NAILBOMB was designed to end. The 1994 album "Point Blank" — a collision of thrash, death metal, industrial and punk, stitched with film samples and sold under one of the most confrontational covers of the decade — was followed a year later by a live record titled "Proud To Commit Commercial Suicide". The title was the announcement.
In 2024, with the blessing of original collaborator Alex Newport, Max Cavalera brought it back, with his son Igor Jr. in Newport's place. The band have been working Europe and are currently crossing North America on a double bill with SOULFLY.
There is an odd symmetry to the casting. Igor Jr. was present at the 1995 Dynamo Open Air show that produced the live album, in the sense that his mother Gloria was eight months pregnant and watching from the side of the stage. "If you watch the Dynamo video from '95, my mom is eight months pregnant with me. I was technically there at that show," he told Blabbermouth. "Otherwise, I grew up hearing it. I really got into it probably around the age of 13 or 14… Actually, even before that, I was into FUDGE TUNNEL. They've always been one of my favorite bands." He is 31 now: "That's over half of my life that I've been really into this music, and getting to play it is such an honor."
He approached the job the way an actor approaches a part. He and Newport emailed back and forth, and Newport sent him something unusual — "a really detailed list of what each song was about, at least to him. I'm sure if you ask him and Max, you'll get two different answers." The aim was to inhabit the headspace rather than imitate the delivery. Newport's response to the live footage is what he holds onto: "'Your vibe, everything on stage,' he dug it. For me, that was the biggest honor that I could ever get from someone. It's huge shoes to fill."
Not everyone agreed, and he finds this funnier than wounding. "It came with a lot of hate too. I never got so many rude messages as when I started doing NAILBOMB. I have pretty self-deprecating humor to begin with, so to me, I was just like, 'I'm pissing these people off. This is awesome!'"
Onstage the band run three guitars — Max and Igor Jr. both rhythm players, with PIG DESTROYER's Travis Stewart handling leads. "Those solos on that album are really weird. Anyone familiar with it knows it's a lot of noise. It's a lot of overlapping delay-type stuff." Because half the band is effectively PIG DESTROYER, schedules force a second line-up, with drummer Chris Moore and guitarist Demir Soyer.
The samples, he insisted, are lifted straight from the record. "If we're going to play it, I want it to be those cues, those intros. They need to be exact because that's what everybody's been listening to for 32 years now."
As for whether an album written about corruption, racism and sexism in 1994 still lands: "Those problems are the same 30 years later. They've actually just become more amplified. I think because of social media, just access to the internet, connection with the rest of the world, particularly these places we're at war with, you can be in contact with people in these areas and get a firsthand experience."
The set fleshes out "Point Blank" — only 45 minutes long — with covers including DOOM's "Exploitation" and DEAD KENNEDYS' "Police Truck", the latter played at Dynamo in 1995 with D.H. Peligro on drums.