ANDREAS KISSER Talks Plans After SEPULTURA Farewell Tour: “I’ll Be Involved With Music, That’s What I Do, I Love To Do”

After four decades of reshaping the global metal landscape, Sepultura is saying farewell, on their own terms. In a reflective conversation with Jarek Szubrycht of Poland’s Mystic Festival, guitarist Andreas Kisser explained what led the band to plan a three-year farewell tour, set to wrap up in late 2026.

“I think it was a great momentum. 40-year anniversary is a great mark,” Kisser said (via Blabbermouth). “We have an amazing history behind, coming from Brazil, playing in almost 80 countries around the world, bringing the Brazilian music to heavy metal, to thrash metal, to heavy music in general. And we did a great album, [2020’s] Quadra, our last one.”

The decision wasn’t just about milestones or music. Personal loss deeply shaped Kisser’s view on what comes next. “We survived the pandemic situation, the lockdown. I also went through a personal experience with my wife. She passed away after a battle with cancer two and a half years ago, and it gave me a whole new perspective on life, when you respect finitude, when you respect dying, when you don’t deny that,” he said.

“We have a tendency not to talk about dying, to talk about death in general, and after her passing, a big part of myself died with her. But at the same time, other parts came to be — new experiences, new ideas, new horizons, new situations. I didn’t choose that way, but it came to be. And dying and death have been my biggest professor, my biggest teacher.”

In that spirit, Kisser and the band chose to bring Sepultura to a close not with exhaustion or burnout, but with intentionality. “And it felt that for Sepultura, it would be the same, really, to give a rest. I was feeling very pressured to write another album, to do another cycle, to do another tour. It’s not easy to write an album. You really have to be focused a hundred percent on it. And we decided to quit, to stop for a while.”

That doesn’t mean the band is going quietly. “We are recording a live album on this tour. We’re gonna put out the live album. And so we still have stuff to do in the next two years. We are not in a hurry. We say goodbye, but relax,” Kisser said. The final tour includes visits to long-awaited destinations like Iceland and Africa. “We’d like to go everywhere in the world, really enjoy this moment, and really afterwards just breathe a little bit… And it feels great. It’s still exciting.”

In fact, the final stretch has brought out some of Sepultura’s most meaningful connections. “This is the best tour we’ve done in Europe in our history. A lot of people are coming to see Sepultura for the first time. Other fans, they met at a Sepultura concert. Now they’re married. They have their kids with them. It’s great. It’s a fantastic feeling. And it’s a very thankful spirit, that we say to our fans, ‘Thank you so much for keeping this band for 40 years so much alive and relevant.'”

As for life beyond Sepultura, Kisser isn’t looking too far ahead, and he’s not walking away from music. “Since I joined Sepultura in ’87, we never stopped, never. Even during the lockdown, we created an album. When we changed singers and managers and stuff, we were always rehearsing, we were always working towards the future, and et cetera,” he reflected. “And it feels like it’s a good momentum because we’re still young enough to be motivated to start something else from scratch. Of course, I’ll be involved with music. That’s what I do, I love to do. I’m not gonna quit Sepultura to sell cars or something like that.”

Kisser already has several projects in play, including a longstanding radio show in São Paulo with his son, his band De La Tierra, and plans for guitar lessons and videos exploring his personal style and approach to Sepultura’s catalog. “A lot of people ask for that as well, so I wanna really have more time to do this. And I know so many musicians, so many bands. I’m really talking to people, ‘Oh, let’s do this, let’s do that.’ I have an idea to do a reggae project with Derrick [Green, Sepultura frontman]. Who knows? [Laughs]”

“I like to keep it open. I mean, it’s a little scary, but at the same time it’s very exciting to feel that freedom that we could really express and really see what happens. I think that’s why we are stopping — to get away of the comfort zone, to get away [and] artistically having different air to breathe.”