{"id":466704,"date":"2026-06-08T10:53:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-08T10:53:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/466704\/"},"modified":"2026-06-08T10:53:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-08T10:53:10","slug":"how-max-cavalera-became-a-global-metal-icon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/466704\/","title":{"rendered":"How Max Cavalera became a global metal icon"},"content":{"rendered":"

Max Cavalera<\/a> was born in the city of Belo Horizonte in 1969. He helped build Brazilian metal from the ground up, alongside his younger brother, Iggor, forming Sepultura<\/a> in 1984 in a country with a crumbling economy, no industry support and little global visibility.<\/p>\n

What followed was one of the most startling ascents in metal history: a run of albums that took the precision of thrash<\/a> (1989\u2019s Beneath The Remains, 1991\u2019s Arise), injected it with hardcore urgency (1993\u2019s Chaos A.D.), and then detonated the rulebook entirely with 1996\u2019s Roots, a record that fused downtuned grooves, the rhythms of Brazil\u2019s Xavante tribe and politically defiant lyrics into a blueprint that would ripple through metal for decades.<\/p>\n

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Yet Max\u2019s story is not one of uninterrupted triumph. The death of his father at a young age led to the sudden collapse of his family\u2019s security. His stepson, Dana Wells, died in a car crash in 1996 in circumstances that remain disputed. That year, he acrimoniously split from Sepultura and was estranged from his brother Iggor for 10 years.<\/p>\n

Latest Videos From Louder<\/p>\n

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All left deep scars that have shaped his music. After Sepultura, Max formed Soulfly as a vehicle for spiritual exploration, global collaboration and unfiltered heaviness. He\u2019s also spun off a constellation of side-projects, encompassing the nihilistic industrial rage of Nailbomb and the all-out ferocity of Go Ahead And Die, and continues to collaborate with Iggor in Cavalera Conspiracy.<\/p>\n

Today, Max stands as an elder statesman who still speaks with the urgency of that angry kid who found salvation in distortion and speed. A pioneer of what we now call \u2018global metal\u2019 \u2013 music that integrates the sound and spirit of its country of origin \u2013 and a well-loved lifer of the metal community, he bridges cultures, generations and extremes.<\/p>\n

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\"A\n<\/p>\n

What were your early years like?<\/p>\n

\u201cMy dad worked for the Italian consulate in S\u00e3o Paulo. I remember being little and getting dragged into these huge dinners with politicians and famous people, and my dad was right in the middle. We had a beach house in Praia Grande on the coast of S\u00e3o Paulo and we\u2019d go there on the weekends. We were middle class. My dad made pretty good money and we had a nice car and a nice apartment. But then he had a heart attack and died.\u201d<\/p>\n

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You were just nine years old. What do you remember about his passing?<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was very traumatic because we went fishing in this lake \u2013 Interlagos \u2013 and he was complaining of chest pains when we were in the boat. We brought him back to the car and I held him in the back seat. I could feel his heart through his chest and he passed away right there in the car. I remember feeling, \u2018That\u2019s it. He\u2019s gone.\u2019 They took him to the hospital, and after an hour, my aunt came to talk to me, and before she said anything, I told her, \u2018I know. He\u2019s gone, right?\u2019 And she said, \u2018Yes. He passed away.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

How did things change for your family?<\/p>\n

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\u201cMy mom didn\u2019t really know what to do. Dad didn\u2019t really have any insurance or any money that he\u2019d saved, so suddenly, we went broke. My mom moved us back to Belo Horizonte and we lived in this little shack behind my grandmother\u2019s house. We lost everything, including the beach house. It was, \u2018You\u2019ve got to go to school and get a job. Forget about childhood shit, you\u2019ve got to be a man now at nine years old.\u2019 That pushed me towards metal. I embraced metal with everything I had. I needed it like oxygen. I needed that true rebellion.\u201d<\/p>\n

Where did you first connect to metal?<\/p>\n

\u201cAround 20 of us started the scene in Belo. You couldn\u2019t really get imported records in Belo at the time, so each weekend we\u2019d select a guy to grab everybody\u2019s money, go to S\u00e3o Paulo by bus \u2013 which was a 12-hour ride \u2013 and go to Woodstock [Rock Store] to buy a bunch of imported records. I remember getting Voivod\u2019s War And Pain, Slayer\u2019s Show No Mercy, Mercyful Fate\u2019s Melissa\u2026 Every weekend we\u2019d go to somebody\u2019s house and listen to this goldmine! Once we found Slayer, it was like, \u2018This shit\u2019s over.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

You formed Sepultura in \u201984. Did you know it was going to be your career?<\/p>\n

\u201cIggor did. He was a born drummer, a natural talent, but he didn\u2019t have a drum kit until [third album, 1989\u2019s] Beneath The Remains. I wanted to be a drummer at first, but he was way better than me, so I had to pick a new instrument and guitar seemed like the right choice. I didn\u2019t know how to play. I still remember when I learned the first riff of [Black Sabbath\u2019s] Heaven And Hell, I ran out and did laps around the backyard. I was like, \u2018I made it! I\u2019m somebody!\u2019 Ha ha ha! It was like a moment in a comedy movie.\u201d<\/p>\n

What do you recall about Sepultura\u2019s first gig?<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember playing with this band Overdose and they were really good, like a Brazilian version of Maiden. The girls loved them. We were the opposite. The girls hated us, we didn\u2019t know how to play. The guitar player from Overdose took my guitar and everything was out of tune. He said, \u2018Let me tune the guitar for you, bro\u2019, but it didn\u2019t help my playing. It was just noise. But there were two guys wearing Mot\u00f6rhead<\/a> shirts and they fucking loved the show! \u2018You guys are the greatest thing ever! It\u2019s noisy, it\u2019s crap, and we fucking love it!\u2019 Two guys out of a hundred. Ha ha ha!\u201d<\/p>\n

You eventually got signed by Roadrunner Records, in the States. How did that happen?<\/p>\n

\u201cI had a free ticket with a guy that worked for [airline] Pan Am. My mom bought this really cheap suit, I pulled my hair back and I wore a Pan Am tag so I looked like an employee of Pan Am. I had to fly like that because it was a free ticket. I had a bunch of [1987\u2019s second album] Schizophrenia records with me, and I went to Noise Records and Metal Blade, Combat, and Roadrunner, too. Dressing up, wearing a tie and flying to New York, that\u2019s hustle. Eventually we ended up getting signed. That was one of the greatest feelings of my life.\u201d<\/p>\n

You ended up marrying your manager, Gloria. What were your first impressions of her?<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we first met, I was like, \u2018Ooh, OK, I like her!\u2019 We played The New Ritz in New York, opening for King Diamond on Halloween night [in 1989]. Sold out. She was there and she approached us. She told us that she managed Sacred Reich and I thought that was cool. Me and Andreas [Kisser, guitarist] didn\u2019t even have picks \u2013 we had to share a pick. She was like, \u2018We\u2019ve got to get you guys picks. We need to get you guys some endorsements.\u2019 We were like, \u2018Oh yeah, that\u2019d be cool!\u2019 Ha ha!<\/p>\n

She said that she needed to renegotiate our contract. She said, \u2018Listen up, I\u2019ll work for free for a year. If you guys don\u2019t like me, you can fire me, but I\u2019ll try for one year.\u2019 And she worked a whole year for free, and she did all that. She changed the contract, she got us endorsements and I wouldn\u2019t be here talking to you if it wasn\u2019t for her.\u201d<\/p>\n

How did your personal relationship come about?<\/p>\n

\u201cI ended up falling in love with her, which I couldn\u2019t help. We tried to hide it from the rest of the band for a while, but that was crazy. I think it was in Mexico when my brother walked into the room \u2013 he had the maid open the room \u2013 and me and Gloria were in bed and my brother was like, \u2018What the fuck is going on here?\u2019 Ha ha! It was the beginning of something very special.\u201d<\/p>\n

After a run of successful albums (1989\u2019s Beneath The Remains, 1991\u2019s Arise, 1993\u2019s Chaos A.D.), Sepultura released Roots in 1996, which catapulted you onto the global stage. When did you realise you had just changed the face of metal? <\/p>\n

\u201cI just wanted to make a strong record with this theme of roots around it. The more that time passed, the more we realised that it was a special record; it branched out to different parts of the world and people loved it. The tribal thing got integrated. Heavy metal<\/a> was never the same after Roots. There was metal before Roots and metal after Roots. But when we were doing it, we weren\u2019t thinking about that. You never enter the studio thinking, \u2018I\u2019m making a classic\u2019, or \u2018I\u2019m changing music\u2019, or none of that. That\u2019s all bullshit.\u201d<\/p>\n

What do people still misunderstand about your split from Sepultura in 1996? The band carried on without you, but fans were upset.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe main thing that gets me is mostly the situation with Gloria. Most people think she got fired and that\u2019s totally a wrong statement. She never got fired, her contract was done. I\u2019m telling you right now, the things that woman did for us \u2013 for Sepultura \u2013 were incredible. The stuff we achieved with her… You\u2019ve kind of got to be out of your mind to have wanted to replace that.<\/p>\n

I still don\u2019t understand that, because everything was so good. The shows were getting bigger and bigger. I could only imagine where we would have been if we stayed. But that thing, it got broke somehow, some way. Then my relationship with those other guys erupted. So it was kind of like, \u2018I\u2019m done, I\u2019m just gonna do my own thing.\u2019 That\u2019s the main thing that bugs me. That whenever you go online, it\u2019s, \u2018Oh, she got fired because she was protecting Max\u2019, and this and that. It\u2019s all bullshit.\u201d<\/p>\n

You also lost your stepson, Dana, that year. How did writing Soulfly songs like Bleed, First Commandment and Pain work into your grieving process?<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was really important. [When he died] we were headed to Donington [for Monsters Of Rock] \u2013 we arrived in England and we got a phone call. Again, the black cloud, just like my dad. I\u2019m not the biological father but we lived together in the same house, and we were very close. It hit me real hard. Bleed was one of the biggest songs we ever did, on the first Soulfly record. It\u2019s about paying homage to the fact that a young life was cut short. He had a full life in front of him. He\u2019s always here with me in spirit.\u201d<\/p>\n

Your list of collaborations reads like a who\u2019s who of metal. Who surprised you the most?<\/p>\n

\u201cAll of them did in their own way, but one of the most exotic ones was Sean Lennon on Son Song [from 2000\u2019s Primitive]. That was so off the wall! The way it happened was that we were travelling to Australia and we ended up sitting next to each other on the plane. I saw him drawing, and he was drawing the album cover from the first Soulfly album.<\/p>\n

I looked over and said, \u2018Oh, cool! You\u2019re drawing my first record.\u2019 He said, \u2018Yeah, I\u2019m a huge fan.\u2019 It was cool, writing that song about our dads and how we felt as people who lose their dads when they\u2019re young and how they deal with it. He didn\u2019t want to stay in a hotel, so he stayed here with us in our house.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"Max\n<\/p>\n

(Image credit: Rudy DeDoncker)<\/p>\n

After 10 years of estrangement from your brother, you and Iggor reunited and formed Cavalera Conspiracy. What was it like seeing each other again after a decade?<\/p>\n

\u201cHe reached out to me but first he talked to Gloria, which I thought was really cool of him. He asked her for forgiveness for what happened. Gloria\u2019s a very compassionate person and she totally accepted him back. After she talked to him, she gave me the phone and I talked to him.<\/p>\n

He was like, \u2018Listen, man, I want you to know my kids and I want you to know my family. I don\u2019t want to grow old not knowing your family, just because of something that happened 30 years ago.\u2019 The first time he came to Phoenix, we picked him up at the airport. We had flowers and I was so nervous! I hadn\u2019t seen this motherfucker in 10 years, what the fuck?!<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t know what to do or say, so I just gave him a big hug. We had a show the same night and that\u2019s when I asked, ‘Do you wanna play Roots with us tonight?’ And when we played Roots, the whole place exploded. The universe was telling us that we needed to work together. So we started Cavalera Conspiracy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chama, Soulfly\u2019s latest album, is about a young boy who grows up surrounded by poverty and gang violence and finds a deep connection in the forest. How much of this story is autobiographical?<\/p>\n

\u201cSome of it. The part of him losing his mom and talking to the mom in dreams is very close; I had recently lost my mom. The story was created by my son, Igor. He\u2019s a great writer. He writes Stephen King-type novels. I asked him if he could make a story to go with this record, almost like a concept album.<\/p>\n

So he wrote the story of Chama, who grew up in the favelas in Rio, around violence, drugs, gun running. His mom died and she comes to him in a dream and tells him, \u2018You have to leave the favela and go into the jungle and find the spirits of the forest. Go be with the forest.\u2019 He goes there and stares at the fire and flame \u2013 that\u2019s where the album title comes from, \u2018Chama\u2019 means \u2018flame\u2019 \u2013 and eventually he fulfils his destiny. You could make a movie around it.\u201d<\/p>\n

What\u2019s the most important lesson you\u2019ve learned in life?<\/p>\n

[long pause] \u201cDo what you love, surrounded by the people that you love. To share this journey with Gloria, with [sons] Zyon, with Igor Jr., with Richie and with our friends, it\u2019s priceless, man. To me, that\u2019s more important than Grammys and awards. Watching one of the Ozzy documentaries and seeing how frail he looked in the end\u2026 it\u2019s inevitable. One day your body\u2019s going to shut down. Until that day comes, I\u2019m gonna fucking live, man, doing the things I love.\u201d<\/p>\n

What do you hope the world remembers about Max Cavalera in years to come?<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope I\u2019m remembered as somebody that took risks to get the things that I did and to do the things I did. I was put on this planet to do this. Nothing else matters. Nothing. All the other stuff is all bullshit. And that I really loved what I did. Music saved me. It took me out of Brazil and brought me all of the things I have. I came here with a purpose and I did it. When it\u2019s all said and done, I know that I came and I left a mark on the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chama is out now via Nuclear Blast.<\/p>\n

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