Max Cavalera Discusses Sepultura's Breakthrough Album, Roots Praised By Dave Grohl And Lemmy Kilmister

JAKARTA - In a recent interview with Chicago radio station WXAV 88.3 FM, former Sepultura vocalist Max Cavalera reflected on his breakthrough 1996 album Roots. On this album, he and his bandmates collaborated with Brazil's Xavante tribe.

"The Roots album, which was heavily influenced (by) tribal music — a mix of tribal and metal music was a completely new thing, and we went into completely unknown territory when we did it, and the results were amazing," said Max.

"And we finally got compliments from the likes of Dave Grohl (Nirvana, Foo Fighters) and Lemmy from Motörhead, my idols praising my work. That's really cool.

"If you do it with passion - you just have to have passion for what you're doing - and sometimes you have to go into this unknown territory and just see what happens," he continued.

"And don't be afraid, just do it. And sometimes you'll fail, and sometimes you won't — sometimes that's great. And sometimes controversial. And that's okay.

"Some people love Roots; some people hate Roots. Some people just love the old stuff. Some people want me to play like I did when I was 15. I can't do it all the time.

"That's what I think people don't understand," Max added. "Music is a huge landscape. There's so much we can do with it. It's endless. That's the cool thing. There's so much more you can explore and do different things with. Why do the same thing over and over again?"

Roots with Chaos AD (1993), considered Sepultura's most commercially successful release, having been certified gold in 2005 by the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) for US shipments of over 500,000 copies.