SEPULTURA Guitarist: If People Are Not Criticizing Us, That Means We're Doing It Wrong

Aniruddh "Andrew" Bansal of Metal Assault recently conducted an interview with guitarist Andreas Kisser of Brazilian/American thrashers SEPULTURA. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

Metal Assault: Don't get me wrong, I know the story behind the [new SEPULTURA] album title ["The Mediator Between Head And Hands Must Be The Heart"] and the reasons for it, but did you ever have any doubts or second thoughts because of its length?

Andreas: Not at all! For one thing, the length of the phrase that became the title made it more exciting, actually. It's something different. The title expresses the importance of being human, not to lose our heart, not to turn completely into robots. And the title expresses this kind of difference in the human side. People are so accustomed to certain things that when something new happens, everybody thinks that it's weird or it's wrong. That's a type of robotic feeling as well. Anything away from the normal, from the routine, is considered as a wrong thing. But it's not. Art in general is here to break the rules, you know. And for SEPULTURA, it's been our motto since we started. We really tried to look for something different all the time, new music, new instruments, and we've had the privilege to travel the world and to know new people. We keep our mind fresh and that's why every time we have these ideas. So I would say there was never a doubt or an attempt to find a shorter name just because the phrase was too long. I think the phrase really expresses basically what we feel today and what we see today.

Metal Assault: Talking of the music, upon listening to the album I feel that it retains some of the qualities of the previous album, "Kairos", and that album was pretty well received by fans. So, did you try to approach this similarly to that one?

Andreas: Well, every past SEPULTURA album is definitely an influence on every new album we start working on. Of course "Kairos" was the closest one from this, and it was really well received and everything. We did two years of touring in support of it and played great places and great festivals. It was our first album on Nuclear Blast, too. So yes, there's definitely a reference to "Kairos" on this new album in every aspect, but musically, we always try something different, because we don't try to reproduce a past album again, you know. But on this one, we have influences from the old stuff, more of the death metal type of thing, and I think it's dirtier and more raw than "Kairos". I think the main difference is the drummer, Eloy Casagrande. This was the first time we worked with him, he's 22 years old, has a lot of energy and he has done a lot more metal than our previous drummer, Jean Dolabella. I mean, don't get me wrong, Jean is a great musician and drummer. We did "Kairos" with him and as we were just saying, "Kairos" was really well received. But the new drummer is more into the metal world with his background. He's a big SEPULTURA fan and loves playing the style of music. He made a big difference to the sound and inspired us to write what we did.

Metal Assault: I think you're right. But SEPULTURA has so many people wanting the band to stop, and critics in general. I won't get into the reason because it's well documented. But does that actually inspire you to keep going even more, the fact that you have people out there saying all these negative things?

Andreas: Yeah! This is the story of our lives. Since day one of SEPULTURA being created, even before I joined the band, lots of people have been constantly talking shit about the band. Imagine being the kind of band that we were, the way we sounded, in 1984 in Brazil. It was always like that, heavy metal in general. We have to fight with the normal media, the non-specialist media. Heavy metal is still seen as something violent, but that's totally a lie because it's the opposite. It's so united and so pacific, I mean, we play everywhere around the world and regardless of the culture, the politics or the religion, the metal lover is very pacific. I've seen much more murders and violence in carnivals than I've seen in heavy metal shows. But this is something that we're very accustomed to now, and we've survived. The criticism always seems to be there no matter what we do. So, it doesn't bother us. It even helps us. Some criticism is good to listen to, but then if you're starting a record you're not going to be able to do anything if you just stop and listen to 35 different opinions. Of course I don't agree with them all but I respect them all because SEPULTURA has so many different kinds of fans, from the death metal era, the thrash era, and the Brazilian influence. We always gained new fans despite the criticism. Even when Max and Igor [Cavalera] were in the band, we had critics. It's something very natural to us. If people are not criticizing, that means we're doing it wrong. [laughs]

Read the entire interview at Metal Assault.