This interview was conducted by Philip A. Wickstrand with vocalist Derrick Green at Branx in Portland, OR on April 12, 2012.

Does SEPULTURA even need an introduction? Seriously, if you haven’t heard of them, then you just got into Metal and are on the beginnings of a wonderful new journey in music or you’ve accidentally stumbled onto the wrong website while trying to find free porn.

Phil: How were the first couple shows of the tour?

Derrick: It’s been good, you know, considering we’re coming from Russia. It’s a really long flight and everything, but it’s been great; the energy is definitely there. It’s always a special energy to play in the U.S., we have a good lineup, a lot of bands that we enjoy are playing on the same bill, so it makes it a lot easier. It’s exciting. The first two shows have been great. San Francisco was definitely over the top - always great to play there.

Phil: How were the Russian shows?

Derrick: The Russian shows were fantastic. It was definitely like a dream to travel inside of Russia; not only Saint Petersburg and Moscow, but going to Siberia and traveling on the Trans-Siberian Express and just going to places we’ve never been before in the history of SEPULTURA. It was great to see people who have followed the band for such a long time and to see the reaction that they have before and after the show and during the show, how energetic and how incredibly thankful they were for us to be there. It’s definitely not an easy trip; trains, planes, automobiles, busses. It’s really a massive country and some of the places we were playing were close to Mongolia or Kazakhstan, but it was definitely a cultural eye-opener for us, especially for me, and I learned so much from being there and I look forward to going back there. It’d be great to back there with some other bands, bring some other bands there so they have the opportunity to check it out as well, for the people, the fans there - they love heavy music and different styles of music, so it’d be a big treat for them.

Phil: Now that you’ve had a chance to step back from it a bit, how do you feel about your most recent album, Kairos?

Derrick: I think it’s incredible how it’s really been growing. I felt that playing a lot of the new songs live has a much stronger reaction from the very beginning, of course, you give people time to listen to it, but it’s great - I think it goes very well with the setlist. There’s diversity from the old songs but it still has an extreme power, so it matches very well. And there’s a lot of young people that are into it and its drawn a lot of people who are much younger and it’s great to see that energy at shows, so I definitely notice that it’s grown from last year until now; I definitely can feel that.

Phil: You’ve got this upcoming drum collaboration with LES TAMBOURS DU BRONX at the Wacken Open Air festival in August - tell us a bit about how that came about.

Derrick: We had seen them before; we played a festival in France many ears ago, we’d seen them perform and we thought it’d be cool to combine with them to do something in the future. So eventually we did one show with them in France, just one song, and we kept in touch and we decided it’d be great for them to do a song on the Kairos album. So we basically did the song, sent it to them and they did whatever they wanted to do with it. We gave them that freedom to put their stamp on it, their style and it came out really cool; it’s a very futuristic song, very modern and I like it. It’s very aggressive and different from what we imagined it to be and that was the idea. So I think this collaboration is something that people can sense is something that’s new and fresh and we were able to work with them at Rock In Rio, the last Rock In Rio in Brazil, and it was such a big success, you know; nobody knew what to expect. We ended up collaborating, doing some of their songs and them doing some of our songs, the two sets kind of, and it was really big. Looking back on it, I was like “Wow!” It was something I had never imagined being so popular. Some people at Wacken, they saw this and they wanted to have that energy, that power at the next Wacken festival, so it’s great because most bands aren’t able to play Wacken two years in a row and so this is something very special for us and I think people will definitely freak out seeing it. It’s something very unique and very powerful and very real, you know, so we’re really looking forward to it.

Phil: Is there any possibility of footage done with them appearing on a future SEPULTURA DVD?

Derrick: Yeah, I mean, we’ve talked about it actually. I think Wacken will record the entire thing. It’s always open to work together to have them on a DVD. It would be great; it would be an honor to have them, so hopefully we can work that out to have various guests, different friends to do something a little unique.

Phil: Out of all the collaborations SEPULTURA has worked on throughout the years, what has been your favorite?

Derrick: Good question. [pauses] It’s hard to think of one that comes to mind that’s better than any other because they all were so surprising, you know, they were great for that moment in time. [pause] There’s been so many, I… [laughs] I think the first for me was the collaboration with KODO, a Japanese drum group from Japan, it was on the first album, Against, that I recorded with SEPULTURA. I think there was so much drama going on at the time with the split and the new album and everything, I don’t think many people even knew we did a collaboration with them in Japan on their island, Sado Island. It was something pretty unique just for the fact that they’d never had a Metal band approach them to collaborate, but it’s an incredible song at that time and it was a pretty cool collaboration.

Phil: Do you think there’s any chance that we can see a second rarities collection, like Blood Rooted, with more recent material? Like, I know there were a couple more collaborations with Mike Patton and the BAD BRAINS cover from the tribute record, things like that.

Derrick: I don’t think so. Right now I think the idea is really to continue touring on Kairos ‘til the end of the year and then begin the recording process for next year with Eloy Casagrande, our new drummer. We’re really exited to have him; he’s a phenomenal drummer, very explosive and I think we have a lot of energy and power now, so I think it’s good to start thinking of ideas for writing and be ready to have something fresh with him, you know, and some really powerful music. Extreme, you know. He brings a lot of very youthful energy and he’s very talented, so I kinda wanna explore that; it brings a person closer to the group when you write an album with them and so I think it’s only natural that we attempt to do something with him to bring him closer into the group.

Phil: What kind of ideas are you kicking around for new material so far?

Derrick: Just straight forward, nothing too complex, nothing too outrageously out there. Just straight forward banging Metal. Not really trying to go back to the old days but just something very powerful. It’s very challenging to not do the same thing and I think it’ll come in time, at the moment, like let’s take the energy from touring and everything, going to Russia and come explosive with it, you know, not holding back anything at all.

Phil: Speaking of that youthful energy that’s being injected, how much longer do you think SEPULTURA can go?

Derrick: I don’t know. ‘Til it’s not fun anymore, I guess. It’s important for us to really enjoy ourselves and once we stop enjoying ourselves, I think that’s when it’s over. It’s really hard to say. We have a lot of ideas and still many places we want to play and many things we want to do with SEPULTURA, so it can go on for as long as we have the real passion to do it and the ideas and the energy and the fans are there; it’s a combination of many things, so I think it can go on for a long time - you never really know. So right now it seems very good; we’re at a very good level, so we can definitely see there’s a future and there’s a lot of things we have planned for the future, so it’s an exciting moment.

Phil: Recommend a book for our readers and then explain why you recommend that particular work.

Derrick: I think The Jungle is a pretty good book. Upton Sinclair. What I like about the book is it’s pretty much investigating the entire… not really infiltrating the meat industry but in a way doing it… at its time where the industrial revolution was going on, there were a lot of immigrants coming to the U.S. and they were being used primarily like slaves in these factories and bringing it to the people who may not have known, Americans, the situation that was going on in these factories with the immigrants and the industry, the meat industry just being so completely disgusting and people being disgusted with it not knowing what was going on, so when I read it, it was just something that rang true, you know - stories about different immigrants, but he actually lived there, the author, in those shacks with those people going to work constantly and so that’s how he was able to come up with such a rich story. And I thought it was really important because a lot of things changed after that, the meat industry having regulations on that and it just shocked the American people and I thought it was an amazing book; it shocked me and it really changed my life in a way where I thought about eating meat and that whole idea and that whole industry, just questioning it for the first time in my life. So I would recommend that book, The Jungle.

Phil: Is there anything else you’d like to add?

Derrick: No. [laughs] Just excited to be back in the U.S., playing many shows and it’s great to see people come down, old fans, new fans; we’re doing an incredible setlist, trying to play from every era of SEPULTURA. We’re doing it well; we have a lot of energy and it’s exciting to see fans come down, so definitely check it out.

Sepultura's Derrick Green

Interviewer: Philip A. Wickstrand

April 22, 2012

(Click on Photo to Enlarge)

Formed: 1984
    Belo Horizonte,
Minas Gerais  BRAZIL
Label:  Nuclear Blast Records
Genre: Thrash/Groove/Hardcore Metal

CURRENT LINE-UP:

Derrick Green:  Vocals & Guitars
Andreas Kisser: Lead Guitars
Paulo Jr:  Bass
Eloy Casagrande:  Drums

DISCOGRAPHY:

Morbid Visions (1986)
Schizophrenia (1987)
Beneath the Remains (1989)
Bestial Devastation EP (1991)
Arise (1991)
Third World Posse EP (1992)
Under Siege (Live in Barcelona)
                                  Video/VHS (1992)
4 Songs Tied Video/VHS (1992)
Refuse/Resist EP (1993)
Territory (1993)
Chaos A.D. (1993)
Refuse/Resist EP (1994)
Sepultura/Prong Split (1994)
Third World Chaos Video/VHS (1995)
Natural Born Blasters EP (1996)
We Are What We Are Video (1996)
Roots (1996)
Ratamahatta Video/VHS (1996)
The Roots of Sepultura Comp. (1996)
B-Sides Comp. (1997)
Tribal Devastation Video/VHS (1997)
Procreation of the Wicked EP (1997)
Blood-Rooted Comp (1997)
Against (1998)
Nation (2001)
Under a Pale Grey Sky (2002)
Chaos DVD (2002)
Revolusongs EP (2002)
Roorback (2003)
Live in São Paulo CD/DVD (2005)
Sepultura / Moonspell / Beyond Fear
                                              Split (2006)
Dante XXI (2006)
Convicted in Life DVD (2006)
The Best Of Comp. (2006)
A-Lex (2009)
Kairos (2011)

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Check out Rottenbucher's review of Kairos here