THE BEAST

Max Cavalera ( SOULFLY , KILLER BE KILLED , CAVALERA CONSPIRACY ) recently spoke with Wall Of Sound about the upcoming Australian tour on which he and his brother Igor will perform material from the SEPULTURA albums "Arise" and "Beneath The Remains" . A few excerpts follow (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET ).

On juggling a number of musical projects:

Max : "It's really good. It's what keeps it interesting to me, as we get to do different things. The SOULFLY tour was all SOULFLY — we didn't play any SEPULTURA . It was exclusively SOULFLY material, and that was really cool that we got to do that. Of course, now we come back now to Australia for 'Beneath The Remains' / 'Arise' , which is just a hell of a show, a great show. We already did a few in South America and Russia, and people lost their minds. It's brutal, energetic, heavy, great songs with great chants for the crowd to do and a lot of energy in those songs. 'Beneath The Remains' is celebrating 30 years, so that's a very special date. We pay tribute to those records during this tour. To me, it's what makes my career interesting and exciting — that I get to do both things: I get to go to the future with SOULFLY and KILLER BE KILLED , and I get to revisit my past with Igor . To me, that's the best of both worlds. It's fantastic to remember your old works the same time you go into the future."

On the lineup for future CAVALERA shows with his brother:

Max : "Eventually, I think if we continue doing these tours of these albums, we'll probably at some point change the members a little bit just to make it a more fun. There is an idea, if we ever do [ SEPULTURA 's 1986 album] 'Morbid Visions' , to have the original guitar player, Jairo [ Guedz ], joining us. That would be really cool, but at the moment, we have Mike [ Leon ] and Marc [ Rizzo ] and Igor . It sounds fantastic."

On Rizzo :

Max : "He's really good and very talented. The SEPULTURA stuff sounds fucking great. He does that stuff better than anybody that I know. He also adds his own touch on top of it that makes it even more unique. He's been with me with SOULFLY for a long time. The longest guy I've played [with] in my whole life is Marc . He's like a rock. He's been a rock there for a long time, and I kind of don't mind [him] being underrated, because then... he might leave and go to a bigger band, and I don't want that to happen. [ Laughs ] But he's very happy in SOULFLY , because he gets to do everything he wants, and I give him a lot of space, a lot of room to be creative. We work together really good — we have a really good chemistry, and to me, that's the best. That's something that's hard to find, so when you find it, you have to work really hard to keep it that way."

On revisiting "Beneath The Remains" and "Arise" :

Max : "I had to learn those riffs again for the tour, and I had to rediscover the albums again. It was a really fun process, learning the lyrics again. I kind of fell in love with the albums again. I don't have a favorite — I like both together, and I think they're meant to be together. For some reason, they just feel right when you play them together. I was very young when I made them, so it made me very aware of my state of mind at the time. I feel like I'm pretty much the same guy. I'm 49 now, but I'm still a metalhead in the heart. I still have the teenage spirit. I'm a huge metal fan, [a] huge supporter of metal. That's just how it was when those albums were done. It's a blessing that I get to do that with my brother, especially after all we went through together and we didn't speak for 10 years. Now, it's good — we are in a good place, and our brotherhood is really good, and we're just having fun with this music... There's an energy and a real anger and real passion in those songs that translates into people losing their minds when they hear it. I don't even have to tell them, 'Circle pit' — they will do it themselves. It's just the power of music."

On SEPULTURA 's growth on "Arise" :

Max : "I think it was the fact that we started touring on 'Beneath The Remains' . We started seeing the world — we went to America; we went to Europe. It opened a lot of doors for us and made us realize we can do more, and we should do more. We started listening to stuff like FEAR FACTORY and a lot of hardcore and MINISTRY , so the album has an industrial kind of vibe... It was just what we were exposed to, but I think it's still death/thrash as fuck. I mean, 'Arise' , to me, is the ultimate death/thrash song of all time. I heard ABORTED doing a cover of 'Arise' that just freaked me out how good it was and how cool it was. It made me really realize how cool the song is. 'Arise' is a bad-ass song from beginning to end."

Max and Igor Cavalera 's six-date Australian tour kicks off March 17 in Fremantle.

SOULFLY 's latest album, "Ritual" , was released in October via Nuclear Blast .

Via Blabbermouth