GREG PUCIATO

Nuclear Blast Records issues:

KILLER BE KILLED has aligned with Nuclear Blast Entertainment to release the group’s debut record in 2014. The mystique-fogged collection is the result of writing sessions, creative and philosophical conversations and an eventual studio lockdown in Los Angeles. All of this has been heretofore hidden from the public, save for interview tidbits that relentlessly drove the heavy music community’s anticipation to a fever pitch.

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KILLER BE KILLED is comprised of guitarists Max Cavalera and Greg Puciato, bassist Troy Sanders – all of whom share vocal duties – together with drummer David Elitch. The album was produced/mixed by Josh Wilbur (LAMB OF GOD, GOJIRA, STEVE EARLE).

“It’s a bit of SABBATH-y doom, a bit of thrash, a bit of hardcore and punk,” Puciato explains, searching for the right words to describe something defiantly unique.

“This is a very special project. It’s a one of a kind thing, with a lot of potential,” asserts Cavalera. “The album is a mix of heavy, fast and melodic songs.”

Featuring lead vocal contributions and lyrics from Puciato, Cavalera and Sanders, the aggressive assemblage of songs run the gamut from crowd-inciting brutality and jagged basement show style carnage to melodic, off-kilter hooks. Sanders jokingly described the band as “a perfect blend of a legend, a freak, a beast and a wookie.”

It’s all delivered through a prism of metal history conjuring the raw aggression of SEPULTURA’s earliest rumblings, together with the progressively esoteric shamanistic approach ofMASTODON and just a hint of the dissonance of THE DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN. It’s a set of songs with more traditional structure than most of them are known to perform, with a drum performance from a master of precision, power and groove.

“I love the idea of Greg, Troy and I singing together, with David Elitch’s amazing drumming,” says Cavalera. “Being a part of this is something quite different for me.”

“There would be no point in doing this if it sounded the same as our other bands,” notes Puciato. “Of any of our bands, it sounds the furthest away from mine, mainly becauseDILLINGER is [guitarist/founder] Ben [Weinman]’s expression, musically.”

MetalSucks placed Puciato at #1 on their list of the Top 25 Modern Metal Frontmen, but he also expresses himself through the dark electro-pop of THE BLACK QUEEN, together with NINE INCH NAILS touring guitarist Josh Eustis of TELEFON TEL AVIV and Maynard James Keenan’s PUSCIFER. Puciato made a guest appearance in 2012 with MIXHELL, the DJ project of Max’s brother, SEPULTURA co-founder Iggor Cavalera.

Cavalera is no stranger to collaborations, of course, having invited multiple guests onto SEPULTURA’s genre-defining Roots and SOULFLY’s gold-selling debut album in 1998. One such SOULFLY guest, Chino Moreno, has often joined Puciato onstage with both THE DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN and DEFTONES. Max was one-half of the incendiary NAILBOMB, together with English record producer and FUDGE TUNNEL mastermind Alex Newport. The pair released one studio album in 1993 and performed a blistering set at the Dynamo Festival in 1995.

“We did the song on SOULFLY’s Omen and then we started talking about doing an entire album together, the way he had with Alex Newport,” Puciato explains. “We eventually got together with some riffs we both had and wrote a bunch more material in a 72-hour blast out in the desert. We left with about 15 demos we made using the same drum machine and four track Max used working on Chaos A.D.”

Cognizant of the reputation both of them have cultivated after working with some of the world’s best drummers, Puciato called upon David Elitch, who had toured internationally with the mind-bendingly psychedelic group THE MARS VOLTA. His expertise in everything from jazz to metal has led to live and studio collaborations with a diverse range of major artists including Justin Timberlake, French electronic wizards M83 and Norwegian singer-songwriter Susanne Sundfør.

KILLER BE KILLED has come together even as their main projects hit a collective stride: Max just released his ninth studio album with SOULFLY, Savages, to many of the strongest reviews of his legendary career. THE DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN’s One Of Us Is The Killer debuted at #1 on Billboard’s Hard Rock Album chart earlier this year. MASTODON’s most recent album, The Hunter, was Album Of The Year in Kerrang!, Metal Hammer, Rock Sound, Classic Rock, Terrorizer and Total Guitar in 2011.

MASTODON and THE DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN have toured together many times. During one such tour in the U.S., in late 2011, Puciato was telling Sanders about the new project. Before too long, Sanders and Cavalera were meeting at a festival in South America for the first time: “Hey, I’m Troy. And I think we’re in a band together.”

The electric chemistry was apparent the first time they all assembled. “Having met, created and recorded an album together, this experience has easily exceeded my initial expectations,” says Sanders. “The collective energy and mutual respect for one another eased the entire process and has been very therapeutic for me.”

KILLER BE KILLED is the latest signing for Nuclear Blast Entertainment, the joint venture between Nuclear Blast Records founder Markus Staiger and massively influential ex-Roadrunner Records Senior VP of A&R Monte Conner, who has worked with Max Cavalera on 18 records, starting with 1989’s Beneath The Remains.

The debut album from KILLER BE KILLED is set for release in 2014.

According to Blabbermouth.net, The project featuring Max Cavalera (SOULFLY, ex-SEPULTURA), THE DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN frontman Greg Puciato, Dave Elitch (ex-THE MARS VOLTA) and Troy Sanders (MASTODON) has finally decided on a name: KILLER BE KILLED. The group recently inked a deal with Nuclear Blast for the release of its debut album, tentatively due in mid-2014. The CD is being recorded at Fortress Studio in Los Angeles, California with producer Josh Wilbur (LAMB OF GOD, GOJIRA).

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Talking to U.K.’s Terrorizer magazine, Max said about the new project: “Greg approached me kinda like how Alex [Newport; FUDGE TUNNEL] approached me to do NAILBOMB in that he was really, really trying to get me to do this project. I told him already I was pretty busy doing SOULFLY and CAVALERA CONSPIRACY [and] I was not really looking for an extra thing, but he was pretty insistent and then I just gave up and was, like, ‘Let’s fucking do this!’

“It started with just me and Greg and then we got Dave Elitch — he’s an amazing drummer — and then Greg knew Troy and we asked him to be the bassist so it kind of became a supergroup all of a sudden. We jammed a couple of times and the last jam we did it sounded killer; the songs are really powerful real heavy. It’s hard to describe but I think the coolest thing about this project is that all three of us are going to sing on every song.”

Earlier this year, Puciato told Noisecreep about how the project started: “We were at a DEFTONES show in L.A. at the Palladium and we were talking backstage about old thrash metal, punk and hardcore and we found ourselves referencing many of the same things and we were like, ‘Fuck, man, we should make a record together and do it as a one-off like NAILBOMB.’ A month later, I talked to Max again and he said we should actually do that.

“No one in metal makes collaborative records like people in jazz and hip-hop do. It doesn’t have to be like a band that you’re launching from the ground that you go on tour with. There is something to be said for collaboration and throwing yourself out there and learning something new from working with different people. Dave was a buddy of mine already and he’s a phenomenal drummer. He was the first person I thought of to play drums.

“We [DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN] spent a lot of time touring with MASTODON and Troy seemed like a really obvious fit. We had a really easy time writing. We can’t release it right behind the DILLINGER record and we also have to figure out when the MASTODON record is coming out and the same for whatever Max is doing next. It’s going to come out. It’s just going to be a matter of logistics as to when.”