Sepultura

Interview

Derrick Green (vocalist) 7/20/00

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Sam catches Derrick at the Tattoo The Earth festival in NJ...

Sam: How's the new album going?
Derrick: "Good, the new album is going really, really well, we're really extremely excited. It was kinda strange getting off the road and then not working for awhile, and then coming back into the studio...but it was going up, and then it would go down, and then up, and down, and then down...and it really went up once we got our producer set and had him come down and work on pre-production."
Sam: Who's producing?
Derrick: "ah, Steve Evetts, he's really not a big time producer at all..."
Sam: humm, never heard of him...
Derrick: "It's great, that's something that we wanted, we didn't want any names, we wanted somebody that was gonna take it and, you know grow with the music and contribute to it, and that's something that really happened with Steve."
Sam: You guys have all the songs ready and everything?
Derrick: "Yeah, we have about 13, 14 different songs, we have a demo of it...pretty much just, you know, we can hear and go through changes...all the songs are really powerful, extremely different from the last album, or any other Sepultura album."
Sam: It's gonna be different eh?
Derrick: "yeah.."
Sam: I heard the lyrics are more politically based...
Derrick: "Oh, they're definately more polictial based, I donno, I think it's just a sign of the times right now... especially I mean where we're recording and rehearsing and living in Brasil, it's a country that definately needs alot of political change. It's a beautiful place, and it's also an extermely dangerous and violent place, like anywhere you can go in the world. But there there's such a mass amount of people in one area in certain cities, and the conditions are bad, and they don't have to be that bad."
Sam: You guys have any covers you're gonna record for B-sides or anything?
Derrick: "Umm, yeah..basically the B-sides I think we're do alot of punk rock covers like Black Flag, and uhh..old Crucifix, it's a band from San Francsico, things like that...we're talking about doing a Bauhaus cover of "Bella Lugosi Is Dead" and we wanted to just throw things out there, you know, B-sides and try to twist 'um around a little."
Sam: Are there any different influences going into this this album?
Derrick: "Yeah..I think there's alot more of me... (laughs) not to be like 'hey it's me now', but..."
Sam: Are you playing guitar on it or anything?
Derrick: "Yeah, I mean, on the album I don't know if I'll be playing guitar but I wrote guitar parts for the album, so I think alot of people will hear that, and see that it's a little more comfortable, you get to hear a little more vocal range from myself. I think it'll be alot more interesting to listen to even if you don't like metal music."
Sam: Are you doin' the yelling thing all the way through...?
Derrick: "No, not at all..."
Sam: ..or singing some melodic shit?
Derrick: "Definately melodic, and singing. I think people will be kinda surprised, like 'wow, I didn't know he could do that' but I've always done melodic type bands in the past and stuff like that, so it's not that difficult for me, and it's not like I'm faking anything. So, I've always done heavy music so this will be... that's why we're all excited for it, everybody in the band is excited because we all particiate at the same time and really communicated on the issues we wanted talk about."
Sam: So did you guys just get called up about the Tattoo The Earth tour and decided to split while recording?
Derrick: "Yeah, we were done with the pre-production and were just waiting to go into the studio, and we decided hey let's do this tour, it's gonna be really...interesting, totally new, and that's the time to jump on before the tours get burnt out. Just like either too much money, and the bands, they're just so commercial, you've seen them already 100 times or it's not that interesting anymore. And I think here it combines like 2 types of culture like music and tattoo arts which is really cool."
Sam: Since you've been in the band for a few years now do you feel more comfortable in your role as the singer in Sepultura?
Derrick: "Yeah, I definately do, especially living in Brasil and being around everyone and learning the language... in Portugese, and really talking with fans, like Brasilian fans who are fanatical about Sepultura, so it's a different world. Like I can walk around in NY and maybe a few people will be like 'hey, what's up', but not many, but in Brasil it's everyone...you know mother, children, taxi drivers, it doesn't matter."
Sam: Yeah, you guys play huge festivals down there..
Derrick: "We play big shows, but still very mellow, people are just very nice and come up and try to speak english, even if they don't speak english, so it's a beautiful thing. It really makes you feel comfortable to conquer anywhere in the world and I think it shows more in the shows now than when I first started. And alot of people have said it like fans, not friends you know, like people are just honest like 'I was sure about you being in the band, and I didn't know what to expect, but I thought it was ok..' you know..."
Sam: Yeah, that was kinda rough for me when Max left
Derrick: "I mean, I was a fan before I was in the band so it was definately like hard, you know?"
Sam: That had to be pretty insane...they just called you up...
Derrick: "Yeah, I mean it was something that I wasn't really expecting, and something I wanted to try...I didn't want to try to be like...sound like Max, I don't sound like him, and I don't think anybody really does, so it's just like, I wanted to be myself and if they like that then, we could do something and that's what happened really..."
Sam: You guys gonna pull off any new songs tonight?
Derrick: "Yeah, I think we're gonna...we might play one new song because there's so many more bands playing and we have a shorter time to play this show in Jersey but uhh..."
Sam: Yeah, they're only giving you guys like a half hour, it's not right...
Derrick: "Yeah, so we're just gonna pull out the old, fast, hard songs and do one new song I think...and so far the new songs have been..."
(Derrick's phone goes off)
Sam: So when can we expect the album to be out?
Derrick: "Umm, basicaly we wanna put it out the begining of next year..."
Sam: Awwww....
Derrick: "I know...it's...we really are like..."
Sam: I can't wait that long!
Derrick: "Niether can I...I wanna start working right away. We're gonna have Stewart Copeland, the drummer from the Police, he's gonna come and work on a couple of songs, he really likes "Against". He's gonna come to a show, I think in California and check it out...and so I'm interested in what songs...we're gonna give him some really trippy songs to work with and it should be cool. I've always loved the Police, I'm interested to have different input from somebody in a completely different genre of music, but it's good music that he comes from so, good music is good music. But yeah, next year we're gonna come out in full force just doing as much touring as possible, hopefully come out with a video at the same time as the album. I think alot of people will be hopefully be blown away...I mean we're working our asses off..."