harris, keith - 'roots' the relationship between the global and the local within the extreme metal...

7/27/2019 Harris, Keith - 'Roots' the Relationship Between the Global and the Local Within the Extreme Metal Scene

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'Roots'?: The Relationship between the Global and the Local within the Extreme Metal SceneAuthor(s): Keith HarrisSource: Popular Music, Vol. 19, No. 1, [Place Issue] (Jan., 2000), pp. 13-30Published by: Cambridge University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/853709 .

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PopularMusic (2000) Volume 19/1. Copyright C)2000 Cambridge University Press.Printed in the United Kingdom

'Roots'?: t h e relationshipbetween t h e g l o b a l a n d t h e l o c a lw i t h i n t h e Extreme M e ta l s c e n e

KEITH HARRIS

Music's 'malleability'(Taylor 1997) has always facilitated its export and importfrom one locationto another.Indeed,such processesarecentralto the creationanddisseminationof new musical forms. Yet in our contemporaryglobalised world,such processes occurever more extensively and rapidly giving rise to new formsof appropriationand syncretism.Recordcompaniesfromthe developed world findnew audiences in the developing world (Laing 1986).Musicians from the Westappropriatenon-Westernmusic,sometimescollaboratively Feld1994;Taylor1997).Non-Westernmusicians and musicians from subaltern groups within the Westcreate new syncretic forms drawing on both Western and non-Westernmusic(Mitchell1996;Lipsitz1994,Slobin1993).Theresulting'globalecumene'producesconsiderable culturaldisorder'(Featherstone 990,p. 6) whose resultscannoteasilybe summarised.Yet whilst there is no privileged standpointfrom which to make an overalljudgement on the results of the globalisationof music, it is important o attempt tofind an analyticalperspective that would enable us to relate particularcases toglobal processes. Certainglobal musics may produce so many knotty paradoxesthat analysis may lose site of the general picture within the complexities of theparticular. n this paperI want to examineone particularparadox,that of the careerof the BrazilianDeath Metalband Sepultura.I want to show how analysingtheircareerthrough an examinationof the 'scene' throughwhich they travelledallowsus to appreciate he uniqueway in which they respondedto globalisation,withoutlosing site of the global flows of capitalthat structured heircareer.Sepulturaand the ExtremeMetalscenelTheparadoxof Sepultura'scareer s that theirearlycareer,which encompasses the1985 EP 'BestialDevastations',the 1986albumMorbid Visions and the 1987albumSchizophrenia, ookplace entirelywithin Brazil.Theytouredonly in Braziland theirrecords were produced in Brazilianstudios by Brazilians for a Brazilianrecordcompany. However, they produced music that made no attempt to musically orlyricallysignify 'Brazilianness'and theirmusic was consciouslymodelled on non-Brazilianbands and sung in English.By the time their 1996albumRoots had beenreleased the situation had reversed. They were now based in Phoenix, Arizona,

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14 KeithHarrisrecording in non-Brazilian tudios for a non-Brazilian ompany (Roadrunner anindependent multinationalbased in the Netherlands).Yet the album dealt lyricallywith 'Brazilian' hemes and incorporated Brazilian'musical styles including collab-orations with the Amerindian Xavante people and the Salvadoran percussionistCarlinhosBrown.Sepultura's career can be understood as a trajectory hrough the 'ExtremeMetal Scene'. In using 'scene' as my central unit of analysis, I am drawing on twosets of sources. The first is academic uses of the concept. 'Scene' is closely relatedto 'subculture',a key concept in the development of popular music studies (e.g.,Hebdidge 1979;Willis 1978),the shortcomingsof which have been thoroughly dis-cussed and are by now well known (e.g., Clarke 1981;Gelder and Thornton1997).Subculture connotes a tight-knit, rigidly bounded, implacably 'resistant', male-dominated, geographicallyspecific social space (if such formationsever did exist).The concept clashes with contemporary oncernsabout globalisation, he ambiguit-ies of resistance and the heterogeneity of identity. Scene, on the other hand, con-notes a more flexible, loose kind of space within which music is produced; a kindof 'context'for musical practice.It assumes less about the homogeneity and coher-ence of its constituentactivities and members.Although it is frequentlyused unre-flexively, various authors have used scene as their primaryunit of analysis (Gaines1994;Kruse 1993;Shank 1994). There have also been attempts to develop the con-cept at a more theoretical evel (Straw 1991;Olson 1998).My use of scene also draws on everyday uses of the concept. It is used in avariety of ways in ExtremeMetal practice.The most common use of it is to refer tolocal, face-to-facecontexts of music-making and consumption (e.g., 'The Gothen-burg Death Metal Scene'). This is similar to academic definitions of subculture.Theconcept is also used in ways that are similar to academic definitions of scene. 'TheExtremeMetal Scene' connotes a decentralised,global and diffuse network of pro-ducers and consumers of ExtremeMetal. The concept of scene thereforeallows usto define a unit of analysis that is emergent both from everyday reflexivity andfrom a more systematically heorised, academic space.The ExtremeMetal scene emerged in the 1980s out of an interconnectedmusi-cal and institutional rejectionof Heavy Metal. Heavy Metal in the 1980s has beendescribed n detail by Weinstein (1991)and Walser (1993).In that decade it becameone of the most successful popular music genres, dominated by a relatively smallnumber of Europeanand Americanbands. Under the influence of punk, early 1980sbands such as Venom began to develop more radicalised forms of Metal. Theseforms, including Thrash,Death, Blackand Doom Metal,eschewed melody and clearsinging in favour of speed, downtuned guitars and growled or screamed vocals.Whilst each style has distinctive features and distinct networks of fans andmusicians, they share enough to be frequentlyreferred o by fans and musicians as'ExtremeMetal'. The development of the scene was inseparable rom these musicaldevelopments. Extreme Metal began to be circulated through letter writing, tapetrading, recordings on small labels and fanzines. From a very early stage 'TheUnderground' (as the scene was then called) was always highly decentralised.Many of its participantsnever met anybody from it face to face and it was neverreliant on local scenes. Moreover, bands from countries outside of the traditionalAnglo-American 'core' of the recording industry were influential in its develop-ment, including places as diverse as Chile, Malaysia and Israel.



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The ExtremeMetal scene 15

Fi(gzere. S>A7llltllrnt t11eimeof Roots, 1996. Cloekwise romtop,Andre(ls,P(lolo,M(lx, Igor

The relationshipof the ExtremeMetal scene to the wider Metalscene is com-plex. Until MetallicapopularisedThrashMetal in the late 1980s there was littleinteractionbetween them.The popularityof Grungeand DeathMetalin the early1990svirtually killed off Heavy Metal as a popularmusical form, at least in thesense that few new bands emerged playing that style. However, as the decadeprogressed, Metal as a mass-marketphenomenon was gradually reconstitutedthrough'New Metal'bands,such as MachineHead and Korn,playingmusic influ-enced by ExtremeMetal.There is thus some interactionbetween ExtremeMetaland the widerMetalscene thatallows one to talkof themas partof thesameoverallscene,but it is a variableand often tenuous interaction.A majordifference s thatExtremeMetalis virtuallyinvisible to non-scenemembers.WhereasHeavy Metalin the 1980swas definedby and to some extentdefineditself in relationto, various



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16 KeithHarris

Figure 2. Sepulturaat the time of Roots, 1996. Left-right,Max, Paolo,Andreas,Igor

'moralpanics' surrounding it, particularly n the United States (Walser1993),theExtremeMetalscene appearsto have had a kind of 'insulation' romthese sortsofprocesses.Whilstthe ExtremeMetalscene is characterised y a far greater evel of decen-tralisation hanHeavy Metal,local scenes have also been important n its develop-ment. Localscenes have been particularlymportant n pioneeringnew styles thathave gone on to be popular throughout the global scene. In the 1980s, the SanFrancisco Bay Area' scene was crucial in the development of Thrash(involvingbandssuch as Exodusand Metallica). n the late 1980sand early1990sDeathMetalwas popularisedvia strong local scenes in Stockholm(involving bands such asI:)ismembernd Entombed)and Tampa,Florida(involvingbands such as Obituaryand Deicide).Inthemid-1990sBlackMetalwas popularised hroughtheNorwegianscene (involvingbands sucll as Burzumand Emperor).Sepultura'searlyalbums,however,are not representative f a uniquelyBrazil-ian ExtremeMetalstyle. Theircrude form of Thrash/DeathMetalhas strongsimi-larities to early Thraslland I:)eathMetalbands such as Sodom and Kreator.Thefast drummingdominateseverythingand gives the guitar riffs an indistinctfeel.Thegruffvocalsaretreatedwith a lot of reverbandbrief phrasesarespatout ratherthansung. Thelyrics,writtenin basicand ungrammaticalEnglish,deal with topicssuch as Satanismand war. One example,'BestialDevastation', s shown in Appen-dix A.Itwould be easy to concludethat in their earlycareerSepultura implycopiedmoreprominentExtremeMetalbandsfromelsewherein the world.However,froma very early stage Sepulturawere not only connectedto the global scene,but alsocontributed o it. Sepulturadrummer,IgorCavalera,reportsthatearlyrecordings,



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TheExtremeMetalscene 17including demos and live tapes, were circulatedworld-wide by other scene mem-bers. Indeed, rehearsal apes from as early as 1985 are still availableon tape tradinglists. Sepultura should rather be seen as one of many bands from throughout theworld involved in the decentralisedprocess through which the emerging genre ofDeath Metal was created out of ThrashMetal.Yet neither should we conclude that Sepultura's ocation in Brazil was insig-nificant. Certainlythe Brazilianscene from which Sepultura emerged never popu-larised a particular tyle in the way more famous local scenes did, but it did haveits own unique characteristics. or one thing, the early Brazilian cene was not onlymarginal o the global ExtremeMetalscene, but Western-style ock was at that stagein a non-hegemonicposition in the country as a whole (Schreiner1993).Indeed, thescene was largely confined to Sao Paolo and a few other cities (Sepulturawere fromBelo Horizonte),and it interactedclosely with the punk scene. The unique Brazilianpraxis that the band helped to fashion was differentfrom other local praxes world-wide. Moreover, writing Extreme Metal lyrics in English was no easy task. Thelanguage barrierwas considerable,at least at first. The Portuguese names of earlyBrazilianbands such as Sarcofagoand Holocausto (Sepulturameans 'grave') estifyto their greater familiaritywith their native language. Early lyrics were producedfrom translating word for word from Portuguese. Singer Max Cavalera's strongaccent is very noticeable. It was difficult to purchase good equipment and foreignrecords due to high import taxes. Brazil's ack of prosperitywas also highly signifi-cant, with the band coming from struggling lower-middle class families. The Brazil-ian scene, whilst having its own embryonic nstitutions,was thus extremely imitedin scope in the early to mid-1980s,with only a few shops cateringfor Metal and ahandful of tiny record labels.Mark Olson (1998, p. 281) argues that scenes are 'territorializingmachines'that produce particularkinds of relationships to geographic location. Sepultura'slocation in their early careerwas productive of and produced by a certain kind ofrelationshipbetween global and local scenes. Both scenes were 'quasi-autonomous'from each other in that they were dependant on each other, yet containedpractices,texts, institutions and forms of capital that were unique to each. This meant thatSepultura nteracted imultaneouslywithin the Brazilian cene and the global scene.Scenes are never static but are constantly in movement, following particular'logics of change' (Straw1991).By the time Sepulturareleased Schizophrenian 1987,the global and Brazilian scenes had begun to change. In Brazil, rock music wasbecoming more popular, partly due to the impact of the annual 'Rock n Rio' festi-vals. Sepultura now had a predominant position within BrazilianMetal. On theSchizophreniaour they played to at least 2,000 people every night and sold 10,000copies of the album, which was as much as more established bands such as Slayerand Anthrax. Globally, Death and Thrash Metal had emerged as standardisedgenres within a rapidly solidifying set of scenic institutions. Whereas previouslythe global extrememetal scene had been sustained by a few hundred people linkingup isolated local scenes through communicationby tape, letter and the occasionalrecord or fanzine, more people were now involved and there were increasingnum-bers of bands, record companies, fanzines and distribution services. Schizophreniawas widely circulatedwithin the global scene and gave the band a growing inter-national reputation.Sepulturarapidly began to make contacts hroughout he global scene. In 1988,vocalist/guitarist Max Cavaleracapitalisedon these contactsby flying to New York



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18 KeithHarrisand meeting a number of recordcompanies.Thisresulted in a deal with RoadracerRecords(now Roadrunner).The decision to physically leave the country in orderto furtherthe careerof the band is revealing.Interviews at the time and since sawthe band talking of 'escaping'Braziland expanding to the global.As MaxCavalerasaid in an interview with Kerrang n 1989:It's very difficult because there's almost no chancefor a HM band to get on a major abelhere and also because the Metal crowd is mostly poor people ... Then if you happen tocome into some money and want to produce a big show or something like that, the poorpeople can't affordto pay to come to the show!

How do we explain the decision to look outside Brazil for a deal and otherpivotaldecisionsthatSepulturamade in their career?The band camefrom difficultbackgrounds, ndeed the Cavalerabrothers(Max and drummerIgor) had lost theirfather in childhood and had to leave school early to supporttheir family (personalcommunicationfrom interview with Igor Cavalera).It would be easy to explaintheirburningambitionas the resultof a desireto use music to escapethese difficultconditions. Suchan explanation s not 'wrong'but it does run the risk of an essen-tialisingreductionism.Furthermore, here is also the risk of treatingthe scene as astatic context for action by autonomousagents driven purely by internalpsycho-logical factors. I would argue that the concept of scene forces us to focus first onanalyticallyprior 'how' questions - how did Sepultura'scareerand music progress(Silverman1993)?The work of PierreBourdieuprovides a way of linkingan analy-sis of the phenomenologyof how decisions are made with an appreciationof theconstraining force of structure and capital. For Bourdieu, all practice occurs in'fields' (1989), a conceptwith a certainsimilarity to scene, in which certain formsof capitalcirculate.Thepositions that individuals takewithin fields are guided bytheir 'habitus' (1993),throughwhich they understandwhat possibilitiesare openand closed to them. In this way we can see that the scene limits or opens possibil-ities to follow particular rajectories.These possibilities are not simply drawn onby individuals or groups, but are continuallybeing reformulated,negotiated andcontested. The questions to ask when looking at the career of Sepulturaare: whatpossibilitiesopened up to them at varioustimes in theircareer?how did they createtheir own possibilities?how did thesedecisions link to the formsof capitalavailableto them?In avoiding the 'why' there is a danger of writing a culturalhistory thatis entirely without agency or motivation. Yet the 'why' may reveal itself indirectlythroughan appreciationof the 'how'.Fromthisperspective he mostrevealingthingabout the abovequotation romKerrang s the assumptionthat going on a major abel and putting on a 'big show'would be both desirableand possible. Whilst such sentiments would have beencontested by some who valued staying small and 'underground',global successwas not problematisedwithin the ExtremeMetalscene at that pivotal moment inSepultura'scareer o quitethe same extent as in other scenes.Sepultura's subcultu-ralcapital'(Thornton1995), heirprestige and statuswithin the scene, was convert-ible into other kinds of capital,capital that could bring them financialand insti-tutional support. The career of Sepultura up until and after their signing toRoadrunnerwas dominated by a particularscenic logic that enabled local scenemembers to interact within the global underground. However, the possibility offinancialrewards and a full time career in music-making was only possible if aband focused more single mindedly on the global scene.



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TheExtremeMetalscene 19

?a#Ke #}

}I

Fi(gllr(}3. S(}twl(ltllYnt tS1v imv of Beneathhe Remains,989.Left-rirll, Pn(>l() IY

From 1989 onwards, Sepulturarapidly became one of the most successfulbandswithin DeathMetal world-wide.They contributed o the solidifyingof DeathMetalas a genrewith a set of coherentrules and attendantscenicinstitutions.The1989 'Beneath the Remains'album was produced in Brazilby the TampabasedproducerScott Burns, who played a crucial part in creating the 'clean', preciseguitarsounds thatdominatedDeath Metalin that era.The albumwas followedbyextensive touring throughoutthe world. The year 1991,when Sepulturareleasedtheirnext albumArise, which was also recorded n Tampawith ScottBurns,was inmanyways the 'highwatermark'of DeathMetalwith thousandsof bands through-out the world makingit the predominantparticipatoryMetalgenre. By that stageSepulturahad become leading exponentsof Death Metal and were playing majorMetalfestivals such as Rock in Rio and Donnington.They were helped in this bythe 1991 recruitmentof Cloria Bujnowski(who later marriedMax Cavalera) asmanager,a woman with considerableexperience n managingother ExtremeMetalacts.



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20 KeithHarrisIn 1991 Sepultura relocated to Bujnowski's hometown of Phoenix. In thatperiod the band were musically and physically at their most distant from Brazil.The Metal press quickly stopped mentioning Sepultura'sBraziliannessand treated

them like any other prominentMetal band. In most respects,Sepulturahad becomea leading global Metal band whose connections to Brazil had become less and lesssalient. Sepultura's trajectoryreinforced the trajectoryof a global scene withinwhich local scenes produced very similar sounding music and within which placewas not musically attended to. Sepultura's success was a key factor in inspiringDeath Metal scenes throughout the world, opening up possibilities for bands frommarginalised scenes everywhere. At that moment it appeared that the ExtremeMetal scene was a truly global space, within which location was musically andinstitutionallyunimportant.As Igor Cavaleraputs itwith Sepulturawe createsomethingvery special which it was like, kind of like a brotherhoodwhere once we start breaking out, people could see like maybe they could do the same.(personal nterview, 27 November 1990)

As the 1990s progressed this situation gradually changed. The hegemony ofDeath Metal within the ExtremeMetal scene became eroded with the developmentof Doom and Black Metal. Moreover, it became more common to produce musicthat attended to place, cultural origin and nationhood. An importantfactor in thiswas the rise of Black Metal from around 1992, in which Scandinavianbands con-structed powerful myths of nationhood from ideas of pagan, Viking, anti-Christianancestry.Some of these bands incorporated folk' instrumentsand styles into theirmusic and drew on Westernclassicalmusic in order to constructa more 'authentic'sound. This led to a discourse that often crossed into overt racism (MoynihanandS0derlind1998).This musical constructionof place was not confined to Scandinavia,nor to BlackMetal. ExtremeMetal bands from a diverse set of locations made musicdrawing on local instrumentationand constructedplace in various ways, includingthe 'OrientalMetal' of the Israeliband OrphanedLand and the 'SalsaMetal' of theVenezuelan band Laberinto.Sepulturaalso contributed o this trajectory.The band had occasionallyused'Brazilian'elements such as the 'um, dois, um, dois, tres, quatro' introductiontothe song 'TroopsOf Doom' on 'MorbidVisions' and a percussion intro to the titletrack on Arise. There were also occasional lyrics dealing with Brazilian politicalissues in veiled terms, such as 'Murder' rom the album Arise.On the 1993 albumChaosAD the band began systematically,musically and lyrically to incorporateagreater element of 'Brazilianness'.Additional percussion was used on the song'Refuse/Resist' and the drumming throughout the album focused on the tomsmore. The bonus track on the CD is a cover of the song 'Policia'by the Brazilianband Titas and is sung in the original Portuguese.The instrumental rack Kaiowas'is dedicated to an Amerindian tribe who committed mass suicide as a protestagainst land expropriation,and the songs 'Manifest'and 'BiotechIs Godzilla' alsodeal with Brazilian ssues.But it was in the 1996 album Roots hat the most concerted attempt to signifyBrazilianness was made. Whereas previous albums had focused on oppressionwithin Brazil, the Roots album wields 'Brazil'as a positive musical and symbolicresource. As Max Cavalera s quoted as saying on the press release accompanyingthe album: 'I wanted to show some parts of Brazil that were artistic, rather thanjust songs about street kids and government corruption'.



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The ExtremeMetal scene 21

Figure 4. SepulturarecordingRoots, 1996. Left-right,Andreas Kisser,Max Cavalera, gor Cavalera,PaoloIrThe demands of extremityand heaviness are refractedthroughthe idea ofRoots.It is an idea that drawson the power of traditionand communityas well asthe pain and oppressionof Brazilianhistory.The lyrics speak of constantstrugglebut struggle through which 'We're growing stronger everyday, stronger in everyway' ('RootsBloody Roots')and that despite everything 'These roots will alwaysremain' (8BornStubborn').The music has also changed from their earlierspeed-obsessed Thrashwith clean guitar sounds. On Roots heavily downtuned guitars(low E tuned to B or D) create an oppressive, almost drone-like effect over IgorCavalera'sdrumming that is pushed high in the mix and relies on the toms asmuch as bass, snare and hi-hat. Much of the album was recorded using analogueequipmentand many of the tracks were the result of extended 'jams'.Max Cava-lera'svocalsare often distorted,underlining he oppressivefeeling. To this claustro-phobic mixtureon varioustracks s added Brazilianpercussion nstrumentsand onone track ('Attitude') the 'Berimbau' a stringed instrumentof Afro-Brazilianorigin. These instruments are deployed in such a way that they do not jar. Theyrathercreatea pummelling,reinforcing ffectthat adds to the extrememixture.Thiscan intensify the claustrophobia as in 'Attitude')but can also createmoments of'rising above' despite everything.The latteris the case in the ecstatic collaboration

with the percussionistCarlinhosBrownon the track 'Ratamahatta'hat features abizarre mixture of Death Metal and Brazilian,SalvadoranCarnivalpercussion(djembe, ateria,surdo and others). The lyrics (see Appendix B) joyouslycelebrateshanty town life and Brazilianoutlaws and folk heroesZe Do Caixo and Lampiao.The collaborationwith the Xavante tribe of Pimentel Barbosa surfaces on twotracks 'BornStubborn'and 'Itsari'.On the former,a recordingof the 'WanaRido-be' song is used as an outro.On 'Itsari' meaning'Roots') here is a genuinecollab-



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22 KeithHarrisoration with Sepultura improvising on acoustic guitars and percussion over the'Datsi Wawere' healing chant.Rootsrefracts he concernsof a global music scene through a lens of a particu-lar constructionof Brazilianness.The 'roots'returned o are not tokenistic ncorpor-ations of an exotic 'other'to prop up a moribundmusic, but a resource o be learnedfrom that is part of Sepulturawho are also part of a wider, global scene. Moreover,the membersof Sepulturahad grown up listening to and playing Brazilianmusic-indeed the Cavalerabrotherswere membersof a samba school. Nor are roots seenas autochthonousand bounded, but multi-ethnicsyncreticand complex:. . . we're showing some of the best parts of our country,the colours, the cultureand musicof the Indians, the African nfluence with all the percussion and things like that. So we'veshown some of those roots, the music of Brazil,and our own roots too - the big cities wherewe come from, the urban metal style. (Interviewwith Andreas Kisser,Terrorizer 7, Nov-

ember 1996)In many ways then, Rootshas a lot in common with the work of other Brazilianmusicians such as Chico Science, who have attempted to syncretisevarious Brazil-ian musics with contemporary ock music (McGowanand Pessanha 1998)Like all such projects,Rootshas its problems. Whilst the Xavante appear tohave been treated with respect and receive royalties, t is unclear how they under-stood the project and what they will get out of it. The Xavante had little say onhow the piece was set within the album (although 'Itsari'was not overdubbed atall). Neither can Sepultura ensure that those who purchase their albums will notexoticise the Brazilianness n the project.Nonetheless, Sepulturadid approachRootsin a spirit of discovery that avoids many of the pitfalls that other artistshave falleninto in such projects. The collaborationwas not intended simply to add exotic'colour' to their music, but was a sincere (if perhaps naive) attempt to collaborate

Fig1lre . Sepalltalraecording ith Xavanta ribe,PimentelBarbosa, razilf 996



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TheExtremeMetalscene 23and learn from Sepultura's fellow Brazilians.Moreover, the Xavante of PimentelBarbosa have become skilled at dealing with non-Xavante Brazilians and non-Brazilians (Graham 1995) and Cipasse, the president of the Xavante of PimentelBarbosa and Sepultura's primary contact, had toured with Milton Nascimiento.The Xavante also released a statement warmly commending the collaboration(http:/ /sepultribe.com/rev/se infoOl.html).Yet there are many tracks on the album that make no attempt to constructBrazilianness.There are collaborationson the album with Westernmusicians, suchas DJ Lethal of House of Pain and JonathanDavis of Korn. Sepulturaand its con-stituent members have collaborated with a variety of musicians since the early1990s. In 1994 Max Cavalera released an industrial album with Alex Newport ofthe British band Fudgetunnel under the name of Nailbomb. Sepultura have alsodrawn on a wide variety of other musical resources that have no connection withBrazil. For instance, the intro to the ChaosAD album contains a recording of MaxCavalera'sson Zyon's heartbeat n his mother's womb.Once again there are no easy explanations as to why Sepultura began toexperiment with Death Metal, and particularlywhy they began to use Brazil as amusical and lyrical resource. What is clear is that Sepultura'ssuccess in the early1990s in producing 'placeless'Death Metal left Sepulturawith the capital to be ableto experimentwidely with whoever and whatever they wished. Sepultura'srecordsales grew from 600,000for 'Beneath he Remains' to over 1,200,000 or Roots.Themore success Sepulturahave achieved, the more removed they have become fromthe Brazilianscenic infrastructure,but also the more able they have been to playwith new musical possibilities.So global success enabled experimentationwith new'local' and other syncretisms as much as it distanced them from the brute facts oflocation. Yet it is important to note that other Death Metal bands that achievedsuccess at the time Sepultura did, such as Obituary or Cannibal Corpse, did notexperimentwith place and other musical resources.In December 1996 Sepultura unexpectedly split up. The reasons appear tohave nothing to do with their musical style but with the tensions between Max andGloriaCavaleraand the rest of the band. Early n 1998 Max Cavalerareturnedwitha band and eponymous album called Soulfly. As on Roots, everal of its songs fea-ture lyrics on Brazilian hemes or written in Portuguese,and a number also featureBrazilian nstruments. It also features several guest musicians including membersof Fear Factory,Limp Bizkit and Dub War. Later n 1998 Sepulturaalso released analbum,Against,with the Afro-American ocalist DerrickGreen,who had taken overfrom Max Cavalera.Unlike Soulfly, he 'Brazilian' ontent of the album is less thanon Roots,although there is considerableuse of percussion. As on SoulIRyhere isextensive use of guest musicians including a collaborationwith Japanese Kododrummers on 'Kamaitachi'.Both bands (particularlySoulIRy) eem to be moving towards a hybrid formof Metal influencedby punk, rap and funk. It is a music for a transglobaloppressed'other',refracted hrough Brazil.This was always a featureof Sepultura'swork. Forexample, the video for 'Refuse/Resists' from ChaosAD containsfootage of riots andpolice brutality world-wide. The band have made consistent efforts to tour count-ries where few ExtremeMetal bands play, such as Indonesia and New Zealand.AsIgor Cavaleraputs it: ' . . . someone in Israelsomeone in Japanalways relatedSepul-tura not only because of Brazil but the fact that . . . Sepulturarepresents all thosecountries in a way' (personal nterview, 27 November 1998).



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24 KeithHarrisThis resolutely global attitude has brought with it the danger of Sepulturaand Soulfly falling into a crude global postmodernism. Theirvoracious desire toexperiment is problematic.In an interview with Metal Hammer in October 1998,

IgorCavalera s quoted as saying:We've thought about hooking up with the aborigines n Australiacos they make a fuckingexcellentatmosphericand moody music with the digderidoo.All the world's tribes have somany connections n rhythmand that lends itself to our music very well.Here global difference is reduced to a set of undifferentiated,exoticised 'tribes'.Sepulturaand Soulfly have come to walk the narrowline trodden by a number ofartistswho have sought to experiment and collaboratewith a variety of cultures,such as PeterGabrieland Paul Simon.This problematic rootlessness'has also takenboth bands further away fromthe ExtremeMetal scene and into a more complex space within the wider Metalscene. The late 1990s has been a time of majorchangein Metal. There has been anincreasingcleavage between the (mostly American)'New Metal' bands, such asKornthat areintroducingnew elements into Metal and have achievedconsiderablemass marketsuccess, and an increasingly'fundamentalist',ExtremeMetal scene.The musical freedom of the 'New Metal' scene, is accompaniedby an extremelyloose set of scenic constraints.Sepultura and Soulfly have shown themselves ininterviews to be relativelyuninterested n the contemporaryExtremeMetal scene.In GuitarMagazine t the time of Roots,MaxCavaleracriticisescontemporaryDeathMetal: . . . WhenI firstlistened to DeathMetal it stood for rebellion and I thoughtit was really interesting.Today though, it's almost like a fashion trend . . . it's nottrue any more, it's totally fake' (vol. 6, no. 4).Here Cavaleraproclaims his autonomy and in doing so reinforceshis newposition within a scene thatplacesminimalinstitutionalconstraints.SepulturaandSoulfly may have returnedto Brazilian roots', but they have radicallyweakenedtheir commitmentto the institutional roots in the scene within which they devel-oped. Theirgaining of financial and culturalcapitalwithin a looser scene has ledto theirlosing capital within the ExtremeMetalscene. Itseems that a major mpetusin guiding Sepultura'strajectory rom ChaosAD onwards was a desire to assertmusical and institutionalautonomy from the scene that spawned them. As IgorCavaleraexplainswith regard to Roots: we were like . . . what can we bring out ofour own music, that is the Brazilian nfluence,that can make our music stand outmore than its ever been' (personal nterview,27 November1998).Yet there are still continuities with their past. Both Sepulturaand Souflyremainon RoadrunnerRecords.At concertsboth bandsplaysongs from throughoutSepultura's careerand play on bills with ExtremeMetal acts. Moreover,Brazil isnot simply one more 'exotic'resource o drawon amongst many others.Both bandshave remainedpolitically engaged within Brazilthroughout the 1990s.Sepulturaand Soulfly have produced lyrics about Brazilianpolitical issues and have comeout in support of Braziliangroups such as TorturaNunca Mais ('TortureNeverAgain').Theiroutspokenstatementsagainst the police have caused them trouble,leading to MaxCavalera'sarrestafterallegedly spitting on the Brazilian lag aftera show in Sao Paolo in 1994(he was laterreleasedwithoutcharge).Soulflyincludedan address in theirCD for a pressuregroup to stop the destructionof the rainforest.InAugust 1998 Sepulturaplayed a show to 20,000people in SaoPaulocalled 'NoiseAgainst Hunger' for which everyone attending had to bring one kilogramme of



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The ExtremeMetal scene 25food. Thebands are 'stars' n Brazilas nowhere else - Max Cavalerahas even beenasked to score a Braziliancommercialfor Sprite. This has continued despite bothbands incorporatingnon-Brazilianmusicians into their bands. 'Brazil'then, addssome 'weight'and fixityto a band becomingradicallyglobalised. It remainsa placeto which Sepulturaand SoulIRymembershave 'real' inks - family,friends, history,etc. Moreover,whilst MaxCavalerastill lives in Phoenix, the rest of Sepulturaarenow spending more and more time in Brazil (even Derrick Green is learningPortuguese). The discursive and the real reinforceeach other to make Brazil animportantanchor in their complex trajectories.The implications of sceneThis brief history of Sepultura'scareeruses the concept of scene in a number ofways. In this section I want to expand some of the implicationsof the ways that Ihave used the concept. The most striking thing about Sepultura'scareer is thenumber of scenes they were part of - the BrazilianMetal scene, the Death Metalscene, the global ExtremeMetal scene, the global Heavy Metal scene. These scenesexist quasi-autonomouslywithin each other and effecteach other'sand Sepultura'strajectories. epulturacannever be unproblematically laced once and for all withinone single scene. Neither can they escape scenes completely - even in their laterperiod in which capital gave them a certain autonomy,they were part of scenes.Yet as well as being productiveof Sepultura,scenes are also produced by them. Intheir early career,Sepultura'ssuccess froma marginalscene changed expectationsof what was institutionallypossible within the global scene. In their later careerthey changedideas of what was musically possiblewithin Death Metal.It is but a short step to arguing that all music and music-relatedactivitytakes place within a scene or scenes. This assertion allows us to avoid theendless task of drawing boundaries between what is a scene and what is not.It recognises that no musical practice can take place entirely separately fromsocial processes.The implicationis that scenes include everything,from tight-knitlocal musical communities to isolated musicians and occasional fans, since allcontributeto and feed off a larger space(s) of musical practice. Even the simpleaction of buying a CD means to become 'involved' in a scene, in however slighta way, by virtue of causing some sort of effect within it. One cannot make arigid distinction between 'active' and 'passive' membership.It also follows thateverything within a scene, and indeed scenes themselves, may exist within anumber of other scenes. A musical text, for example, may circulate within anumber of scenes at once. Moreover, texts and individuals may move on avariety of trajectories hrough scenes along particular pathways' (Finnegan1989)through life. Similarly, scenes themselves are constantly shifting, splitting andcombining- any stability can only be momentary.

The potentials and problems of the ExtremeMetal sceneIn the introductoryparagraphsto this paper, I argued that it was important tounderstand processes of globalisationin music in ways that would allow us toappreciatethe specificitiesand paradoxesof particularcases, whilst relating themto general global processes and structures.As we have seen, the concept of thescene allows us to examinethe ways in which Sepultura's rajectorywas produced



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26 KeithHarrisby and productive of particularglobal-local relations.The case of Sepulturaresistssimple global-local dichotomies. Instead, at particularpoints in their career, theirposition within the scene enabled different ways of responding to their positionwithin Braziland the world. What might Sepultura ell us about the potentials andproblems of the globalisationof music?Music is deeply implicated in the constructionof place and individual andgroup identities are tied into this construction.MartinStokes has shown how musicin various locations 'evokes and organises collective memories and present experi-ences of place with an intensity, power and simplicity unmatched by any othersocial activity' (1994,p. 13). What rap music in the ghettos of New York, ndie musicin Liverpool and juju in Nigeria (my examples) have in common, is 'to encouragepeople to feel that they are in touch with an essential part of themselves, theiremotions and their community' (ibid., p. 13). Industrialisationand globalisationhave made available an increasingly large range of musical resources that haveenabled a growing range of groups and individuals to use them in the constructionof identity and location.The very mobility and malleabilityof music that makes it such a potent toolin empowering people to respond to their location in the world is of course theresult of 'ISOWS'Lashand Urry 1994)of various forms of capital.These flows resultin severe inequalities in the ability of groups to appropriateand distribute music.However much people may feel that a particularmusic is essentially 'theirs', anyexclusive sense of musical ownership is permanentlyunder threat.Western artistsmay appropriatenon-Westernmusics in ways that trivialise or exoticise them inthe dilettante search for new musical materials.Global musical flows are facilitatedby multinational corporations able to wield substantial financial and otherresources.The international tate system also effects global flows of music. This canwork either through straightforwardmeans such as censorship,or in more complexways such as the uneven implementationof copyright law. What is intertextualityto some, is straightforward tealing to those who do not have recourseto copyrightand capital. Of course, subordinategroups do often appropriatemusic themselvesand sometimes do penetrate other musical markets, but in broad terms the inter-linkage of musical and capital flows is highly problematic.Thus a vision of what sort of musical texts we would like to see in a world inwhich processes of globalisationare inescapable,must bear in mind both the abilityof music to enable people to 'penetrate' heir locations in the world and the inabilityof music to transcend global flows of capital and power. It is important to try toenvisage a global musical practice as free as possible from large differentials ofcapital, that would reconcilethe deep emotional investments in ideas of ownershipstemming from the musical constructionof place, with the fact that music can andwill travel. This practice should enable the circulationof music and yet still allowfor the penetration of locality, identity and ownership in unique, but non-essentialising ways.

An examination of the career of Sepultura within the Extreme Metal sceneprovides one way of assessing whether the scene might provide a model forthis global musical practice. Certainly, in their later work Sepultura and Soulflyhave mostly managed to avoid the pitfalls of an excessively dilettante practice.Their Brazil is more than a crudely deployed signifier or a rigidly policed'authentic' discourse. It is rather a hybrid and flexible concatenation of thediscursive and the real that continually links the global and the local. Sepultura



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The ExtremeMetal scene 27and Soulfly have managed to penetrate locality, identity and musical ownershipin a complex and non-essentialist manner whilst becoming the embodiment ofglobally located artists.

Yet the position from which they are producing this music is, in the lastanalysis, a highly privileged and capital-richposition. Although they have madeconcerted attempts to retain Brazilian connections, the connections are those ofprivileged migrants who can leave whenever they wish. The global ExtremeMetal scene enabled them to achieve this position through its exceptional decen-tralisation n the 1980s and early l990s. It remains unlikely today that a BrazilianMetal (or indeed rock) band could achieve global prominence in any other waythan through such a scene. Yet at the time the scene was accompanied by amusical practice that did not treat place as a musical resource. Although todayplace is a musical resource within the scene, it is generally constructed inessentialist, sometimes racist ways. For all its global decentralisation, there isintense ambivalence within the scene towards more complex and ambiguouspenetrations of the global and the local. Roots, together with Sepultura andSoulfly's subsequent work, was made possible by a more unencumberedpositionwithin a wider Metal scene that challenged global flows of capital far less.Moreover, the widening gap between the resurgent Metal scene and the ExtremeMetal scene means that the latter is becoming ever less willing and able to learnfrom Sepultura's musical example.All that said, the ExtremeMetal scene is far closer to the global musical prac-tice we are looking for than are many other scenes. At its best, it allows bands suchas Sepultura to galvanise musicians and fans across the world yet still attend tolocal specificity. As Regev (1997) has argued, such 'reflexive communities' (Lash1994)have the potential to provide temporaryresolutionsto the apparentcontradic-tion between participation n the field of (global) popular music and the field oflocal/national identity. The scene also enables membersacross the world to interacton a fairly equal basis. The scene has the potentialto avoid both the tight restrictionsof traditionalmusical subcultures and the anomie of isolated musical occurrencesfacilitatedby large multinationals.In a similar way, a 'scenic methodology' re-contextualisesmusical texts, insti-tutions and practiceswithin the social spaces in which they are enmeshed. It pro-vides an alternativeboth to atomising forms of research hat ignore wider contextsof music productionand consumption,and to forms of research hat overdeterminethose contexts in 'subcultural' rameworks. The concept allows us to build idealtypes in the search for models for a global musical culture. The theoretical andmethodological moves involved in developing the concept of the scene can thusprovide new ways of thinking about globalisationand music.Appendix A: 'Bestial Devastation' Iyrics(Spelling, grammarand punctuation as shown on lyric sheet)A legion of demon'sBornfrom the boundariesof deathLike a onslaught of evilTo destroy this earthCovering the morbid skysLike a mist of sulphur



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28 KeithHarrisI can see SatanasThe cursed of deathTerminate masse's and reignsWith blood axe's of hateThe beast of son of evilTormenting the preacher of ChristThe human's try to reactTo this nuclear warWich is like a endless painBurning in the fire of hell

Appendix B: 'Ratamahatta' yricsBiboca ['Dive']Garagem ['Garage']Favela ['Slum']Fubonga ['Hoodlum']Maloca ['Shanty']Bocada ['Ghetto']MalocaBocadaFubangaFavelaGaragemBibocaPorra! ['Fuck']Ze Do CaixaoZumbiLampiaoHello UptownHello DowntownHello TrenchtownRatamahatta!Hello UptownHello DowntownHello MidtownHello TrenchtownRatamahatta!

AcknowledgementsI would like to thank Dave Hesmondhalgh, Chris Jenks and Sara Cohen forhelpful comments on this paper, Michelle Kerr at Roadrunner for giving meaccess to her archives and other help and Igor Cavalera for the interview. Iwould also like to thank those who commented on my papers at the July 1997IASPM conference in Kanazawa and the July 1997 Open University Music andCultural Difference conference in London. Lyrics are reprinted by kind per-mission of Roadblock Music Inc.



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The ExtremeMetal scene 29Endnote1. The sections on the Extreme Metal scene and Unfortunately, some of the cuttings were not

Sepultura draw on ongoing doctoral research. properly referenced. When quoting from suchI have also surveyed UK music press coverage sources, I have given as much information asof the band from 1989 to 1996 and conducted was available.an interview with drummer Igor Cavalera.

ReferencesBourdieu, P. 1989. Outline of a Theoryof Practice(Cambridge)

1993. TheField of CulturalProduction(Oxford)Clark, G. 1981. 'Defending ski-jumpers: a critique of theories of youth subcultures', in On Record:Rock,

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(Chicago)Finnegan, R. 1989. TheHiddenMusicians:Music-Makingin an English Town (Cambridge)Gaines, D. 1994. 'The local economy of suburban scenes', in Adolescentsand theirMusic: If it's too Loud,You'retoo Old, ed. J. Epstein (London), pp. 47-66Gelder, K. and Thornton, S. (eds) 1997. The SubsulturesReader(London)Graham, L. G. 1995. PerformingDreams: Discourses of ImmortalityAmong the Xavante of Central Brazil

(Austin)Hebdidge, D. 1979. Subsulture:The Meaning of Style (London)Kruse, H. 1993. 'Subcultural identity in alternative music culture', PopularMusic, 12, pp. 3343Laing, D. 1986. 'The music industry and the 'cultural imperialism' thesis', Media, Cultureand Society,8,

pp. 33141Lash, S. 1994. 'Reflexivity and its doubles: structures, aesthetics, community', in ReflexiveModernisation,

eds U. Beck, A. Giddens and S. Lash (Cambridge), pp. 110-73Lash, S. and Urry, J. 1994. Economiesof Signs and Space(London)Lipsitz, G. 1994. DangerousCrossroads:PopularMusic, Postmodernismand the Poeticsof Place (London)McGowan, C. and Pessanha, R. 1998. The Brazilian Sound: Samba, Bossa Nova and the PopularMusic of

Brazil (Philadelphia)Mitchell, T. 1996. PopularMusic and LocalIdentity:Rock,Pop and Rap in Europeand Oceania(London)Moynihan, M. and S0derlind, D. 1998. LordsOf Chaos:The BloodyRise of the SatanicMetal Underground

(Venice, CA)Olson, M. 1998. 'Everybody loves our town: scenes, spatiality, migrancy', in Mappingthe Beat:Contempor-

ary Music and ContemporaryTheory,eds T. Swiss et al. (Oxford), pp. 269-90Regev, M. 1997. 'Rock aesthetics and musics of the world', Theory,Cultureand Society,14, pp. 12542Schreiner, C. 1993. Musica Brasileira:A History of PopularMusic and the Peopleof Brazil (London)Shank, B. 1994. Dissonant Identities:TheRockn Roll Scene in Austin, Texas(Hanover)Silverman, D. 1993. InterpretingQualitativeData:Methods or Analysing Talk,Text and Interaction(London)Slobin, M. 1993. SubsulturalSounds:Micromusicsof the West (Hanover)Stokes, M. (ed.) 1994. Ethnicity,Identityand Music: TheMusical Constructionof Place (Oxford)Straw, W. 1991. 'Systems of articulation, logics of change: communities and scenes in popular music',

CulturalStudies, 5, pp. 368-88Taylor, T.D. 1997. GlobalPop: WorldMusic, WorldMarkets(London)Thornton, S. 1995. Club Cultures(Cambridge)Walser, R. 1993. Running with the Devil: Power, Genderand Madness in Heavy Metal Music (Hanover)Weinstein, D. 1991. Heavy Metal:A CulturalSociology(New York)Willis, P. 1978. ProfaneCulture (London)

DiscographyNailbomb, Point Blank.Roadrunner Records, RR-90554Sepultura, MorbidVisions/Bestial Devastation.Roadrunner Records, CD RR 8765 2



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30 KeithHarrisSepultura, Schizophrenia.Roadrunner records,CD RR 8764 2.(NB: The above two are re-releases originally put out by Cogumelo Producoes in 1985, 1986 and 1987)Sepultura, Beneath the Remains. Roadrunner Records, CD RR 8766 2. 1989Sepultura, Arise. Roadrunner Records, RO-9328-1. 1991Sepultura, Chaos A.D., Roadrunner Records, RR-9000-5. 1993Sepultura, Roots. Roadrunner Records. RR-8900-5. 1996Sepultura, Against. Roadrunner Records, RR 8700 2/4. 1998Soulfly, Soulfly.oadrunner Records, 1RR 8748-2. 1998

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