My Battle Jacket: Max Cavalera on Inspiration, Meaning Behind His Metal Vests

It's an iconic piece of the metal uniform — the "battle jacket," a vest covered in band patches, self-made and worn with pride. In our new series, "My Battle Jacket," artists and fans take us on tours of their vests and talk about the inspiration, process and meaning behind them. For episode one, we met up with Max Cavalera — of Sepultura, Nailbomb, Soulfly and Cavalera Conspiracy fame — in L.A., where he showed us two of his oldest vests and revealed how Discharge inspired him to make a "battle jacket" before he even knew the term, how he constructed his own "bullet belts" out of AA batteries as a kid in Brazil, and why he chooses to safety-pin his patches on instead of sewing them.