Sepultura: Ten Schizo Facts

By Malcolm Dome
published

On October 30, 1987 Sepultura released the Schizophrenia album. Here are 10 frenetic facts about this thrash classic

* This was the first Sepultura album to feature guitarist Andreas Kisser.

* Previously, Kisser had been Max Cavalera’s guitar tech.

* The lyrics for the song To The Wall were written by Vladimir Korg. He was the singer at the time in a Brazilian metal band called Chakal. He was also the vocalist on the Sepultura song The Curse. This was released in 1985 as part of the EP Bestial Devastation.

* The album was originally released by the Brazilian metal album Cogumelo. The band then got on radio playlists and got the attention of Roadrunner, who signed them, without ever seeing Sepultura live.

  • The 1990 Roadrunner international version included a re-recording of Troops Of Doom, which was first done for previous album Morbid Visions.

* Early pressings of the Roadrunner version has a misspelling of the album title on the spine. It came out as Schizoprenia.

* The album title was inspired by the title of a demo from Italian band Schizo, namely Total Schizophrenia. This was a band Max Cavalera loved at the time.

* The album intro is actually the theme from the classic movie Psycho.

* The song From The Past Comes The Storms was originally titled The Past Reborns The Storms.

  • Escape To The Void is actually a reworking of the song Escape Into The Mirror, which had been recorded by Andreas Kisser’s previous band Pestilence (not to be confused with the Dutch death metal lot). But the Seps rewrote the lyrics.

Malcolm Dome
Malcolm Dome

Malcolm Dome had an illustrious and celebrated career which stretched back to working for Record Mirror magazine in the late 70s and Metal Fury in the early 80s before joining Kerrang! at its launch in 1981. His first book, Encyclopedia Metallica, published in 1981, may have been the inspiration for the name of a certain band formed that same year. Dome is also credited with inventing the term "thrash metal" while writing about the Anthrax song Metal Thrashing Mad in 1984. With the launch of Classic Rock magazine in 1998 he became involved with that title, sister magazine Metal Hammer, and was a contributor to Prog magazine since its inception in 2009. He died in 2021.