In March, Sepultura played a great (but short) set in support for In Flames in the Effenaar. It was one of their first shows with replacement drummer Roy Mayorga (who has joined Stone Sour in the meantime) and it was also our first chance to hear some new material from their record Dante XXI (21). We had a talk with bassist Paulo Jr.

 

 

"Of course it is but the chemistry is great. We only had one week for rehearsals and Roy learned around 20 songs. We rehearsed for 6 or 7 hours a day and after a week everything was done. Now we have done a few shows and it sounds good! You'll see that tonight for sure!"

 

 

"Very good so far! This is still the first leg of the tour and we only have 50 minutes to play. It's hard to pick a setlist if you have 20 years of material. We've been switching around songs. It's a sort of best of Sepultura with some new material. The 1.5 hour set will have more material; this is just more of a "taste of the new stuff"."

 

 

"For me, I just love the record. We took our time to do it. We started writing stuff, toured a bit, continued the writing, etc. We had a pretty good concept and we tried to focus the material in one direction. I am very satisfied with the final result. Not just the music itself but also the artwork."

 

 

"We knew this Brazilian guy who had a great style, and because he was also from Brazil it was a bit easier and more comfortable for us to use his work. It was more the issue to find someone who captured the whole idea. We didn't really consider using something like Doré's art. Actually, I only have the version of the book without any pictures in it, and I bought a new one to read it again because it’s just a confusing book."

 

 

"The idea was to make a modern version of Dante's story, more of a parallel version set in our time. Hopefully people will relate differently to the songs because it's pretty open to interpretation. And of course, it's our 21st anniversary as a band."

 

 

"Since you can relate to the lyrics in so many ways I hope it's open for everyone. We hope people understand the lyrics like as if they have read a book that is made into a movie afterwards. When you read a book you can really use your imagination, and that is what we wanted. If we would be more specific, it would be like the movie which you might not like because you thought it would be different."

 

 

"Yeah, I thought it was good. I really want to see the movie because I'm curious. I don't know about Hanks but he is a good actor and it's hard to imagine him being in a bad role."

 

 

"Thats a hard one. There are so many, I can't really think of one right know."

 

 

"Actually, I don't know! Tell me."

 

 

"Ah! Well. I've read it twice now and I still don't understand it. I actually had to go through a child's version of it to really understand it."

 

 

"It’s already closed, unfortunately. It was a really fun place, but it only lasted for one year because we had some trouble with our partners. I really wanted to open a new one all by myself. It's really fun, it's just something different to do at home. We had a little stage with mostly blues and jazz bands, and that damn Derrick also had a hiphop night.. It started to do very well but we just got into troubles. It was a good experience so I can't wait."

 

 

"I believe there are around 22 million people who live in the Sao Paolo area."

 

 

"I think it is. It is divided in areas, and of course there are parts of the city I've never been and probably never will. But where I live it’s really a town in a town."

 

 

"Yeah I live pretty close to the centre and I have everything that I need in walking distance. That’s important because the traffic is just... Not good at all. Andreas lives to the east so he has a lot of troubles with the traffic."

 

 

"There are some good bands that are starting right know but the problem is that they only sing in Portugese. That's a big wall that they have to bring down. There are bands like Angra and Krisiun that are more known and that have been around. Andreas is helping to produce a band called (editor: Siowa? Ciowa? Couldnt really hear that one) and they are actually half Dutch/half Brazilian. I believe one of them actually has family from Eindhoven. He is helping with the record and they are recording it in my house. They should be one of the new best bands. But there are a lot of bands that just stay and play in Sao Paolo and are fine with that. We actually started singing in English but Portugese was too complex, and English is easier for Rock music."

 

 

"Well if Derrick can sing it..I know I can't!"

 

 

"I don't know. We really had the idea to use some classical things but it's not that we said that we should use it more."

 

 

"Well, you should really have to re-arrange our music for that! If you play a Sepultura song on an acoustic instrument you really have to change it. If you would keep it the same it would be scamming! We tried playing acoustic once and that was great so maybe."

 

 

"Well, a record label thinks about money and they want to get as much out of it. We didn’t have anything to do with it. We didn’t want them to release that shitty live record but they just did it anyway. The only way to change that is to get our rights back and that’s just a really big fight. But it's the same with for example, Jimmy Hendrix. He's been dead for ages but every year they'll just release something "new" anyway. I don't buy it, it's just scamming."

 

 

"Currently I am on the road and all I can think of is being on the road. I hope we tour a lot on this record. Usually we tour around 2 years on each record so I hope we can make it that long."

 

Ok, I think our time is up so thank you for the interview!

"It was my pleasure!"