“We were like Dime and Vinnie and the Van Halen brothers combined… Then when everything went down, I found out that we were not as close as we thought”: Max Cavalera on Sepultura’s bloody roots, the rise of Soulfly and how metal became the family business

Max Cavalera performs live with a V-style electric guitar and a mic stand decorated with bullets.

A proud and devoted family man, Max Cavalera was flying high in mid-September 1994. He, his wife and manager Gloria, and his brother and Sepultura co-founder Igor Cavalera (drums) had just arrived at the Castle Donington festival grounds in Donington, England, where their band was scheduled to play the Monsters of Rock Festival along with Ozzy Osbourne.

Sepultura were supporting their second major label album Roots, which had been released six months earlier and was considered by many to be a strong contender for metal album of the year. Then, disaster struck. While the three Cavaleras were thinking about the upcoming gig, Gloria’s son (Max’s stepson) Dana Wells was killed in a car accident back at their home in Phoenix.