Gojira rhythm guitarist and vocalist Joe Duplantier opened up about the band’s recent studio album, ‘Fortitude’ during an interview with Guitar World and revealed how Sepultura had an immense influence on the band and the latest record, especially visible on the track, ‘Amazonia.‘
As some of you might know, the famous French metal band Gojira released its seventh studio album named ‘Fortitude‘ on April 30, 2021, and debuted at number 12 on the Billboard 200 which was a better accomplishment than the band’s previous record, ‘Magma.’ The album was so successful that it topped on both the Billboard Hard Rock Albums and Top Rock Albums charts, as well as the UK Rock & Metal Albums chart.
Just like every other band, Gojira also has many other musicians and bands they drew inspiration from and was mainly influenced by such as Metallica, Tool, and Sepultura, in addition to the debut albums of Led Zeppelin and Rage Against the Machine all of which were mentioned during the band’s interviews as the band members always praise their work and stress the fact that their own music was shaped after these artists.
During a recent interview, when Joe Duplantier opened up about the influence Sepultura had on his band, he was asked about the similarity of their song, ‘Amazonia’ from the recent studio album to Sepultura’s sound and Gojira vocalist stated that the song is actually a tribute to Sepultura which makes the similarity not surprising.
Furthermore, Joe Duplantier revealed that the band members grew up listening to Sepultura’s legendary records such as ‘Arise,’ ‘Chaos A.D.,’ and ‘Roots’ and when they first started performing in a small village in France, Gojira played six songs from Sepultura in their tracklist consisting of 10 to 12 songs.
Here is what the interviewer said:
“You mentioned Sepultura. I hear a bit of their vibe on Amazonia.”
Here is what Duplantier said:
“Really? I’m not surprised, of course. It’s practically a shoutout to Sepultura. Arise, Chaos A.D., Roots… we grew up on that shit. At our first show in 1996, in the south of France in a small village, we played maybe 10 to 12 songs – and six of them were Sepultura covers.
You can see the interview by clicking here and listen to ‘Amazonia’ below.
