Given that the band’s name means “grave” in Portuguese, its farewell tour is aptly named. Sepultura aims to record 40 live tracks in 40 different cities, presumably including Budapest. Announcing the tour, the band said it’s about “Euthanasia, the right to a dignified death. The right to choose to live free and to choose when you die!”
It’s arguable whether Sepultura are going out while they’re on top. But in their 40 years of playing heavy metal, they’ve certainly been a major force in a fragmented genre.
The band first lurched into life in the Brazilian city of Belo Horizonte in 1984, the brainchild of Max Cavalera and his younger brother Igor. They were the sons of a model named Vânia and an Italian diplomat named Graciliano, whose death from a fatal heart attack spelled financial ruin for the family.
The Sepultura legend goes that on the day Graciliano died, fate decreed that Max Cavalera should hear Black Sabbath’s doom-drenched dirgelike 1972 album “Vol.4.” This set the brothers on their merry way. Max was the lead singer and rhythm guitarist, Igor the drummer. If Max had heard, let’s say, Simon & Garfunkel’s “Bridge over Troubled Water” album instead, things could have been very different.
Sepultura’s name was inspired by “Dancing on Your Grave,” a track by British heavy metal band Motörhead. In terms of heavy metal, the brothers’ influences were originally the 1970s holy trinity of Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath and Deep Purple.
They were also fans of second-generation groups like Van Halen, AC/DC and Judas Priest, along with extreme hardcore punk bands such as Discharge. But it was pioneering British outfit Venom who were the biggest influence.
As Igor said later, “I remember the first time I listened to Venom; it was on a friend’s borrowed tape. It was similar to Motörhead, only a lot heavier. I remember someone saying, it’s the devil’s Motörhead! After we got acquainted with Venom, we stopped listening to Iron Maiden and all that lighter stuff.”
Listening to Venom’s 1981 “Welcome to Hell,” it’s clear how the band influenced Sepultura as well as giants such as Metallica. Vocalist/bassist Conrad ‘Cronos’ Lant barks his lyrics of death and destruction over breakneck riffs and rhythms and machine-gun fire rapid drums more punk than heavy.
Venom famously helped break Metallica in Europe when, in 1984, they invited the American band over from California to support them on a European tour. After Venom, the brothers Cavalero discovered extreme metal bands such as Slayer, Megadeth and Sodom.
Sepultura evolved at high speed. Beginning as a black metal band, the most sonically and visually extreme form of the genre, popularized by happy-go-lucky Norwegians, they took on groove and thrash metal influences. Groove is slower, funkier. Thrash hurtles along like a runaway train. Mixing these influences with a specific sonic openness that came from their exposure to Brazilian genres, such as samba and bossa nova, gave Sepultura an intriguing depth.
By their second album, “Schizophrenia,” Sepultura was attracting attention worldwide. They signed with Roadrunner Records in 1988 and released their debut on the label “Beneath the Remains” in 1989. Three albums in the 1990s – “Arise,” “Chaos A.D.” and “Roots” brought them huge international success. To date, they’ve sold more than three million albums in the United States and almost 20 million worldwide.
Max Cavalera left Sepultura in 1996. He now makes music that could loosely be defined as spiritual but doesn’t embrace orthodox religion. Asked what he thought about the infamous church burnings by Norwegian death metal artist Varg Vikernes, Cavalera said, “I support church burnings 100%, but why don’t we just burn everything? Mosques, temples, all religious burnings.”
Drummer Ivan Cavalera left in 2006 and, since then, has played in various bands, including Soulwax.
To date, Sepultura has made 16 albums. Influential music website “AllMusic” claimed that the 1993 album “Chaos A.D.” was “one of the greatest heavy metal albums of all time.” The band’s last album, “SepulQuarta,” was recorded during lockdown.
Although there are no original members left, bassist Paulo Xisto Pinto Júnior has been with the band since 1987. Guitarist Andreas Kisser played on “Schizophrenia” and has been on every album since then. Joining them are singer Derrick Green and drummer Greyson Nekrutman, formerly of Suicidal Tendencies.
Green, who identifies as vegan, is a powerful stage presence. He sings in the thrash metal guttural mutter but with a bit more of a hip-hop inflection, if you can call it that. Although they display all the stylistic flourishes of the genre, the complicated, constantly changing rhythms, fiddly guitar solos and bass runs, the band sets up a powerful, consistent groove.
Website “mxdwn.com” described the band’s Oct. 20 performance at New York’s Palladium Times Square as incredible. The band played “with all the intensity that fans have come to expect from the Brazilian metal legends [but] it was the emotional connection between the band and their fans that stood out. It felt like a heartfelt goodbye, like old friends coming together one last time.”
That suggests anyone heading down to Barba Negra on Nov. 17 is in for a good night. And let’s hope the band really does call it quits and doesn’t end up doing the Ozzy Osborne shuffle with comeback following embarrassing comeback.
Find out more at barbanegra.hu
This article was first published in the Budapest Business Journal print issue of November 4, 2024.
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