There are dozens of spots on this earth renowned and revered as places of pilgrimage by different musical tribes for their bustling scenes and seminal venues that gave birth to great groups and entire genres.

Egypt, however, probably isn’t one of the first to spring to mind, so you’ll forgive my ignorance of the North African metal movement, and exclamations of surprise when Soulfly singer Max Cavalera announces he’s in the process of booking his band’s first tour of the country.

“Metal fans are everywhere,” he says. “They exist everywhere and they’re devoted. They wait 20, sometimes 30 years for their favourite band [to play]. You go there and they’ll be waiting for you. In some genres people are into your music for like one year and the next year they don’t like it anymore. That doesn’t really happen in metal, metal is a lifetime thing. Look at groups like Motorhead, Napalm Death - they’re a part of their fans’ lives.”

It must be agreed that where a chapter of the metal Mafia has been established, it very rarely then fades away. It may take some serious guts to rise to glory in this famously brutal family, but once at the top of the tree bands are often assured of eternal iconic status.

Max Cavalera and his brother Igor are undeniably a part of the pantheon, earning their road dog scars and stripes in Sepultura during the mid 80s. It’s a history that ensured their reunion under the name Cavalera Conspiracy in 2007 - some 11 years after Max departed Sepultura - was enough to stun lifelong rowdy metal fans into an awed silence. Even Cavalera, a thoughtful, modest man when he’s not delivering throat-shredding growls and incitements to riot onstage, admits this was something pretty special to see.

“It was strange, I expected people to go absolutely apeshit like they always do,” he recalls, “but a lot of people just wanted to watch, like watching a movie. I was ready to go into the crowd and pass out popcorn!” he laughs, adding, “I do understand. A lot of them just wanted to see it, me and Igor again after this huge time. There were a lot of musicians, old friends of ours, who came to see Cavalera Conspiracy, like Mike Patton, Jello Biafra and Mike Bordin.

These guys were really curious to see and it didn’t hit me until I was right up there onstage. Up until then, for some reason, I was like ‘it’s not a big deal, I’m just touring’. Then I realized.”

As well as being living, breathing testament to his assertion that metal fans are not fickle folk, but dedicated life-long worshippers of their heroes, Max Cavalera is proof that old road dogs may still learn new tricks. Following the family reunion that took to the road last year, 2009 sees him firmly focused once more on Soulfly, the no-holds-barred metal experiment he established in 1996.

He confesses it’s been hard, “because I always thought it would be not impossible, but very difficult to top songs like [Sepultura anthems] ‘Roots Bloody Roots’ and ‘Eye For An Eye’,” even commenting he often wishes he didn’t have these tracks as a benchmark. But Max has gone at reshaping metal with a gung-ho sense of adventure in Soulfly over the past 12 years, blending the genre with the traditional sounds of his native Brazil and other world music.

One thing that’s ever apparent in conversation with the older Cavalera brother is that he’s a not a man content to rest on his laurels. Instead one picks up on an insatiable thirst to learn. He keeps a keen ear to the ground for new groups, shunning lucrative tour buy-ons and preferring to see Soulfly supported by local acts, who he’ll then make a point of jamming with (once again, he simply can’t forget his roots, saying “I remember being in Brazil when Venom came to Brazil to play and we [Sepultura] got to open the show. That was a huge thing for us as a local band”). He’s also an adventurous traveler, eagerly picking up more exotic influences for Soulfly in far-flung lands even when he’s not on the road with the band, and making a point of booking shows off the beaten track - Egypt being only at the top of a long list.

Consequently his tour diary is filled with tales of the strange far beyond the realm of many groups’ most bizarre road experiences.

“In Siberia we did four shows and the only other metal band that was there before us was Uriah Heep,” he says. “I really enjoyed the excitement and passion of the fans but there’s a difference [to the West]. They’re hungry but they don’t yet know what to do. A lot of them are really looking around like ‘what do we do?’ And I just say ‘destroy the place! Tear the place up!’ That’s what we’re here for.”

Of course there is always an element of danger involved entering uncharted waters, as Sepultura tragically discovered in Indonesia in 1991, where disagreements over state tax demands on the band resulted in their tour manager being involved in a fatal ‘accident’ in a lift shaft. Still, Cavalera thinks, “it’s exciting as hell, it’s dangerous but I wouldn’t trade it. The memories of that are so unique.”

During the first quarter of 2009 Soulfly are ploughing on with the promotion of last year’s Conquer album, as well as launching new EP Blood Fire War Hate and embarking on a lengthy European tour that takes them through the UK and East to Lithuania and Latvia. On Conquer the musical element of surprise that listeners now anticipate of each new Soulfly release came in a move away from world music influences, back to simply-served classic metal informed, according to Max, by the likes of Bolt Thrower, Napalm Death and Slayer.

“I get a lot of ‘what the fuck man? There’s no fucking Brazilian shit on this album!’” he laughs. “I put that aside for a bit. I did so much weird crazy shit on other Soulfly albums that at this point to do an album that is straight up metal is almost a breath of fresh air.”

Blood Fire War Hate meanwhile - essentially a single release for the Conquer track of the same name backed with a number of live tracks - is another significant turning point in Soulfly’s twisted chronicles for the band’s singer. The live material was recorded at a landmark show in Poland in 2005, which he explains “was the first ever show where I played nothing but Soulfly, which at the time was a big thing.

People when they came to see me always saw me playing older, classic Sepultura songs. To be honest I was scared at first, but the Polish crowd were really, really great, they went nuts!”

Max Cavalera may maintain a great pride in his roots, but these days it would seem he’s no longer bound by them.