In a recent interview with Project Backstage, the former Sepultura lead singer and the current lead singer of Soulfly Max Cavalera discussed his inclination to touch upon societal and political matters in his music while revealing one thing about writing lyrics: he finds them like torture. During the new interview, he shared his thoughts on the lyrics and compared them to playing guitar:
“Well, I’m gonna start by saying I hate writing lyrics. I never liked it. It’s like homework. I like riffs. I’m a guitar player. When I’m with my guitar, I can go for hours, and it’s great, just jamming. But making lyrics is like torture, a little bit, but good stuff comes out of it.”
Over the years, he focused more on the political themed lyrics. He explained while touching on the lyrics he wrote for his former band Sepultura:
“And I became, through the years, a little bit more political and more aware of the world and so I started making more political records, maybe like ‘Chaos A.D.,’ ‘Roots,’ the Soulfly stuff, talking about slavery, talking about superstitious stuff, prophecies and things like that.”
Cavalera Likes Riffs More Than Lyrics
Even though he openly stated that he does not like writing lyrics at all, he is aware that the audience enjoys them. Still, his favorite thing to do in the band, in his words, is riffs. He said:
“Yeah, I don’t like to do it. I do it like in a torturous way, but I like the result, because when you hear the crowd singing, it’s there and you got the message across. But it’s not my favorite thing to do. My favorite thing is riffs.”
Cavalera’s Thoughts On Involving Politics In Music
While some musicians disagree with the idea of involving politics in their music, some strongly support this idea. Cavalera, too, is on the side of people who agree with this opinion. While he acknowledges that some people might not want to hear political topics and lyrics in music, the rocker’s background has a lot of involvement with politics, thus leading him to write political-themed lyrics. He continued in the same interview:
“If you pay attention to the lyrics… A lot of people, they just wanna rock out, and that’s okay too. But I come from… My background, I grew up listening to a lot of punk stuff, and a lot of punk stuff had a lot to say; they’re very politically charged. And I think because of that, some of my stuff became kind of like that. But it’s also simple. I don’t try to be something I’m not. I write in a very simple way that anybody — it’s direct, it’s very direct, so anybody can understand.”
You can see the latest interview below.
