You just came out with your 2nd solo-album, “The Ultimate Devotion”, which is follow-up to your CM album, just wondering what kind of material was put into this album, compared to the first?

A lot more hard work, you know? The 1st was done over a period of time, because I recorded the very first one for myself, and then signed with shrapnel and added some more songs to that, so this new one I put in 6 months of recording. It was a crazy period; I was recording it all night long. It was like 7 or 6 in the morning and then we’d go do shows on the weekends and drive like 6 hours out of the way to do shows. So there was a 6 month recording process there.

Was there any bands that you were listening to at the time when you were writing “The Ultimate Devotion”, or was it pretty much all your own genre?

I was listening to a lot of bands. I was listening to a lot of Rush, band that I can think of are Rush, Van Halen, a lot of Maiden, you know? I was listening to a lot of shredding stuff too. A lot of the guys that I respect, that I can pick up a lot of ideas from, that’s who I was listening to..

I noticed a lot on this new album there is a lot more progressive metal. Like Dream Theater. Were you listening to any of that?

Yeah, exactly! A lot of Dream Theater, definitely a lot of fusion stuff. I definitely wanted to elevate the guitar playing on the record from the last record one, making it more shredding, more technical.

I also noticed that a lot of the songs on the new album were pretty long. Almost 10 minutes on some of them. Just wondering if that was part of the whole genre that you are getting into, where there are longer songs?

The record company, they want the songs to be long. So its more, they’re into that. I like to keep songs to actually 3 or 4 minutes. Straight to the point. But yeah, I definitely went overboard on this record; even the length of this thing. Everything on this record….I went overboard with everything: The solos, the length of the songs, I mean, I definitely put a lot of time into it, I really want it to crush.

Are you looking to tour with the new album locally or across the nation?

Yeah we just finished the Flaw tour, and that was 3 months across the United States. Now we are looking to do another solo US Tour probably through October, November and December. Then I’ll be going out on Tour again. So when I’m not with Soulfly or The Cavalera Conspiracy, then I’m going to go out with my band and tour. I’m just always touring.

The new band Inflikted was just recently renamed to Cavalera Conspiracy?

That’s right

What kind of Music is that going to be? Is it metal, or how is the genre of that looking?

It’s metal….but it’s definitely thrash metal. A trip back to the old Sepultura stuff, like Arise, Beneath the Remains, Chaos AD…I think it’s the record everyone wants to hear.

Is there any planned tours for that band?

We plan on touring with that band too. I haven’t heard anything yet, but I’m shooting come the New Year we’ll be doing a full worldwide tour.

What about Soulfly? Tonight you have the show with both Soulfly and Cavalera Conspiracy. How did you guys prepare for this? Is there anything different from this show that you did, which you don’t normally do for other shows?

Usually we do something different, I think tonight, because of The Cavalera Conspiracy is playing, we’ve been kind of concentrating on getting that set together, cause we haven’t even practiced or done anything since we wrote the record. Another thing is that we just off tour with Soulfly from Europe, so we are all pretty rehearsed. We just got home 2 weeks ago.

How do you personally get ready for these big shows?

Just a lot of practice and warming up beforehand.

You don’t walk around and get nervous?

Eh, I practice all day long; I try to always be prepared….as long as you’re prepared.

Do you ever make time to hangout with the fans after the show?

Yeah, usually you will find me outside after our shows near our tour bus. Sometimes we’ll hangout after the shows and I’ll shower before that, but usually I just sort of hang around the clubs or bar and enjoy the night.

You guys just recently came back from a European Tour. How was that?

It was awesome. Its always so amazing over there. Big crowds, we did a lot of big festivals this year that were like 50,000 people there going nuts. It was another typical Soulfly European Tour. Just craziness every single night.

Tonight you are playing your one and only show in the USA. How come there were no other shows here in the states?

We just got back from Europe, and now we are going to start the new Soulfly record. Next week we are flying down to Florida to start recording.

Do you know where you are going to record?

Somewhere in Miami, it’s at Bobby’s studio that we are recording at.

Oh, The Porch Studios?

Yeah

How did that happen?

I think Bobby mentioned it. They just put in the studio. It made so much sense to record there this year.

With a solo band like yours, where you don’t get promo from radio, there’s one radio station that will play your music and they are playing it at 1am. How big of an obstacle is this for you to not have that commercial support to get bookings and introduce yourself into new markets, when you don’t have a commercial rating or anything?

Its tough man. It’s a fight, you have to just get out there and tour, do shows.

Metal isn’t really like any other genre…

Yeah…you HAVE to tour nonstop…that’s it. Your not going get radio help, MTV, you know??? Headbangers Ball is only an hour a week you know? It’s like I tell the guys in my band “you just have to get out there and tour non stop…be on the road 24 hours a day, 7 days a week”

Well Marc, you need to get ready for your show tonight, best of luck and thanks for the interview…

Thank you.

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December 7th, 2007 at 9:48 am

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