Andreas Kisser stays grounded as Sepultura nears its end

Andreas Kisser, guitarist for Sepultura, recently discussed the band’s intention to go on what will end up being a three-year farewell tour by the time it ends in late 2026 in an interview with Jarek Szubrycht of Poland’s Mystic Festival. He was questioned about why it was time to end things.

I think it was a great momentum. 40-year anniversary is a great mark. We have an amazing history behind, coming from Brazil, playing almost 80 countries around the world, bringing the Brazilian music to heavy metal, to thrash metal, to heavy music in general. And we did a great album, ‘Quadra’, our last one. We survived the pandemic situation, the lockdown. I went through also a personal experience with my wife. She passed away after cancer two years and a half ago, and it gave me a whole new perspective of life — when you respect finitude, when you respect dying, when you don’t deny that. We have a tendency not to talk about dying, to talk about death in general, and after her passing, a big part of myself died with her. But at the same time, other parts came to be — new experiences, new ideas, new horizons, new situations. I didn’t choose that way, but it came to be. And dying and death has been my biggest professor, my biggest teacher. And it felt that for Sepultura, it would be the same, really, to give a rest. I was feeling very pressured to write another album, to do another cycle, to do another tour. It’s not easy to write an album. You really have to be focused a hundred percent on [it]. And we decided to quit, to stop for a while. We are recording a live album on this tour. We’re gonna put out the live album. And so we still have stuff to do in the next two years. We are not in a hurry. We say goodbye, but relax. We’re doing [it] our own way. We’d like to fulfill our last wishes, let’s say go to Iceland for the first time, go to places in Africa and stuff, play in places that we’ve never been before, do partnerships and tours. A lot of stuff are happening and proposals [are coming in]. We’d like to go everywhere in the world, really enjoy this moment, and really afterwards just breathe a little bit… And it feels great. It’s still exciting. This is the best tour we[‘ve done] in Europe in our history. A lot of people are coming to see Sepultura for the first time. Other fans, they met at a Sepulturaconcert. Now they’re married. They have their kids with us. It’s great. It’s a fantastic feeling. And it’s a very thankful spirit, that we say to our fans, ‘Thank you so much for keeping this bad for 40 years so much alive and relevant.

But now of course, there’s the question on what will happen after the band halts.

Since I joined Sepultura in ’87, we never stopped — never. Even on the lockdown, we created an album. When we changed singers and managers and stuff, we were always rehearsing, we were always working towards the future and et cetera. And it feels like it’s a good momentum because we’re still young enough to be motivated to start something else from scratch. Of course, I’ll be involved with music. That’s what I do, I love to do. I’m not gonna quit Sepulturato sell cars or something like that. I’m gonna keep doing music. I still study music and et cetera.  not really concerned too much about future. Like I said, we have another two years of this touring. I like to enjoy the moment, like we are doing here. Every show has been amazing. It’s a fantastic feeling. I have so many different options. I already have another band called De La Tierra. I have a radio show in São Paulo with my son for 13 years now. And I have some parallel things that I already do that I might have more time, really, to dedicate to those. And I also wanna do a guitar lesson, finally a video talking about my style, Sepultura’s music, acoustic guitar and stuff, to put more time on that and really do that. A lot of people ask for that as well, so I wanna really have more time to do this. And I know so many musicians, so many bands. I’m really talking to people, ‘Oh, let’s do this, let’s do that.’ I have an idea to do a reggae project with Derrick. Who knows? [Laughs] I like to keep it open. I mean, it’s a little scary, but at the same time it’s very exciting to feel that freedom that we could really express and really see what happens. I think that’s why we are stopping — to get away of the comfort zone, to get away [and] artistically having different air to breathe.