Andreas Kisser

Andreas Rudolf Kisser (born 24 August 1968) is a Brazilian musician, best known for being the lead guitarist for the metal band Sepultura.

He has been featured on every Sepultura release since their second album, Schizophrenia.

Additionally, Kisser has also been involved in other bands such as the rock supergroup Hail!, Sexoturica and, more recently, De La Tierra.

Kisser was born in São Bernardo do Campo, a municipality in São Paulo to a Slovene mother, from Maribor, Slovenia, and a German father.

His father was a mechanical engineer and his mother was a teacher and amateur artist.

At an early age, Kisser showed an interest in music.

He was 10 when he started to listen to his parents' records of the Beatles, Roberto Carlos and Tonico & Tinoco.

He received his first acoustic guitar from his grandmother and later won a second guitar at a game of Bingo.

In his early adolescence, Kisser started to play acoustic guitar first learning basic chords from the Brazilian popular music repertoire and later on classical pieces.

A friend then introduced Kisser to hard rock with bands like Queen and Kiss which had a great influence on him.

In 1983, he went to see Kiss live in São Paulo and his father took him to Rock In Rio in 1985 to see AC/DC.

Kisser eventually got his first electric guitar, a Giannini-Supersonic, and an overdrive pedal.

Kisser's first guitar was purchased for him by his mother.

Some of his major influences consisted then of Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, Steve Howe, Tony Iommi, Ritchie Blackmore, Jimmy Page and Randy Rhoads.

Kisser started performing in 1984 in a three-piece band called Esfinge, which he formed with school friends and where he played guitar and sang.

The band played essentially covers of heavy metal bands such as Black Sabbath, Ozzy Osbourne, Iron Maiden, Venom and Metallica.

Two years later the band renamed itself Pestilence and, in 1987, recorded a demo called Slaves of Pain.

The songs on the demo were afterwards reused by Sepultura in their albums Schizophrenia and Beneath the Remains.

Pestilence was, however, short-lived and ultimately split up.

In 1987, Kisser met the members of Sepultura and went to see the band play live while he was on a vacation trip to Belo Horizonte.

On the day of the concert he joined the band as an improvised roadie for vocalist/guitarist Max Cavalera.

He also jammed with the members during the intermissions.

Following the departure of original lead guitarist Jairo Guedes, Kisser auditioned for the position of lead guitarist.

The same year he performed with the band for the first time in Caruaru, Pernambuco and recorded the album Schizophrenia.

His involvement in Sepultura helped shape the band's evolving sound.

Max Cavalera said of him:

""... he brought new ideas and influences into Sepultura.

The result was Schizophrenia.""

On Schizophrenia and Beneath the Remains, Kisser co-wrote the lyrics with Max, whereas the whole band wrote the music.

For Arise and thereafter Kisser began to write songs of his own.

Kisser has also occasionally provided backing vocals both live and on the records.

He also fronted the band in 1996, at the Castle Donington Monsters of Rock festival, when Max Cavalera was forced to absent himself in order to attend the funeral of his stepson Dana Wells.

Kisser is also a member of the metal tribute band Hail!.

That band's rotating cast of members include Tim "Ripper" Owens, Paul Bostaph, David Ellefson, Mike Portnoy, Jimmy DeGrasso, Phil Demmel and Roy Mayorga.

Hail!

Was formed in the late 2008 by Ellefson and music manager Mark Abbattista.

The band's original lineup, which consisted of DeGrasso, Ellefson, Kisser and Owens, started a series of concerts in 2009 in Chile.

The band then toured Europe and played an exclusive concert in Lebanon.

In 2010, Hail!

went on a second European tour and played a number of US shows with the following line-up: Andreas Kisser, Tim "Ripper" Owens, Paul Bostaph and James LoMenzo.