Metal has always been a refuge from which you draw strength: some of our most iconic and powerful moments were birthed from heartbreak, pain, rage and frustration. No one knew that feeling more than Max Cavalera in 1998, as he prepared to embark on a new journey into music.
“It was a really weird time for me,” he tells us today. “It was my first album since leaving Sepultura and the first album after the death of my stepson, Dana [Wells, who was killed in a car accident two years earlier]. The first thing I did after that was work with Deftones, who were friends of Dana. They were there at his funeral – Chino [Moreno, frontman] was actually one of the pallbearers. They invited me to sing the song Headup on Around The Fur, and that is when I came up with the word ‘Soulfly’ [‘Soulfly / Fly high / Soulfly / Fly free’]. It all just started from there. I put the first Soulfly album together pretty quickly; I had demos like Eye For An Eye and No Hope = No Fear, but while we were in the studio I felt that I needed to pay more respects to Dana. So, I thought of Bleed, because that was how we were all feeling. We were all still suffering, still bleeding, from his death.”
