When Max Cavalera left Sepultura in 1996, the band took on a very different identity. You've heard both sides countless times in various little soundbites, but this in-depth look into how the band functioned, and continues to function, is a pretty cool one. Obviously the whole thing isn't about Max's departure, but this is only the first part of the documentary. Here's am excerpt:
“The year of 1997 was a very difficult one for Sepultura. It was supposed to be the best year of Sepultura, you know cause, ‘Roots‘ was exploding in the world. We already did a Europe tour—Europe and South America. We were ready to go to Australia and Japan. When Max left in December of 1996, everything fell through and fell down actually, you know, didn’t happen.
And me and Iggor, Paolo we stayed together and started to rebuild everything from scratch cause when Max left, he took the management, he took the trust from the label, we didn’t only lose a singer—which was hard enough for any band—but we lost everything that we took ten years to build. Max took it for granted, everybody gave that to him, all the work we did together.
But we started from scratch, we wanted to change the name, you know we wanted to do something else. We came to our senses and talked to a lot of people, lots of fans. We had 3/4th of the band right there so we felt that we still Sepultura was still… The spirit ofSepultura was still there, it didn’t leave. We did a few demos, I was the singer,Roadrunner was really concerned—I wasn’t ready to be the singer of course.
I’m a guitar player, I didn’t want to lose all the energy and time I put on the guitar to be a singer. But it was a great experience never the less, to pass through that dark corridor and find yourself. And you start seeing a lot of doors opening and a lot of windows and light coming in and stuff and then you realize you have a lot of stuff to do instead of being sad and crying over stuff that’s now there anymore.”
[via ThePRP]
