1996, what a chaotic year! Yes, we ended up returning to our roots, but it was more like Chaos AD. As you know, my Students, Max and I were feeling things were being cut against the grain during the recording of Chaos. Here it was, December 16, 1996... the final day of my contract, I was completing my agreement with Sepultura, had buried my son and counted the days. Brixton was sold out, the record was booming and RECOUPED! But for Max and me, things were in a tunnel, and we couldn't see the exit.
The riot erupted after the show was over. I went in a room with the 3 guys, my "friends" and was handed a letter saying they weren't working with me any more. I was offered to manage Max, stay together with Sepultura, and keep things merry....but another wife would take my job and manage the other 3. I stayed quiet. What did I need another manager for? The band that when I met, I bought shoes for, got gear, taught to be an international force, had a new $2.5 million dollar contract, were headlining Bog Day Out and booked far into the future....I needed another manager? Wrong, I didn't. And guess what? I never offered to renew the contract anyway. You see, Students, managers can manage 100 bands, but often times, bands have one shot. That's it.
After the show's load out (that's gear taken to the truck, after a show, for all you NEWBIES..that's someone new on a tour), the tour manager told me the cargo company would deliver the gear early midday, in Phoenix. All good, we would all meet and figure out what was going on. A giant riot was next and it followed us all the way to the airport... but that's another blog...
When we arrived at the jam pad, surprise, surprise!!!! The gear had been dropped off early and whisked away. Max's lonely rack and gear he had in Europe sat shivering, next to a well worn couch... Gone was his ramp, his cases, even a song he wrote for Sepultura... everything. Gone. He was left with no band, no band name, no contract, and a skeleton for gear... It was him and me and the children..... but.... we had no hope, no fear. We had each other. And faith. Max didn't need any of those material things because he was a true artist. I realized my favorite calling is developing bands from nothing. This made us stronger and closer. Soulfly was born from the ashes.
A couple years ago, noting the pile of gear getting out of control in the jam pad, Richie climbed above the ceiling of the bathroom to move Roy's Pearl kit. What the hell was he walking on? Piles of cloth? He threw them down to us and we spread them in the parking lot. Low and behold! The Beneath the Remains back drop, the Chaos scrim, and the Roots Indian laid before us, in all their splendor. Sometimes you have to wait for karma to come back. Be lucky you lived long enough to see it, that's what the Teacher always says.
Class dismissed...
