Max Cavalera has earned the status of one of the greatest idols of Brazilian metal, internationally recognized and admired by many colleagues in the music industry. From Sepultura to Soulfly and Go Ahead and Die , the musician's career and personal life have experienced moments of both ecstasy and bitterness.
In an interview on The Wikimetal Happy Hour , Max was asked to reflect on the advice he would give to a 17-year-old Cavalera, starting a journey without knowing where he would end up.
“What I would say to teenage Max Cavalera is: it’s going to hurt like hell, but you’re going to enjoy it like hell. That kind of thing: it’s not going to be easy. There will be glory, but glory always goes hand in hand with tragedy,” he began. “It’s very strange, why does this happen, right? But I don’t know, it’s part of life.”
Analyzing his own history, the musician exemplified a moment of professional peak accompanied by the tragic death of his stepson Dana Wells, at the age of 21. “Most of my glories are somewhat connected with tragedies. For example, at the height of Roots , celebrating the album and everything, there was the death of Gloria's son,” he recounted. “I never quite had the pleasure of fully celebrating what was happening because of what was happening around me, so with the glory came tragedy at the same time.”
Even with these bittersweet moments, he doesn't regret the journey so far. “It's hard to explain, but I wanted to tell the new Max Calavera that it will hurt and it will be difficult, but there will be a lot of cool things too. It's worth it. For me, that's exactly it. I didn't choose the wrong path, for me it's the right path, the path on the left, going against the flow. (…) It's all part of life, you're learning from all of this and everything is a lesson.”
Roots album period (1996) for Cavalera. “It’s bitter, man. I don’t think I ever really liked what Roots brought because of that. It was broken because of that. But that’s life, man,” he said in an interview with Heavy 1 / Hard Force Radio (via Loudwire).
