Derrick Green says Andreas Kisser first proposed Sepultura‘s farewell, and that no health issue forced the decision.
Derrick Green has named the man who put Sepultura‘s retirement on the table. Speaking to Neil Jones of “TotalRock” at Bloodstock Open Air, the singer said guitarist Andreas Kisser raised the idea of a farewell tour, and that the band agreed because the timing suited them rather than because anything forced their hand.
Speaking about how the decision was reached, Green credited Kisser directly.
“Well, it actually came about from Andreas. And the idea was just — the timing of everything, of what was going on, it just seemed to really make sense,” Green revealed (as transcribed by Blabbermouth).
He described a working pattern the band had repeated for decades and had begun to feel as routine.
He told: “We had gotten to a point where we had done the cycle of go in the studio, write some songs, record them, do press dates and everything, then do a tour for two years, and then, again, write new material. We’ve done that cycle over [and over]… And so then it gets to a point where it’s… For us, doing music and playing music is about having fun and having fun with it, and we were fortunate to be able to do that for so many years.”
Green said the band wanted to stop before playing became an obligation.
“It had just gotten to the point where we didn’t want it to be something we had to do,” Green continued. “We wanted it to be something we wanna do, and we wanna take a break, we wanna stop, and we wanna stop on a very high end, a high note, so to speak, where everyone’s getting along.”
Green was clear that no illness or injury sits behind the decision, and framed the ability to choose the moment as a privilege most bands never get.
He added: “Nobody’s stopping because of something physical or health reasons, knock on wood. And this is an honor to be able to call when you wanna call it. It takes a lot of thought and a lot of heart, I believe, to stop and be, like, ‘You know what? We’re at a great point, let’s leave it at this, and leave on a high note.’ And there’s something very beautiful about that, and it’s becoming something bigger than we imagined.”
Jones put it to Green that this farewell appears more final than most. Green agreed, while limiting what he was willing to guarantee.
“This is our last tour,” he said. “This is what we know in the moment. This is all I can predict. This is all that I can really change and maneuver and move around is what’s happening now. That’s the reality of it. I don’t know what’s gonna happen in the future, but this is what we wanna do right now, and this is where we’re at, what we prepared for for the past two years or three years that we’ve been touring and wanting to do a tour of the entire world, as many places as possible.”
He set out the scale of the undertaking and the date that closes it.
“With the history of Sepultura, we played over 80 different countries, so we needed that length of time in order to do a proper farewell,” he added. “And so our last show being November 7th, I believe, in São Paulo [Brazil], that’s it, and that’s what we know. That’s what we’re focused on, to that date. And so this is our last show for the U.K. And it’s emotional. But at the same time, it’s a celebration, and that’s what we’ve been doing this entire farewell tour, is celebrating the history of Sepultura.”
The Bloodstock appearance on 7 August at Catton Park in Walton-on-Trent was the band’s last British performance. Two days later they closed the European leg at the 3Arena in Dublin.
The man Green credits with proposing the ending has been less absolute about what follows it. Asked by Jaimunji of “Metal On Tap” whether he would rule out a reunion some years down the line, Kisser said he would not.
“Dude, I don’t rule anything out. It’s irrelevant to say if [the retirement is] gonna be forever or we gonna be back. The important thing is that we’re gonna stop now. We need that rest, because we organize everything around that. We need our time — we need time to look in a different direction,” he said at the time.
Both men have work lined up regardless. Green has confirmed he is assembling a new band for after the tour, while Kisser told France’s “Metal OBS” he intends to keep making music without having settled on a direction.
The band last show is on November 7 at the Mercado Livre Arena Pacaembu in São Paulo, closing the “Celebrating Life Through Death” tour. The venue was chosen for a reason: Sepultura built much of their standing in Brazil with a concert at Praça Charles Miller, directly in front of the stadium, in the early 1990s.
Metal Allegiance appear on the bill, with Mike Portnoy of Dream Theater, Alex Skolnick and Chuck Billy of Testament, Phil Demmel, formerly of Machine Head, Troy Sanders of Mastodon and Mark Menghi. Krisiun and Sacred Reich also play. Former drummer Jean Dolabella and Jairo Guedz, the guitarist Kisser replaced in 1987, are expected to take part.
The “Celebrating Life Through Death” run opened on 1 March 2024 with a sold-out show at Arena Hall in Belo Horizonte, the city where the band formed in 1984. That night also marked the live debut of Greyson Nekrutman, who had joined weeks earlier from Suicidal Tendencies after the abrupt exit of Eloy Casagrande to Slipknot. Nekrutman spent late 2025 filling in with Trivium before returning for this year’s dates, as the band had said he would.
The current lineup is Green, Kisser, bassist Paulo Jr. and Nekrutman. Their final release, the The Cloud Of Unknowing EP, came out on 24 April through Nuclear Blast, recorded at Criteria Studios in North Miami and produced by the band with Stanley Soares. Three of its songs, among them “The Place“, made the Bloodstock setlist. Across 42 years the band have taken 14 gold records and shows in more than 80 countries.
