If you’ve been a metalhead over the last 30 years, then the word “Sepultura” should put an evil smirk on your face and make your fingers itch to throw those horns high! They’ve been dishing their brand of death and thrash, then exploring the infinite metal horizon with other flavors of metal for 3o years, and are not showing any signs of stopping. As pioneers in this realm, Sepultura has continued to move boundaries with style and genre. On the brink of the release of their live-show, Les Tambours du Bronx: Metal Veins – Alive At Rock in Rio, and on the heels of embarking on a South Africa tour, we stole a moment with Derrick Green, lead singer of SEPULTURA!
Hello, how are you? How’s the weather down there now?
It’s finally raining. We’ve been having a drought, so it’s actually quite nice.
You are originally from Cleveland?
Yeah I’m originally from Cleveland but I’ve been living in São Paulo for the last 17 years.
Sepultura has been around for over 30 years. You all are in the league now of heavy metal veterans. What are your thoughts on that?
It’s great. It’s actually an honor to be part of Sepultura history. At the end of the year were going to be doing a concert in Brazil with our friends and some of the people that are part of the history of Sepultura. It’s an incredible feeling.
Many bands are happy to make it three years. What do you feel has kept the fire alive so long for a band like Sepultura?
With us, it was always important from the beginning to really evolve, try different things, experiment, travel, and meet people from around the world. It allows us to maintain creativity as a band. There are certain elements that keep us fresh. We also communicate with each other and figure out what direction we see the band going, and being able to deal with such other on the road. All these different factors are super important. The ability to create and not be afraid to try different things, it’s all important in order to capture new fans and evolve as artists.
There have been multiple lineup changes from the inception to now. Is there any animosity between some of the current members in the past members?
No, not at all. I think everyone is pretty happy doing what they’re doing separately, and doing music the way they want to. I feel everybody is doing well actually being separate. These changes are, I think, very natural. At the moment we have a very strong lineup. It’s been pretty steady as far as Andreas and Paulo (the bass player and guitarist of Sepultura). Since I’ve joined the band they’ve been there. This past album that we wrote has definitely boosted the morale of the band. You can feel that we are definitely at a different phase now.
Writing and stylewise, how do you feel the band has adjusted to current fads in music?
I think we’re just adjusting ourselves. We are able to project pieces of our personality through our music. I think we all work very well. We all come from different backgrounds, and the music that we create is influenced by the people we talk to, and the level of traveling we’ve done. It all has such a big impact. Everybody can add a little piece to a song and be able to focus and go into different directions, and not be afraid to try to experiment.
You all released The Mediator Between Head and Hands must be the Heart just short of a year ago, and now next month you will be releasing Les Tambours du Bronx: Metal Veins – Alive At Rock in Rio. What’s next?
Next month were planning on going to South Africa, and then Australia and New Zealand. We will play more shows in Brazil. We plan on coming to the states next year to tour the album because we haven’t been able to do that yet. I believe there are some other places, like Eastern Europe, that we plan on going to. We have a few ideas about possibly being able to put together and bring in an orchestra sometime next year. We’ve done it before but we’ve never really had everything set up to record. It would be great to do that. So yeah, there’s a lot more touring to do with this album. We won’t really be able to start working on anything new until the end of next year.
The one that’s coming out next month, the live show, it’s coming out in several different formats. Tell me about the experience of making that. What was the feeling of having such a large percussion section playing alongside you?
It was really great to see it come to life. It started as watching Tambours du Bronx at a festival, where we were all playing together. It was great. We had seen their show, and we stayed in touch. It was an opportunity to take the Live At Rock in Rio, in a small stage with different artists that were combining with other artists to perform a special show. We thought that Tambours du Bronx would be great. Nobody had ever done a show like this before. We spoke with them about doing some of their songs, and then doing some of our songs together. It was really special to see it all come together finally.
What made you choose the songs you are playing? Are those songs that you would have in a typical lineup? I think you had the “Kaiowas”, “Refuse Resist”, “Territory”. Is that a typical lineup of songs that you would usually play?
Yeah. We usually play those classic songs. The guys from Tambour du Bronx wanted to do some of those songs. It was kind of just up to them to pick songs that they felt comfortable doing, because they have a very particular way of playing.
You also chose to do Prodigy’s “Firestarter”. Where did the inspiration come from to pull that one?
That was actually suggested by Tambour du Bronx. They picked that one as well. It’s always a great song to play at festivals and we are big fans. It’s very rhythmic and it makes people really move.
Right before this interview I went your website, and I saw you had a video that came out a couple months ago for a song by Chico Science & Nacao Zumbi with fighting crabs. How did that idea come to life?
That’s actually a cover song from Chico Science. They are from the Northeast of Brazil. In that region of Brazil you usually see a lot of crabs. Unfortunately their singer died in a car accident many years ago. They are one of the most original bands of my generation that I never really knew too well, but I still go back and listen to them through video footage. However, the whole idea behind the crabs is because the region where that band is from: Pernambuco.
Sepultura – Da Lama ao Caos – Chico Science
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by Alice Roques, RockRevolt Magazine Cofounder and Managing Editor
Sepultura And Les Tambours du Bronx: Metal Veins – Alive At Rock In Rio will be released in North America via Eagle Rock Entertainment on September 16th, 2014.
