Former
SEPULTURA and current
CAVALERA CONSPIRACY drummer
Igor "Iggor" Cavalera and his wife,
Laima Leyton, recently spoke to
AOL's
Noisecreep about their DJ/hip hop/electro project
MIXHELL.
When asked if
SEPULTURA and
CAVALERA CONSPIRACY fans will like
MIXHELL,
Igor — who plays live drums in
MIXHELL while
Laima is the DJ — replied, "I don't know. I really enjoy it, because for me it's still very, very extreme. My drumming is very energetic. It just has different grooves to it than what I do with
CAVALERA."
"It's a bit heavy, but it has a lot of flavors in it, and it's not 100 percent that he's always on the drum set," added
Laima. "He comes and goes from the sampler to the drum set. So whenever he's on the drums, it generates a lot of energy. Really strong. It's like a momentum of the show so it's really nice. Sometimes, he's just straight beats and disco beats and sometimes he does like tribal beats."
Having just wrapped up a North American tour,
MIXHELL is working on a release for the spring.
"We're still deciding if we're going to have the full-length album or an EP with some remixes, but for sure something is going to come out," said
Laima. "We're going to be going into the studio with
BURAKA SOM SISTEMA. We just finished a track with
SOULWAX and
CROOKERS, and we're going to do one with
CROOKERS and
SOULWAX for the album as well. So a lot of collaborations coming up."
When asked in a May 2009 interview how his metal background has affected his work with
MIXHELL,
Igor replied, "For me, even when I was playing metal, I always tried new things, I was never stuck to one [thing]. It was always, like, very open-minded. Anybody who followed the
SEPULTURA years knows that we tried new things; it was not about being stuck in time; it was about moving up, always. So, for me,
MIXHELL is a continuation of my career."
Igor Cavalera left
SEPULTURA in June 2006 due to "artistic differences." He has since been replaced by
Jean Dolabella (ex-
UDORA).
Igor's departure from
SEPULTURA came five months after he announced that he was taking a break from the group's touring activities to spend time with his second wife and their new son (who was born in January 2006). Filling in on drums during the band's spring 2006 European tour with
IN FLAMES was
Roy Mayorga, who played with
Igor's brother
Max in
SOULFLY for several years in the late '90s and again in 2001-2003.
Igor is the second
Cavalera to leave
SEPULTURA. In 1996,
Max Cavalera exited the group after the rest of the band fired
Max's wife
Gloria as
SEPULTURA's manager.
Igor and
Max are currently collaborating on a new project called
CAVALERA CONSPIRACY. The group's debut album,
"Inflikted", was released in March 2008 via
Roadrunner Records.
