SEPULTURA singer Derrick Green says he doesn't "worry too much" about fans calling for the band to reunite with former frontman Max Cavalera , explaining that it's "hard" for some people "to really move on."
SEPULTURA 's classic lineup fell apart in 1996 with the exit of Max after the rest of the band split with his wife Gloria as their manager. His brother, drummer Igor Cavalera , stuck around with the group for another 10 years before leaving SEPULTURA and re-teaming with Max in CAVALERA CONSPIRACY .
Although SEPULTURA has maintained a diehard fanbase in all parts of the world throughout the band's three-and-a-half-decade-plus history, Max -era albums "Roots" and "Chaos A.D." were by far SEPULTURA 's most commercially successful, having both been certified gold in the U.S. for sales in excess of five hundred thousand copies.
Asked in a new interview with the "Scars And Guitars" podcast why he thinks SEPULTURA still gets asked about a possible reunion with Max , Derrick said (hear audio below): "I think for some people, it's hard for them to really move on. It's hard for people to change in general — for the fact that they're fearful of change, because of the unexpected when changing. It's hard for certain people, but that's okay. It's not where we're at musically, and thank god that we were able to move forward and not only rely on the past. I think it's natural for certain people that they gravitate to something that they've known from the past, and maybe that's just where they like to have their heads."
He continued: "I never wanted to be in that position, just because I'm an artist and, for me, it's important to really explore and to evolve, and change is actually necessary. And that's something that's happening in all of our lives, so I accept it and go with it and living within the moments that are happening now."
Derrick added: "I don't worry too much about other people and them being trapped in the past. It's just something I don't wanna be a part of or be near that. [ Laughs ]"
According to Green , it was harder for him and his bandmates to deal with the Max reunion talk in the first couple of years after he joined the band. "It was definitely frustrating, and then I saw it was frustrating for the guys," he admitted. "People forget that Igor , I played with him for nine years [in SEPULTURA ], and then he was getting these questions too, and it was frustrating for him. Yeah, there are gonna be those questions and everything. But, like I said, for us, it was just important to write music, to tour, to play, so we have other things to talk about."
SEPULTURA bassist Paulo Xisto Pinto Jr. recently said that he has had "zero" contact with Max , adding that a reunion with the band's original frontman would have to happen "naturally."
Back in 2017, Igor Cavalera told The Salt Lake Tribune that he and Max "believe SEPULTURA doesn't really make sense nowadays, to do what they're doing." The drummer also downplayed the possibility of a reunion of SEPULTURA 's classic lineup, saying: "Unless it's something really solid — and we haven't seen that from their part — of doing something totally professional and coming together, trying to do something like that. At the end of the day, it would be special for the fans, so it's not like a closed door, but at the same time, we have no time to spend energy with this kind of thing. So we just move forward."
Max echoed his brother's sentiments, telling The Salt Lake Tribune that he doesn't even think about his former bandmates much. "For a time — for a long time — there was a war in the press, like, 'He'll talk this, I'll talk that,'" he explained. "I got really tired of it, honestly. I'm not gonna do that anymore. So let them go their way and do their thing, and we're gonna do our thing, and I think that's the best for everybody."
While stopping short of completely ruling out a reunion of SEPULTURA 's classic lineup, Max said: "Right now, we don't even need it. It's been so much of that kind of bad vibes through the years that I don't even know how that would even really work out. I think what [ Igor and I] are doing is the closest thing to that, and it works great, it works like a charm. It's amazing."
Igor and Max have spent much of the last four years celebrating the 20th anniversary of SEPULTURA 's "Roots" and 30th anniversary of "Beneath The Remains" and "Arise" , respectively, on tour all over the world.
SEPULTURA 's new album, "Quadra" , will be released on February 7 via Nuclear Blast Records .
