“Eventually, the record is gonna sound like whatever it’s gonna sound like, but I knew the combination would sound explosive and powerful, because of the variety of music we have in ourselves and the record just came out naturally like that,” says Max Cavalera.
Having been in some of the most iconic metal bands of the past two decades, including nu-metal progenitors Sepultura, there’s no doubt Cavalera has a something of a sixths ensue for explosive and powerful combinations of metal musicians.
No doubt their upcoming performance at Soundwave Festival, will be plenty explosive. “It’s gonna be great. We’re very excited. It’s our first tour ever, we never played live before Soundwave, these are gonna be our first shows ever. It’s gonna be fantastic, I can’t wait,” he tells Tone Deaf.
To get an insight into what informed Cavalera’s keen sense for all things metal, we got the man himself to take us through some of the albums that changed his life.
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Queen – Live Killers
“The album that first piqued my interest in music would be Queen’s Live Killers. We were really young, I was 11, and I saw Queen live in Brazil. We lived in Sao Paulo at that time and they played a big soccer stadium. There was a hundred thousand people, it was a fantastic show, it was a great show.
“The next day, I went to the store with my brother and we bought the cassettes for Queen Live Killers and KISS’ Alive II. We listened to those two cassettes to death, man. It was the only two cassettes that we had. That kind of started our passion for rock music and for metal. It all started with Queen, which is a great band, I still love Queen today, I think it’s one of the greatest bands ever.
“Live albums are… there’ve been a couple of very famous ones, but it’s weird just starting with a live album. I think it’s strange that we started liking live music with a live album. There’s an energy live. I always liked live performance, I think metal is alive because of that. Especially nowadays with the internet and record sales going down, the shows are the last thing that’s left that’s sacred, that nobody can touch. I think it’s super important to play live and I love performing live, I think it’s one of the best feelings in the world.”
AC/DC – Let There Be Rock
“After discovering those albums, right away, there was a school for music that I wanted my mum to enroll me in to learn to play guitar… I went there and it was all these longhaired guys hanging out there with AC/DC t-shirts and Black Sabbath t-shirts, and I was like, ‘What is that?’ and they all told me, ‘You gotta hear AC/DC, you gotta hear Black Sabbath!’. And I started getting into that, it was great, then Motörhead and all that.
“I remember the AC/DC movie came out in a movie theatre, Let There Be Rock, and me and my brother went to see it and that was another big thing. I love that movie. Bon Scott is such a character in that movie. He’s wild. I always loved the AC/DC bad guy image that they had, the tattoos and the long hair. They looked like outlaws. They looked killer, man.
“From then on, I started buying AC/DC records, and Black Sabbath, and Motörhead. With Motörhead is when everything got faster and eventually led to thrash, to like Slayer and Metallica and all the thrash stuff, which was really, really cool.”
Metallica – Ride The Lightning
“I cut my hair for Ride The Lightning. That was a big record for me, because my cousin would try to get me to go straight, to have good grades in school, and to look normal. And I had long hair, so he offered me, ‘If you cut your hair, I will buy you an imported record, whatever you want.’ And Metallica’s Ride The Lightning was right there, like, ‘If you buy me Metallica’s Ride The Lightning, I’ll cut my hair.’
“So, I cut my hair for that and y’know, the hair grew back, it’s cool. And I loved it, that’s my favourite Metallica record of everything they’ve done. I think Ride The Lightning is the best thing Metallica’s ever done. Starting with ‘Fight Fire With Fire’, that’s the best thrash song ever. It’s just a perfect thrash song. ‘For Whom The Bell Tolls’, ‘Creeping Death’, there’s just great songs on that record.
“I like everything about it. I liked the cover, I thought the cover was really cool – the blue cover with the electric chair. It was different. We didn’t have anything like that before. That was just a different vibe and then you get the lyrics, different lyrics, Hetfield was singing about different stuff, like dying in an electric chair and ‘Creeping Death’ about Egypt. It was a trip, man. It was really, really cool, I really, really got into that record a lot and I’ve actually listened to that album a billion times, I’ve probably bought that record 10 times, too.”
Accept – Restless and Wild
“For my teenage years, Accept was a big record, Restless and Wild. I had a cousin that had that record and we listened to it when we were teenagers. ‘Fast as a Shark’, I think, is a pre-era… it’s like an early thrash song before thrash started.
“But if you just listen to ‘Fast as a Shark’ in itself, it’s the beginning of thrash right there. It’s amazing, the drums are unbelievable, and it’s such a good record, too. The production of the record is really clear, crisp, very great production. Everything sounds great.
“When I think of my teenage years, I think of three records: Accept’s Restless and Wild, Ozzy’s Bark at the Moon, and Ramones’ Pleasant Dreams. I listened to those three records in a row a billion times.”
Morbid Angel – Altars of Madness
“When making the first Sepultura album, we listened to a lot of death metal. It was a lot of Morbid Angel, Death, Master, Massacre, and then some of the European side, Kreator, Destruction, Voivod from Canada, Sacrifice, Dark Angel, all of those were big influences on the first Sepultura album, because the first two Sepultura records are very death metal. So it’s heavily inspired by death metal.
“In Killer Be Killed, we like so much different stuff between the three of us, it’s wild. Greg listens to all different stuff and Troy, he listens to country music, like Hank Williams. The country stuff, he told me about that and I was actually gonna check it out. But Greg got me into Nails, which is great, one of my favourite bands right now. I love Nails.
“But when we were making the record, we didn’t really go on the outside much. We just focused on trying to make the best record we can without really going to a certain band for influence. Like, we didn’t bring a record and showed the producer and said, ‘We gotta sound like this band.’ We didn’t do any of that, we just let it happen naturally.”
Slayer – Reign in Blood
“An album that I must have on a tour… Yeah, I gotta have Reign in Blood, man. It’s still, to this day, a beautiful, great piece of work. It’s quick, you know? Under 30 minutes. But the way those songs are put together with the punk influence, the hardcore influence on top of thrash, it was brilliant. I really love that.
“I also love Black Sabbath’s Sabotage, that’s my favourite Sabbath record. Probably my favourite Sabbath songs are ‘Hole in the Sky’ and ‘Symptom of the Universe’, and of course, Motörhead’s Ace of Spades, that’s such a great song and great record, I listen to that a lot. You know, a lot of those records were very important for us growing up.”
King Parrot – Bite Your Head Off
“I try to discover new music all the time, that’s one of my hobbies. A couple of new bands I discovered lately, actually from Australia, King Parrot, I really like them a lot, great band, and then Billy Boy on Poison [from California], and then Psycroptic, who are from Tasmania, I can’t wait for the new record. I’ve been listening to a lot of Aborted, Hour of Penance, and Bloodbath’s new record is fantastic, it just came out. I’m excited for the new Melechesh, because I sing on it. Not just for that, though. I love Melechesh, but I got to sing on it, so that’s always fun.”
Killer Be Killed will soon be touching down in Australia to perform as part of the Soundwave 2015 lineup – more details here.
Soundwave Festival 2015
Saturday, 21st February & Sunday, 22nd February 2015
Bonython Park, Adelaide, South Australia
Tickets: Soundwave
Saturday, 21st February & Sunday, 22nd February 2015
RAS Showgrounds, Melbourne, Victoria
Tickets: Soundwave
Saturday, 28th February & Sunday, 1st March 2015
Olympic Park, Sydney, New South Wales
Tickets: Soundwave
Saturday, 28th February & Sunday, 1st March 2015
RNA Showgrounds, Brisbane, Queensland
Tickets: Soundwave
