Soulfly frontman and metal legend Max Cavalera has delivered a fiery defense of Guns N’ Roses singer Axl Rose, blasting online critics for their focus on appearance and issuing a passionate declaration of principles about what it truly means to be a “rock and roller.”
Speaking on a recent episode of the Appetite For Distortion podcast, the former Sepultura icon reacted to seeing online comments criticizing Rose’s weight and vocals.
“My wife showed me the other day where there was some people s**t talking Axl, and it’s, like, come on, man. F**k you all. It’s such bulls**t. Leave the guy alone,” Cavalera began. “You gain a couple pounds and people gotta talk s**t about your weight. What is this? Are we models? Are we Vogue models or are we rock and rollers?”
He continued, arguing that the focus should always be on the art, not the artist’s appearance. “It was never about the f**king weight. Who gives a f**k what somebody weighs? It’s about the music, man. It’s about what they play. It’s about what you like in the music,” he declared.
Cavalera, who has been a force in heavy metal for 40 years, went on to embrace the process of aging as a badge of honor, not something to be criticized by what he called online “cowards.”
“Dude, it happens to everybody. All of us, most of us are gonna get old, and you’re not gonna be the same,” he said. “I f**king wear that shoe with pride, the white hair and the stitches. I take pride in that. It took a long time to get that.”
Cavalera’s defiant and principled stance comes as his own band, Soulfly, prepares to release their thirteenth studio album, Chama, on October 24. The album’s first single, “Storm The Gates,” has been described as a “battle cry against control and greed,” a theme that aligns perfectly with the anti-establishment and pro-artist sentiment of his passionate interview.
While he has never met Rose personally, Cavalera believes they would “hit it off pretty good.”
