Max Cavalera: “Igor and I Should Have Just Fired Those Two Assholes and Kept the Name”
I love a lot of Max Cavalera’s music, from his classic Sepultura material to the recent stuff by Cavalera Conspiracy. But, in apparent disagreement with MetalSucks podcast host Godless, I don’t give him a pass, no matter how legendary he is (in my mind, that’s not what this site is about), and I feel that he and his camp have been pretty shitty lately in how they regard the current line-up of Sepultura.
Case in point, Cavalera recently spoke to Metal Insider, and in the interview he talks quite a bit about Sepultura’s changing sound and their legacy, including how much they were influenced by the emerging nu-metal sound of the early- to mid-90s:
“Yeah, I had to fight with Andreas [Kisser, guitarist] over that, because Andreas was such a purist. I first had a fight with him on Chaos A.D. when I wanted to tune to D, because the rest of Sepultura’s material was all in E standard. I was telling him that Black Sabbath plays in D, we have to do some shit in D. Then with Roots, when I told him we had to go down to B, it got pretty bad – we got into a couple of serious arguments. I was like, ‘Stop being so close-minded, asshole, we’ve got to do this!’ (laughs)”
However, later in the interview, Max straight up belittles the role that Kisser and bassist Paulo Jr. played in the band:
“Sepultura was really close to my heart, it was like my baby. Now, after all this time passed and I think about it, Igor and I should have just fired those two assholes and kept the name; why we didn’t do that, I don’t know. At that time we didn’t have the vision to do it, so I just quit. That’s why I think this tour is so special, because I get to go back to that time to an album where I was very much involved with the ideas of the album – those were almost all of my own ideas, so Roots is very close to my heart.”
Classy! I would’ve just gone with, That was a special time in my life, and I’m glad to return to that album, but hey, it’s your legacy.
I’m noticing a distinct difference between the two sides of this drama. The Cavalera camp (sorry, TRIBE) keeps saying they don’t want to dwell on the past, and then they make a big public shitshow out of bringing up the past. The current line-up of Sepultura, meanwhile, plays shows and makes records. So, who’re the real assholes here?
More and more, it seems to me that the Cavaleras were the problematic party in this break-up, and that they’re a pain in the ass in general (former members of Soulfly would agree). I’ve never met or spoken to Andrea or Paulo, so for all I know they’re the obsessive backstabbing psychos that Max and Gloria Cavalera have made them out to be over the years. And hey, Max makes great music, there’s no arguing with that. But man, he falls in my opinion every time he takes a moment to shit on his former bandmates.
Am I wrong? Let us know in the comments. Godless, my week’s pretty free, so I’m happy to yell like a chud about this if you want to.
