SEPULTURA Guitarist Says The 'Thrashfest Classics' Tour Concept Is 'Awesome'

Metal Insider's Joshua Bottomley recently conducted an interview with guitarist Andreas Kisser of Brazilian/American thrashers SEPULTURA. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

Metal Insider: Many critics are hailing "Kairos" as a return to the "old" SEPULTURA sound. Were you aiming in that direction?

Kisser: This album is inspired by ourselves. A little bit of everything that we did in our history since day one, it's there. It's SEPULTURA today. We wanted to try to reproduce what we are on stage. We play songs from every part of SEPULTURA's history in order to have that kind of intensity. Every album that we do we try to reach for that, to sound as alive as possible. And we achieved more than ever this kind of vibe [on "Kairos"]. The album sounds very alive. We had a lot of fun recording. The production coming from Roy Z. was amazing. Musically, it has a little bit of the past. We didn't try to represent another album. We have so many different albums throughout our history and we respect every one of them. I guess there's a little bit of the thrashy old style. We listened to a lot of the bands we listened to before: HELLHAMMER, CELTIC FROST, DESTRUCTION, KREATOR, and VIO-LENCE. All that thrash. We went back to those feelings to try to remember what they were and how we did it, and why we did it. The limitations with vinyl on classic albums, they have eight or nine songs at the most. We did albums with 16-17 songs. So we decided that we needed to shorten the number of songs and really focus on each one of them. Really thinking about construction of solos, vocals, all of it. We didn't try to copy anything we did [before] but tried to get that feeling back.

Metal Insider: Did it help that this was Jean's [Dolabella, drums] second album with the band?

Kisser: No doubt. We've played for five years. Did many tours. Now, the second album. It gets easier, definitely. He understands more about the old stuff, and we play a lot of the old stuff. We did the whole "Arise" album for the anniversary party [of a club in So Paulo, Brazil] last year. It helps to get that vibe, that feeling we used to play with. And we still do play those songs, "Arise", etc. But it helps, of course. We've played so many different stages, festivals with big bands like METALLICA, MAIDEN, FAITH NO MORE, so you see a lot, too. It helps, definitely.

Metal Insider: This is your first release on Nuclear Blast. How has it been working with that label?

Kisser: It's definitely a step forward. Since last year, when we signed, everything has been working as we planned. It's amazing. They're doing a great job. They're very excited to have SEPULTURA and we are very excited to be with them. I think the chemistry is great. They love the style of music. They understand how to work this. And they are fans themselves. Hopefully it will be like that for a long time. It's a great partnership. The album is receiving amazing reviews. The response has been very positive. I think it's a great place to be right now. It's perfect.

Metal Insider: For the "Thrashfest Classics" European tour this November/December with EXODUS, DESTRUCTION and HEATHEN, you are only playing songs from "Beneath The Remains", "Arise" and "Chaos A.D.", correct?

Kisser: We are going to choose songs from the three [albums] and create a set list around that era. The whole festival has that kind of [throwback] idea. It's great. I think the concept is awesome. There's a lot of kids who want to see some songs that we never play live, because we have no room in our setlist. I think it will be a good challenge for us to try to learn some old stuff that we don't play for a long time. The setlist is still being worked out. We have some songs that we already play, but we'd like to do some extra stuff that we don't do for many years and try to do something different for us as well.

Read the entire interview from Metal Insider.

Photo credit: Alex Solca