MAX CAVALERA: 'Dedicating SOULFLY Albums To God Is A Punk Thing To Do'

March 9, 2006

Tom Day of musicOMH.com recently conducted an interview with SOULFLY/ex-SEPULTURA frontman Max Cavalera. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow:

On making space for positivity on his albums — most notably in the recital of Psalm 91 in his native Portuguese:

"I find passages of the Psalms as well as many other parts of the Bible to be really apocalyptic and exciting... I think it's a very punk thing to not do clichés and what is expected. So, to dedicate the SOULFLY albums to God — in my eyes that's a punk thing to do 'coz nobody else is doing it. It's really easy to be all like, 'Oooh I'm evil' with an inverted cross and all — anybody can say that.

"At the same time though, I got really frustrated with people trying to connect me to religion, especially in America where they tried to stereotype me as this 'Christian' guy, and I'm like: 'What?! Are you f**king crazy?!' I do hate a lot of 'religion' but people like Christ — yeah they inspire me. I mean if you look at Christ He was hanging around with the lowlifes, prostitutes and the losers you know, not going around with those high society motherf**kers you see trying to sell Jesus today!"

Although Max is particular in clarifying that he doesn't subscribe to a particular established "religious" tradition, he still holds key philosophical concepts close to his heart:

"Salvation is really important, and for me [salvation] is when you figure out your purpose in life - why you're here - and actually put that into action. But that's very hard, man. It's a struggle to figure that out but that's what's life's about."

Max goes on to explain another tenet that was instilled in him from an early age:

"The idea that's there is: 'We're gonna get through this s**t somehow. I don't know how but we are gonna get through.' That has been my motto since way back, man. When my Dad died and my family went poor and my Mom and my brother and sister were living in a one-room shack in my Grandma's garden, my Mom would say the same thing to me: 'I don't know how we're gonna get through this but we're gonna do it.' That's the stuff that makes life interesting I think. It's not supposed to be all good and 'peachy', like KORN [said]. Life is not peachy, life is f**ked up!"

Read the entire interview at www.musicomh.com.

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