In 1996, Sepultura put out its Roots album, which would end up being the band's last album with Max Cavalera on vocals and guitar and Iggor Cavalera on drums. Obviously the rift between the Cavalera brothers and Sepultura never quite healed, and in an interview with Metal Insider, Max voices his regret over having not kept the Sepultura name to himself.
He also goes on to say he wishes he'd fired those other "two assholes," who I'd imagine would be bassist Paolo Jr. and guitarist Andreas Kisser. Unless there were two other assholes I'm not aware of in the band around the time of Roots?
Well, looking back now, it was a really hard time in my life, a very difficult period, because I never thought I was going to leave the band. For the first month I didn’t even want to play anymore, I was like, ‘I’m done with this.’ I just wanted to get high and get drunk and not give a fuck. But then, little by little I started writing some stuff and it started coming out again, and it was cool, because it carried the same elements as what I had been doing before. The riffs, structures, choruses, all of that was very similar. But, it was a difficult time and I’m glad it’s over – I’d never want to go back to that time. A lot of people really liked the first Soulfly album, a lot of people say it’s their favorite. Maybe that’s because there was a little bit of desperation on that record (laughs). It’s kind of like you lost everything and had to start again with what you have.
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 assholes and 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. That’s why I think this tour is so special, because I get to go back to that time to an album where I was very much involved with the ideas of the album – those were almost all of my own ideas, so Roots is very close to my heart. Now, 20 years later, to go back and do this with Iggor again is amazing – it’s the best thing to come out of this story. It’s a happy ending, even though we had to go through all that hardship to get to where we are now.
You can check out the Cavalera brothers performing Roots live, which is the closest we'll really ever get to the brothers keeping the name.
