As Flaming Wrekage’s brutal fourth album tickles your earholes, you know this is something special. …
If you have been listening to metal for the last twenty years and love how it sounds, you ought supplicate before the mighty riff-hands of Max Cavalera and his brother Iggor. This Brazilian “metal family”, changed the way heavy metal sounded forever.
Sepultura’s was at its most lauded when they released Roots in 1996. Grooving, chugging, and running wild with tribal Latin flavour, it spawned nu-metal; for better or for worse. This September, the brothers reunite to perform Roots in Australia for the first time since, well, ever. CJ & Sam from Hard Noise went to dig beneath the surface to get at the heart of Max, metal, and Roots.
CJ McMahon: Earlier this year you guys released a short teaser for the Conspiracy Diaries documentary, and we’ve heard some news that there will be a new Cavalera Conspiracy on its way soon. Can you tell our listeners and ourselves here at Hard Noise, are we in store for some more thrashy death metal with this one, like Pandemonium? Or are you going to try and bring something different to the table with this one?
Max Cavalera: Yeah, no, the album’s all done, man, you know. It’s being mastered, actually, tomorrow. It’s a beast of an album, it’s my favourite. Of all the three Cavalera’s albums, this one is my favourite one. It’s a really- it’s a really cool record because I think we explore the best of Max and Igor world, and we had this really cool producer, Arthur, really helping get stuff out of us.
And I think that there’s a real cool mix between thrash metal, and death metal, and noise metal type shit. And we’ve even a guest song from Justin from Godflesh, he’s a guest in one off the songs, so its kind of a Godflesh-Nailbomb type song. But the rest of the record is really powerful, a lot of fast stuff like you can imagine, with a lot of great thrash breakdowns.
So I think it will be great for everyone that loves the stuff that we did, especially with the Arise era stuff, they will be very happy with this record.
Sam Rilatt: Now Max, Iggor and yourself have made a name over the decades as one of the best examples of family members working together to create music. You followed suit with your son joining you in Soulfly. What is it about the Cavaleras working together that makes it such a powerful force?
Max: We’re just really a metal family, which is very proud of it. We all work together, you know, and it’s great, you know. I wouldn’t trade it for anything, I think it’s really cool. The kids have bands, you know, they got Incite and they got Lody Kong reaching guys inside, and I love playing with Soulfly. I’m making a new Soulfly record for next year. Next year’s twenty years after the first one, that came out in ’98. So we’re planning to make a really cool new Soulfly album for next year.
I just love having the family involved. Gloria is my manager, you know, and my wife, and the whole family is like a mafia, you know, a metal mafia family! You know, godfather of metal kind of shit. It’s cool.
Roots is cool cause I think it was an important record for us. It was a strong record, it broke Sepultura out into the world. It was a huge record for us. It was controversial, which I think is very cool.
[MAX]
CJ: Me and Sammy here are old-school fans of yours from way-back-when. Being such an iconic band, and guitarist, and just guy in metal, I know that myself included as a touring musician, have been heavily influenced by you, especially your early works. What kind of bands out there have influenced you over the years?
Max: Well I listen to a lot of stuff all the time and, you know, I’m really into a lot of the new bands. There’s a lot of cool underground stuff going on like Full of Hell, and Nails, and Genocide Bags, and Gatecreeper, and King Parrot from Australia, you know, we tour with them, it was great. Yeah, so it’s like, I’m a big fan of a lot of the new music that’s going on. I’m a big fan of the old-school stuff… Celtic Frost and, you know, Hellhammer, and Bathory, and stuff like that, you know. I listen to some black metal, you know, Deströyer 666, and Ruins, and stuff like that.
Max & Iggor Cavalera Performing ROOTS // By Renan Facciolo
I love metal, I don’t know. I listen to metal all the time, all day long I listen to new bands and old bands and, to me, if it’s good metal I listen to it, and it’s great, you know.
And what I like to do is support metal, so I try to get involved with a lot of the bands, and get their tee-shirts and wear their shirts, and support the underground, support because we’re all in this together, you know, we’re all together in this thing. So it’s good to help each other.
Sam: Why go back to Roots? What makes this such an important album that, twenty years on it still shakes people and, you know, people want to hear it and see it live?
Max: It didn’t really, specifically have to be Roots, it just ended up being Roots because it’s the one we picked. I think it was kind of a date thing, it was like, last year was twenty years of it so it made sense to do it. But it could have been any other record. Roots is cool cause I think it was an important record for us, it was a strong record, it broke Sepultura out into the world. It was a huge record for us. It was controversial, which I think is very cool. It made a lot of controversy, not everybody liked it, and there was a lot of debate about the album. I think that’s good, when albums can create a discussion and I think those are good albums.
But we decided to play the whole thing. We tried it in Canada and it was great, we had a great show, and we just kept going, and the tour was just fantastic, you know. We sold out everywhere. A lot of people wanted to see it. We do justice to the album, we play very to-the-point, to-the-letter, every song on the record as close to the original as possible. It’s an experience when you see the Roots show and the way we do it, it’s like an event. It was like an experience with everything, the tribal songs, the classic songs, the underground songs, the punk songs, it’s like a whole metal event.
So it’s really cool and I’m really excited to bring it to Australia so the Australian fans can experience what the American fans and European fans already experienced. Now it’s the Australian fans’ turn to experience the Roots the way we do it!
If Max is the voice and architect of Sepultura and their pioneering sound, Iggor is the foundations. His drumming provides the home-cooked flavour of Brazil, a spicy concoction of tribal rhythms and blast beats that thrilled fans the world over. Mike Hohnen spoke to Iggor about the upcoming Roots tour.
Mike: So Iggor, how has the Roots tour gone so far?
Iggor: I have to say it’s quite a special thing for us, because it’s something that for me, it’s a lot more of a fan decision than a musician decision. In the sense that for me as a fan I got to see a few months back Black Side. It’s a band and I never had a chance to see growing up in Brazil. So many, many years later, even probably even more than 20, I got to see them right now. And it was super special. And for me that’s pretty much the same, if I can give the same feeling to the people who come to see Roots then I’m really happy. Because it’s like, it’s a chance for people who didn’t have a chance to see it, and then also a chance of people to seen it again, remembering some of their earlier vibes. So I think it’s a cool thing, yeah.
Mike: But has it been surprising for you to see what fans are reacting to now with the album, when you perform the songs? ‘Cause I imagine 20 years ago there would have been the heavy hitter songs on the album. But has that changed at all these days?
Iggor: Not really. I think it’s such a special record that even when we play today… It’s one of those things where it’s not just for a certain time. There’s songs in it where they could be from any era of what we played from Cavalera Conspiracy or though from Sepultura. So I think it’s really cool, to sing a song like Dictatorshit or Attitude. They could be songs that we wrote at any time or year.
Mike: Did you kind of have an inkling or kind of eureka moment that led you to believe that you were onto something special?
Iggor: No, not at all, I have to say. If I had to rewind, we took it like the same way that let’s say, when we recorded Arise or Chaos A.D., our minds were really focused on like a new record, rather than trying to make something that would be historical or anything like that. That was not the intention. The intention was to just write a record that we were feeling at the time. Again, I think that’s why also it’s special, it’s not something that we premeditated at any point.
It just brings a joy for me to perform this live, it’s a fun night that we do.
[IGGOR]
Mike: Now that you’re performing them all these years later, are you noticing anything in the songs that you didn’t notice at the time you were writing them?
Iggor: Definitely, especially songs that we never got to perform live. That was something that was quite like a challenge to do it. Because even on the Roots tour at the time, we could only play a few songs of the new record together with all the old stuff. So there was a lot of things that it does make a difference. In the sense that … A song like Itsari for example, we recorded with the Indians. To do that and try and make it to a live experience, it was something that for me, it really took a lot of time to make it happen.
And when I play live now I try to bring as much of the atmosphere that when we recorded in the jungle to the live performance. So those things, they’re definitely crazy to tour every night. It’s a really cool challenge.
Mike: we’ve talked about how this is a really amazing experience for the fans, but for you personally, are you having fun?
Yeah. I mean it’s a record that me and Max, we really enjoy playing live and pushing certain things to the limit. And it’s really cool because it’s like it’s something that … I don’t know, it just brings a joy for me to perform this live, it’s a fun night that we do.
MAX AND IGGOR CAVALERA RETURN TO ROOTS
Featuring special guests Skindred
Thursday 21 September—Eatons Hill Hotel, Brisbane – Lic A/A
Friday 22 September—Big Top, Sydney – Lic A/A
Saturday 23 September—Forum Theatre, Melbourne – 18+
Sunday 24 September—HQ, Adelaide – 18+
Tuesday 26 September—Astor Theatre, Perth – 18+
Tickets available now via Destroy All Lines
