Stand and Deliver!

Remember when you were a kid, how, no matter what sort of music you were into, your parents were convinced it was crap?

I found it particularly annoying; as a kid, I was into ‘old people’ music. Not raucous punk or indie noise or metal like other kids my age were into; I liked The Beatles and Bob Dylan and Cream. This was back in the day before CDs and the Internet, where if you were into something from the previous generation, you really had to love it and search hard for it. Really, my parents had it easy. But they still thought whatever music I listened to was rubbish.

Turns out it’s the way of the world.

I recently interviewed Max Cavalera for Live To Ride magazine. Max is a metal legend who formed Sepultura and these days fronts Soulfly and Cavalera Conspiracy. His son Richard is in Incite, the band that opened for Soulfly on their recent tour.

Max grew up loving metal, and pioneering it, much to the distress of his mother, who thought Max’s lead vocalist in Sepeltura “sounded like a dog”.

Turns out, even if you’ve rebelled so unequivocally as to pioneer a genre your parents don’t dig, you still have to hate the music your kids are into.

Here’s an excerpt from the interview – which will appear in full, soon, in Live To Ride. It took place in a loud café, so I’ve transcribed it below. I asked Max a question about the music his kids were into. Max’s immediate, unflinching answer to my question made me laugh. A lot.

Max Cavalera excerpt

Dom Romeo: Sometimes kids are into music their parents don’t dig and it might cause problems. What sort of music would your kids have to bring home for you to go, ‘Oh, for God’s sake; you’re no son of mine!’

MAX CAVALERA: Rap. The older one kind of listened to some rap and I give him shit all the time. I’m like, ‘This is f*cking crap! Don’t listen to rap.’ And Richard, the one who’s in Incite, for a while when he was younger, he used to be into hip hop and he used to have the baggy pants and the whole kind of hip hop New York Yankees hat. I still give him shit for that, now that he’s a rocker. He’s a full-on rocker with long hair and metal t-shirt. I still go, ‘remember your baggy pants? You gonna put them on one of these days?’