It's been over 40 years since the Cavalera brothers, Max and Iggor, joined forces to form Sepultura in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. Although both brothers have been out of the band for decades by this point, their impact on the metal world remains, Seps never far from the tongues of anyone speaking about the many global metal bands to emerge in the decades since they first rose to acclaim.
So when Botswanan death metallers Overthrust came to London for their first ever UK tour in July, it made perfect sense that they'd hit up Iggor, now based in the city, to play a support slot with them. Hammer caught up with the legendary drummer to talk global metal, legend status and how he's still discovering bands from around the world.
Do you feel an inherent connection to bands from the global south?
“Growing up somewhere like Brazil – and I’d be surprised if it’s not the same in Botswana, culturally there was always a sense of, ‘Oh, they do it better.’ But we were always like, ‘Fuck that. We’re gonna do it as strong as any band in the US, UK or wherever else.’
"For me, that was one of the main drives. It’s one of the things I’m most proud of now in my heritage, that I can see bands from all over the world making incredible music.”
How did you first hear of Overthrust?
“I do a lot of research and Bandcamp is one of my favourite tools. A lot of projects and bands that don’t have a label still put their stuff there and it’s different from Spotify or whatever. Some really good friends send me stuff and one of them sent me Overthrust like, ‘You need to check this out.’ It was so cool to see.”
What makes Overthrust special?
“Overthrust are pushing the limits. In Brazil, especially in the early 80s, it was all about Samba – nobody would talk about metal. To play metal in Brazil at that time was unheard of.
"It reminds me of when Sepultura started out. We didn’t have a background in the arts, so we did it without fear. Whereas in Europe, when they were painting, they’d think of all this heritage and stuff that’s associated with it.”
What are your memories of metal arriving in Brazil did the genre take root through things like radio stations?
“No, it wasn’t radio. It was mostly tape trading – you’d get a tape through, trade that with friends and through that discover this whole new scene of bands. For us, sometimes you’d get a tape that was dubbed two hundred times so it sounded like shit, the quality getting lower and lower with each copy until it sounded evil. It was actually disappointing sometimes to hear the original! ‘My tape sounds better than that!’
"Someone dubbed the Slayer Haunting The Chapel EP for us, and did it at the wrong speed – it should’ve been 45RPM and they did it at regular. So it sounded so slow and for months we thought Slayer had gone doom or something!”
How does it feel that Sepultura are credited with helping spawn the global metal movement?
“That’s what makes me proud; that bands can follow what we did. Not just musically, but in attitude too. That’s the future of music. People who only listen to old stuff are fucking lazy.”
"The first time we came out of Brazil, people were like, ‘What the hell is this?’ We were pushing the limits of music. And I still am now. People know me for metal, but this is an experimental noise thing. It’s all about connection. We were connecting Brazil to Japan, to everywhere. I want to keep my antennas open to new things.”
Is it strange to you that you’ve become the standard setters for global metal?
“Not strange, but it’s very gratifying. I guess bands get the word out the same way we did – I can imagine someone being like, ‘Check out this band, they’re called Sepultura and they’re from Brazil.’ You’d be like, ‘What? There’s no metal in Brazil!’ It set us apart in a weird way, but I like that.
"If I find something that’s a little out of the norm, I tend to pay a little extra attention to it. I don’t listen to something just because they’re from somewhere special, but I understand the struggle of not having nice studios, venues or whatever.”
Why do you think metal translates to so many cultures across the world?
“Metal is its own language. When we played in Brazil in the early 80s, that was just how we wanted to communicate; taking the distortion and beats of a Sabbath or Motorhead and finding our own way to express that.”
Cavalera are on tour now. For the full list of tour dates, visit their official website.
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