We all settled in quickly and got down to business. Andy is very professional and smooth to work with. He has a great deal of enthusiasm and is very knowledgeable about the recording process. Trusty. That's the word. You know you are going to get a monster out of him!! He had recorded many projects at Rockfield and was very relaxed there! It was his suggestion to record there and we were like teenagers in our anticipation!!
Andreas recording
I spent most of my time on the phone or doing bookwork. Planning the recording, the release, promotions, tours and tour merch, would take all day and night. A manager works every day at unGodly hours, believe me. Events just spring up and things need to be recalculated quickly! This curbed my drinking alcohol abilities greatly and I had to keep shizzle together all the time. It was all cool! I was made for my life! My partner in the studio was little Zyon. We were inseparable and spent the days exploring the property whenever I could get a dip in the action. Max would cruise to the apartment in between his recording stretches also. Never a boring moment. LIFE was in the air!!
Me feeding Zyon
Soon Roxanne, Richie and Jason joined us for the adventure. Dana stayed home and kept the house together. Christina and Alex also popped in for a visit with the drummer of Fudge Tunnel, Adrian.
Alex Newport, Christina Max and Zyon and Adrian the FT drummer
The kids went wild! They were especially fond of the big field that ran along the side of the compound. It was rumored to have a ghost living in the boundary so the kids always had the edge of a creepy feeling accompany them when they rumbled there. Max and the other guys would also play soccer in the field. In the late evening and early morning, a low, thick, vampirish fog would creep in and settle for the night, washing away in the morning with the sun's arrival.
The studio was a playground also, with pool tables and gear. There was a piano in one room that Queen recorded the Bohemian Rhapsody on. It got a constant beating from the teeny invaders. One big happy community!
Richie in the studio on guitar
Zyon in the studio
One day, Max, Igor, Andreas and Silvio walked a ways to pop in to the studio Black Sabbath was recording in. No one was there but the gear was all spread out. Max and the guys stole all the BS picks they could see and laughed their asses off, telling me about it!
Recording was a long process so sometimes I would drive into the village with the kids and walk around, window shopping. The first time I pulled out onto the street I did not go on the other side of the road and nearly had a head-on collision! One time was all I needed to remind me and I never did it again!
Lots of stories about the songs, but one that stands out is when they were recording WE WHO ARE NOT AS OTHERS. The guys all laughed for a couple minutes, each of them individually, and Andy recorded it and jumbled it all together at the end of the song. On the song MANIFEST, Max wanted to sound like an old time radio broadcast so Andy made his voice sound like that on the song.
One day I was walking near the Rolls Royce and Max stopped me. "I have the name of the record." I waited for him to spill the beans. "I am going to call it CHAOS AD." It was brilliant...
One minute we were all laughing and loving at
our wedding!! 12 hours later, we were all crying and tense. Did all the 6's in
a row curse our family? Did we laugh at the warnings, the coincidences? Because
of the upcoming Sepultura recording schedule, there was only one weekend to
have our wedding. 6-6-93 was our wedding date. 6:00pm was the time of the
wedding. Our friend, Eddie, pointed out that the wedding was at 6-6-9 minus
3=6...6-6-6. We laughed and shrugged it off. Party as planned.
The phone woke me in the morning at the hotel.
Mr. and Mrs. Max Cavalera snuggled up for the first night of the rest of their
lives, jolted awake by the phone. I looked at the time..6:00am. Christina's
nervous voice startled me. "Mom I have a big problem." The baby
didn't feel right; something was wrong. I asked my brother Paul to take her to
emergency and we would head to the hospital immediately.
I walked into the hospital and hours later,
helped deliver my first grandchild. Adam died in the hospital from a doctor's
bad call. How could this be happening? The world was spinning around me.
Instead of welcoming my sweet heir, I had to arrange a funeral. A tiny,
delicate funeral was in our stars.
Christina, Alex, and Baba
Only a few days passed and Max, baby Zyon and I
flew to Wales to begin the next recording with Sepultura and Andy Wallace. We
arranged for all the kids, Christina and Alex also, to join us. Maybe it would
break this depression! It didn't feel right but hope was our companion, for
lack of another solution.
Sepultura had considered working with Garth
Richardson, who had just done the Rage Against the Machine record. He came to
Phoenix to meet everyone. Bob Rock was also interested but he looked so much
like a surfer and we didn't really want to be associated with Bon Jovi, that it
made us all laugh! In the end, it was legendary Andy Wallace who travelled to
Phoenix for rehearsals. He sat in the jampad and made notes on each track. This
impressed all of us! He suggested we record in Wales at Rockfield Studios. The
place was such a legend, how could we resist?
Me arriving at the studio
This was the first record Max had written music
for using a 4-track machine at home. He made tapes which he took to the jam pad
to show the guys. Refuse, Resist, Propaganda and parts of Territory were all
birthed in this manner. Some months before, on an Australian tour, Max called
Andreas to our room and asked him to write with him in this new manner. Max
played him an instrumental he had just written. Andreas was very quiet and
somber. "We don't write like this," he commented and left the room.
"Yes, I do," Max replied to deaf ears. The instrumental was to become
Soulfly I, but of course, we never realized this at the time.
Andreas and Iggor moving in
Iggor
Paulo
Rockfield was like a compound out in the Welsh
countryside. A courtyard surrounded by ancient brick walls...little rooms
enclosed, all in a row. Max and I took a 2 level, one bedroom apartment. It was
the exact room Freddie Mercury, Robert Plant and Ozzy had all stayed in when
they created their masterpieces. We were all speechless from amazement! They
brought us a little baby bed for Zyon and we placed it under the bedroom
skylight. We all settled in.
Andreas livin' large!
Baby Z
The catering was frikken great! What can I say?
Traditional English food three times a day. The team of cooks were all
fantastic women who worked morning to night, serving us delectables from the
cookbooks of the UK!! Fresh cafeterias of coffee with English breakfast,
English cheeses and meats for lunch and steamy hot slabs of English lamb or
cottage pie for dinner. This was the rockstar life!! We were sampling it all!! Rockers
need energy!!
Me and baby Z
Catering ladies
The first morning came and the guys started
getting their tones. Andy's excitement and professionalism was infecting each
of us. This was gonna be sick!! The first release on Epic Records was also the
first record with high expectations to shatter the Metal world. There were a
few internal problems beginning, Max and I could feel it. We chose to push our
concerns away...surely we were wrong. How could anyone be unhappy about small
ridiculous points when everything was so perfect??
Studio time
Max
Max and Andy
You will find out…
Next week...recording is a locomotive running
free!!
We were coming off the Ozzy, Alice In Chains and Sepultura Tour. I was pregnant with Zyon and starting to show. Max and I were not yet married, but very happy. Things were poppin'. Ministry had contacted our agent and we were gearing up to complete the Ozzy Tour and move on to Ministry.
Max
Merch booth
No tour is complete without a happy ending! Sharon always has the best climax, don't you agree? After one tour, she treated us all to the Jim Rose Circus and a buffet; once a party at the Ritz Carlton (Didn't Chris Holmes come on the bus waiting to beat up Tony Iommi over Lita Ford??? Oh another class...) and the best spread EVER!! She is a goddess indeed. This particular tour encore just happened to be the reunion of Ozzy with Black Sabbath and Sepultura was on the bill!! Could Life get any better?
Jason enjoying the show from front stage
Dana
We flew the kids out because this was going to be historic. They had walked every step of the way with us and they were not missing out on this landslide! Dana was ecstatic when we were all allowed to sit on Stage Right and watch the show!
Black Sabbath
Black Sabbath
Black Sabbath
Black Sabbath
Black Sabbath
We had the best show and the day was a riot! We ran around the backstage trying to get a glimpse of the Fab Four, sneaking photos and generally acting like possessed fans! At the party later, Nino our soundman drank Mr Lifto's stomach bile. No kids allowed at that party!!
Dana and Zakk Wylde
Tony and Geezer with Andreas and Paulo in the background
From an early age, Zyon and Igor began forming bands. One group,
Hell's Aliens was born and even went so far as to have shirts made.The boys were learning their
instruments.Zyon was attracted to
drums and making beats immediately, while Igor had to find his nitch.He was fluent playing bass, guitar, and
a bit in the future, drums also.He had a vast vocabulary and extremely developed memory, and began
throwing lyrics down on paper.His
drumming skills were amazing.Not
super powerful shoulder maestro-ing like Zyon, but precise drumbeats,
impeccable timing, comparable to using a click track...but not using one.We realized this on the CC tour when he
asked if he could play Troops of Doom, at a very young age.
Hell's Aliens
Hell's Aliens
2008 or 2009, Max and I went to the desert house for the weekend
and the boys asked if they could stay at the Phoenix home.We normally didn't do this but decided
to give them our trust and headed out.When we returned 2 days later, we walked in to a big surprise!The living room had been transformed
into a jam pad and the boys had a friend joining them on guitar!And you know what, my Students???They were good!I was totally blown away by the riffs
they were spewing out!
Time went by and the boys could not find a bass player.One day, their friend, Shea aka SHANKS
Fahey was chilling at the house and the boys looked at him and said, "F#@$
it!! You are playing bass!"Max promptly took Shanks in the back room and gave him a quick 10 minute
lesson and he came out a bass player!!He learned a couple riffs that day, good enough to grab him a spot on
the lineup!
Papos, the guitarist, knew a friend who could sing and we
brought him over for a tryout. This kid could scream, sing, jump in the air,
and was damn good looking!Perfect
for the vocalist!!
went to Guitar Center one day and bought a ton of soundproofing
and got busy making one of the bedrooms in to a jam room.It was tiny but served the purpose
well.
The band wrote enough music
to play a 20 minute set, so I snooped around town and got them on a few local
gigs.I learned quickly about
paying to play as I was handed large amounts of tickets to sell, for each
gig.I have loads of friends so
the ticket selling wasn't so bad actually.The frightening thing was the shows!!
Moldbreaker
Moldbreaker
Moldbreaker
Moldbreaker
Every show was total
insanity. Even Max was scared to see what would happen whenever the boys took
the stage. It took about 2 shows
and I had to replace all the gear!
Amps blown, cymbals shattered, guitar necks broken and mics
smashed!! Not to mention the kids moshing up front getting wound up!
Moldbreaker (Photo by: Glen LaFerman)
After Moldbreaker was
kicked out of every club in Phoenix, I decided to take them outside their
perimeter and added them on 4 shows of the Soulfly US tour. I figured they could be dug by the Cali
crowd, who is so open-minded and adventurous! I enlisted my old friend Mike aka Fatty McArdle to drive my
band of misfits, and to Cali they went!
Moldbreaker flier
By the time they reached
Phoenix, they were crumbling apart.
It was difficult to organize
Moldbreaker because they were all their own
separate identity. They weren't a
unit. There was great promise, I
knew, so I booked one last show and the band split up.
I couldn't stop the ball
from rolling.Zyon, Igor and
Shanks kept practicing. Igor decided he would sing and avoid the trouble of
finding another member.They enlisted
the guitar skills of childhood bro, John Bauer, and soon Lody Kong was
born!The name is taken from a
friend with turrets named Cody Long...they just switched his initials.Pretty ingenious and original, just
like the name Moldbreaker!
T-shirt back
Tour poster
On the 15th anniversary of
Soufly's origin, I made a tour called Maximum Cavalera Tour and put the boy's
bands on with Soulfly. Soulfly,
Incite and Lody Kong was the golden ticket!! The tour was well received and did
4 US/Canadian runs and 12weeks in Europe.
There is NO better way to develop a band besides getting them on the
road! This is where you learn the
ropes, fine tune your songs, learn how to work the crowd...it's a zillion times
better than writing in the confines of a jam pad and playing local gigs that
get you nowhere.
John
Igor
John, and Igor
Zyon, and Shanks
Lody soon received
attention from the European media who sought the unusual, no-category, no-genre
music coming from the 16 year old rebels.
Releasing the acclaimed Monkeys Always Look video sealed their
creativity and got them an offer for a demo deal. Lody Kong recorded an EP with Roy Mayorga, to follow the
video.
Zyon
With Zyon drumming for
Soulfly on the Savages release and the world tour, it has been a juggle for him
to balance the music. In between
tours, the band went in the studio with Phoenix producer, John Gray (Soulfly's
Dark Ages, Cavalera Conspiracy), and recorded a new single, Sum Pulp, which
will come out with a second video in the Spring of 2014. This track will be released via
MinusHead/Megaforce, and will also feature the track, Topaz.
LK
LK in Biarritz, France
Famous cartoonist, Sergio
Zuniga, took the Kong under his wing and designed an artwork vision for them
that is always on the brink of the horizon, never predictable!
