SEPULTURA's ANDREAS KISSER Has No Interest In Reading MAX CAVALERA's Autobiography

Brendan Crabb of Australia's Loud magazine recently conducted an interview with guitarist Andreas Kisser of Brazilian/American metallers SEPULTURA. A few excerpts from the chat follow below.

On the new SEPULTURA album, "The Mediator Between Head And Hands Must Be The Heart":

Kisser: "The album is the first one we have with our new drummer, Eloy Casagrande. He brought a lot of new energy and new elements to the music of SEPULTURA. And working with Ross Robinson as the producer again; he did 'Roots' and now we have a chance to work together again. It's great; the music, it's very dark, very aggressive and there's lots of elements of our old style of thrash metal elements, and even some death metal elements. It's just a very intense, very powerful SEPULTURA album. It's very honest music; it's what we feel today…. We never tried to copy anything that we did before, or tried to do something that we've done before. I think it's another step forward in our career. It's one of the best albums that we ever did, for sure. It's very organic, very natural, the way we like to perform on-stage. When performing the music the best way we can, with lots of energy and passion, I think that's what SEPULTURA is based on.

"The title of the album came out from the movie 'Metropolis'. 'The Mediator Between Head And Hands Must Be The Heart' is kind of a long title, but at the same time it's a very strong, powerful name that shows the importance of our human being, you know, characteristics, not to be totally robotised by anything. (If) you receive information through your head and actions through your hands without your heart, without arguing, protesting or questioning, you're nothing more than a robot. That (allowed) us to write about everything — religion, politics, natural phenomenon, human feelings, and the relationship we have with people all around the world, and with our friends and family. We talk about everything, but really (it's about) not (wanting) to lose our human ability to be human, to at least have free choice and free speech, and to question things… I think that's the biggest message of all, that it's very important not to lose our heart, not to lose our human element."

On whether he has read former SEPULTURA frontman Max Cavalera's autobiography "My Bloody Roots" (co-written by British author Joel McIver),which has already been published in Brazil, or has any inkling to do so:

Kisser: "No, not really, man, it's just his opinion, that's all. We're so focused on what we're doing now, there's no looking back. I'm not interested to get into a fight to say, who's right, who's wrong… Of course I don't agree with everything, but if you have a mind and a mouth, you might as well express what you feel. It's just what you're feeling, that's it. It's nothing to do with what we're doing now and stuff, you know? I didn't read it, but of course people always comment (to me) about features of the book; ‘he said that, he said that'. That's fine; it's just not something that is really going to change anything of what we're doing today. If he felt the urge to put something like that out, that's his… We're very focused (on) here, today. The music that SOULFLY or CAVALERA CONSPIRACY or whatever is doing is nothing to do with what SEPULTURA is doing. We're so much apart. It doesn't matter what you say, at the end of the day… There's so many opinions around the world, and I respect them all. But we're doing something very special. I think we've respected our past, but live in the present very much."