“If you told teenage me, ‘One day Ozzy will tell you to keep making music,’ I’d have slapped you!” Ozzy Osbourne encouraged Max Cavalera to carry on after leaving Sepultura
· louderBy Matt Mills
( Metal Hammer )
published 2 October 2024
Max Cavalera entered a six-month depression after quitting Sepultura in 1996, and he credits his wife and The Prince Of Darkness with lifting him back up
Max Cavalera has said that Ozzy Osbourne encouraged him to keep making music after leaving Sepultura.
The Brazilian metal star, who formed Sepultura in 1984 and quit in 1996, makes the revelation during an exclusive interview with Metal Hammer. Cavalera says that he entered a six-month-long depression after his exit from the band, during which time he didn’t want to write songs. However, pep talks from his wife Gloria and The Prince Of Darkness himself eventually motivated him to return to music.
The singer/guitarist tells Hammer: “One of the main factors [that got me back to making music] was family: having a strong family, especially my wife. Gloria was really the one who motivated me to get back at it and do what I was put on Earth to do.”
He continues by revealing the encouragement Osbourne gave him, which came during a dinner at the Black Sabbath singer’s home. “Funnily enough, also Ozzy,” Cavalera says. “I have to thank Ozzy Osbourne. We had a dinner in his house here in England and he was one of the guys who told me, ‘Fuck it! It’s up to you to get back at it!’
“It was like, ‘Man, if you told teenage Max that Ozzy one day is gonna be giving you advice to keep playing music, I’d have slapped you!’ I wouldn’t have believed you, but he did. Coming from him, I can’t let this [go]. If my wife and Ozzy are asking me to play music again, I have to fucking do it! Ha ha! It doesn’t get better than that, you know?”
In 1998, Cavalera released his first post-Sepultura album: the self-titled debut of his still-active extreme metal band Soulfly. It was a fast hit, reaching the top 20 in five countries and spawning the beloved singles Eye For An Eye and Bleed.
“Once I did it, I felt the confidence come back,” Cavalera remembers of making his comeback record. “For a period of six months, I had no confidence. I felt like I was total shit, just garbage, nothing I do matters. That’s a really crazy place to be when you’re a musician.”
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He adds: “Once I made Soulfly, it was really fun to create. I found the right guys and we went into the studio together, kind of like ‘us against the world’. It reminded me a little bit of the beginning of Sepultura.”
Cavlera finishes by calling Soulfly “one of the most pivotal records I ever created”. “Without that record being successful, I wouldn’t be here talking to you,” he says.
Soulfly have now released 12 albums, the latest being 2022’s Totem. In a recent interview, Cavalera said he’s starting to think about album 13 and hopes to bring the band back to their tribal- and nu metal-tinged roots.
“Because I do have stuff like [side-projects] Go Ahead And Die and Cavalera [with Max’s drummer brother Iggor Cavalera] to satisfy my extreme underground flavour, I can actually let Soulfly be Soulfly again,” he told Metal Express Radio (via Blabbermouth). “Let it be what it was in the beginning, which is this really powerful, free band with a lot of heavy tribal parts. We kind of went away from that, and I think it’s cool to return to that all those years later.”
Metal Hammer recently caught up with Cavalera at a Soulfly show and asked him to name the five songs that have defined his career. Find out what he picked by watching the video below.
Max Cavalera on the songs that defined his career - including Sepultura, Soulfly, Nailbomb and more - YouTube
Matt Mills
Contributing Editor, Metal Hammer
Louder’s resident Gojira obsessive was still at uni when he joined the team in 2017. Since then, Matt’s become a regular in Prog and Metal Hammer, at his happiest when interviewing the most forward-thinking artists heavy music can muster. He’s got bylines in The Guardian, The Telegraph, NME, Guitar and many others, too. When he’s not writing, you’ll probably find him skydiving, scuba diving or coasteering.
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