MAX CAVALERA Explains Why a Second NAILBOMB Album Will Never Happen
The SOULFLY leader revisits the cult project live but rules out any new studio material.
Summary
- Max Cavalera rules out a second NAILBOMB album, saying some projects are better left as a one-off cult release.
- Despite no new record, NAILBOMB songs are back live at festivals like Wacken Open Air, Alcatraz, and Bloodstock.
- The touring lineup includes Max with sons Igor Amadeus and Zyon Cavalera, plus Travis Stone of Pig Destroyer.
Max Cavalera has once again shot down the possibility of a second NAILBOMB studio album, maintaining that the project’s legacy is best preserved as a “cult” one-off.
The SOULFLY and GO AHEAD AND DIE frontman is currently touring Europe with a live incarnation of NAILBOMB, the industrial-tinged project he started with FUDGE TUNNEL’s Alex Newport in the mid-1990s.
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The tour follows a successful one-off performance at the “Max Cavalera Dynasty Show” in Tempe, Arizona in November 2024. The current trek includes high-profile festival appearances at Germany’s Wacken Open Air, Belgium’s Alcatraz, and the U.K.’s Bloodstock Open Air.
In a new interview with Bloodstock TV host Oran O’Beirne, Max was asked why now was the right time to bring NAILBOMB’s music back to the stage. He responded:
“Well, we never really scratched the NAILBOMB itch entirely. Once the album dropped, that record kind of followed me through the whole, SEPULTURA used to play ‘Cockroaches’, SOULFLY played NAILBOMB covers. It’s always there. And it was a fan favorite, a cult record that people loved. But I don’t know why it took all these years. It just did. But we did this one show in Phoenix and it was just an amazing reaction. And I was, like, ‘Man, it would be a waste not to take that to Europe.’”
He continued, explaining the project’s live origins:
“After the show, I was, like, ‘Dude, we have to do it,’ especially festivals and stuff like that. ‘Cause NAILBOMB kind of was born on a festival, with the Dynamo [Open Air festival in 1995]. And we use kind of the same method, which is find the our favorite players from the underground and make a new group. That’s how the first group was formed.”
Despite the renewed live activity, Max was firm when addressing the chances of a follow-up to NAILBOMB’s sole studio album, 1994’s “Point Blank”.
“Unfortunately, I don’t think we’re gonna have another NAILBOMB record,” he told Bloodstock TV. “We’re gonna kind of leave that like that, kind of really cult. It’s kind of cool that it’s like that. Some of those things are best left like that. But live-wise, that record’s too good not to play live, man. It’s among my favorite things I’ve ever done in my whole career.”
Cavalera’s sentiment is consistent with statements he has made for years regarding the project. Speaking to Eonmusic in 2017, he dismissed the idea of a reunion with Newport.
“I don’t think a NAILBOMB reunion is ever going to happen,” he said at the time. “I think it would be pointless, because the whole idea of NAILBOMB was to be a ‘f you’ to the system… It was a one-off, and it was great, and I’m proud of the record. We have the live album from Dynamo, which is a great live album, so I think it should be left at that.”
In that same Eonmusic interview, Max revealed that he and Newport, who is now a successful record producer, had drifted apart.
“I haven’t really talked to Alex for a long time. I think he lives in a different world now. He’s a full-on producer, and I’m still a metalhead in the trenches, so I don’t know if our worlds would meet again.”
During a 2014 interview with the “Metal Injection Livecast”, Max reflected on the project’s spontaneous and aggressive nature.
“The whole NAILBOMB thing was so spur-of-the-moment. It was, like, ‘Hey, let’s make a record… just pure… We don’t give a f about anything.’ It was a great time… there was no rules,” he said.
He described “Point Blank” as “the other side of ‘Chaos A.D.’,” noting that it captured a raw, unfiltered anger.
“Everything we did was not thought of; it was just, like, ‘Let’s do it.’… That’s why the record is so chaotic, ‘cause it was born out of chaos.”
The current touring lineup of NAILBOMB features Max alongside his son, Igor Amadeus Cavalera (GO AHEAD AND DIE), on bass and vocals, and Travis Stone (PIG DESTROYER, DESOLUS) on lead guitar. The band is rounded out by SOULFLY drummer Zyon Cavalera.
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