DATE OF INTERVIEW:
SEPULTURA
10th August 2012
PAULO JR.
METAL DISCOVERY: I did an interview on the phone with Andreas last year and he said you started filming for a documentary in 2010…
PAULO: Yeah, we’ve been filming a lot of stuff. We’ve been working on this movie and we’ll see the frame of time when we’re gonna put that out. We still have to do a lot of stuff. There are a lot of things still to be captured and we’re still going after old, personal footage. A bunch of stuff, so…
(Paulo Jr. on the future of Sepultura and his hair)
"I’ll look like Gandalf...That’s why I cut the hair! It was too white!"
Paulo Jr. backstage at Bloodstock Open Air, UK, 10th August 2012
Photograph copyright © 2012 Mark Holmes - www.metal-discovery.com
Interview & Photography by Mark Holmes
RELATED LINKS
Sepultura Official Website:
SEPULTURA DISCOGRAPHY
Morbid Visions (1986)
Albums
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thanks to Jaap Wagemaker at Nuclear Blast for arranging the interview
Schizophrenia (1987)
Beneath the Remains (1989)
Sepultura Official Facebook:
Arise (1991)
Chaos A.D. (1993)
Roots (1996)
Against (1998)
Nation (2001)
Roorback (2003)
Dante XXI (2006)
A-Lex (2009)
Kairos (2011)
MD: So there’s tour footage, and studio footage, and…
PAULO: …everything, you know.
MD: Do you mind being filmed; does it make you more self-conscious with a camera on you?
PAULO: I don’t really like cameras so much but I’m gonna have to be there, so…! But I’m searching my stuff, there’s a lot of personal videos and stuff.
MD: You did the orchestra show last year which you filmed too at the Virada Cultural Festival but Andreas said the sound didn’t turn out so good as it was an open air environment and you had less control over the sound. He said it was visually great but the sound was not so good and you might do something again with an orchestra but in a more controlled environment. Is that on the cards?
PAULO: Yeah, we have got ideas. It’s another idea and another option that we have to do but, this time, I think we need to do it right. To capture the acoustic of the orchestra we have to…and how we play as well…we brought small amplifiers and we have to adjust ourselves with them to make it work right and still sound good. But I think that first experience was to see if we could make everything work right and it felt good, and we know now, for sure, it can be done. So we can go for the next step, if that might happen, we can make it a more professional level.
MD: In the orchestra, was it a mixture of older and younger guys?
PAULO: It was a mixture.
MD: Were any of them fans of Sepultura?
PAULO: Some of them, yes.
MD: The older guys, maybe not so…
PAULO: Not so, but they knew the band.
MD: Maybe now they’re fans of Sepultura!
PAULO: Maybe now they are! It was great.
MD: So how did it feel to get handpicked by Metallica for their first Orion Music fest and do you think you’re one step closer to being included in a Big Five rather than the Big Four?!
PAULO: I don’t know!
MD: Do you think you have a place in a Big Five if there was one?
PAULO: I think so! I think we have enough experience on the road and history to be a part of that. It was great; the festival was great. It was something that was unique. It’s something they did with a lot of passion and they put a lot of time in organising it and it was great. We were very honoured to be picked…
MD: I gather Metallica handpicked all the bands themselves?
PAULO: Yeah, they did.
MD: I guess you’ve known the Metallica guys for quite a few years?
PAULO: Yeah, yeah, and if they do it again, I’d like to do it again!
MD: Sepultura are renowned for continuing to push musical boundaries over the years with all the little experiments you have in your music and so forth, so have you talked about any future progressions for the band or doing anything different?
PAULO: I don’t know, we’ll go back to Brazil now after many months on tour and we’re gonna have a little time off and maybe start to rehearse a little bit and see how it feels to start to play some new stuff through jamming. We’ll see. It’s too early a stage to tell what’s coming but I’m sure we’ll think of something. Maybe we’ll record on the moon!
[laughs]
MD: I like it! What would the album be called? It couldn’t be ‘Dark Side of the Moon’…maybe ‘Thrash Side of the Moon’!
PAULO: Yeah!
MD: The final thing I wanted to ask – twenty eight years now since the band formed so do you expect to be still rocking out in another twenty eight years’ time?
PAULO: I hope so!
MD: Do you look to the future much or do you concentrate more on the present?
PAULO: No, we always think about the future but we always have to be aware of what is going on right now. For the near future, we have plans we want to achieve but it’s important to be centred here, in the moment. I like to think that if the chance was given to me to continue this, I’d like to.
MD: For another twenty eight years.
PAULO: I hope so.
MD: And if Bloodstock’s still going you’ll be back here with those French percussionists.
PAULO: Yeah, and in a wheelchair or whatever!
MD: And even more grey hair!
PAULO: I’ll look like Gandalf! [laughs]
MD: Yeah, you should grow it again! And have a walking stick which would be your staff! I’m going slowly white so I think I’ll look like Gandalf in ten years!
PAULO: That’s why I cut the hair! It was too white!
MD: Anyway, thank you so much for your time.
PAULO: Thank you.