festivals – the festivals are off the hook here. We just did Graspop and Tons of Rock In Norway. Graspop was crazy. Like, we played at the same time at Tool and we still had 20, 000 people watching us in a tent. It was like, ‘fuck!’
Hey, I would like to go see them, you know? It feels like it’s gonna divide the crowd, but that didn’t happen, man. We had an awesome turnout and it’s just great doing this. We’re doing the third world trilogy, playing the three albums together, which is really freaking cool because it’s even better than when you go out and play one record. It’s cool.
People love the nostalgia, man. I think we’re gonna do the same tour in the US in the beginning of next year so Americans will get a chance to check this out.
Frank: You’re out there with your brother Igor just dominating some Sepultura classics. You recently re-recorded those early Sepultura albums, Schizophrenia being the latest release.
Max: Fuck yeah, man. We’re gonna catch some shit with this one.
Frank: But now everyone is going to ask like, ‘What else are they gonna do? Are they gonna do Chaos A.D and Roots?
Max: Let’s pump the brakes! [laughs] I really feel these three that we did were done the right way to do it. Very honest, from the heart. You record them, you don’t really change them, you don’t need to mess around too much with them. It was good back then, it’s still good. It just needed to sound better, just needed some TLC on the playing part and the recording part, making the guitars cool because people discover stuff on it that they didn’t even realize was there. We were doing those Metallica harmonies back in the day, you know, so it’s cool to know that we actually were doing that.
Frank: Honestly the re-recordings made me realize what really came out of it, you know? Like when listening to Schizophrenia for instance. I’m like, “holy shit.” This is basically ground zero for Power Trip! It’s like they just listened to Schizophrenia over and over and basically made a band out of it. But you notice those details even more with that re-recording.
Max: I think that’s super cool. The most surprising revelation of the whole process was actually the new track “Nightmares Of Delirium” because it’s entirely new. There’s no rehash, like I didn’t have anything saved from 1987. I spent a whole week only listening to Schizophrenia on rotation non-stop. I was like getting brainwashed by this album, and then I sat down with my guitar and said, “okay I’m a teenage Max Cavalera. The record label just said we gotta put one more song on this album.” So I gotta write one more song and I put my mind into that. That state of mind as a young Max writing a brand new song for Schizophrenia and the result is mind-blowing because I think it fits the record man. It’s crazy.It’s like ‘whoa, this could have been on the record.’
It’s gonna take a little time for people to get to know the song and embrace it entirely, but I think it has all the elements in this song that people love about Schizophrenia, and it’s a brand new track. That is one of the coolest things I think about the rerecording of course. Rediscovering the album on its own also was a great journey. I realized Wow, we were ahead of our time for teenagers to be writing “Inquisition Symphony”
Frank: That’s what I’m saying. I feel like you guys were ahead of your time and I think these re-recordings are a testament to the importance of what you did then, and who you are now. You’ve always been the Max Cavalera I know, the dude who just wants to get out there and rip, raw bones.
Max: I think when talking to Arthur Rizk, the producer, Arthur was really like “this is your Ride the Lightning man” I was like, “Chill just let’s just go for it.” Like we did Morbid Visions man, because that came out great.
He was a bit more, I’m not gonna say nervous but more apprehensive. Like we cannot fuck this up. “It’s gotta stay the right way. Like, this is even more important than those other two that you just did, you know?” So I think we went with that and I think we tweaked a couple things that to me feels cooler than the original. I think it’s faster, it’s a little bit faster than the original.
There are cool things in the record. I don’t know how we did it, but the picking of the guitar and the drums are not entirely synced and that’s beautiful. It is so hard to do because if we would have synced them, it would sound great, but it would sound like a machine. It would sound like Fear Factory. It’s badass, but it’s badass for Fear Factory. It’s not machine tight and that’s the attention to detail. I actually wanted to put that on the album, like “this album has no AI at all” that’ll be really cool.
Frank: [laughs]I think bands will start doing that from now on whenever they do an album. It’ll have a sticker that says “AI FREE.” I mean, that’s some of my favorite shit about real bands like yourself – there’s this human element to what you do live, in the studio, no matter what it is. You’re just human about it.
Max: Yeah, you know it’s more about balls than being technical, it’s more about attitude than musicianship. It’s always been more about that. Although through the years we became better musicians ourselves. So now we get to apply a little bit of that, right? Of course It’s always been more about the attitude and the energy And the anger and all that more than making something perfect. Perfection doesn’t exist. It’s like we live with the non-perfect results that we get, they’re actually kind of cool. It’s hard to do it the way we did it on these recordings, But I think we managed to do it somehow.
Frank: Of all the classics that you guys have been rocking in your set list lately, what do you think is like that standout track that excites the shit out of Max Cavallera still?
Max: Right now, the Schizophrenia block just takes the whole show to another level. My favorite song that we’re playing right now is “Septic Schizo”. It’s a deep cut from Schizophrenia. We never even played that song live very much, and of course, “From The Past Comes Storms” that you know, has a triplet opening riff that has become like a trademark riff that I did back in the years, and still today. When that part hits, you can see the crowd is at attention, man. It creates this excitement in the air, but the whole set is really cool, man. We get to do an hour and a half, the best of these three records and some other stuff that we’re gonna keep changing as the tour goes by. We keep changing the end of the set, but it’s really cool, and of course we toss in some Chaos A.D.
Frank: Chaos A.D. is always going to be one of those special records to a lot of people, myself included. It’s the first Sepultura record that I heard as a kid, it’s what taught me how to play drums. It’s just that record for a lot of people.
Max: It’s cool to know that this record has such an influence and impact in metal that is still bearing fruits, man. Right after Arise we were like, “all right. What do we do now?” Like we could have made another record that sounded just like Arise and it would have been great. I think people wouldn’t mind, but we decided to do something very difficult that a lot of bands don’t have the courage to do. Which is kind of like- let go of the last record. So we let go of Arise. We embraced a whole bunch of shit. You know, all the influence that gave Chaos A.D. that kind of crazy vibe that it has.
Frank: I love that you change up what you do constantly, and I think that you hear that in those Sepultura records, but you even hear that in Soulfly going from the first record to the latest. It completely shifts and moves, it’s like a living breathing thing on its own, and I enjoy that because you’re never really gonna know what to get from Max Cavalera on the next record
Max: Having older musicians also paying tribute to this stuff is also really fucking awesome. Like doing the Sonic Temple Fest and then you know Mike Patton called me up and said “We’re doing ‘Territory’ it would be awesome if you come and sing with us” and I was like, of course i’m there already! That was a cool moment, I feel me and Patton, we had this huge connection that goes all the way back to the beginning of Faith No More. You know, they came to Brazil to tour for Angel Dust and we became real good friends and stuff, you know, he’s doing Mr. Bungle and they’re doing a tribute song from Chaos, and I get to sing with them and that was just like a classic awesome moment, man. I also saw footage of Gojira playing “Territory”.
That was really kick-ass. It’s good to know your peers, the people that that you listen to- because I’m a huge Bungle and Gojira fan myself, you know. I mean, you’re right, I keep trying to make the Soulfly records as interesting as they can too. I think this new one is really interesting. It’s going to be really interesting for many reasons, one of them being the death of my mom who passed last year. So it’s a huge thing in my life and I’m gonna dedicate the record to her.
So it’s really gonna be the most heartfelt Soulfly record ever made. Now that I have the Cavalera extreme fix pretty much satisfied, I can actually explore different things for Soulfly. A different Sonic avenue, so I think we can be more adventurous. So i’m really excited for the new Soulfly that’s probably dropping next year.
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