Why Did Max Cavalera Leave Sepultura in the ’90s?
After more than a decade in the band and appearing on six studio albums, Max Cavalera left Sepultura in 1996, the same year the group released the groundbreaking tribal groove metal album Roots.
When Was Max Cavalera’s Last Performance With Sepultura?
Max Cavalera played his final show with Sepultura on Dec. 16, 1996 at Brixton Academy in England. The 27-song performance was released as the Under a Pale Grey Sky live album in 2002.
The final song he played with the band was a cover of Motorhead’s “Orgasmatron” as a second encore.
In the shadows of making Roots, trouble was brewing as the band approached a new career peak. Max’s wife, Gloria, had been managing the band and her contract was set to expire near the end of 1996. The other three members — guitarist Andreas Kisser, bassist Paulo Jr. and drummer Iggor Cavalera (also Max’s brother) — had expressed a desire to move ahead with a new manager and pursued this change. Max, however, was against the idea.
To Max, it felt like the band was stripping control of a manager who had been successful. To everyone else, they felt like favoritism was in play and that Gloria was catering to Max’s interests more than the band’s at large.
“Things had started to go kind of weird before that. When [Max and Gloria’s son] Zyon was born, instead of putting a band on the cover of a magazine, they had Max with his kid. That’s nothing to do with the band. To have a kid is not that special. I have three myself. I love them, but I don’t use them as a trophy,” cited Kisser to Metal Hammer as an example of such treatment.
Amid these tensions, as Sepultura were set to take the stage at the Monster of Rock festival at Castle Donington in England, the group received tragic news that Gloria’s 21-year-old son (Max’s stepson) Dana Wells had been killed in a car accident in the United States. Kisser received the news first and was the one who had to inform Max and Gloria.