Sepultura in India: Roots Bloody (?) Roots

With classic albums like “Chaos AD”, “Roots” and “Arise” under their belt, Sepultura is, without a doubt, one of the biggest metal bands of all time. As you probably know by now, the band is currently touring India (Delhi: October 28, Hamsadhvani Theatre, Shillong: October 31, Polo Stadium, and Bangalore: November 3, Palace Grounds) and metal heads all over the country must be thanking their lucky stars. A few years ago, if someone told you that Sepultura was going to tour India, you would have laughed at them. I would have, any way. On a side note, this is yet another great band that has toured India recently that hasn’t come to Bombay.

petaDishoom.com, the youth wing of PETA India, has an exclusive interview with Sepultura vocalist Derrick Green, the successor to the legendary Max Cavalera, about his being a vegetarian (not quite “Roots Bloody Roots”, huh?), and how that ties in with the band’s music. You can also view the video for their single “Convicted in Life” from ‘Dante XXI’. It’s a rather brutal-looking video, containing real footage of animal abuse, and depicts pig slaughterers who become pigs, and chicken harvesters who get their brains eaten by hens. You have to watch it.

According to Derrick Green, “You are what you eat. Like a karma thing: What you do in your life may affect you in the afterlife. The video kind of follows that. In the video there are scenes taken from a DVD, ‘Meat Is Weak’, that I watched about the meat industry in Brazil. It was extremely shocking to me, because everyone always talks about how clean meat is and blah, blah, blah and how the industry here is great. So it was pretty eye-opening. We were fortunate enough to be able to get in contact with the people that did the documentary, and they gave us permission to use some of the images from it.

“The idea for the video is that what happens on Earth can affect you in the afterlife. I think it really captured a vibe of hell. And that’s what the song ‘Convicted in Life’ is supposed to be — hell. I hope after [people] see it, they wanna see it again and again and again, because there are so many different things going on in it. I think any reaction, in general, is great, whether it’s negative or positive. We’ve already gotten some really good reactions so far.

“I think animal rights is important because you can really tell how civilised a society is by the way that it treats its animals — everything is connected. And that compassion is very important. I mean, even at a young age, it’s important to learn to have compassion for other things, especially living organisms. You have to have compassion for animals, because they’re a part of us as well. So it’s really important to have that respect and knowledge about other animals and other people as well.”

petaDishoom.com is also running a contest where three lucky winners can get free Sepultura CDs. Be sure to read the interview, watch the video and enter the contest here.