Sepultura’s founding former members, singer/guitarist Max and drummer Iggor Cavalera, turned down a chance to reunite with the Brazilian extreme metal band onstage, says longtime guitarist Andreas Kisser.
Kisser makes the claim in a new interview with Metal Hammer, saying that even though he personally spoke with Iggor over the phone, and the band’s management reached out to the brothers’ representatives, the pair don’t want to participate in the swansong show later this year.
“We’re still in the middle of [arranging] everything, but it’s going to be great,” Kisser says when Hammer asks what Sepultura have planned for their final concert, which is set to take place in São Paulo on an as-yet-undisclosed date.
He continues: “We did invite the Cavalera brothers. I spoke to Iggor personally on a phone call a few months ago and we started some communication. Even our managers went to talk to their management and stuff. But, they don’t want to be a part of it, and that’s OK. It’s a choice.”
The guitarist adds that he reached out because “it would make sense to have a celebration at the end, for the fans, and just to enjoy ourselves onstage”: “[It could be] like it was on [1996 album and Max’s final Sepultura recording] Roots, you know? Despite all the fucking crazy stuff around it, we managed to make that album and finish what we had to do, you know?”
Max, 56, and Iggor, 55, founded Sepultura in Belo Horizonte in 1984. Kisser joined the lineup in 1987, before the writing and recording of their second album, Schizophrenia. Rounded out by bassist Paulo Jr, the lineup persisted until the end of 1996, when Max left the band due to disagreements over their management by his wife, Gloria. Iggor stepped down in 2006 and reunited with his brother in the band Cavalera Conspiracy.
Sepultura, now with Derrick Green on vocals and Grayson Nekrutman on drums, announced in 2023 that they’d retire following one last world tour. Kisser has given multiple reasons why in interviews since, including the relentless nature of the album/tour/album/tour lifestyle, not wanting to try and outdo their last album Quadra (2020), and the emotional impact of his wife Patricia dying from cancer in 2022.
The band will release The Cloud Of Unknowing, a four-song EP featuring their final studio recordings, on April 24, and they’ll play their final European show at 3Arena in Dublin in August.
In June 2024, Max said that he’d be open to reuniting with Sepultura during their last ride. He retracted that statement the following month, however, saying that he was having too much fun playing with his brother and didn’t want to take away from that.
“You kind of have to realise if we end up doing a Sepultura reunion, it’s almost like we can't go back to the Cavalera thing, you know? It won’t really make sense,” he told Metal Injection. “People probably will be like, ‘I don’t want to go watch Cavalera if they’re doing a “real” reunion.’ To me, I don’t want to do that because I love what we have here in Cavalera now. It’s so badass.”
Hammer has reached out to the Cavaleras’ representatives for comment.
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