Derrick Green (Sepultura)

The first edition of My Metal Festival, which took place on February 7 at Sala Polivalenta, was yet another chance for us to talk with Sepultura's singer, Derrick Green. And we took it. Unfortunately, time was not on our side on that day, and our interview was reduced to a five minute chat, instead of the initial agreement. But Derrick was very cool about it and agreed to answer some questions for Metalfan. Here's what the man said:

Metalfan: Hello!
Derrick Green: Hello!

Metalfan: You are here again for the third time, this is a question that you recive often, what do you expect from this show and how do you feel?
Derrick Green: I'm curious to... I have no expectations, except from the last time I was here, which were great. A lot of people really are into the music, are very pasionated about it, so I'm very excited to see the reactions to the new songs and also to the set list, how they react to it. I think will be very positive, you know, for us, feeling very strong and we are really excited because it's the second show of the tour and we have a lot of energy and we are ready to go out and to destroy the stage.

Metalfan: We recently did an interview with Paulo, I remember he said that you are looking forward to film as much as you can for a future Sepultura DVD. Any plans for the tonight show?
Derrick Green: Well, tonight we'll gonna have a few cameras rolling because it's a great place to film, because of how much energy the crowd has and also because it's a very exotic place for a lot of different people outside of Romania, and I don't know if the Romanians know, but for people from Brazil or South America, or even in the US, it's a place of mistery, you know, and a lot of things have been written about Romania, whether negative or positive, still people like to talk about it, and so I think will be great to have some footage in the new video or things that we are working on. But we're not really sure, we're just collecting it all, because we have Jean and he has been in the band for almost three years now. At the end of this tour we would sit down and try to put something together.

Metalfan: How was recived A-Lex so far by the media but most important by the fans?
Derrick Green: By the fans it's been incredible, a lot of people have been really listening to it and know the lirycs, a lot of the lyrics at first. And I think it was really surprising. A lot of people like the story A Clockwork Orange which the album it's based on, as far as the book and Ithink that helps a lot, because the people were very interested to hear the songs in our interpretation of the book and it's been great reaction, it's been incredible reaction.

Metalfan: Most people have seen Dante XXI as Sepultura's best album since Chaos A.D.. Do you think that A-Lex it's more complex than Dante XXI?
Derrick Green: I don't know, they're both pretty complex when you get down and talk about the structure of the songs. I think for us now, at least in my opinion, I think A-Lex it's even better in a lot of ways, because we're moving forward, completely different albums and I think we've evolved a lot in many ways. I love both albums equally, but I'm really into A-Lex right now because it's very fresh and very new for me, for all of us, so it's great to play the songs.

Metalfan: How hard was on 2006 to find a good drummer for the Sepultura sound? I know tha you have also played a couple of shows with Roy Mayorga...
Derrick Green: Well, it was taugh because Roy it's a very good friend of ours and already had prior obligations to play with Stone Sour so he couldn't have been a permanent member. And I was thinking it would be very dificult to find another drummer, but we are very fortunate that a friend of ours knew somebody, which was Jean and knew his ability to play. And the first reharshal with him, practicing with him, it was perfect, as far as we knew this person was right for us, we thought that we could have a future with him, because that was one thing that we where thinking we didn't want: someone to imitate Igor, it's imposible to... The same with me, with Max... so we were looking to find someone to work with in the future and to be able to make something different, create togheter and that is something Jean bought to the band, his abilities, his own abilities.

Metalfan: Ok, that was it. Thank you for the interview and hope to see you again.
Derrick Green: Definitely!

Photos by Mad