S Poddar
Last week, as part of a conversation on Full Metal Max Cavalera spoke about the latter half of SEPULTURA, a band that he co-formed and contributed to shaping into one of the major forces of metal, on Jackie’s nationally syndicated radio program. Along with his brother, ex-drummer Igor “Iggor” Cavalera, Max, now 55, has spent the past few years re-working classic SEPULTURA tracks. Max’s response to the query of how he felt about the band’s official breakup was complex, poignant, and clear.
“To me, I feel — I’m not speaking for myself necessarily — but I think many of the fans will feel the same way as I do: Me and Igor really carry SEPULTURA’s essence with us everywhere we go,” Max revealed. “And I don’t know — they keep calling it SEPULTURA, but everybody recognizes that it ain’t the same and never gonna be the same.
He clarified that he and Igor are not directly involved in the band’s decision to disband. “I don’t have nothing to do with what they’re doing, with the disbanding of the band. Me and Igor, we have our own path, we are on our own thing, we are revisiting those old material on our own time.”. And how we did them was how we always did — it was from the heart.
For Max, it’s not merely a matter of playing old songs—it’s about keeping alive a period in his life that continues to burn with energy and passion. “For us, it’s really special to keep that. I think it’s kind of like that young heart, the teenage heart that lives inside of you.”. I sort of hold that very sacred. And whatever may happen in in the music business or the politics, I don’t allow that to impact my young mind and soul that I carry within me always.
To Max, SEPULTURA is more than the name or the logo—it’s something in the raw sense of a formative period. “It was a particular band of a particular period and we like to commemorate that — I get an opportunity to commemorate that with Igor, whatever the other guys do.”
While Max and Igor have been revisiting their early albums with enthusiasm, however, all members of the SEPULTURA heritage do not agree with them. Last November, guitarist Andreas Kisser reacted with candor when questioned about the brothers’ move to re-record early SEPULTURA albums Morbid Visions, Bestial Devastation, and Schizophrenia—the last being Andreas’s debut contribution to the group.
“I don’t think anything,” Andreas had to say bluntly to IMPACT Metal Channel. “I mean, it’s a strange decision that they had. I believe artistic value is zero. Perhaps they’re aiming for some dough or something, but there is no sense to do something like that.”
On the other hand, Andreas complimented another project: THE TROOPS OF DOOM, a band fronted by veteran SEPULTURA guitarist Jairo “Tormentor” Guedz. “I much rather prefer THE TROOPS OF DOOM… which are doing a really amazing tribute to that era, very honest, doing new stuff, writing new music… But if they’re having a good time, so let it be. I don’t care, man. I just think it’s totally unnecessary. It’s really very disrespectful from themselves, for their own selves in the past.”
Andreas continued to show skepticism towards Max’s motives. “It’s strange to see a guy [Max] who’s always going, ‘Oh, I did that,’ ‘I did all of that,’ ‘I’m so imaginative,’ and ‘I did it all by myself,’ and playing this crap, like re-recording riffs we did 30, 40 years ago. It doesn’t compute, the words and the example. But whatever. I just don’t believe that — the art value is nil.”
Conversely, Max gave a more personal and fan-based perspective on the re-recordings. Talking with V13 earlier in last year, he described what inspired him and Igor to revitalize their oldest records. “I believe [Igor and I] were [doing special tours commemorating] the other [SEPULTURA] albums, such as we did ‘Roots’, and then we did ‘Beneath The Remains’ and the response was so explosive and the fans were responding so well, with the way we were performing that material live…”
That huge positive reaction encouraged them to go back and listen to those early recordings. “I told Igor that it would be neat to have this sound on these old records that sound like crap, especially if we can get them to sound like we sound now because we sound great now the way we’re playing.”
Max admitted there was doubt that some people have about re-recording older material. “There’s a huge taboo about re-recording. There are lots of people who are [freaked out] about messing with old things. I had to sort of block all that and say, ‘Fuck it. Let’s do it, man, but let’s do it the way we wanna do it, the way we wanna hear it as fans.'”
The re-recordings were deliberately rough and brutal. “So ‘Morbid Visions’, ‘Bestial Devastation’, it’s still very dirty and aggressive, perhaps even more aggressive than the original… We play a bit more fast and it’s more angry. I don’t know how, but it’s angry, more than the original.”
When it was time to work on Schizophrenia, Max and Igor knew they had something incomplete. “It’s another album that we feel it’s never ever lived up to the potential. The songs are fantastic, but they were never really recorded the way they should have been. So now we’re very pleased. We did the three, we got the trilogy and we got to tour for it.”
To breathe new life into these reworked albums, the Cavalera brothers assembled a close-knit crew. Travis Stone of PIG DESTROYER provided lead guitar, while Igor Amadeus Cavalera contributed bass—inviting even more family members into the equation. Their recording of Schizophrenia took place in April and June 2023 in Mesa, Arizona, and was mixed by Arthur Rizk, who has worked with SOULFLY and TURNSTILE. Artist Eliran Kantor hand-painted the original artwork in watercolor.
In spite of the decades of transformation, SEPULTURA’s footprint persisted. Records such as Roots and Chaos A.D., both from Max’s tenure, went gold in America, selling well over half a million each. Regardless of lineup changes and inner divisions, the legacy of the band persisted.
SEPULTURA wrapped up historic travels in December 2023 by saying it would celebrate its 40th anniversary with an around-the-globe farewell tour. Andreas Kisser, frontman Derrick Green, Paulo Xisto Pinto Jr. bass, and new drummer Greyson Nekrutman—who stepped in for the departed Eloy Casagrande early in 2024—were part of the farewell lineup.
Even though SEPULTURA is folding up, its spirit lives on through the Cavalera brothers—in a loud, raw, unspoiled state, just the way it all began.
