What’s going on my fellow rock n’ rollers. Don’t forget to hit the bell notification icon to be
notified every time I put out a new video on my channel. And Sepultura broke the mold of metal
by not originating from America or Europe as most other bands in the genre did.
Instead they were 4 kids from Brazil who got lucky and found their way to the United States.
Their third album of their career Beneath the Remains was their first release on American
label roadrunner records. Considered by many to be a monumental album in the thrash genre,
even former frontman Max Cavalera acknowledged that it was the album where the band found
their style. It was brash, explosive and in your face. It was a warning to metalheads
everywhere of what the 90’s would have in store for the band. The group’s 4th album
titled Arise would be released in 1991 and would be a commercial and critical hit going platinum
and would be considered by many to be one of the band’s finer moments.
While the album’s sound stayed close to Beneath the Remains there were small glimmers of the band
experimenting with their sound that wouldn’t come to fruition until their follow up record.
The group’s fifth album Chaos AD saw the band pushing them past their contemporaries exploring
new sounds and becoming more comfortable with experimentation putting a bigger emphasis on
groove metal. The album easily found an audience becoming a top 40 hit across the
pond in both the US and the UK and the band would tour alongside Pantera and Ministry,
Sepultura guitarist Andreas Kisser would recall to Metal Hammer “During the making of Chaos AD,
we were very focused, very organised, very connected,”. “We were together, it was a very
special moment in Sepultura’s career.” he'd say. But by 1995 the incarnation of the band fronted
by Max Cavalera was on its last legs as the band fell apart. What happened? Stay tuned to find out.
It’s a story that’s been told a million times. A band gets big,
they are inundated with pressures and new found fame
and they suddenly fall apart. That pretty much describes Sepultura’s story in the early
to mid 90’s. The classic lineup of the band would consist of vocalist/rhythm guitarist Max Cavalera,
lead guitarist Andreas Kisser, bassist Paulo Jr Pinto and drummer Max’s brother Iggor Cavalera.
Max would summarize the band’s rise and fall to Metal Hammer saying
“All of a sudden we’re this really big machine and we couldn’t really comprehend it,”
We didn’t know how to deal with it.” he’d say It was 1995 and the band was ready to hit the
studio to work on their follow up to Chaos AD titled Roots. They had assembled at the Indigo
Ranch in California with future Slipknot and Limp Bizkit producer Ross Robinson. As the title of
the album implied this album was meant to pay homage to the band’s birth country of Brazil,
but it may surprise people to know that it was producer Ross Robinson who came up with the idea
of “Braziliness” as he called it. Roots saw the band experiment with elements of the music from
Brazil's indigenous peoples, and adopted a slower, tuned down sound. Many consider
the album to have had a huge impact on the nu metal scene that exploded a few years later.
According to guitarist Andreas he would reveal the monumental impact
producer Ross Robinson had on Roots saying: Ross had a whole new perspective. He came
and showed a lot of new possibilities for us. He really brought that idea of the ‘Brazilianness’:
the jams, the free approach to everything.” while Iggor would add
“He was pushing a lot of crazy ideas. I remember coming back from the studio
with a tape we’d done there, and I didn’t know what we were going to do with it, ’cos there
was so much going on – a thousand guitars on a take with noises and percussion, that kind
of thing. I was a bit confused" he'd admit. Robinson wasn’t the only person who had a
huge influence on Roots as legendary engineer Andy Wallace who had previously worked with a
huge eclectic list rockstars including Guns N’ Roses, Paul McCartney, System of a down
also worked on the album Max pointed out the importance of Robinson and Wallace working on
the album saying “The greatest thing was having the combination of Ross and engineer Andy Wallace.
Ross recorded it on his own and it sounded like total dogshit – not for human consumption.
We’d send it to Andy. It would be like sending him a diamond covered in shit,
and he had to clean all the shit from it to make the diamond shine, which is what he did.”
The band would successfully make it through the recording of Roots and release the album in 1996,
but behind the scenes the band was splintering. Soon enough there were two camps forming,
one involving Max and his wife Gloria who had been the band’s longtime manager.. The
other camp wasthe remaining members of the band The source of tension was due to the fact that
Gloria was giving preferential treatment to her husband Max. Andreas would give an example saying:
“Things had started to go kind of weird before that. When [Max and Gloria’s son] Zyon was born,
instead of putting a band on the cover of a magazine, they had Max with his kid. That’s
nothing to do with the band. To have a kid is not that special. I have three myself. I love them,
but I don’t use them as a trophy" he'd say. Max didn't see it that way he saw it as the other
three guys trying to steal the management role from his wife. He believed her management style
was working because the band more popular than ever and had reached new heights of success.
Things got so dysfunctional that the other three members completely
stopped communicating with Gloria.. According to Max he would reveal how
he saw shady manager types meeting with the other three guys in the band’s dressing room.
In August of 1996, Sepultura was set to for play at the Monsters of Rock Festival at Castle
Donnington alongside Ozzy, Type O Negative and Biohzard. Prior to taking the stage the
band was notified that Gloria’s son from a prior relationship Dana Wells was tragically killed back
in the United States in a car accident. Gloria and Max left the gig before the band took the stage to
head back home. And Sepultura would still perform that night, but with only 3 members on stage with
Andreas taking over lead vocals. What could have been a defining moment
to pull the band’s two camps together pulled them further apart. While Max would return to the band
to perform several more months of shows the other members realized they needed to get rid of Gloria.
Luckily for them their contract with her was set to expire by the end of the year. The band would
continue to perform shows across South America and Europe until the end of 1996 playing their final
show at the Brixton academy in December. Their last show also happened to coincide with the day
their contract with Gloria ended. Max and Gloria knew this day was coming as Andreas revealed
the band had a huge blow up a month prior in Argentina. When the band told Max they wanted to
terminate their contract with Gloria and following their decision Max and Gloria left Sepultura.
At one point Gloria insisted to Max that he stay in the band and she step back as the band’s
manager with Max remembering to Metal Hammer “Gloria tried to talk me out of it. She told
me go with them. I couldn’t. I just couldn’t. I’m not that kind of person. I cannot f over people
over like that. That’s how great of a person she is – just go with them, stay with them. I’m, like,
‘I’m not doing that to you. It’s absurd.’ They had a meeting to try to get me back.”
The remaining members of Sepultura had to cancel scheduled tours and reflect on whether hey would
continue with the band name or start a new band. Max for his part claims he could have fought to
keep the name himself as he claimed he invented it and started the band but for him it was easier to
walk away. What came next was trip down the rabbit hole as he would deal with his band imploding and
the death of his step-son revealing to metal hammer. “I could have gone, ‘Fu you all, this
is my band.’ I could have if I’d wanted to. It was my band, invented by me, the name and everything.
I just felt it was easier to walk away. But it was six months of hell. I lived in my room,
just drinking and taking drugs all day long. I didn’t want anything to do with music" he'd reveal
Things got ugly after Max’s departure as the former bandmates would trade shots in the press
for two and a half decades. Max would start his new project Soul Fly featuring members
of Fear Factory, Limp Bizkit andthe Deftones who would release their debut record in 1998.
And Sepultura would find a new frontman in Derrick Green and in 2006 the Cavalera
brothers would settle their decade long feud when Iggor left the band and reunited with his
brother to form The Cavalera Conspiracy. Iggor would point to another seminal band
who seemed to show the brothers how short life can be as he would tell Metal Hammer
“I flew to Phoenix to hang out with Max. We were influenced a lot by the whole thing with Pantera,
the Dimebag thing – like, ‘Look, these guys cannot do what we’re doing right now.’ We know how life,
it’s super-short. So I was, like, ‘Fuck it, I just want to hang out with my brother
Following the brothers reconciling, rumors of a Sepultura reunion with the brothers
seemed to start in 2007 with huge offers from promoters supposedly coming in,
but nothing would materialize. Max has admitted his wife and himself have approached his former
bandmates to reunite the original lineup and while there have been discussions, it only seems to be a
pipe dream as Andreas would reveal to metal hammer : We both played at a festival in Germany [in
2009], Sepultura and Soulfly, for the first time. Our bus was parked here and their bus was parked
a few metres away. I went out there, Gloria was there. I give her a hug: ‘Hey, what’s up, how’s
it going?’ And since then, she was like, ‘OK, maybe we could put all this bad stuff back and
we could try again.’ It didn’t go further, because it’s something that’s completely out of reality.
It’s not a part of what we are. That Sepultura they have in mind, it’s not us.” In a separate
interview in 2013 Andreas compared the brothers to fathers leaving their children behind when they
both quit the band once again highlighting how the brothers were never forced out.
And Max gave his own version of events when it came to reuniting saying “I was trying for it.
I thought it’d be very cool. Especially after I saw Faith No More get back together. It’s like,
‘Why can’t we do the same?’ I actually talked to Andreas on the phone about it, like, ‘Come on man,
let’s do this. Let’s fucking do it. The whole world wants it. It would be a great thing.’
And he agreed with me, then a couple of weeks later it was all back to shit again. So I was,
like, ‘F it, I’m not going to try any more.’” And even by 2016 Max seemed to have some regret
over not fighting for the ownership of the band’s name and even saying he should have
fired the other guys telling Metal Insider SEPULTURA was really close to my heart. It
was like my baby. Now, after all this time passed and I think about it, Iggor and I should have just
fired those two assholesand kept the name; why we didn't do that, I don't know. At that time, we
didn't have the vision to do it, so I just quit." The two camps would continue to go there separate
ways releasing records and it doesn’t seem like a reunion is going to happen anytime soon
And as recently as 2018, Sepultura frontman Derrick Greene gave an interview discussing
how it’s hard for some people to move on from the original lineup while Gloria released her
own rebuttal slamming Greene saying Hey I have a shout out! F You! Max
and Iggor never ever talk about a reunion. Why do you think they left? Lol. You're needing to
talk about Max and Iggor to get some press?? Yeah it is hard for YOU to move on! Max and
Igor can Return to their Roots and all you can do is sing lyrics my husband wrote!”
That does it for today’s video guys thanks for watching, be sure to hit the like button and
subscribe. And we'll see you again tomorrow on rock n' roll true stories. Take care.