Interview Max Cavalera Soulfly

WAR OF THE WORLDS Morbid Angel SOULFLY February 22, 2005 HOB Interviewer: Sharita Lumpkin Photos: Erika Kristen Watt

Lineup: Max Cavalera - Vocals Joe Nunez - Drums Marc Rizzo - Guitar Bobby Burns - Bass

"...When I went on tour with him while in Soulfly he tried the whole tour to get me to drink. I was like man, I stopped."

Max Cavalera, the mastermind behind Soulfly and of course Sepultura speaks of the untimely killing of Dimebag Darrell. On this tour, Soulfly is on tour with only Morbid Angel to assault everyone in their path and take no prisoners.  Max is also working on new material and promises it will not disappoint, nor will it be like any previous Soulfly album. In this interview Max talks about why he left Sepultura, what collaboration he appreciated the most as well as the new album and DVD. He also touches us with talk of his spiritual beliefs, the untimely death of his Grandson and the murder of Dime and his stepson. On a lighter note, he also lets us know about some of the instances that occur when trying to take foreign instruments into the airport.

Sharita: You've been very successful after leaving Sepultura; can you just give me a short synopsis as to why you left?

Max: Well, I don't talk much about it because it's been a long time, it's hard to say in one sentence. [Being a musician], you just grow and have different ideas. The Beatles and Black Sabbath [are examples] of bands that went through it and a lot of bands do. It was better to split up and do something else.

Sharita: How do you feel about the direction Sepultura has gone in and are you happy with Derrick Green as your replacement?

Max: I never really listened to their CD's and that's nothing against them, It's just kind of weird cause, I was with Sepultura from the beginning and [after I left], I didn't sit down and listen to their [music]. [However], I don't really listen to a lot of other bands music either, I try not to get influenced by other people because you start sounding like somebody else, I like to sound like myself. I heard he's really a cool a friendly guy and that's good that they found someone that's cool like that, ya' know.

Sharita: You've released 5 albums since you left Sepultura, when you first departed did you have any regrets?

Max: No, I try to live life, make mistakes, look at them and try to do better the next day. I wouldn't say I had regrets, I'd say I could've done it differently but you could go through life like that, you know? That's how life works. If you're going to blame the whole world, blame yourself or everything else then you shouldn’t ever leave your house. (Laughs) [Maybe] somebody would've done it differently, that's how things go.

Sharita: You have collaborated with so many different artists such as Chino Moreno from Deftones, Sean Lennon, Dave Grohl on the Probot album, Fred Durst from Limp Bizkit, and Benji Webbe from Skindred who does a great impression of you by the way.

Max: What's that?

Sharita: Benji does a great impression of you in the interview we had with him.

Max: Oh, ok. (Laughs)

Sharita: Do you intend on working with any of these artists again or are there any more acts you would like to work with in the future?

Max: I love working with other people. It's like when I watch a game and you see the athletes in a soccer, basketball, or football game; It's cool when they’re playing against each other but it's a friendly kind of thing, you know? I think music is even friendlier, and I hope so because I try not to compete with anybody, it's not [supposed] to be a competition, it's music. For me it's impossible to put in words how it felt working with so many great people and I'd like to keep doing it. I mean with Benji, it was completely different than anything else I’d ever done with Soulfly, the whole ragga-metal thing. [I'm sure] it drove the metal world insane, what the hell is this? (Laughs) Sean Lennon was on Primitive, Sean Lennon and Max, what the hell is going on here? (Laughs) I love doing that; it's really exciting and I plan to do more.

Sharita: Anybody else in particular you'd want to work with?

Max: I think everybody that I worked with was meant to be. [It's funny] somebody asked me when I did Primitive, so what do you do grab your phonebook and start calling people? (Laughs) I go no, what gave you that idea? Well you know you've got 8 different guys there and [seems like] you have a lot of friends. So I explain to him, some of the stuff I plan and call like with Sean and people like Tom Araya like I knew from before. Then there's Corey from Slipknot who I'd never met until the day in the studio. Never knew anything about him, just knew the Slipknot CD and that was before they took off the masks. I was really worried about lookin' at him without the mask. (Laughs) I couldn't picture him without it. (Laughs)

Sharita: Ok, what was your favorite collaboration, who was the easiest one to work with so far?

Max: I liked working with everybody but I have a special love for percussion being from Brazil. I've been very blessed to work with [name inaudible] a Brazilian Percussionist and Larry McDonald a Jamaican percussionist who worked with Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, stuff that I love. I got to go in and watch these guys play and my jaws just dropped, I was like oh my God, that's too much. (Laughs)  I love the percussion, loved all the other guys I worked with but there's just something about the percussion that I really think it's not like drums, it's really it's own thing. Actually our drummer tried to play percussion because he thought it was going to be easy and he couldn't do it. (Laughs) I told him, see it's not like you can [automatically] do it, it's not what people think. It looks easy from the outside but to actually play is very difficult.

Sharita: Speaking of collaborations, I read your son, Ritchie, has been doing music also, is he in any bands right now?

Max: No, not at the moment, he's still kind of like figuring out what he's gonna' do. (Smiles) He does sing on the new Soulfly album that's coming out at the end of the year. We do a song called Stay Strong, which is about the death of his brother and the death of Moses, our grandson who spent a lot of time on the road with us. So we wrote a song about it called Stay Strong kind of like singing to the spirits to carry on. He did a great job and we're going to play it tonight. He stepped up, I told him, you can do it just don't get a big head. (Laughs)

Sharita: Your influences vary from hip-hop to reggae to thrash metal to the tribal rhythms of your native country, are there any particular artist or bands that have made the biggest impact on you since you've been in music?

Max: No, not really. It's a big mix and like I said sometimes, I don't listen to a lot of stuff. What I like about music is it's still an art form that is still mystic and you can't figure out why it does that to you, even more than movies. It's like when you get goose bumps, you can't explain, you can't even understand sometimes why when you hear a song you feel funny inside. Like why the hell do we do that? (Chuckles) I love that about music, that's what drew me into it in the first place; you never know what you're gonna get. I think you can do music for sixty years and be surprised and be like oh my God, I didn't expect that one. I've been doing this for twenty years and I have surprises on the new record; the stuff that I did I had no idea it was gonna' come out.

Sharita: Talk a little about the new album and DVD.

Max: Yeah we have a DVD that's coming out in March and the album comes out in August, I think.

Sharita: The DVD is titled The Song Remains Insane and I read you have footage from South Africa, tell us a little about that?

Max: [I traveled] to South Africa [in support of] Prophecy for the first 4 shows. I loved it, I been waiting my whole life to play there. I heard of different musicians from Brazil that played there and heard more traditional music. They told me all the places I can go. So we had a whole week there, we did the shows, visited Mandela’s Island, we did Cape Town, did a safari [trip] (laughs), it was really cool. The only similar thing was with Sepultura in Indonesia where it was so exotic. I'm looking forward to going to more places. I recorded in Russia and Turkey in January on this record, which was pretty cool. I was a little scared of Turkey because of the Muslim [religion]. It was very different than my expectations, very cool people and awesome music.

Erika: Is there like a certain band that jumped out at you or a genre of music?

Max: I didn't really pay attention to the local bands because they sounded just like a Linkin Park or Limp Bizkit rip-off. The traditional music is what I went there for, the instruments like the duduk, which is a long flute. It's a very eerie and dark sounding instrument. It's used on The Last Temptation of Christ movie and I think the new one The Passion [of Christ].

Erika: Oh, it's kind of monotone?

Max: Yeah, it's a flute and it's so mystic. I got totally drawn by that instrument. It's actually not totally from Turkey; it’s from Armenia, Georgia, all the areas. They're all troublemakers, ya' know? (Laughs) Always fighting with somebody, I went there and I was like I'm from Brazil and we don't fight with anybody. (Chuckles) I love their music though and I recorded some, so that was cool.

Sharita: Ok, speaking of international instruments, were there any others from other countries that you've played, I know you played the bagpipes on Prophecy.

Max: Yeah, the berimbau is the most famous because I’ve been playin' that since Sepultura days. It's one string with a coconut kind of thing. I'm pissed off at my sound man right now because he lost the microphone, so I will not be able to play that on this tour and I’m pissed because I love that instrument, it's such a weird sound. As far as anything else, there is a little of Sitar on the record. Gloria (wife) bought me a real Indian Sitar and I'm trying to spend some time with it and figure out some things. I've figured out enough for one song. (Chuckles) Yeah, it's funny though on the DVD, I hope the Indian guys don't get mad because I said I needed to find an Indian guy with a turban to help me play this thing. I was being so honest [on camera] so I hope they don't get pissed. It's the way I said it, I guess. Even the berimbau, traveling with that thing is a nightmare because everyone thinks it’s a weapon cause it's like a bow and arrow. Many times I've had to actually play for the customs guy, goin' (makes noise like the instrument) (chuckles), it's not a weapon trust me. (Laughs)

Sharita: Ok, so in talking about the tour, why did you decide to have only you and Morbid Angel playing, did you think it was just better with no openers?

Max: We do all kinds of different tours all the time and it felt like between them and us and the time of the year it was easy for the booking agent to do just the two of us. It's not that I don't like opening bands, I love them. We're actually going to have God Forbid come in on the end of this tour. It just was not really practical to have somebody through the whole tour. It's a co-headliner, so Morbid Angel plays for like an hour and we play for an hour and a half. So it was a combination of those, just the two of us. I love local bands though; they play with me a lot of times.

Sharita: I read about the passing of your grandson, my condolences for that by the way.

Max: Thank you.

Sharita: On the Roadrunner site, there was an address where fans could send clothing and toys to an orphanage that you run in your grandson's native country, how has the response been so far?

Max: It has been amazing, very good support. So many people came forth and sent stuff. I think that's awesome. He, (Moses) is on the DVD, there's a little part with him and I on the tour bus cause he traveled with us about six months. It was crazy that the kid was on tour [at such at young age] but there is a little piece of him and I talking and I’m showing him to the fans. After he died, Christina (Tour Manager) found out about the orphanage and she called us. I was like of course, that's an awesome idea, that's great that we're going to help out these poor kids, you know? She said she felt like she should've done something and I totally support that. Same with diabetes, my son is a diabetic and we help out a children's hospital in Phoenix. Musicians should do a little of that, we don't do enough. (Smiles)

Sharita: Everyone was shocked about the untimely death of Dime, were you and him close friends and did you have any plans to work with him?

Max: Well we were friends; we met a few times. We toured three times together and a few more times in Europe. I toured with him when I was still in Sepultura and at the time I was drinking a lot; I drank a lot with him on that tour. (Chuckles) Then I stopped and when I went on tour with him while in Soulfly, he tried the whole tour to get me to drink. (Chuckles) I was like man I stopped. He was an awesome guy, really friendly. (Changes voice sounding like Dime) C'mon Max, one shot! I actually didn't give in. He gave me some camouflage pants because he knew I liked army stuff, he was such a good-hearted person. I never got weird or bad vibes from him. He liked to drink a lot and he was a fun person when he drank and a lot of people can't do that, including myself, that's why I don't drink anymore. (Laughs) I loved him man and I was really shocked when he died. It’s a shame for music in general.

Sharita: Ok, do you have other tour plans for the rest of the year or are you going to wait until you release the new album?

Max: No, actually we're going to go to South America. After that, we really don't plan that much ahead if were going to continue touring or not. I'm going to be going in and out of the studio and mix the record in April. I don't think I'm going to tour a lot more until after the album comes out.

Erika: Ok, I have one final question; do you believe in spirit guides?

Max: Yes, what I think about spirituality, you don't need to see it to believe it. Some people are skeptic, they have to see it; they don't have that kind of imagination. Like can you make that thing float; you can't. that doesn't mean that you don't believe, at least for me. I dunno, sometimes I read things, my mom is very spiritual and been to occasions and encountered very spiritual things that makes me believe they exist. I believe they kind of help you get through life. Sometimes they get you out of a dangerous situation, guide you to change something wrong in your life. I think sprits come forth in their own way, tell you to chill out, stop doing that, it's not going good.

Sharita: Alright Max, thanks so much for the interview it has really been a pleasure.

Max: Mine as well, ladies thank you.

Thanks to Roadrunner and Christina for setting it up and Max for being a great interview.

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