SOULFLY Frontman Max Cavalera discusses his favorites in heavy music
Speaking with Jonathan Montenegro’s “My 3 Questions To” series, former SEPULTURA and current SOULFLY frontman Max Cavalera was asked to name his top three thrash metal albums of all time. Max responded (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “I went a little bit old school. The first one is from Canada, SACRIFICE ‘Forward To Termination‘. Amazing record. I played it so much when I was a teenager in Brazil.
“Also NUCLEAR ASSAULT ‘Survive‘. Danny Lilker, the man. Yes! Danny on the bass. NUCLEAR ASSAULT was amazing. They played with us in Brazil. It was great. The singer, John Connelly, had to borrow my guitar, and he played, and it was full of blood. And he gave it back to me. And the whole guitar was full of blood. But I loved the show. And it was cool to have his blood on my guitar.”
“And the last one is DARK ANGEL with ‘Darkness Descends‘. It’s the perfect death/thrash record, but it’s more on the thrash side of things. Very, very amazing drums from Gene Hoglan. And I love DARK ANGEL; I love the power and the brutality of the riffs.”
Max added: “Those are three inspirational thrash records that helped shape all my stuff I did from that era.”
Max Cavalera previously told Tone Deaf back in 2014 that the SLAYER album “Reign In Blood” is a record he “must have on a tour… Yeah, I gotta have ‘Reign In Blood‘, man,” he said. “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.”
Max Cavalera also recently discussed his views on the PANTERA comeback tour in a recent interview with the “Appetite For Distortion” podcast, saying: “I think it’s cool that they’re doing that. I do something very similar with my brother, where we go out and we play a lot of SEPULTURA albums that the fans really love it and they never got the chance to see it, for one reason or another. And they get to see it with the real drums and the real vocals and the real guitar. So it’s the closest you get to the real thing. And PANTERA is the same thing.
“Yeah, I’m friends with all of those guys [in PANTERA],” he continued. “And I’ve been friends with Phil for many years. I actually thanked him for letting me borrow his guitar player. Mike DeLeon is jamming with us [in SOULFLY]. He plays with [PHILIP H. ANSELMO & THE] ILLEGALS, with Phil Anselmo, for many, many years. So I thanked Phil for letting me borrow his guitar player.”
Touching again on the new PANTERA lineup and tour, Max said: “Yeah, I think it’s cool, especially the generation that never got to see it. I was there. I got to see it from the side of the stage every night. It was great… But I’m thinking about people that never got to see it, never got to experience that.”
He continued: “For sure, go see it. It’s not the original thing, but it’s as close you can get from the original thing. It’s fucking cool. The music is so powerful, it’s so good, it’s so cool that it will get through to the people. And I feel that way when I do those things with my brother. When we play those old songs, it connects to the whole audience. And it’s a huge tribute.”
“It sucks that Dimebag and Vinnie are no longer here, but at the same time, especially if you’re a young kid and you grew up loving PANTERA and never got to see it, for sure, go see it, man,” he added. “Just be a part of it. It’s a unique experience.”
Max Cavalera is currently on the road with SOULFLY for an extensive North American tour.
The 57-date run kicked off in late January and will run to early April. The trek features support from Florida death metal act BODYBOX, Maryland progressive metal band HALF HEARD VOICES, Los Angeles industrial group DRIFT and Botswana metal collective SKINFLINT.
