Supergroups, on the whole, are a pretty hit-and-miss affair. In fact, they regularly tend more towards the ‘miss’ end of the spectrum than the ‘hit’, often not living up to the sum of their parts. New heavy rockers Killer Be Killed buck that trend. The band features four absolute luminaries from the heavy music scene, and the self-titled album they’ve just released is attaining rave reviews.
Although the four members have backgrounds in heavy music, their main projects occupy diametrically different styles of rock, and it’s unlikely anyone would have picked these particular members to wind up doing a project together. Arguably the highest-profile member, Max Cavalera of Sepultura, Soulfly, Cavalera Conspiracy and Nailbomb fame, says it’s those very diverse backgrounds that make Killer Be Killed such a different listening experience.
“If it was really similar guys, like if I was doing this with [members from] Lamb Of God, DevilDriver and Machine Head – it would have been cool, don’t get me wrong, it still would have been cool – but it would have been maybe a little bit more what people would expect. Because me and Troy [Sanders, bassist from Mastodon] and Greg [Puciato, Dillinger Escape Plan vocalist] and Dave [Elitch, former Mars Volta drummer] are so really different – you know, Mastodon is totally different from Soulfly, and Soulfly is totally different from Dillinger Escape Plan – it came out really different.”
With such massive differences between the members and their respective bands, Cavalera is interested to see how their various audiences will mix once Killer Be Killed eventually hit the road and play live.
“Those bands don’t even mix – we don’t even have the same crowds, it’s kind of crazy, you know? Like, Mastodon have their own crowd, Dillinger’s got their own crowd, Soulfly have their own crowd. That’s the crazy part, that we mixed all of this together and made it into one thing. I’m just curious to see how the crowd’s going to react. I think they’re going to like it – I honestly think they’re going to think it’s cool.”
Unfortunately, at this stage Cavalera may have to wait a little while to have that curiosity satiated, as the new foursome may not be able to find time in the demanding schedules of their main acts to tour Killer Be Killed until 2015.
“I’m busy with Soulfly and Cavalera until the end of the year, and Greg’s busy with Dillinger and Troy’s busy with Mastodon – we’re all doing a bunch of festivals,” he says. No stranger to our shores, though, Cavalera is confident that Killer Be Killed’s touring plans in 2015 will include Australia. “Hopefully we can come down and do a festival in Australia, one of the big festivals you’ve got down there.”
In the more immediate future, Soulfly’s touring plans take Cavalera into uncharted territory very shortly, and a country you wouldn’t normally associate with a heavy metal tour.
“Yeah, we’re heading to Kazakhstan next week,” he says. “I’m really excited, we’ve never been there before … they’re very excited to have us and those shows are always great. Some of those fans [have been] waiting 30 years to see me play live, and that’s pretty exciting.”
Killer Be Killed out now through Nuclear Blast.
