MAX & IGGOR CAVALERA - Blood is Thicker than Water
Written by: Tom Wilson @thetomwilsonexperiment - Sense Music Media | Tuesday 26 April 2022
The Thrash Legend on the Ties That Bind
To see Max Cavalera and his brother Iggor together these days, you wouldn’t think that they were once estranged for a decade. As they embark upon a tour with Dan Gonzalez and Mike Leon to celebrate two classic thrash albums, Beneath the Remains and the seminal Arise, Max got deep with SENSE about losing friends after SEPULTURA, losing a dreadlock, finding his purpose in SOULFLY, and reuniting with his brother.
I spoke to the lads from KILLER BE KILLED in 2020, and we spoke about you finally cutting off your big super-dreadlock. It’s been two years now. How has it felt to not have a giant weight on the back of your head?
Oh, it’s great. [Laughs] It’s a relief. Yeah, man. I’m trying to get normal hair growing again, but I don’t even care. I just had to cut it. It was time for that to go. It had a good run! I had twenty-five … almost thirty years with that, you know? It becomes like a person. Sometimes I would talk to the dread, you know, when I was by myself. I had conversations with the dread! [Laughs]
The first time I ever got to see you live was in Brisbane in 2017 with Iggor, when you were performing Roots. What plans do you have, if any, to return to Australia?
We’re hoping. There was some talk about this year, towards later in the year. I hope it still is going to come. That will be for SOULFLY, because we’ve got the new SOULFLY record dropping in August, the day after my birthday, August 5th. So that should be nice – our 12th record, our 12th studio album. We love Australia. Always amazing shows there. It’s always great. So hopefully that’s going to happen towards the end of the year, I’m hoping so.
You’ve talked in the past that Australia … was the first country to really embrace SOULFLY, on the Big Day Out.
It’s very close to my heart.
Twelve albums, man. That’s insane. What can you tell me about the latest one, and what can you tell me – sorry, bargain basement question – how is it the evolution of SOULFLY?
The whole thing about Australia that was so cool was that I released the first record, and I was very anxious. I had anxiety and I was nervous. I didn’t know what the fans were going to think of my new band. I liked the record. I thought the record was good, but you never know those things, you know? We got booked on Big Day Out, with MARILYN MANSON and KORN, and we played early in the day. I was like, “Ah, nobody’s going to be here. It’s early in the day. It’s going to be one of those [shows] where you’re playing for five people, and later on it’s going to be packed.” But I was totally wrong – the place was packed. Three o’clock in the afternoon, and it was massive. Right from the opening note of Eye for an Eye, the place just erupted. It was kind of like the first stamp of approval of the fans saying, “We’re with you, mate. We’re going to roll with you. We don’t care that you’re no longer in SEPULTURA. We’ve got your back, and we’re going to roll with you.” That was huge for my self-confidence, man. I came back from that tour feeling amazing, like, “Yeah! We did it!” I never looked back. From that point on, it was always just looking forward with SOULFLY, making records. Sometimes I think twelve is maybe too much, but some other times, I think, nah, it’s cool to have so many records. I like that. It shows that you just love what you do, you know? Love making records, love making music. There shouldn’t be a limit, none of that stuff. I got into metal because there were no rules, so nobody’s going to tell me there’s rules in metal. No, you make the rules! I’m still rolling. Still excited. Man, every time I do a record, I’ll do it like, “I will die for this record!” This is how I am – every time, every record, I feel the same way. Yep, I will die for this record. It’s got to be my best one. Sometimes you hit it, sometimes you don’t, but the effort is always there, man.
I interviewed your son Igor for GO AHEAD AND DIE. He’s a good kid.
Yeah, great. He’s my second kid, so he’s the one that I bonded [with] more in a metallic way, because we like a lot of the heavier stuff. Throughout my whole life, I’ve been always hanging out with him, and listening [to music]. I pretty much educated him from a very young age on all the best metal … the good stuff that he should listen to, you know? Kind of like those MMA fighters that you hear that their dad trained them since they were little, and made them fight with bears and tigers and all that crazy shit. You grab them when they’re young, so you really give them a full education of the best that you can give them, you know? Igor became an amazing person. It feels like he’s a very old soul in a young body. When I talk to him, he has this really deep wisdom, man. He’s like an old soul, but a killer musician. He writes great riffs, he sings killer, and it was a lot of fun … GO AHEAD AND DIE was one of my favourite records I ever made. I’m actually working on a new one right now. We’re actually throwing down riffs for the next one, so it’s a lot of fun playing with him, man. It’s a whole dream of mine, making music with my kids. You talked to him – you got the vibe he gave you. It’s a cool vibe. The kid’s got a good vibe, you know?
I was thinking about the importance of family. I do not like the fact that anytime anyone interviews you, they keep talking about [reuniting] SEPULTURA. Frankly, at this point, [I think] that’s all done. One thing I did want to ask is, I remember reading when you first reconciled with your brother after, what was it, ten years? What was that like? And what did that experience teach you about family, and about yourself?
That was hard, man. I grew up with the guy, and we were the kind of brothers who were inseparable when we were young. We did everything together, you know? My mother would send him when I used to go out with girlfriends – he would come around, he would come with me. I was like, “Why are you coming? Get out of here, man!” [Laughs] “I don’t need you here right now!” But we did everything together as kids. We got into metal together. We got into trouble together. We got kicked out of school together. And we made a band together. We started SEPULTURA together. So all that made us real close, but as you get older, other things in your life come to be part of your life. You start your own family. He starts his own family. And [with] the turmoil with the band, he decided to stay with them for a couple more records after I jumped ship, but then he lost the love of playing music with those guys. So when we got back together after ten years, it was a bit like a newfound love for our relationship, you know? We gave more. There was more value in our friendship because of that ten years that we didn’t speak to each other. I don’t know if that makes sense, but we don’t take it for granted, you know? Especially since the tragic thing that happened with Dimebag and Vinnie, and now VAN HALEN, the two brothers … We are kind of the last surviving brothers in bands that still are active from that generation, you know? … We just have some cool talks, like, “You know what? Whatever we do, let’s just do it for the fun and the love of it. No drama. No stress. Let’s cut all that out. Let’s cut all the bullshit out, and just have fun. Just enjoy each other, and enjoy the music that we create.” That’s how CAVALERA CONSPIRACY was born, and then came the idea to do these old SEPULTURA records that became a huge success. Now we are onto Beneath the Remains. I cannot wait to do Chaos A.D. I think Chaos is going to be big. That’s going to be a massive one. Our brotherhood and friendship still feels the same when we see each other. It’s like we’re back to being young kids again. We talk about music. We talk about movies and books and what he likes and what I like. What should I listen to? What should you listen to? What’s new in your world? We don’t see each other all the time. He’s in London and I’m in Arizona. He does different projects, I do different projects. I’ve got KILLER BE KILLED, GO AHEAD AND DIE … The love is there forever.
It was a humbling experience to not talk to him for ten years. My mother was in the middle. She was in Brazil, and she would pass me messages. “Your brother tells you he loves you.” And I would tell her, “Tell him I love him too.” Real rough shit. She was in a real hard position, you know? But it’s part of life. It’s about learning, it’s about coping, and I think that’s the thing about life that people don’t understand. You can plan all you want. It’s not going to go the way you planned. You can try. You will fail. [Laughs] That’s how fucking life is, man! You’re going this way, and next thing you know, you turn left, and the best test of character is what you do on those low moments. That’s when you get to really know yourself, you know? A low moment was after SEPULTURA. For many years, it was real hard to get back. I went back to the small clubs and building SOULFLY, and I noticed when SOULFLY first started, all the big-name guys that used to come to the SEPULTURA shows, almost none of them came to see SOULFLY. The only ones were Dimebag, and then Vinnie came to the shows. You can’t help but think, “Damn …” You kind of know who your true friends are, and the people that were just riding because you were big at the time, you know? You’ve got to hit the lows to know that. I think it’s good to experience that. I didn’t enjoy it. I would’ve rather, of course, stayed in SEPULTURA and just kept getting more successful, bigger and bigger and bigger, but that’s not how it was. That’s not how it happened. So I embrace whatever life throws at me, you know? It’s kind of like a survivor mentality, you know? You’ve got to do it. You’ve got to face it. You’ve got to get through it. It has taught me a lot of stuff, man. It made me a lot stronger, mentally, and musically, more prepared for everything.
MAX AND IGGOR CAVALERA tour the U.S. from May.
Pictured: Iggor + Max Cavalera
Photo by: Jim Louvau