In this brutally honest part 3 of our Discography series with SOULFLY, Max Cavalera lays down his own disappointment in the band’s third album ‘3’ and his joy in the writing and recording of the bands follow-up to that ‘Prophecy’.

If you missed yesterday’s discussion of ‘Primative’ CLICK HERE.

3
‘3’ for me is the weakest Soulfly album. It’s an uninspired name, I don’t know what the fuck I was thinking. The original name was ‘Downstroy’, but I think out of laziness I changed it.

Out of that album, two things came out good. ‘Seek and Strike’, which we still play live and which has a great bouncy riff, and ‘Last of the Mohicans’ (called ‘L.O.T.M.’ on the album itself). Everything else on that record is really not that good. I think it was a little bit rushed, and I wasn’t very inspired. Normally I’m very inspired to do every album, but I don’t I was fully committed.

It was a strange time, it was right after September 11, so we had a minute’s silence in the middle of the album which I thought was a cool idea. A lot of people were doing songs about September 11, I chose to do the minute of silence for the victims of the attack.

It proved to be the weakest album, and the one where everyone bailed on me. The whole band just took off and I was on my own again, which was the best thing that happened for Soulfly cos that was when I got Marc (Rizzo) on board.

PROPHECY
‘Prophecy’ came out like a big revelation for everybody, it was a great album. I was back, my creative shit was back again, and it turned out to be a great record with songs like ‘Prophecy’, ‘Living Sacrifice’, and ‘Mars’ with the flamenco jam that Marc does every night.

I went to Serbia to record with Eyesburn, where we did one of the first metal/dub/reggae songs, called ‘Moses’. There’s a professor of music who played bagpipes and all these weird instruments which I think was really cool, and Dave Ellefson from Megadeth played bass on three tracks.

In the end, I think that’s where you can hear the first signs that we’re going heavier. There was a ‘the heavier the better’ attitude and that was the case.

We recorded that album in Mesa, Phoenix again. A better studio, but the same shitty place. We had a proper place this time – no motorhome – and the studio had a couch, TV, popcorn machine…!

We went back because it was a really good studio. The owner was a fan so he wanted us to record there, and he was a huge Beatles fan so he’d got to meet Sean Lennon when we recorded ‘3’. I think that made his life! Literally, the guy couldn’t speak when Sean Lennon was around, he was paralysed. He did us a great deal on the price too.

Soulfly’s current album OMEN is in stores now. Pick it up online HERE.

It’s time for part 3 of the fantastic Track by Track chat we had with GRAND MAGUS frontman JB! In this series, he has been talking us through the tracks on the band’s brand new album Hammer Of The North.

In this clip, JB tells us about ‘Northern Star’ which he calls the “fastes siong {they} have ever done”, a song that “deals with struggle and the fight for power within yourself” and ‘Lord Of Lies’, a track he proclaims “a bit of a departure for the band”.

Click on the player to watch / listen to part three. If you want to checdk out parts 1 and 2, click on the links below:

PART 2
PART 1

You can pick up the album online

The nominees have been announced in this years Relentless Energy Drink Kerrang! Awards and Roadrunner’s very own DOMMIN and SLIPKNOT are up for awards this year!

Voting has now opened and you can vote for Dommin in the ‘Best International Newcomer’ category and Slipknot in ‘Best Single’ (for ‘Snuff) by heading to THIS LOCATION.

So, if you’re a Dommin or Slipknot fan- GET VOTING!

The awards show is set to take place at a secret location in London on Thursday, July 29th and will be hosted by Corey Taylor and Scott Ian.

Mary Wollstonecraft may be turning in her grave but we’re getting great feedback from folks about the new video from Aussie rockers AIRBOURNE, which features the guys on board a ‘TnA’ flight to racing hormones!

July 4th see’s the release of the first single from MURDERDOLLS’ forthcoming release WOMEN AND CHILDREN LAST but we are giving you the opportunity to download the track for free for a limited time!

Check out the stunning artwork for 36 CRAZYFISTS forthcoming album COLLISIONS AND CASTAWAYS, which sees a release in the UK July 26th.

In this part of our track by track chat with GRAND MAGUS metal master JB, we learn about the nightmarish recording process of Hammer Of The North track ‘Black Sails’- a recording process that nearly caused JB and producer Nico Elgstrand to come to blows! He also fills us in about the spic ‘Mountains Be My Throne’.

If you missed part 1, check it out here.

Hammer Of The North landed in stores yesterday, so you can pop out and grab your copy now- or stay nice and comfy where you are and order online HERE.

Yesterday we kicked off our SOULFLY discography series with a a chat with Max Cavalera about the bands debut self titled release. Below, we continue the walk through the band’s career as Max talks about Primitive, an album he describes as a ‘creative record’ and all the guest appearances on the record.

‘Primitive’ was a guest album! I still don’t know how I pulled all these people together. We had so many people on that one album, and they all flew in for it.

Sean Lennon stayed at my house for five days to record one song. We went out to the desert – he’d never been in the desert before – and went off-road driving with him. We wrote the beginning of the song (‘Son Song’) in the middle of the desert with acoustic guitars, his part was more like a rock part. We did our parts in the studio.

The album was recorded in Mesa, which is a fucked-up suburb of Phoenix. It’s a ‘white-power’ place, everyone is either a redneck or a recovering drug addict- that’s the vibe of the place. We had a motorhome parked in front of the studio, that was where we hung out the whole time. On the song ‘Mulambo’ – which has about a hundred people singing the chorus – we had so many friends come down we had to record in a parking lot behind the studio!

Tom Araya from Slayer came down twice. He came down the first time and didn’t finish his vocals, he wasn’t ready with the lyrics, so he flew back the next week and finished off ‘Terrorist’, then we had Chino again with Grady from Will Haven for the song ‘Pain’.

We also had Corey from Slipknot doing ‘Jumpdafuckup’. That was one of the coolest days, because Slipknot were playing in Phoenix that day – that’s how we got to do that recording – we called Roadrunner and said we wanted Corey on the album. At that time because of the masks no-one knew what they looked like, so I went with my friend in the car and we kidnapped him from his soundcheck, he told the Slipknot guys he’d be back later. He stayed four hours with us and we recorded that song. Then that night we went to see Slipknot for the first time and they blew me away, it was intense. That was a great time.

There was also a hip hop band on there too, an underground Phoenix band called Cutthroat Logic, who played on the track ‘In Memory Of…’ which was about Dana. They were really cool, straight-up, ghetto, hip hop guys. Really rough but really nice guys, you wouldn’t want to fuck with them though! The producer was watching his back the whole time in the studio!

The album was produced by Toby Wright, who’s more famous for doing stuff with Alice in Chains and Metallica – he did ‘…And Justice For All’. He’s very professional, and everybody really enjoyed working with him.

A lot of people criticised that record, they didn’t get the guest appearances. The press murdered the album, they didn’t understand why we had all the guests. I think it’s a very creative record and I’m proud of it, and it took balls to record with Sean Lennon and Tom Araya, I guess that was pretty extreme!

If you missed part 1, you can catch that HERE. Previous Discographies and our other regular features can be founf this location.

Soulfly’s current album OMEN is in stores now. Pick it up online HERE.

In need of a does of some seriously heavy metal??

Tomorrow (June 22nd), 4pm UK time, right here at Roadrunner UK is where you need to be for your chance to download the forthcoming single from MURDERDOLLS.

July 4th will see the band release their first single from forthcoming album ‘Women And Children Last’ but we are giving you the chance to download the track- My Dark Place Alone- for FREE!