SEPULTURA Guitarist Refuses To 'Sell Himself' For Possible Reunion Of Classic Lineup

MTV's HeadbangersBlog.com recently tracked down guitarist Andreas Kisser of Brazilian thrashers SEPULTURA to talk about the joy of recording concept albums, the inspiration of Anthony Burgess's book "A Clockwork Orange" and Stanley Kubrick's movie for SEPULTURA's new CD, "A-Lex", the departure of drummer Igor Cavalera, the addition of Jean Dolabella and why he's uninterested in a reunion of the group's classic formation. You can stream the podcast below.

On the subject of a possible reformation of SEPULTURA's most successful lineup, Kisser said, "It's gotta be happening naturally. It's like, this reunion type of commentary that's been going on forever, but mainly the last two years, they really tried to approach and tried to make it happen. But, I mean, it's so ridiculous. You've gotta be very careful. There's a lot of reunions that happened that were totally shit and really destroyed careers and stuff. It's gotta be done right. We have really to enjoy playing with each other and respect each other and discuss ideas and create something special and new — besides trying just to ignore everything that happened and just do the 'Roots' tour. It's [like] being slaves of ourselves — it gets to a point where people let the name take control of what they are. And it's totally the opposite — in SEPULTURA you get reborn every day pretty much, and you have to recreate yourself. That's more exciting instead of being just food for expectations of whatever people who might think they know better what we are than ourselves. So I really don't like to see SEPULTURA that way. That's why nothing happened and we are very focused on what we're doing right now. All the rest is just whatever people think, or opinions, which… I respect them all, but that's not gonna change what we're doing right now."

When asked how close things got to there actually being a "Roots" lineup reunion, Andreas replied, "Not really close. There was a lot of [throwing] ideas around — mainly managers and agents and a lot of bullshit going on, which was not very healthy for what people expect to see from SEPULTURA. It was never something that we stopped what we were doing to work for that — not at all. We never really quit and we kept touring and doing our stuff and our plans and nothing really happened seriously. . . The money is great and sadly, this is what people think of first — only money. They just try to really make it, 'Here's some amount of money, let's do it.' It's not like that. It's something much bigger. I have to live with my decision for the rest of my life, so I'm not gonna sell myself for some opportunity for everybody to make money. So that's why we're still really focused on what we're doing and not really worried about other bullshit."

Classic SEPULTURA lineup performing "Roots Bloody Roots" at Spain's Dr. Music festival in 1996: