“You’re feeding off each other to create music” – Max Cavalera shares his mutual influences with Korn and Deftones

Former Sepultura and current Soulfly and Cavalera Conspiracy frontman Max Cavalera talked about the 30th anniversary of Korn’s self-titled debut album and how it affected him before the release of Sepultura’s “Roots” album in a recent interview with Joshua Toomey of the “Talk Toomey” podcast. 

Yeah, [it’s] very nostalgic. I remember Dana coming home — Dana is of course Gloria’s son [killed] in ’96. And Dana coming home with the promo of both records, Korn, I think he had a one-song promo, and he had Deftones’ ‘Adrenaline’. And I listened to both. I had no idea who those bands are. I even joked, with Dana, about the names. Korn, that’s a weird name, man. I don’t think that’s gonna fly. How wrong was I? But, yeah, I loved the music for real. Especially recording ‘Roots’ and ‘Soulfly’, a lot of times, in the car, going in the studio, going up in Malibu, I was blasting, yeah, first KORN a lot, Deftones’ ‘Adrenaline’, and I got to be part of the second, ‘Around The Fur’, which is one of my favorite records of all time. That record is so good, man. It’s so killer. I still today, I listen to that and just go, ‘Whoa, what a banger of an album.’ But, yeah, the first Korn is the same. It’s an incredible record. It has a lot of emotion, but it’s balls-heavy too. The grooves are fucking great — great grooves on that record. It’s so fun to know from them, talking to Jonathan and talking to Fieldy, they let me know that they were totally into ‘Chaos A.D.’ when they made the first Korn record. And they listened to ‘Chaos A.D.’ a lot. That’s a beautiful thing, man. It’s a beautiful thing. The music, the exchange of influences, and you’re feeding off each other to create music. And that’s how it should be, man. And you should never shy away from being inspired or inspiring people. I think, forever, it always will be cool. I’m inspired by stuff all the time. And I love the fact that my stuff has inspired a lot of other people as well. So it’s definitely a great record. If people watching this have not checked out the record, go check that out. Check out that, check out ‘Soulfly’ and check out Deftones’ ‘Around The Fur’. That’s a great way to start.