salto.music: You have arrived this morning… what do you think of this place?

Derrick Green: Well, I haven’t had the chance to really see too much. We have a pretty demanding schedule of playing a lot of shows back to back, each day playing a show. Yesterday we where in Salzburg, in Austria, and so … the shows go pretty late and so for us it’s really important to have enough sleep. I think it’s so vital, you know, the health of people on tour. It’s so important to take care of your health.

For what I am seeing the area from around the festival, it looks really beautiful and we were told a lot about the history of this area from Salzburg.

It’s really great to be part of this festival and something that’s really unique here.

The people and the energy from playing shows has really kept everything together.

salto.music: How was the tour so far … are you satisfied? Did you enjoy it so far? Was it as expected after the two years of „waiting“? 

Derrick Green: After two years being locked down with everybody else in the world, I had no idea what to expect, I had no expectations anymore, because everything can change radically. I think that was the mindset I came into being locked down and going into the situation that everybody was going through.

So the tour has been fantastic. It’s been extremely challenging in many ways, with a lot of injuries, unfortunate deaths, and just really being able to come together as a band, to really make everything happen and not to cancel any more shows that we’ve had in the past. So, it’s been a challenge, but the people and the energy from playing shows has really kept everything together and it’s really better than I could possibly imagine.

So, it’s great to be back on the road to see all the fans and people together, people working again. I think it’s really important for people to keep that drive going and not to be afraid to live life again.

 

 

salto.music: Your tour-plan is quite full this year, you’ll go to Mexico, to Brazil, back to Europe. Was it difficult for you to start from zero for this tour?

Derrick Green: Absolutely. I mean, during the lockdown I think we all where able to reevaluate our lives in a lot of ways. So, there where positive things that happened of course within it.

I am a very optimistic person, you know, I really believe in a positive mental attitude.

During that time we where able to collaborate as a band still, online, doing the jam every Wednesday, where each person in their house playing their instrument, I was screaming in my apartment, or place that I lived, and we will do Sepultura songs, and than it expanded into inviting people to play Sepultura songs with us and inviting different organizations that we believed in to try to raise money.

And so during the whole lockdown a completely different perspective came about of being at home and taking care of mental health, of physical health, and cooking a lot at home, and just really getting into that mindset preparing myself for touring.

We were fighting … we live for this, you know?

And during that whole lockdown I unfortunately broke my ankle, skateboarding. So I’ve had a surgery for that and had to rehabilitate and go through that. First time I’ve ever broke a bone in my life, and then, after recuperating, after three or four months, and it’s really hardcore, a lot of pain, I was on my bicycle and was hit by a car, on the same foot! (laughs)

And unfortunately our drummer, towards the end of the US-tour, broke his leg stepping off the stage and that was another challenge to get over. But he is here with us now and he is able to play. He ended up to learning how to play with his left leg and so he does half of the show with his right leg and the other half with his left leg, which is incredible, but he’s a phenomenal drummer, he is very focused and dedicated.

Like I said, the challenges had been there, but we were fighting.

And wanting to be here and make it worthwhile … we live for this, you know?!

 

 

salto.music: You've already mentioned it: With „SepulQuarta” you found an excellent way to fight the Covid-years and the album shows actually how different your guests were. I didn’t follow the videos, but listened to the album and it works out really fine in my opinion. How did you choose all these musicians to join you? Did you just call your friends or did Sepultura see this as a chance to do something challenging?

Derrick Green: Well, I think what we wanted to make, is not to be fabricated but to let it happen naturally. So we where literally just thinking of names and just calling up people that we admire, people that we’ve had jammed with in the past or toured with and to see if they where available and not putting any pressure on them.

Those people where primarily just fans of Sepultura, we had some type of connection.

We just had a list of names and said, let’s try this person, let’s try that person. And most of the people they all said yes.

So it was really easy to do. We didn’t plan on creating an album. It happened after we had all the material, where we were like: „Wow… sounding pretty good.”

I think it helped a lot of people to get out of that mood, or maybe a depression, or something they might have been going through.

You know what is really cool about it? We do this songs of course live and everything, but this is something very special. Even though this songs, the originals, have been recorded, it was great to do this in a completely different setting, with something that everybody was going through with being locked down. It was a different feeling for the songs and having guests be a part of it made the songs new again, like refreshing them in a way.

It was really great in that aspect for us, and like you said, I think it helped a lot of people to get out of that mood, or maybe a depression, or something they might have been going through and gave them something to look forward to every Wednesday, which we were looking forward to doing as well.

 

 

salto.music: Speaking of concepts: You have done a lot of concept albums … the most surprising for me was „Dante XXI“ … could you please talk about how you approached the poem?

Derrick Green: Oh, it was something that I had to study in high school. I had been thinking the concept and the idea of kind of like a karma, you know, things that you are doing on this planet and how it has an effect with you in the afterlife. I was thinking on all that and Dante came to mind, because there was something that I remembered from school, but was very difficult to read and to interpret at that time.

You have this person Dante Alighieri who is primarily a rebel and he was really opening up the language to the public, to the people.

So I started rereading it again and told Andreas, hey, you would read the Divine Comedy, it’s really interesting and I think it is really relevant with the times that are happening now.

You have this person Dante Alighieri who is primarily a rebel and he was really opening up the language to the public, to the people. He didn’t have a good feeling with the government and the church and this connection, and he was eventually banned and forced to live in solitude for his ideas, for his believes.

And so the story is really incredible, how he really talked about politicians, about the church and how he related with them his poems. It was fascinating, it was something that we could really elaborate on and really create something massive with.

It was really that all the ideas started to bloom from that, like getting the Brazilian artist doing all the paintings for different sections of it, breaking the book down.

There was so much material in it, we had to break it down for an album, so we started with some of the ideas of the songs being Inferno, where Dante is going on his journey. So it’s hell, purgatory and then paradise.

We wanted to have the songs kind of real, have that feeling, so the first songs being very powerful … hell … terrifying. The middle almost like a groove in that limbo kind purgatory. And than paradise, with the songs sound like very triumphant, like the final, the end.

„Dante XXI” was a challenging album and one of my favorites that we did.

We tried to have that flow of the book, imagining that. And so we wanted to have big instruments, it was like: „Let’s have orchestral instruments, let’s have a lot of brass, which is very powerful.”

There was a lot of talk that was going into it, a great process of getting into it. I didn’t know if anyone else in the world will really understand it, because it’s such a complex story and I loved the story, Dante’s journey is an incredible story. I’m into mythology too, and I grew up going to church and I know a lot of references that he was relating to. 

It was a challenging album and one of my favorites that we did.

salto.music: There is this famous line in this poem – „lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch'entrate”, abandon all hope he who enter here – it’s kind of a no escape situation. But at the end of the album („Crown and Miter”) you sing „There is a way out / Salvation!”. So you are an optimist ...

Derrick Green: Absolutely! I’ve always had this idea of PMA – positive mental attitude – from a very young age growing up in the hardcore and punk rock scene. I didn’t drink or do any drugs or anything, but I was surrounded by a lot of people that where. I always kept this positive attitude, you know, I like to be around, people like that as well. 

And I thought that with all that many negative things happening with Dante in the book, I felt that the end result he was going for was Beatrice. That was his end goal, that was what kept him going through everything.

I think, because the ego can kill people, your own ego can really crush you.

Beatrice was his salvation. He had this fascination...

I think everyone needs this type of faith or salvation outside of themselves, I think, because the ego can kill people, your own ego can really crush you.

I think it’s important to think of yourself outside of yourself, as for other things like empathy. 

 

 

salto.music: Sepultura has always been a political, socially sensitive band. Now … it seems … that there is a battle going on between democracy and autocracy … Putin, Trump, Bolsonaro … What are your thoughts on this?

Derrick Green: I agree one hundred percent. I think it’s a very peculiar time. There have been times like in history, where this weird switches happened. 

But it’s unfortunate. It started very strong with Trump in the US and that idea transferred to other countries as well, which is unfortunate to see.

But people need to really be aware of that. I think they are aware of many things, a lot of times very false things that are online. And this is very troublesome because people rely so much on the internet, for the news and for their eyes, for their believes. And that’s why we wrote an album called „Machine Messiah”, that’s the new messiah, like Google, or the internet, it’s that were people go like „Oh, tell me what to do!”.

It’s a scary process, because I think people would start to lose touch with people around them, that are directly next to them.

It’s a scary process, because I think people would start to lose touch with people around them, that are directly next to them. The local things, the things that really matter to you, that have an effect on you.

I mean, you can see things are happening like a war going on across the world or something happening there.

But what about happening in your surroundings?

I have a very different perspective of America, because I lived outside of it for twenty years so. I was able to see a lot of things I couldn’t while living there.

It’s scary. And now I move back and I can see the effect that it has, of not putting money into education, and having people that have no idea about any political situation through anything that’s happening outside of their community.

You can see it in America with the Capitol building being attacked, you have all these shootings of kids, being shot in the street, and there is still people buying more guns when these things happen. It’s insane!

When all these mass shootings happened … gun sales went up! And now the laws become easier for people to buy guns when these things happen. It’s completely backwards!

So I think it’s important for people to really get educated in a way where you can communicate with each other, where you have respect for people who are in different parts of let’s say the US or any part of the world. They are living in these different Quadra, the concept of the album that we have, but it’s important to learn to respect peoples believes that they grew up in.

Not everyone is gonna have the same ideas, but there needs to be that space to balance things out, to really have a conversation. And I think, a lot of that is missing, and not to be judgmental, you know, there is a left side in the US, that is extremely judgmental of the middle of the US: „They are all racists, they are all Trump lovers, they are all blah blah blah…”

That’s not true. I grew up in the middle of the US for big part of my life and I can say that’s not true a hundred percent.

But people need to see for themselves. They have to get out and talk to people for real, not just online and see things cause the situation is very different from what they see on their computer screen.

It’s to see for themselves, live that life for themselves, and I think it’s a very healthy way of creating this education for our kids.

salto.music: One possibility to change this would be, as you said, to try to know, to see the things directly, firsthand…

Derrick Green: I mean, I have a really good idea on it, and I always thought that something that people have done for a while, and it seems to work really well, is to have foreign exchange programs for kids. Starting at a very young age, because that’s the future, our young kids. And have them mandatory to live somewhere else for one year with a family. You know, vice versa, somebody in Europe, somebody in the US. To have that experience is so valuable. To live with a different culture, a different language, a different surrounding … for that kid to see that, to know that exists … it gives them a lot of information for the future, and say like, „Hey, I might want to do something I've never imagined before.”

Learn something that they may not have learned from a book. It’s to see for themselves, live that life for themselves, and I think it’s a very healthy way of creating this education for our kids.

 

 

salto.music: I've listened a lot of Sepultura in preparation to this interview and my impression is that hardcore and punk is still an important part of the core of the music of Sepultura. Maybe you can’t hear it on every album but definitely on the live-albums. Do you agree? 

Derrick Green: I agree a hundred percent. I think that hardcore kind do it yourself value still exists and hardcore is very much alive and is always a part of me and was a part of Sepultura before I joined. It’s an element of music that makes it very authentic, very real and raw. And to the point when it needs to be.

And I think it’s such a great element for people to see, you know, that not being afraid to letting that out and to really have something that you truly cherish and honor and value. And have that in the music, you know.

I think hardcore and punk is about that.

And what I really loved about that scene is that they were really social focuses as social issues.

Much more I thought than the metal scene, which is more fantasy a lot of times.

And I couldn’t relate to it at a very young age. It was hard for me to relate to some of the things, but I really loved the music.

That traditional hardcore values, I think, is something very special, very unique and it will always be a part of Sepultura.

I thought hardcore had all those different elements together … I loved those lyrics and with the heaviness of the music, it was such a great combination.

And it definitely stays with me, those values and things that I learned from that scene. There was a very mixed scene too … not a lot of women, but there where women in the scene, that where treated equally for the most part, and it was different from what I felt in the metal scene.

In the hardcore punk scene it seemed there where a lot more of a unity going on. I saw different people from different races or different backgrounds.

It was different in the metal scene, it was more seeing white guys at the shows and that was it. For the most times, a lot of times, depending on where you’re going, but it’s changing, it’s already changed for so many years now.

But still that traditional hardcore values and everything, I think, is something very special, very unique and it will always be a part of Sepultura.

 

 

salto.music: Before you joined Sepultura you had some hardcore/punk bands in New York. Do you think your hardcore punk past played a role for Sepultura to call you as a singer?

Derrick Green: Yeah, I think it was a very big element of wanting to have me in the band.

When I joined the band, Igor, the original drummer, he was a big fan of hardcore and punk rock and that was something that made us friends.

I think he admired those aspect about me, and the fact that I wasn’t only screaming in the band I played with, there was some melodic stuff that I was doing. So there could be a future with Sepultura trying something different … too move and to change or to create something different that hadn’t been done before.

I think it definitely had a big influence in having me get into the band.

One of the first cover songs we did was a band called Bad Brains. And it’s one of my favorite bands and one of the biggest influences in my life as far as wanting to do live music and heavy music.

So that was something that really sparked when I joined and did the audition, that was a song that opened this all up to say: Okay let’s keep going with this.

 

 

salto.music: A metal-fan-boy question: I enjoy cover songs if they are done in a certain way and Sepultura has a long history of doing cover songs from … I name you four of my favorites and you please comment on them, the bands, the songs … whatever comes to your mind. But first: What’s your favorite cover?

Derrick Green: Probably Massive Attack, „Angel”. I think that’s probably one of my favorites because it’s super obscure. I don’t think think that a lot of people know that we did that cover. It was challenging and I thought that we did our own version very well.

salto.music: First one from our side: Ministry: „Just One Fix” („Kairos”, 2011)

Derrick Green: Always been a fan of the heavier Ministry-stuff. It was a big influence growing up hearing that style of music. I also worked in clubs, so I got to hear a lot the evolution of Ministry, but this song is just so heavy hitting. And again, it was a song that I don’t think a lot of people thought that we would do. That was appealing to us not to do a cover of a metal band so much, but try to find something that really inspired us but of a different genre of music.

salto.music: Public Enemy: „Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos (feat. Sabotage)” („Revolusongs”, 2002)

Derrick Green: Great lyrics … Chuck D. is probably one of the best lyricist … such a massive influence as far as hip hop goes. They’re the strongest … I still think to anyone that listens to hip hop, their message … they where so relevant, so revolutionary in music.

I mean, they where afraid in the US when they first started. I thought that was so punk rock! And they had elements of punk rock in that attitude and that really draw me to them at a young age, as well as Igor and everybody else in the band. It came out at the same time when there was such good music, in the eighties, in the early eighties there was just this powerful music coming out. And they where part of that too, even though it was a different genre of music.

It was an extreme challenge to do that song, because I am not a rapper, but we did have a rapper from Brazil, his name was Sabotage, unfortunately he was murdered. He lived in a favela in Brazil, in São Paulo, and he was an incredible artist and actor but he never wanted to leave where he grew up and where he lived. We had the chance to work with him and he came and did his part and it was incredible. A challenging awesome song to do.

salto.music: Now one from my favorite metal band: Exodus: „Pirañha” („Revolusongs”, 2002)

Derrick Green: Yesss … Exodus ... it’s funny, because I started to play guitar when I joined the band, but I wasn’t really a guitarist. I remember Andreas saying: „Hey, if you can play ‚Bonded by Blood‘ from beginning to the end, those riffs, the it would be cool for you to play guitar in the band.” (laughs)

And I was like; „Yeah, I think I’m gonna focus on vocals!”

I mean, Gary Holt is such an influence, he’s an amazing person and an amazing guitarist. We had to do that and it was an honor to do that.

salto.music: Judas Priest: „Screaming For Vengeance” („Dante XXI”, 2006)

Derrick Green: An extreme challenge, just the register of Rob Halford’s voice is so high, but I’m such a huge Judas Priest fan and I’ve been always a fan of these singers that have this high vocals, like Robert Plant, I’d just love to do those songs.

So that challenge was on and I just keep thinking of growing up in my childhood and the fact, that they where just always on top of their game, their musicality, their ability to play. His vocal rage I always was fascinated with. 

So we had to do this cover just for ourselves. It’s something we did and I don’t think we ever will play it again, but it was fun to do, it was a super challenging song.

 

 

salto.music: Do you have any advice for local bands/singers on how to confront the audience? What is your mindset when you go out on stage?

Derrick Green: I think the mindset has to be you have to be really relaxed and the main objective is to have fun. I say this every time, to everyone, still in my band every show it’s just like: „Hey, let’s have fun, let’s go out!”

And enjoy yourself, that’s the reason that we got into music. To be able to laugh, to be on stage, to have that feeling. 

And also to be yourself is, I think, the most important thing, to really not to be afraid to let your personality out, on stage. This is something extremely important for the writing process.

Be yourself, be natural, and then things really fall into place.

When you’re conversing with the audience, just really be yourself, be natural, and then things really fall into place.

It’s hard. I know a lot of people that are young and they are like „I wanna be in a band”, and then a lot of times you don’t find too many people that want to be the singer, the front person, because your instrument is your voice, coming from your body and you really have to put yourself out there. But just once you conquered that fear of being able to just let yourself be free, the live show is a moment that you don’t have too often, so really you have to cherish it.

What have you done all the practicing and hard work for, the sweat and compromise … it’s to be on that stage for that moment, so give respect and treat that moment as it is, something grand, something big and something to be grateful for.

It’s hard to travel, to fly, bus, boats … everything … that’s the worst part. But the greatest thing, the thing that washes all that away ist like: This is why I’m here. And treat that moment with respect and not getting screwed up on drugs or drinking a whole lot and being wasted, forgetting the moment.

For me it’s a reason to go on straight and to really respect that and respect the audience and give them everything you have.

 

 

salto.music: Last question: You are a photographer… there are so many ways of taking pictures with a cam … how would you describe your work as a photographer? 

Derrick Green: I think it’s really the moment I like to capture. I don’t like so much where people are posing and things, I’m not that kind of photographer. I think that’s a whole different level.

For me, I love the moments … because it’s so fast, and there are so many beautiful moments, from traveling so many different places around the world, and having the time. Like, for example, now before playing, it’s just inevitable that I would walk out and see something that I’ve never seen before, or not used to seeing, and being comfortable and opening my eyes to everything that’s around.

That was something that I had to learn from traveling, and not being so shy about taking a foto of some place or someone. But I like to take fotos from people unaware that I’m taking the foto. Not in a creepy way, but just people being natural, I like people in their natural state, something that they may not have noticed, that I find in them that is really attractive or beautiful or just a really strong image.

If we just let people die in the street like that and not take care of our disadvantaged people, then it’s a reflection of who we are.

There is a lot of fotos I’ve been taken, portraits of homeless people, because there are so many of them now after the pandemic. I think a lot of times they get washed out, like in the background, where people just start to forget that they are there. 

In the tragedy that’s happening, there’s a beauty that I see behind them, ...like … this was somebody’s kid, this was somebody’s brother, this was somebody’s sister … there is always a story behind that person. It’s not like they where born and than they’re homeless. I wanna know that story. I feel that we need to help these people more than anything. It’s a reflection of our society. If we just let people die in the street like that and not take care of our disadvantaged people, then it’s a reflection of who we are.

And so I think, for me it’s great to be able to capture those moments, even though people don’t want to look at it.

I think I can find beauty within that tragedy that’s happening. I think there is. I think in every person there is something very unique and worthwhile.

 

Links:

https://www.sepultura.com.br/
Sepultura Store (Europe): https://www.impericon.com/nl/sepultura.html
Sepultura YouTube-Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/sepultura
„Rock im Ring”-Festival: https://www.rockimring.it/
„Rock im Ring” Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rock.im.ring/