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Max Cavalera of Soulfly interview

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H.S.- How do you like the new crop of metal that is coming out lately then if you like all the new stuff?

 

Cavalera- I love it I am a big fan of a lot of the new stuff like, I Declare War, Member’s Die and so much more. I love that metal has all this heavy stuff now. Sometimes I just listen to liquid metal and you hear a lot of cool stuff. I discovered some new bands from it. Some other bands my son introduced me too like Dusk. Metal is definitely in a good place with a lot of great bands out there.

 

H.S.- It’s nice to hear the positivity towards where metal is going. It is very refreshing.

 

Cavalera- I think you have to be. You have to love what you do and I am a musician that has been in the scene for 30 years but that doesn’t keep me from being in touch with the new bands and getting in touch with them. I am not afraid of that in fact it is something I love to do. I have my son to reach out on Facebook and that is how I got in touch with Man Must Die; I have a bunch of their shirts I wear all the time. It’s great and they see me wear it and some of them get really excited. I think it’s really cool. I think that it is a cool thing to be apart of what’s going on in metal. Some people only like the old stuff, they don’t like anything new, that’s bullshit I think. There is some good new stuff going on right now.

 

H.S.- I agree there is some really great stuff going on right now. Since we are in a new decade our music is starting to change a little bit. It is always interesting to see because we have from the 60’s to the 2000’s and right now we can see that metal is having this nice little rebirth through these new bands and yes they are struggling because of what’s going on in the industry and the economy but they keep going. They are really good and talented.

 

Cavalera- The way I see it is that I am quite popular and from what other say a legend, something I don’t think to much about, but when I wear one of their shirts I feel like it shows respect to them and shows them that I care about their music and that I want to be apart of their world by helping them by wearing one of their shirts. Hopefully I can put some of them in my next tours.

 

H.S.- That’s a really good plan.

 

Cavalera- We don’t allow a booking agent to pick the bands. Some bands do that and they have no control who they take on tour and sometimes they end up with shitty bands they don’t even like. We don’t let that happen we have a lot of say. Sometimes the booking agents do try to force us to take some bands as a favor to them but a lot of the time the final decision is ours and we pick the final bands tour with us.

 

H.S- I see that you have collaborated with a lot of different genre of music like Chino Moreno (Deftones) and Sean Lennon. Do you think that it is important that you can show people you can mix different genres of music with trash.

 

Cavalera- Yeah it is something that started in Sepultura, we would have guest on our records. It really became something fun and cool. We look at music not as competition but as something to share with different bands I like. When you get to work with them its great. Then you get to have fans hear the musicians in different states. I think hearing Tom Arroyo on the Soulfly record is so cool for me. It’s quite different then Slayer. He is entering the Soulfly world with his voice, his Slayer personality so that is still there but he is singing a song that doesn’t really sound like Slayer it sounds more like Soulfly. That is what makes it cool, to hear someone like that in a different environment, in a different vibe of music. It is the same with Sean Lennon and all the other musicians I work with. I like to work in other projects as well. It was really fun to be apart of Dave Grohl’s Probot with Lemmy, Cronos from Venom and I was lucky enough to be apart of that. It was so fun doing that. I just sang on the last Fiver Finger Death Punch record. It was really cool a different kind of style from us. I was invited from them because they are really big fans of mine. I also got to sing with this death metal band from Scottland, this small band. I like to sing with other people and I like other people to come and sing with us. We have a few people on our new album from Napalm Death and more. I think that it is great and the more the better. I like hearing other bands collaborated together as well. The more the better is the way I see it.

 

H.S.- Is there anyone you want to come on for the next record you are working on?

 

Cavalera- I haven’t thought about it yet. A lot of the time when I am writing the record is when the ideas come. For example when I wrote the riff for “Ayatollah of Rock ‘n’ Rolla”, the riff sounded like Clutch and that’s when I told my wife ‘Wouldn’t it be really cool if he came on this song and that’s when she started contacting him and she did and we made it happen. A lot of times the riff kind of dictates who is going to work with me. Its kind of funny how a riff gives you a clue who you are going to work with and who is going to sing a song. It came from me, but not from my mind but from a riff a guitar riff. I have not made a list of who I want to work with for the next record. I kind of have a wish list, the golden list I guess you can call it which has like Lemmy, Ozzy, James Hatfield, Phil from Pantera and Down. Those four guys are on the top of my list and hopefully one day I get to work with them.

 

H.S.- That’s a pretty good list.

 

Cavalera- Yeah it is a pretty good list