INCITE: Max Cavalera

Words with Max Cavalera
Interview by Jason Walsh
photos by Helena BXL

A talk about his stepson Richie’s band INCITE and their new album “The Slaughter”

JW: How you doing? How’s the tour going?

MAX: The tour is going good, man. We’re in New Orleans. The tour is going great. Very good shows, the crowds going crazy, so it’s really good.

JW: The main reason I wanted to talk to you was about Richie’s new album, “The Slaughter” with INCITE. Tell me about the new record and how you feel about it.

MAX: Oh yeah, I’m very proud of it. I think they did a great job. Richie’s been monitoring music since we was really little, he was born into it. A music family that’s ours and he’s been singing since back in the NAILBOMB days, he used to come on stage with me with NAILBOMB, since he was very little. So, I’m very proud that he’s finally made a record that he worked really hard on. I really didn’t have much to do with it. I stayed on the outside. I told him as much as I can and took him on tour in Europe and America (with SOULFLY), but I let him do all the work and he’s got to find out for himself, you know, to do this kind of stuff.

JW: You toured with the band several times now and this is your family, but when you finally heard the finished product, how did you feel about it.

MAX: Really happy for him, you know. It’s a dream of his for a long time to make a record and he’s finally done it. So yeah, very happy for him.

JW: Now you’ve been in his life to see him grow from a boy to a man. What’s it like seeing him do his own thing now and how do you feel about watching him grow into this new person?

MAX: Yeah, it’s very cool. Like I say, one of the first times he had something to do with music was in NAILBOMB, when he came on the stage, and it was the biggest show NAILBOMB ever played, one of the biggest shows I ever played with 120,000 people and he came out with a guitar and did a little intro for one of the songs. I would be shitting my pants if I was that young, 7 or 8, and going out there and doing it. It was killer. My brother gave him a Mohawk the day before the show, shaved his head, and so, yeah (laughs). It was really good to see him through the years getting more and more into music until finally finding his own band and make his own music.

JW: Stepping back and watching what he’s doing, does it remind you of yourself when you were young and first starting out?

MAX: Yeah, but a lot of the stuff that he does like flyers, passing flyers at the shows, and getting contacts with bands, it was a lot of the stuff that I did back in the beginning, so that reminds me of me.

JW: I talked to Richie the other day and he’s on tour with you guys right now, helping you out, doing the merch stuff and all that. How important is it for you guys to keep this thing a family thing? In every aspect of what you guys do, it seems like you’re always surrounded by family.

MAX: It’s really important because we don’t know any better. We always have been this way because from the beginning, from me being married to Gloria, which is my manager (and Richie’s mother), we always work as a family on the road and we always brought our kids on tour with us and now we give them jobs. You know, they sell shirts now and my other son’s here doing the drums. It’s really good to see them working on the road with us. Our family is very important. It’s something that’s been with me. It’s important in SOULFLY, it was important in SEPULTURA when my son Zyon was born, there’s a photo session I took with his name tattooed in my knuckles. His heartbeat is actually the opening of “Chaos A.D.” I recorded that while he was still inside of Gloria, like in utero. So, yeah, family’s very important.

JW: So what’s the future hold for you guys? Where do you go from here?

MAX: Well he’s going to find his own tours. He’s already looking for it. He didn’t want to stay opening for SOULFLY all the time, so he has to find other bands to tour with and I think he will. Just going to keep working. You know I’ve got a new album to make after this tour, going to make the SOULFLY new album. I entered the studio in November and the album comes out this year (“Omen” releases May 4).

JW: Very cool. Any chance of a second release from CAVALERA CONSPIRACY anytime soon.

MAX: Yeah, actually we’re going to do some stuff and eventually make a new record but not until later. It’s something that’s not officially “when” yet, but it will come some time in the future.