Interview: Derrick Green of Sepultura speaks with Mark Derricutt
/
By Mark Derricutt
Ever since forming way back in 1984, Sepultura have been at the forefront of heavy metal, bringing to the world their tribal/Brazilian influenced blend of groove/thrash/death metal, and whilst the band has had its share of line up changes over the years - with the recently released 'Quadra': album number fifteen", Sepultura once again continue to showcase their extraordinary diverse musicianship, and lyricisms going toe to toe with classic sounding thrash metal.
Mark Derricutt had a chance to sit down and discuss the album, last year's New Zealand tour with Death Angel, and the apparent removal of Daylight Savings in Brazil....
Hello Derrick. How are you?
Good. Great, man.
Good, good, good. There's a wonderful sunny morning here in Auckland New Zealand. So what's the time where you are?
That's a good question. They did some type of weird time change here in Sao Paulo, Brazil. So it's something new for the country where, I think, they set the clock back. So I believe it's five in the afternoon.
Okay. So you've got a time zone change, have you?
Yeah, I don't know what's going on because on my watch, it's saying it's five o'clock and on my computer it's saying it's six o'clock. So it's been weird with the interviews, but so far I think I've gotten it down.
Okay, so welcome back to New Zealand on the air, on the reviews, the interviews, the written airways, you've got a new album - Quadra.
Yes.
I have been listening to that back to back for the last day and a half and, oh my God, it is a good one. It is. I'm loving the additions of more orchestral choirs, female lead vocals mixed in there as well and harmonies...
Yeah, we really wanted to go all out. I think on Machine Messiah, we had just touched on that a little bit and I think our idea was to go further with that. We're working with Jens Bogren again, second time around. Definitely helped in adding to expanding where we wanted to go. He had a lot of great ideas. We came in with a stronger demo this time, we had more time and preparation for actually creating the songs, but it was well thought out. We were well-prepared. And so, it just added to so much more expansion on the album.
I mean, once we got there, I told Jen’s it'd be great if we did have choir in certain parts, but he actually knew of a real choir from a Swedish church. So, we were able to map that out for them, the ideas and melodies, and just really go for it. With Machine Messiah, the one thing that kicked off the album was a melodical song - we had such a positive response from people and that's something that I've been able to do since I joined in the band was sing, but I would never really showcase that so much. But, it was something that we really wanted to expand on the same as Andreas being able to play classical guitar, to showcase more of that. I think it's more putting more of our personality into the music.
Yeah. I remember talking to one of my coworkers last year. I think it was either just before or after your tour down here. I was saying that I was ranking it as one of my breakthrough progressive metal albums of the year because there was a lot of that diversity and a lot more leads and more timing changes as well as hard-out thrash and [crosstalk 00:03:58] But it was just like, "Wow, this is not the Sepultura I listened to back in the day. This is a whole change."
Yeah. I mean we definitely... the one thing that I wanted to stay true to is the fact that before I joined the band, I really admired the fact that Sepultura are able to change each album. I didn't know what to expect. It was always something very new and fresh that I was hearing and I felt we were able to do that, to stay on that line. To really create and to try different things.
Right. So how did you guys approach writing the album? I understand Quadra comes from the Quadrivium, which is before or after the Trivium, to complete that set of the seven liberal arts kind of thing. And what kind of led to that kind of idea of four sides or...
Yeah, I mean it came from that actual book. That was the idea that Andreas came up with and really explained it in that way. It was like, "Hey, there's four of us. It just makes sense." There's four of us in the band, and four is such a powerful number as far as the meaning behind it. It was written that very strong things are manifested with the number four. And that's how we felt from being together for so long. The four of us onstage writing music, the four horsemen, there's the quadra, four sides in the playing field. People are surrounded by, but are living within, certain laws and rules within that quadra and either dealing with that or breaking out of that. And so then it all just seemed to make sense to us.
Right. And I believe the songs also actually follow that pattern as well. The four segments of the album is like - the real hard out thrashy kind of stuff. A bit more of a progressive element. The choir-y kind of side. Is that...?
Yeah! It was blatantly done that way because we're old and we're thinking of it as two albums, like side A's/B's. And that's how we...before we even had names of the songs. We're like, "Okay, this is side A, song one. A-1. B-2." And so we wanted to showcase the history, kind of, of Sepultura; the different elements that make up Sepultura. So there's the thrash element in the very beginning of the album, there's a more like tribal side, a second part, and in the third part, the more experimental part. And then the fourth, the more melodical side. And just having these four different divisions within the album, again, relating to this number four. And it's just tying everything together. We did it that way purposely.
Cool. I guess when we see the physical copies of the album, like on the big LPs, the album covers and the artwork and that kind of stuff, does that four-part motif fall through into the actual printed material as well or?...
Yeah, yeah. We'll definitely have the double album. It's going to be divided in those certain aspects. So, we really got into it and we try to keep it all on the same theme.
So, is there any plans for a Quadra Four Corners of the Earth World Tour in support as well?
Yeah, I mean we're doing it all. We're going to be pretty busy from 2020 to 2021 as well. We have a U.S. Tour coming up in March and that's going to be with Sacred Reich, and Crowbar, and this band called Art of Shock. So, that'll be in the U.S. We'll do a headlining tour there and then we'll do as many festivals the summer spring of Europe. And then, I'm hoping that we'll be able to come next year to Australia, Japan, New Zealand, everywhere. Tasmania I wanted to say.
Everyone forgets New Zealand.
We got to play Christchurch last year. That was something very new and amazing. But I would love to come back.
Yeah. The Christchurch show was well appreciated by a lot of the new Zealanders because they don't get a lot of the big international shows going down there. So they really-
Not at all.
...enjoyed seeing you guys.
Yeah, it was the same feeling for us. It's so beautiful when we're able to spend as much time as possible in that part of the world. And then we'll go back to Europe November, December to do our own headline tour. But yeah, we're looking forward to coming back down for sure.
Cool. So what kind of lyrical direction is in the album? I haven't got a lyric sheet available. I've just been listening to it over the last couple of days, but I haven't had a chance to dive in to listen to specific lyrics or anything yet.
Well, since we did have a lot of time in the process of making the album, I was able to write down a lot of ideas in dealing with social issues and personal altogether. So, some of the topics we're talking about the U.S. criminal system and about how they use solitary confinement as a form of punishment, which is inhumane. Also, writing about depression which has been plaguing a lot of artists and people in general, whether due to mental illness or through the type of lifestyles that we're living, the society that we live in nowadays. I wrote a song about the political manipulation that exists in many countries. The U.S., Brazil. Then I wanted to write a song about, actually, The Moment - again, a very positive song about living the moment and never knowing when anything can happen.
So, that's something you can really control is a moment, nothing in the past. That's already done. In the future, you don't really know what's going to happen, but what you can really control is what's happening in the various moment. I also wanted to write a song, or did write a song, about the Amazon and the Indians that are being killed there are being murdered. I wanted to give them a voice because it's in such a remote place where there's no law and the laws have been changing. And so, I think they needed a voice in order for their truth to be told, and also for their survival. So there was a lot of different topics that we're able to write about.
Definitely. Definitely a lot of diversity there as well, which is quite interesting. A lot of bands are quite focused even if not in a concept album, they're still quite focused in lyrics. So it was great to actually see there's a lot of different topics here as well, which is-
Oh yeah, I mean we even had a talk about Muhammad Ali. I mean the song is called Ali, and just because of the inspiration that he was, the type of human being that he was. As far as Andres and I, are big sports fans and so we admire a lot of different athletes. But he was very different because he was such an incredible person. Not only for his boxing technique, but just for his values and what he stood for. All the way until his death. So a person to walk away from the biggest, especially an athlete at the peak of their career, and to give that all up for his cause, is something very admirable. So we felt that we wanted to write a song about him.
Cool. With the four corners, the "Quadra" of the different styles and genres of the music, are you writing the words and the songs before the music? Or to the specific music as well? Or how's that writing process?
Okay. I mean with this album we approached it a different way. A lot of times I would wait until the music was already done, and then proceed to write the lyrics. But this time I was living in LA, since I moved to LA, and Eloy and Andreas had certain ideas that they would send to me. And then I would be able to take those in. And I started to write the subject matter before to Andreas. So it was like "These are the ideas I want to write about." And I had 12 ideas. Each day I would write lyrics related to the actual subject that I had written down and I would put this on a corkboard. Each day writing something, or every other day, until it was growing and growing and growing, until I had a lot of lyrics.
At the same time they were sending music, and then certain subject matter I would switch because I started to have the feeling of the music listening to it. Like Guardians Of The Earth, it was a lot of instrumental sounds before it and it just reminded me of something very tribal. And so I felt, okay, this song about the Amazon has to be... I have a lot of lyrics already. This has to match up with this song. So, I don't know if that makes sense, but it was just like a lot of it was written at the same time, if not before the actual music came along.
So it was very much a collaborative effort, as though you were in the same room with each other essentially, kind of.
Yeah, I mean we've played together and written albums for so long. Once I did come to Brazil to do the demo, I showed Andreas my ideas that I recorded and he was like, "That's what I wanted..." he's like, "Yeah, that's where I was thinking vocals should go." That's where 90% of what I had done or had thought would fit, was exactly where he was thinking it too.
I guess that's the good thing of being with the same lineup for a long time and-
Yeah. That helps.
...knowing what each other likes or doesn't like, or what you can get away with, or where you can push some topics or...
Oh yeah.
Cool. Well, is there anything that you want to tell any of our listeners or readers, as well, that we haven't touched on yet?
Well we just really look forward to creating a show different from the other shows. We can't wait to play these new songs live again with classic Sepultura songs, a mixture. So we look forward to seeing everyone at the shows. Hopefully we can come down there again with the very cool package. It was great to go the last time with Death Angel. That was fantastic. And-
That was a great show.
...hopefully we'll be able to... Man, I love the idea of touring with other bands and do it together. I think it's a treat for fans. You know, heavy music fans down there. So, hopefully, we can do that again.
Cool. I'll just quickly say Testament, Testament, Testament, Testament.
You never know.
Excellent. That's great. Cool. Well, you have a wonderful evening and I'll go enjoy the sun.
All right. You do that.
All right.
Take care Mark.