Max Cavalera announced back in April that Soulfly would be performing Nailbomb‘s Point Blank album in its entirety later this year, and the tour has finally been announced.Continue reading
Tag Archives: Nailbomb
Max Cavalera To Perform Nailbomb’s Point Blank Live In Its Entirety
Uniform – Wake In Fright
After multiple listens, I’m still attempting to find the right adjective to describe Uniform’s second full-length, Wake in Fright (Sacred Bones). I could use intense, but that probably wouldn’t fit the bill for the more subdued tracks like ‘Habit’ or ‘The Lost.’Continue reading
Max Cavalera with Joel McIver – My Bloody Roots
Max Cavalera. His name is synonymous with the modern metal era. Do I even need to write about the impact Max has made on the metal scene the last 25-plus years? If you don’t know at least half the story, you might as well turn your metal card in right now. The foundation he laid down as the mastermind of Sepultura during their legendary rise to prominence may never be repeated, simply because the music business has changed so much since the 80s. As a member of one of the most ground-breaking bands as there ever has been in metal, the impact Max has made on several sub-genres, not to mention creating a few himself. It’s undeniable. Along the way he’s had many well-documented highs and lows personally and professionally. It is a very interesting prospect when a very famous person, who has had many battles in the public eye, writes their autobiography. Max to his word, has chosen to tell his life story so far from a very humble and honest perspective, not glossing over his mistakes, or over inflating his triumphs as he takes the reader on the journey of his life in and out of metal.
Starting with his childhood and early life, My Bloody Roots from Sepultura to Soulfly and Beyond (Jawbone Press) tells Max’s life story and humble beginnings. He goes into great detail how he and his brother Igor had very happy childhood in Bello Horizonte, Brazil, and some of the funny things he’s gotten into. Max’s father was a big influence on his life, always promoting a love of family and music which clearly has guided his entire being all these years. The loss of his father has stayed with Max and also colored a lot of his experiences as grown man too. Past childhood, we are taken to the teenage Cavalera’s home life and how they gravitated to metal and punk rock simultaneously. Focusing their energies together, Max and Igor’s raw style musically helped turn them into a creative powerhouse they would become., innovating screaming and playing in metal. Writing a truly unvarnished account about his rise to fame and the many mistakes that he made along the way with alcohol and drugs on occasion, coupled with is sense of reckless abandon, you have to be impressed with the candor put forth by Max and venerable music journalist Joel McIver. It’s definitely a warts and all account.
We are regaled with some amazing stories, such as Max getting baptized in a church tomb under the Vatican as a young boy, to running afoul of Lemmy a few times, to other musical highlights such as earning Gold records (when they counted) and headlining major music festivals around the world. The path to Sepultura wasn’t a straight one, and even he marvels at some of the things that were achieved in their heyday of the late 80s and early 90s. One surprising thing about the book is the attention to paid to his anguished split from Sepultura in late 1996. He openly talks about the events leading to the rift (possibly it was coming for some time) and the painful betrayal he felt. However, much of this story has been told over and over, and certain details seem glossed over and omitted on purpose, and it’s totally a good thing. There’s no real revelatory moment here, and this reviewer appreciates it. This is also possibly owed to the fact of Max reuniting with Igor the last few years and not wanting to fully revisit that time, open up old wounds. Especially with all that business behind them. When so much bad blood has been spilled in public over the years, it’s likely for the best.
While the loss of father and namesake Massimiliano shaped his youth, the tragic death’s of his stepson Dana Wells and his grandson Moses, instead of filling him with bitterness, were events that hurt tragically, but pulled his family together. The Max Cavalera story is really his family history. Along with his wife Gloria, who Max considers his rock; they are all a very tight-knit unit with a lot of love and music around all the time. The way he was raised is the way he is now as a husband, father and grandfather. Mostly My Bloody Roots is a love letter to his home land Brazil and a toast to an explored life. Touring with his many bands, and exploring other cultures and world music to incorporate into his own his time off, this give him the fuel for life that he needs.
8.5/10
KEITH CHACHKES
Soul Rebels- Max Cavalera of Killer Be Killed
Lightning can in fact strike twice. Perennially hard-working metal legend Max Cavalera has been a prolific writer and frequent collaborator, both in his for band Sepultura, but also in his other projects such as the long running Soulfly and Cavalera Conspiracy. Twenty years ago Max formed a partnership with Fudge Tunnel’s Alex Newport and Nailbomb was born. One of the best heavy albums ever, the true spirit of creativity and melding the styles of the artists involved. Along the same lines, but conscious of not repeating the past, Max has a new group in Killer Be Killed, featuring leaders of the heavy music scene like Greg Puciato of The Dillinger Escape Plan, Troy Sanders of Mastodon, and Dave Elitch (ex-The Mars Volta) to create something truly unique, heavy, yet quite melodic. We caught up with Max by phone at his home in Arizona, and in the many times we have chatted with the man, he has rarely sounded this excited about a new project.
Several years in the making and now poised to come out, Killer Be Killed has been the buzz of the metal press for sometime yet. Max was positively jubilant discussing the album and the final results.
“I love how Killer Be Killed came out. I really love the blend of all the melody and thrash. I really love all the guys in the band, Troy, Greg, and Dave. We made the best record we could possibly make. Only a few times in life you get a chance to make a special album like Killer Be Killed. I love hearing all the great reviews coming in from all over, really great people are talking about it, and that the people really love the record. It’s really amazing to me that the album is getting this great praise, and I’m very excited for it.”
Instantly noticeable upon hearing the album is how melodic the album is, without sacrificing any of the heaviness. We asked Max what the genesis of the sound was and if this element was pre-planned:
“It came naturally to us, but we really wanted it. You know Greg and me have a side to us that has, an attitude like Nailbomb, really really aggressive and we wanted it to keep it on the cutting edge of heavy music. So part of Killer Be Killed is a part that very fast, thrash and on cutting edge kind of vibe. The other influences that come from Mastodon and Dillinger Escape Plan. There are some vocal melodies and parts Greg singing his ass off on on this record, throwing on some of these really catchy choruses. Really beautiful, beautiful melodies. I don’t even think he does that kind of stuff in Dillinger. He did it especially for Killer Be Killed. Then Troy was just amazing man. He has such an amazing voice, with the parts he put on. It was so amazing. Even I was surprised at how great it was and I am so stoked for how the record came out.”
For all the deserved hype surrounding the big name guys coming together to make this record, Dave Elitch put down a brutal and classic performance on this album, almost like a secret weapon. Max weighed in on this: “Dave’s a great guy and a great drummer. He tore it up with (The) Mars Volta. I totally agree with you, he is really like the secret weapon of the band. He really shined on this recording as a killer drummer. Some of the fills he did were just unbelievable on this record. He really did some Dave Lombardo stuff. I so happy that he got to do that and he contributed that. It’s great to have someone who can play technical and fast. Dave can really do it all. It was super cool and really great having him in the band. He killed it!”
Even though Max purposefully wanted to evade any musical references to Nailbomb, aside from his own writing style, the KBK album does have a fire political angst running through it. We asked if the album was meant to be so forward and radical in its philosophy.
“There is a political side to the album, it’s very much against police brutality. Like ‘Setting Fire To Your Flag’ is very political. There is a song, ‘Forbidden Fire’, about kids in The Middle East who can not listen to metal. There is a level of a lot of political stuff that is similar to Nailbomb. Even how it started, the project started with ‘Face Down’, that was the first song we wrote for the record, and ‘Face Down’ is a Nailbomb type of song. And the second song we wrote I.E.D., is also Nailbomb type of song.”
“But what I think is cool is that Killer Be Killed is different than Nailbomb too, and has a different vibe. I think what is cool is that it is different than Nailbomb; there is a lot more melody. I am so glad that Killer Be Killed is its own thing. I didn’t want to just make another Nailbomb. Nailbomb was already done and I’m really proud that this album has its own set of values and its own sound, and its own identity, and is its own thing. It was very important to me.”
Max is very fond of producing his own albums, so we were intrigued as to why he was comfortable handing the reigns over to someone else. Picking Josh Wilbur, whom Max had never worked with before, seemed to be a very inspired choice:
“Yeah was a great guy. You know he did a great job on the Gojira album and the Lamb of God records. He was a big guy in the studio for us. He is fan of all of ours. He was a huge Sepeultura fan, and he learned everything he knows from Andy Wallace, which is to me, he is really the master of production. He produced Chaos A.D. (Roadrunner). So Josh really came from that school. So to me working with Josh was like working with Andy, in the sonic field. I also think Josh took it very seriously, to make a really great record. He tried to get something really special out of all of us, who are very established musicians. Sometimes its hard to take established musicians and get something great out of them. It can be very hard to do. Sometimes you get lazy and you don’t really want to do a lot of the work to get the best out of it. Josh did that. He really drilled the work out of us. He somehow made everybody excited and get the best out of us, to make a great album. He got the best out of all of us: out of me, out of Greg, out out of Troy. At the end of the day it was the right choice to make the record with Josh. I think he did a fantastic job.”
“I love the sound of the record. Especially a lot of the rhythm guitar work. I wrote 80% of the rhythm guitars. And also I played most of the riffs on the album, on the recording. So I worked very hard on the writing of the record and the creation of the songs. I worked very hard with Josh to get the right sound.”
“You know I like to do it all. I like to produce my own stuff, and I also like to work with different producers. You can get really cool stuff from working with different producers. It was really important for this record to have a guy who can get stuff that you might not get naturally, and you need the right guy to get that out of you. And Josh was the right guy for it. “
Much has been talked about the punk-rock vibe and guerrilla style used to put the album together with, but Max demystified that idea a little and gave us a breakdown of how the album was really created:
“It was done in different phases. In the first phase it was just me and Greg, and we wrote some songs. Then where was a phase where it was just me and Dave, and we wrote some more songs. Then it was me, Greg, and Troy and we wrote even more songs! And then we entered the studio and we wrote more songs, and we used some of the old songs, and some of the stuff just came out in the studio. Like ‘Fire…’, it was born in the studio. And its got new stuff like ‘Robots…’, and ‘Forbidden Fire’ and ’12 Labors’… they are newer songs, that we gave the same treatment as the older songs. In the end, even though the album was made quite fast, when you hear the songs they sound quite elaborate. We worked for a long time on the record, much more than it seems like it really was.”
In spite of the success of creating this special album, fans of KBK will have to wait until 2015 to see them live on a stage as a touring entity.
“Yeah, next year man. It’s going to have to be next year. Greg is on the road with Dillinger. Troy is on the road with Mastodon. I am going on tour with Korn in Russia. Next year we are all going to dedicate some time only for Kill or Be Kill, and try and get to play some of this music live for people.”
KEITH (KEEFY) CHACHKES
Killer Be Killed – Killer Be Killed
Collaborating with people and attempting to create something original in music, or any kind of art is always a risky proposition. Much like a relationship you must trust the process and become vulnerable in order to let your guard down and let things happen naturally. Sometimes things have a way of coming together in an unexpected way, and sometimes they go south in a big way. Especially when said collaborators are legendary figures in a scene, expectations tend to run high. We are writing of course about super-groups and really notable ones like Killer Be Killed who just finished their self-titled, debut album for Nuclear Blast. Names that have defined three generations of heavy music fans such as Cavalera, Puciato, Sanders, and Elitch put their stamp on this recording, making a memorable, political flavored, heavy album that certainly lives up to the hype.
Holding nothing back right out of the gate, ‘Wings of Feather and Wax’ is blast of super-catchy, melodic post-hardcore. From Max Cavalera’s instantly recognizable gritty guitar tone, to the vocal majesty of Troy Sanders on the verses and Greg Puciato on the choruses, they let you know that this album is going to be special. There is a great breakdown where Max comes in on the vocals and there are a few thrash breakdowns added in. For the most part is sounds pretty smooth and well done. The chorus is almost a little too sugary for my taste, but it gets the job done for a lead off track. The next song ‘Face Down’ is a step up, more metal and pissed off all the way through. It is not unusual to hear Max and Greg switching off lines, but Troy is really the interesting element here. Troy’s voice being so strong, he struck a balance between heaviness and melody that is a great treat. By the time you get to ‘Melting of My Marrow’, you find the real star of the album is Dave Elitch (ex-The Mars Volta) whose power-house drumming and killer grooves makes the tracks jump through your speakers. The best cuts are the groovy ‘Snakes of Jehova’, ‘Save The Robots’, ‘Fire To Your Flag’, ‘I.E.D., ‘Dust Into Darkness’ (the most Dillinger type track), and ‘Twelve Labors’.
Many of the songs hold up on repeated listens, while a few are just good, not great. For some, it may take a few listens to really sink in and get a hold of you. This may be since the album was written over a brief period of time without a ton of wood-shedding. It’s raw in a good way, and not all balls out heavy at the time either. Mellow parts, interesting use of vocorders, dynamic shifts, tempo drops all give the album a lot of character. Producer Josh Wilbur’s (Lamb of God, Gojira, Avenged Sevenfold) clean tones definitely are an ear opener too. This album gives a much needed shot in the arm of the current scene, and sounds like nothing else. Here is hoping they get to more music like this in the future.
8.5/10
Killer Be Killed on Facebook
Keith (Keefy) Chachkes