Cavalera Bros. Name Their Favorite Albums When They Were Teens

Max and Iggor Cavalera co-founded Sepultura in Brazil in 1984, influenced by a myriad of different styles popular in rock and metal’s mainstream as well as the underground. Taking us back to those earliest days, each brother has picked five of their favorite albums when they were teenagers.

There has been lot of reflection going on in the Cavalera camp over the last few years, even as the brothers have also fixed their sights on the future with numerous releases coming from each by way of Soulfly, Killer Be Killed, Go Ahead and Die, Absent in Body, DEAFBRICK, PETBRICK, and still more.

It can be difficult to keep up with all the happenings as of late, especially as not all pertains to the studio. Max and Iggor, after a successful tour celebrating the anniversary of Sepultura’s 1996 album Roots Bloody Roots in 2016, will look even further back into their past on their 2022 U.S. tour (May 22 through June 25) that will exclusively feature songs from 1989’s Beneath the Remains and 1991’s Arise, two more of Sepultura’s most classic records.

There’s also a new Soulfly album, Totem, arriving this summer and, even sooner, is a retrospective box set, The Soul Remains Insane, which collects the band’s first four studio albums.

Back to the task at hand — a glimpse at life as headbanging teenagers — Max said he and Iggor grew up with a lot of Italian opera being played in the family home. “My father was Italian and he had a large collection of Italian opera vinyl albums, but I also found in his collection Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin IV,” Max recalled.

Iggor gravitated toward drums at the early age of six and noted, “My dad and grandpa played the acoustic guitar and sang,” strengthening the family’s ties to music overall. “My grandfather was a painter and my mom was a model. Art was in the Cavalera blood,” added Max.

Still, plundering dad’s vinyl selection didn’t satisfy the brothers’ need for harder and heavier music, so they pursued other avenues of music discovery, from fanzines to record stores, as Iggor mentioned while Max shouted out two record shops — Woodstock in Sao Paulo and Cogumelo in Belo Horizonte — in particular, the latter of which also served as Sepultura’s early label home before they inked a deal with Roadrunner Records.

Learn all about the Cavalera brothers favorite albums when they were teenagers directly below.