SEPULTURA Guitarist ANDREAS KISSER: New Studio Album Planned For 2008

Jeffrey Easton of The Metal Exiles recently coinducted an interview with SEPULTURA guitarist Andreas Kisser. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow:

The Metal Exiles: You are currently on tour for "Dante XXI" with a new drummer, what happened?

Andreas: Igor [Cavalera] left officially six or seven months ago but he has been away from us longer than that. Even before we started writing for the new album he was going through a lot of personal problems: He divorced his wife, got a new wife, had a kid so he changed a lot of things in his life. He wanted to stay in Brazil with his family more and did not want to tour outside Brazil. He is doing other things now and has other projects now. We did the album, we did not want to stop. We spent almost two years preparing this album. We read the book, came up with the concept, wrote the album, we spent a lot of time getting ready to do this. We found a fellow Brazilian named Jean [Dolabella] that is from the same city that SEPULTURA is from. He is a great drummer, awesome musician, very dedicated and studies a lot. He is great with the old stuff as well as the new stuff.

The Metal Exiles: Is he re-energizing the shows?

Andreas: Yes he is, very much. It is great to have him in the line up bringing new energy and new ideas. The idea is to play all throughout 2007, do the festivals and to come back to America. We stayed away to long and it was good to come back. We also want to prepare a new album for release in 2008.

The Metal Exiles: I have to admit that I have been a fan of yours for years but with albums like "Roots", "Against", and "Roorback", you guys were lost on me. With this record I found the SEPULTURA that made a difference. What do you think this album means over those?

Andreas: No album in our career stands alone in the SEPULTURA career. Each album is a consequence of the times we were in and the last album. I think "Against" is an album that kept us together after Max [Cavalera] left, finding a new manager, a new singer and with "Roorback" we had a new label. There were a lot of changes but with "Dante XXI" we found everything working in place except for Igor leaving. It is easy to go to the practice room when you have a manager in place, a record label that believes in us and our future. It is just not that music that factors us, we need everybody on the same team and working towards the same goal. It was very exciting to work on this record, it was safe, we did not have to go into the studio thinking about all the bullshit. Plus we had inspiration from the book ("The Divine Comedy"),it is an amazing book, a great story and even though it was written 700 years ago it was timeless. You can read it and relate to the times of today as well as the future. You can pick it up 10 years from now and still learn from it.

The Metal Exiles: Do you think that the American public have finally embraced Derrick [Green]?

Andreas: I think so, yes. The great majority do not talk about Max anymore anyway. Derrick has grown up a lot and it really shows on stage and this record. The reason that "Dante" sounds the way it does is the time that has been spent on Derrick growing into how own.

The Metal Exiles: I know on the Internet everybody talks about Max coming back. Do you think that would blow the momentum of the band?

Andreas: It is starting to get in the way actually but there is nothing going on. We are focused on what we are doing right now and we would throw everything away that we have built in the last 10 years.

The Metal Exiles: What can we expect from 2007?

Andreas: A lot of noise and a lot of traveling. We plan on being back in America and a new album in 2008.

Read the entire interview at www.metal-exiles.com.