With the recent release of Incite’s All Out War, this morning’s history class will be about Richie Cavalera and his long history in Metal.
At a young age, Richie, is a legend-of-sorts already, first asking for a microphone for Christmas when he was only two years old. I remember him with his hand on the mic stand and one leg in back of the other, headbanging his hawk by the Christmas tree, in the early morning hours.
But, lets go back even further……Richie was born a Boothead, part of the Bootlegger’s family One day, at the age of two days old, he was sleeping in the clubs office, in a snug bassinet, absorbing and growing. Rob Halford, who had recently began hanging out at the bar, came in for a drink. When he heard a newborn baby was in the office, he asked me if he could see him. Rob said he had never seen such a new child. I took him back to the office, and what did he do? Why, he knelt down and gave Richie THE KISS OF METAL! Right in front of my eyes!
By the age of 4 Richie was a full fled Metal Head. Arizona band, Atrophy, chose him to be their model for their Roadrunner Records release, Violent by Nature. Paul Stottler, Sacred Reich’s artist, designed the cover and also did the drawing of Richie on the inside sleeve. This was about the first time I saw Richie sign an autograph, at the Atrophy record release party in Tucson.
His next project was a band called Hell’s Aliens. Richie wrote a song that was quite popular in the neighborhood called Up In Hell, and played guitar left-handed.
With our house turning in to the birthplace of Nailbomb in 1992, Richie got the chance to play feedback on the track Cockroaches. He also performed the only 3 shows ever played y Nailbomb at a small club in Eindhoven Holland, at the Dynamo Festival, and a small festival in Belgium. If you can get your hands on the live Nailbomb at Dynamo DVD, you can catch this rare footage.
Since 2004, Incite has been Richie’s baby, with two releases to date, The Slaughter, and All Out War. When on tour, Richie reaches the roots of his fan base. Selling merch, throwing down with Incite, guest appearing with Soulfly and Cavalera Conspiracy and even driving Incite on an entire tour, has earned Richie the title of Hardest Working Man in Metal.
Class adjourned.
Photo Credit: Glen LaFerman