Sepultura plan to bow out after 40 years – but not before answering Metal Hammer readers’ questions
Sepultura’s career been full of incredible achievements. The band that helped put Brazilian metal on the map – and then paved the way for the sounds of global metal when they recorded with the Xavante tribe on 1996’s Roots – they remained a crucial force even following the departure of founders Max and Iggor Cavalera, with the likes of 2006’s conceptual Dante XXI and latest album Quadra (2020) proving they could still produce top-tier material.
But last year, they announced plans to call it a day. Drummer Eloy Casagrande left in February (later resurfacing in Slipknot), while the band recruited Greyson Nekrutman, formerly of Suicidal Tendencies, and embarked on a worldwide farewell tour the following month. We took your questions to vocalist Derrick Green and guitarist Andreas Kisser, as they reflect on the end of a 40-year journey.
Andreas: “You’ve said the answer! Quadra is an amazing album and why wait for something to happen outside of our control to finish the band? My personal experience with my wife dying from cancer two years ago has given life a different meaning to me, too. We close out cycles in our life every day and it is a privilege to do that consciously. Being in a band you feel a lot of pressures, and sometimes it makes no sense artistically speaking. We do not want to be slaves to our avatars.”
Derrick: “You go through that cycle of creating an album, doing the promo, going on tour, and it can get repetitive. We’re now doing things we’ve never done before. I was a big fan of Refused, and when they had their last album [1998’s The Shape Of Punk To Come, though they reformed in 2012 and have since recorded two more albums], I gave them a lot of respect for leaving on that epic album. For us it’s exciting, knowing we’re playing these places for the last time.”
Andreas: “Greyson brought his suggestions so we rebuilt it around him, but it was not too far from what we had planned already. He was keen to play the new stuff, but Dusted and Biotech Is Godzilla were cool to play for the first time in a while, and we will add more along the road. We’ve done Mind War, False and even the Kaiowas jam that we brought back from the Chaos A.D. tour. Songs from [2013’s] The Mediator Between Head And Hands Must Be The Heart are very complicated, but eventually we would like to bring songs in from every album, because we are recording every show to build something cool for the live album.”
