Sepultura drummer Igor Cavelera came to Australia on his lonesome earlier this year to check out the scene, hang out with his surfer mates - and to do the odd interview. He was accosted by REDmen Ben and Glen, who found him to be a tops bloke. Here are some of Igor's pearls, in Igor-style English . . . .

On the name of the latest album - Roots:

The name wasn't on purpose, it was something we came up with by accident; we didn't want to revolve everything on the album around the name, but at the same time, all the stuff we were doing had something to do with 'Roots'. It has a lot of different meanings for us - not just the fact that we're bringing Brazilian roots elements to our music, but it has to do with the fact we've been together for so many years it has like a 'root' feeling. The whole vibe on this album is about being Sepultura for so long. and about bringing new elements to the music. But it's still Sepultura, it's still powerful, heavy the way we were 10 years ago.

On bringing in the Brazilian rhythms:

Bringing in the tribal beats and the brazilian influences, for me, as a drummer, feels really natural. I was playing those rhythms before playing metal, so I feel more comfortable playing those beats than trying to be a metal drummer. A few years ago I was trying to do all the double bass, all the crazy shit. It's just great you know, just natural, it's inside me you know. It's part of me, those rhythms.

On banging a tank for Roots:

It's a propane tank we have in the studio. The producer we had, Ross Robinson, let us do anything we wanted; we could experiment with some crazy shit. So once we were fucking around in the studio and I saw this tank and it was this weird sound and I said 'Fuck we got to put this in the album', and he was the first to say 'Get the mics, let's do this'. All kinds of stuff we'd come up with in the studio and he was really cool - he'd say 'right get the mics an let's do it'.

On the primitive/hi-tech contradiction in 'Roots':

I think when we did this album we went from one extreme to the other. We recorded with the Xavante tribe. We used car batteries because there was no electricity at all in the tribe. It was really primitively done - a little 8-track with microphones to record what we were playing. And then when we got to work with DJ Lethal from House of Pain. He sampled the band from studio recordings and put together a whole song on computers and drum loops - just going crazy on technology. We enjoyed both parts of it. We're not going to just go nuts on samplers, or go really radical where you can't use any samplers. I think you've got to celebrate both of them - both have good and bad aspects.

On auditioning producers and choosing 25-year old Ross Robinson:

We had a few producers come to the pre-production in Phoenix when we were finishing the album. We presented the songs to a few producers, one at a time, of course. A lot of them had the attitude of, 'alright, you did the songs, I'll record it and put it out'. And Ross had a different attitude, like 'Wowo, we can do so much with feedback and experiment with the drum sounds', and we were like 'That's it man! We want someone who can get even more out of our music besides just us playing the music'. He wanted this album to build like a pyramid, in his own words: 'something that would last a long time'. So that years from now we'll listen back and say 'Fuck that's a great album'.

On the band being together for 14 years and still working well together:

Yeah, being together for such a long time, you got to have a lot of respect for each other, you know, that's the main thing, the respect. Respecting the good sides and bad sides of each person in the band, you know. It's like you're married to the other guys in the band - you just don't fuck them! Other than that, you're on the bus 24 hours a day, you're on stage you're fucking sharing all your feelings with them.

On the political viewpoints expressed in Sepultura's music:

When we get involved with the political side - being critical of something, it's usually like a point of view rather than doing research on something a guy in government did. It's more like a scream, it's like a punk attitude you know. We don't sit back and say 'we should research on this before we say something about it'. It's more like, 'Fuck it man, that's it', you know. We think that's wrong and if someone doesn't agree with it, we don't care.

On the absence of guitar solos in Brujeria (Igor's side project):

I'm the kind of person who likes music, I don't like musicians. I don't agree with music for musicians. I think the whole virtuosy thing becomes like masturbation. I hate all that stuff. so the less guitar solos for me, the better.

On Brujeria in general:

Brujeria's a tough spot, man. It's a project that involved a lot of people, a lot of crazy people. It's about freedom, about really saying what you want to say, so if you get a hold of the lyrics from Brujeria, and you translate them, don't take them too seriously, they're just taking the piss out everyone.

On future Sepultura projects:

We haven't stopped yet to think what's going to be next for us, as far as writing goes. We felt like 'Chaos AD' was the beginning of what we have on 'Roots'. We don't know what's going to happen after 'Roots', but we're always going to try to keep our music as live as possible, with a lot of interest. We saw a lot of metal bands growing up with us having a lot of fear, of new elements to their music, of trying new things, so we don't want to have that feeling. We want to be as free as possible to do whatever we want and still feel proud of it. Not to please anyone besides us and whoever else understands what Sepultura is about.

On Sepultura's world tour:

It's going to be crazy - we're going to try to play as many places as we can in as little time as possible. It's going to be: Australia, South America, America, Brazil - all the places we think it's really important to return to, and also the places we haven't been yet that we hope will be with this album.

On why they used Satanic references:

It's because we're always trying something new, you know. When we get sick of something, we bring something new to the music. The whole satanic thing we took as a joke. For us, it was as stupid as the whole Catholic point of view - it's just funny. We've never been serious about it, we never prayed for Satan. It was a way to freak people out, especially in Brazil. Even the name 'Sepultura' is a really strong name - it means 'grave' and old ladies would run away when they saw our posters and shit. We started the band when we were 14, there was nothing better than to have people freak out over what you're doing.

On the scene in Brazil:

Brazil is crazy, it's a different scene. We're really proud of the fact that we don't need MTV; we don't need all the radio stations playing metal music, hardcore music; we found out all that growing up in Brazil by ourselves, by our own sources of music - underground fanzines, trading letters with fans from all over the world. Even Australia. Back then we had letters from fans who found out about Sepultura somehow - maybe from Satan . . . . But it's like that, we're really proud of not having the scene. You know - you find out how you should dress or what music you should listen to by watching MTV or some shit like that.

O n their relationship with the Brazilian Government:

A s far as the government goes, they know what's up with us and our lyrics; it's even funny. It's kind of like a Charles Manson situation, where they can't do anything about him because if they do, they only make it worse - they make him into a martyr, like Jesus or something. So with Sepultura they know we touch some of the stuff that they don't want us to be talking about. And we know a lot of people whose parents have disappeared for the wrong things they said and being in the wrong place. With Sepultura, they're a bit sketchy about it 'cos they know if they fuck with us people are going to go crazy in Brazil. So it's kind of like, they know what's up with Sepultura, but they can't do nothing yet, to fuck with us.

On Sepultura and the Internet:

I t's crazy - some fan in Germany put some stuff on - like the whole discography and everything. I find it kind of interesting in a way. It's cool, 'cos it's an easy way to communicate, all over the world. Even though in Brazil most people don't have a computer, I still think it's cool. It's going to also bring a new perspective to music, where people can find out about music with out going to a shop or buying a record.

On choosing support bands:

We always like to bring new bands with us - bands that we think will give our fans a chance to listen to some new music. It goes from RDP, a Brazilian band we tour with a lot in South America, to Biohazard, Clutch in America, to European bands. When we get a tour together that's the first thing that we start thinking: what band we want to take with us. It's always fun to have one great band to make us work harder to have one great show for the night, not just have an opening act. You want someone who will fucking go off, just like you, you know.

On stage diving:

I do a lot of it in Brazil - no rules; with skate bars, there's no helmets. It's your fault. There's no American law suit madness. With stage-diving, you're free to do it; if you fuck up it's your own fucking head.

On your change of record companies:

We had distribution through Epic. We thought it would be cool to have them distribute our album, to have our album everywhere would be great. But as far as promotion went, they didn't do anything. They were just sitting around waiting for the album to go gold. While with Roadrunner, since they were still our label, they were working a lot harder than Epic for us. That was stupid, that was bullshit. We all saw a lot of bands that we knew going to a bigger label and they got dropped right away 'cos the label didn't want to work the band, they just wanted a result right away.

On mixing influences in their music:

It's about mixing our influences with European influences. Because in Brazil it's a mixture of white, black and native, so for us there's no way to deny as Brazilians that we have those influences, but at the same time we like to mix that with the whole western part of it. It's part of us too, it's all part of us.

On bands in general bringing their 'roots' into their music:

I think it's really positive. I think a lot of bands are trying to experiment with their roots and I think it'll be positive in Australia too. If hardcore bands, or any bands, bring some of their own culture into the music then it will be more interesting. We try to do that and I think it's endless, what we can do with the music that we have. We can always try new stuff, go back to the old stuff, always keep our music vibrating, always exciting to hear. That's the main thing for us - I don't think we'll run out of ideas too soon.