Article By: Pat ‘Riot’ Whitaker ‡ Edited By: Leanne Ridgeway
With this week’s news from Max Cavalera that his current band, Soulfly, will be playing the one and only Nailbomb studio album live on tour soon, I thought it’d be a great time to revisit that project.
Nailbomb was formed by Max in 1993, alongside Fudge Tunnel frontman (and now producer) Alex Newport. The pair possessed a love for Industrial Metal and with Nailbomb operational, that is exactly what genre they set out to explore.
They recruited a number of highly recognizable musicians for guest contributions to the studio recording, then Max and Alex went to work on a début album. The next year (1994) saw that début album from Nailbomb, entitled ‘Point Blank‘, released through Roadrunner Records. The album was a scathing exploration of mechanically enhanced metal and contained heavy punk and thrash influences. Guests on the studio record included Max’s brother Iggor Cavalera, D.H. Peligro (Dead Kennedys) and Dino Cazares (Fear Factory), among others.
Although Point Blank would be the one and only studio album from the project, they did play 1995’s Dynamo Open Air festival in Eindhoven, The Netherlands. This performance was recorded and released as the live offering ‘Proud To Commit Commercial Suicide‘ in late ’95.
It was the band’s only live performance ever. Not long after it, Nailbomb ceased to exist and remains that way unto this very day. However, that one live show was eventually also issued on DVD from Roadrunner as ‘Live At Dynamo’ in 2005.
It will be interesting to see how Max Cavalera’s plan to perform ‘Point Blank‘ in full from Soulfly is realized. It will be a wholly different cabal of musicians undertaking the mission to play such a groundbreaking, iconic release. It has been reported that Max did pitch the idea to fellow Nailbomb’er Alex Newport, but his schedule did not allow for the time to participate, although he gave the endeavor his full blessing.
