In an extensive new feature by music writer Joel Gausten, singer/guitarist Max Cavalera (Cavalera Conspiracy / Soulfly / ex-Sepultura) discusses his new Cavalera Conspiracy album with his brother Iggor (Psychosis), his recent tour with Soulfly performing the Nailbomb album Point Blank, the 30th anniversary of Sepultura’s Schizophrenia and his early days in the Punk/Hardcore band Guerrilha. An excerpt from the feature appears below:
 
Max’s love of hardcore was clear all the way back in 1986, when he played bass in the short-lived band Guerrilha, which featured Iggor, then-Sepultura guitarist Jairo T. and Mutilator singer Silvio SDN. The band’s brief existence produced a scorching five-song demo that diehards are encouraged to sift through the internet to find.
 
“It was kind of like a punk/crossover project,” he remembers. “Silvio had a Mohawk at the time, so he looked really punk. Jairo kind of looked like a skinhead. We were listening to a lot of Discharge, Sex Pistols, Doom and Crust stuff. I know that we did a photo shoot on train tracks... We did a demo, but there’s also some recording of a live show that we did at some kind of metal festival in our city, Belo Horizonte. Somebody probably recorded right from the board. We did couple of shows with Guerrilha. It was pure punk rock fun. We never took it too serious; we knew it was not going to get signed. We could have done a record; it actually would have been cool. I wish we would have, because the stuff was heavy punk/metal.”
 
Recently, Max revisited another chapter from his past when he took Soulfly on the road to perform Point Blank, the explosive 1994 album by Nailbomb – his project with Fudge Tunnel’s Alex Newport and a revolving cast of associates including D.H. Peligro of Dead Kennedys – in its entirety. Although Newport was unavailable to tour, Max saw a unique opportunity to marry the rage of Nailbomb with the power of his full-time act on stage.
 
“I thought Point Blank was going to sound really cool with the weight of a real band like Soulfly behind it. It has a powerhouse sound already, and it translated into the songs. Playing Point Blank was like the coolest thing for me as a musician. The heaviness of Soulfly on top of Point Blank was perfect, and I had a lot of fun every night.”
 
Point Blank isn’t the only album from Max’s storied past earning considerable attention these days. A landmark release, Sepultura’s second album, Schizophrenia, hit the 30th anniversary mark this year. The singer/guitarist continues to hold the record in high esteem.
 
“I think it’s a real important record. That’s where we started the combination of death and thrash. We listened to both styles all the time. Morbid Visions would be more black metal; a lot of the black metal guys like that album a lot. We were listening to a lot of black metal stuff at the time like Hellhammer and Bathory. Schizophrenia was where we welcomed a little more thrash stuff. We were listening to stuff like Dark Angel, Possessed, Death, Exodus and Voivod. We let all those influences go throughout the whole record, and it was fun. I love the title track and ‘From The Past Comes The Storms;’ it’s one of my favorite tracks still today because it’s kind of insane. It’s a relentless thrash attack that just hits you in the face; you don’t know where it comes from. It comes out of nowhere; it’s just great. There’s a lot of cool stuff on the record, like ‘Escape To The Void’ and ‘To The Wall.’ ‘Inquisition Symphony,’ the instrumental, is great. It was definitely a cool record for the time and set the ground for Beneath The Remains. Without Schizophrenia, we wouldn’t have been able to make Beneath The Remains.”
 
The complete feature is available at this location