GO AHEAD AND DIE - Angry Music for Angry Times
5 Minutes Alone with Igor Cavalera
Written by: Tom Wilson - Sense Music Media | 30 July 2021
Front-runners for “Best Band Name of the Year,” GO AHEAD AND DIE recently unleashed their self-titled debut. Enraged music from a country seemingly simmering with political division and anger, the band was dripping with pedigree before they even played a note. SEPULTURA and SOULFLY legend Max Cavalera is on guitar, lending his trademark roar. On bass? His own son, Igor Amadeus. Rounded out by drummer Zach Coleman, the trio’s raw, unfiltered heaviness is as familiar as a battle jacket at a thrash gig, and is absolutely bristling with hostility. In other words, it’s awesome. Igor spoke to us from Florida about a very unusual musical upbringing, and how an insulin pump means he won’t GO AHEAD AND DIE.
Pictured: Zach Coleman, Max Cavalera + Igor Cavalera - GO AHEAD AND DIE
Photo by: Jim Louvau
How would you describe your musical upbringing?
You know, it’s an interesting thing, because a lot of people expect that I was just born immediately playing guitar and into heavy metal. It wasn’t quite that literal. We did travel with our parents on the road and go to shows and do stuff like that as kids, but metal was never forced on us, or something that we were pressured into or anything like that. It was a very natural upbringing and stuff. We were exposed to it, and we saw heavy metal, we knew about it, we had our foot in the door, but I would say that my personal interest, and my personal wanting to get into metal when I was a young teenager, probably around the age of twelve or so … I heard my first couple of punk records, my first couple of heavy metal records, and just completely wanted to learn everything I could about it. [Laughs]
What were some of the first records that really grabbed you by the short and curlies?
I would say CELTIC FROST Morbid Tales was one of the first ones that really got me into the more extreme side of music. That was the first album I listened to that had kind of fast D-beat, crusty guitar and vocals and stuff like that. That was a big one for me. A lot of the Tampa Bay death metal, like OBITUARY and MORBID ANGEL, even DEATH who were from Orlando. That Florida death metal was influential. Lots of punk and hardcore. I listened to American hardcore bands like BLACK FLAG and BAD BRAINS and stuff like that, but also a huge interest in English crust punk and European/Scandinavian hardcore, stuff like that. So I was all over the place. Once I got into it, I tried to learn as much as I could about everything.
What were some of your earliest memories of seeing shows on the road? I think I remember seeing video of you as a kid, running around with earmuffs on … The first time you saw a mosh pit as a kid, were you like, “Daddy, what are they doing?” [Laughs]
I liked it, personally, when I was a kid. I really liked travelling. I never wanted to not travel. When I had to go to school and I had to do stuff like that, I was always like, “Man, I wish I was on the road with them.” I think one of my very, very earliest ones was SOULFLY opening up for IRON MAIDEN … god, I don’t even know when it was. It could’ve been late-90s if not 2001/2002 maybe. I was a young kid – I was probably like six or seven – and I was walking backstage with my parents and a couple of the crew members, and I remember seeing the prop pieces for Eddie. He wasn’t built yet. It was like his arm and his head and a couple of other pieces … I was a little kid and I was starting to get into horror – stuff like Goosebumps and stuff. So I saw this monster and thought, “Woah! This band has a monster on stage? This is so cool!” That probably led to me getting into metal, and getting into bands like IRON MAIDEN and BLACK SABBATH and JUDAS PRIEST. That’s a very early memory I have, when I was like, “Wow, this is kind of cool!”
The press kit mentioned that you watched a lot of old movies with your dad. One that got my attention was one that I re-watched in recent months – Michael Douglas in Falling Down.
That’s a great movie!
It is a great movie, but it’s odd to rewatch, because I remember watching it as a kid thinking, “Oh, he’s just a guy who’s been pushed too far.” You rewatch it as an adult, and kind of realise, yeah, he’s pushed too far, but he’s also an arsehole.
Yeah, that movie definitely has some … dated views and scenes. But I definitely agree with the whole “guy getting pushed too far” scenario … The message is there, I think.
I thought it was oddly comparable to where we’re at these days. They used the metaphor of a heatwave for that day, but it seems like the temperature, particularly in the U.S. over the last year or two, has just been cranked up to maximum. People are on hair triggers. Everyone is so eager to get upset – I’m starting to think that [some] people are actually enjoying being upset.
You might be right, [but] there are quite a few reasons to be upset in America right now. It’s been a wild couple of years, and a wild start to this decade already. It probably does seem very radical from the outside. I think a lot of that has to do with the [fact that] negativity gets more coverage, and the negativity gets more attention and stuff like that. It is pretty wild here. We are quite politically divided, socially divided, stuff like that. It can be hard to keep your cool. You were saying it’s like a heatwave, you know? It takes the internet by storm and takes the media by storm, and next thing you know, you’re mad, you’re frustrated, you’re worked up, you’re having trouble calming down – stuff like that. For me, music was always the best outlet for feeling like that, and doing something with feelings like that, instead of [like] Michael Douglas, going out and just losing my mind on everyone, I’m going to make records and put it towards something constructive. But yeah, it is very comparable. In America, we’ve gotten quite normalised to public shootings and acts of violence, so it is happening here. It is a struggle that is going on.
I read that you’re a type-1 diabetic. Is that true?
Yeah, I am. I’ve been type-1 since I was two years old.
How does that affect your day-to-day life?
In every way imaginable. [Laughs] Down to what I eat, how I’m feeling … it affects my moods, things like that. I have to check my blood sugar, I have to check my insulin. I actually wear a pump that gives me a continuous insulin injection all day long, so it really does affect my life, and I do try to bring awareness to it when I can. When I got diagnosed – this was back in 1997 – my parents actually started a fundraiser called the Iggy Diabetes Fund, to help lower-income people get insulin supplies, and people who are struggling to pay the medical bills and stuff like that, it helps them. It’s a tough disease to have, and it does affect my day-to-day life and my diet and what I eat, how I eat, when I can eat, stuff like that. It definitely affects me on tour. I have to be really careful on tour, because it’s such a hazardous lifestyle, I guess you can say. I have to balance the diabetes into all of that. On the other hand, I’ve had it since I was two, so I really don’t know any different, and I don’t even remember life without it, so it’s just another obstacle to overcome, you know?
You’re doing pretty good at it so far.
I’m doing my best! [Laughs] I’m just doing my best!
Go Ahead and Die is out now.
Pictured: Igor Cavalera, Max Cavalera + Zach Coleman - GO AHEAD AND DIE
Photo by: Jim Louvau
