SEPULTURA Guitarist Discusses 'Kairos' Album In New Interview

Mark Holmes of Metal Discovery recently conducted an interview with guitarist Andreas Kisser of Brazilian/American thrashers SEPULTURA. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

Metal Discovery: Have you been playing much of the new material?

Andreas Kisser: We're playing two new songs so far and it's working great. The response has been very positive and, slowly, we are putting more of the new material so we can prepare the new tour while we're touring here.

Metal Discovery: How have the two new songs been received by fans?

Andreas Kisser: Very good, very positive. It's very exciting because they're working really well on stage. But the whole [new SEPULTURA] album ["Kairos", I think it's more like we wanted to explore the feeling and the sound that SEPULTURA has on stage, you know, live. I guess we achieved that working with Roy Z [HALFORD, BRUCE DICKINSON, JUDAS PRIEST, HELLOWEEN] in the studio. He's a producer who's also a musician, a very active musician, so I think it's very cool. I'm very happy with the result.

Metal Discovery: I can hear some parts reminiscent of material from "Arise"- and "Chaos A.D."-era SEPULTURA, like the early to mid-Nineties SEPULTURA sound. Did you deliberately set out with that kind of vibe in mind?

Andreas Kisser: Well, we are inspired by ourselves, by our own history and SEPULTURA's 26-year career. We did many different things, like many different guests, and many different musicians, and influences from many different types of music and I guess, with SEPULTURA, we are celebrating the moment of SEPULTURA. You know, the moment now, today, 2011. We respect our past but we don't live there and we're not there anymore; we are here. I guess celebrating twenty five years of SEPULTURA last year, doing stuff like that, you balance your whole career. You know, you remember where you come from, and how you move up, and how things happen, all the changes that have happened inside and outside the band. A lot of really great experiences that have kept us here so I guess the album represents what we are today and, of course, the reference we have from our career we're gonna have some elements that remind of some stuff from the past. But the intention was not really to copy or to reproduce anything from the past.

Metal Discovery: I have to ask, you played live with an orchestra for the first time ever at the Virada Cultural festival [in April]. How was that experience?

Andreas Kisser: It was amazing. It's something that we've wanted to do for a long time. I mean, heavy metal, rock 'n' roll and classical music, there are a lot of good examples from DEEP PURPLE to the SCORPIONS, and KISS, and METALLICA there are many different bands that have done that mixture, and it works. Heavy metal and classical music are from the same planet like revolutionary writers and composers, virtuosity and everything. We're very happy that we had the chance to do it now in So Paulo with the So Paulo Orchestra. We did around eight or nine arrangements of SEPULTURA music and it was exciting being part of a festival. It was a big festival with many bands and stuff like that. It was a little difficult to dial in the sounds and everything but it was worth it. The reaction of the crowd was really fantastic. They were really surprised to see something like that happening. Our intention now is to really try to do it again with more arrangements and more songs, and try to do it in an enclosed place, an enclosed environment. Even in a studio or something so we could better control our sound and mixing. So let's see, depending on the time we have this year, we'll probably try to do that by the end of the year or next year. I think it would be great.

Metal Discovery: So was the So Paulo thing actually filmed and recorded for a future DVD/CD release?

Andreas Kisser: Yeah, we filmed everything but, like I said, the sound was not really good. We had a lot of problems to try to reproduce something that could be decent for the project. But we have really nice and beautiful images so, somehow, it's gonna be part of a DVD or documentary that we are already filming actually. We've been filming a documentary about SEPULTURA since last year but, like I said, the intention is to do that again so we can have a decent sound and so we can do a proper mix, so we don't lose certain elements of the orchestra and the band sound. Unfortunately, we didn't really have the time and the means to do something more decent with the sound. But, somehow, it's gonna be used somewhere. Image-wise, it's just amazing.

Read the entire interview from Metal Discovery.

Photo credit: Alex Solca