SOULFLY's MAX CAVALERA: I Tried To Create A New Record With The Spirit Of Death Metal

Roadrunner Records recently conducted an interview with Max Cavalera (SOULFLY, CAVALERA CONSPIRACY, ex-SEPULTURA). A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

Q: You've said you only had two weeks' notice to write [the new SOULFLY album, "Enslaved"]. Do you think you work better under that kind of pressure?

Max: Seems that way, man. For some reason, I think some of the great stuff that came out on "Enslaved" was like that. I had to find all these riffs in two weeks, and I went crazy by myself. I'd stay up till like one in the morning writing riffs, trying to come up with the best riffs I could for the record, and it was good. It wasn't the way I imagined it — I thought I would have more time to prepare, and when [Gloria Cavalera, Max's wife/manager] said that, I almost had a heart attack. I disagreed with her at first, I told her there was no way I could be ready in two weeks, and she said, "Well, you have to — we've got the producer, Zeuss, already booked, and the studio's already booked and we can't cancel that." So there wasn't much of an argument I could put up [laughs]. I couldn't change anything, so I had to just roll with it. I said OK, I'll do my best, and went on, and because of that pressure, I think maybe that's why the album turned out so good. I picked up some really powerful riffs that gave the album that kind of death metal sound. I was listening to a lot of death metal when I made this record, a lot of old MORBID ANGEL and DEATH and MASSACRE and DARK ANGEL and POSSESSED and all this great music, so that was the inspiration, a lot of this killer old death metal I grew up with, and I tried to create a new record with that spirit of death metal from the late '80s and early '90s.

Q: Once you had the riffs written, what did the other members of the band, and Zeuss, bring to the making of the album?

Max: I jammed with Dave [Kinkade], 'cause I hired Dave — I knew about him from the Internet. He sent me an email with a couple of clips of him playing with BORKNAGAR, really extreme death metal, and it caught my attention right away. It was exactly what I was looking for, someone who could do a lot of cool double bass stuff and I could write some really kick-ass heavy death metal-style riffs. Not everybody can play that, it's a very unique type of drumming. So I flew Dave here from Chicago and we jammed for two days, and during those two days I actually wrote half of "World Scum" in the room with him, and I wrote parts of "Treachery", and I felt I'd found the perfect drummer for the record, this guy was gonna kick ass and make these riffs sound so good. I had complete confidence in Dave, that he could be great in the studio and really bring something to the table for the band. So we went in the studio. I had Tony [Campos] for the first time also, a really professional, killer bass player — he almost plays the bass like a guitar, so it's like SOULFLY has three guitars. I feel that the rhythm section of this new SOULFLY lineup is very powerful, because of that — the way Tony plays bass, it really attacks from all sides. We all get along great, man, and Zeuss, from the first day he promised he would give me a new-sounding SOULFLY record. He promised it wasn't going to sound like anything else I'd ever done, and I said to him, "Great, hope you deliver," 'cause I didn't want this to sound like "Omen" again or like other stuff I'd done. I wanted a new sound, a new life, some new elements added into the band. And by the end of the recording, he was right — he did give me a new sound. I love the sound of "Enslaved", it's completely different from everything else I've done, and I have to be thankful to Zeuss for that, for sticking to his guns and getting that out of me. It was a great vibe in the studio, man.

Q: You recently played Brazil for the first time in many years. How has the country changed since you were growing up there? Do you see the situation as better than it was in the '80s?

Max: Yeah, Brazil is definitely better. There's definitely more money in the country — all the shows were sold out and the crowds were really fanatical. I think it was great for SOULFLY to finally conquer Brazil the way we did. One newspaper said the SOULFLY show was better than SEPULTURA's 1996 "Roots" tour show, which was a highlight show for a long time. So that was amazing for me, to hear that comparison. The crowd was awesome, man — they were so loud and they knew everything, so I think SOULFLY's time finally came to Brazil. It took 10 years for them to accept this band, but I finally got the stamp of approval from the fans, and it was great to hear them singing everything from "Prophecy" to "Primitive" to "Eye For An Eye". Yeah, it was a great South American tour. And we also had the kids with us, so we got to do "Revengeance" for the first time, and all of them stage dived and lost their shoes in the crowd, came back shoeless. But it was fun, it was a great time.

Read the entire interview from Roadrunner Records.

"Gladiator" audio stream:

"World Scum" video: