Edson: Panzer is a German word that means "Cuirass", it means something heavy, strong, powerful, like our sound must be. I’d like to emphasize that there is no connection of the name with war, we are against any kind of violence.

Talk to us about the way of the band to the beginning until the release of the debut album "INSIDE".

Edson: Panzer started in 1992 as a power trio and our music was quite different from what we play today. In the beginning of the year 94 we had one track on the compilation "Electrical Tribes" and soon, in the beginning of 96 we started to record what was to be our first album, but the band ended during the recordings due to lots of other problems. We came back with the band in 98, as a quartet (featuring me and Andre from the first formation and Jan Leonardi and Élcio), with a completely different sonority. With this formation we recorded "Inside".

How is to play death metal in a country like Brazil, where do the musical fashions imposed by media reign( pagode, country)?

Man, you know, Brazil is a very huge country with different cultures in each region, but I see this does not spoil the scene, there are thousands of people listening to metal in the whole country, although the media pressure in all the crap there is in radio and T.V.

Actually, the biggest problem is the structure for concerts in the whole country, Brazil is very poor on this point, there are hundreds of bands having to play in events without any kind of structure. For example, a band plays on a concert with an awful equipment in an awful place and the whole shows ends as a big shit. This makes the bands get far from the people, that always been and will be the most important anywhere.

That’s why Panzer plays just a few times, but in big places with good structure, with a lot of propaganda in the specialized media. That brought us only crowded concerts with a great reply from the public.

"INSIDE" is a very brutal and insane CD, where can see the union of technique and fury in the right measure. Talk about the creative process of the album.

Edson: Thank you for the praises Edgar!!! Inside was composed in a very short time, we only let the thing flow naturally, but this album also bring some old songs, from the power trio phase, they were too good to be excluded and one of them is Ethnic Ghetto.

A lot of Death Metal bands speak about death, legends or black magic in their music. Why Panzer opted for human and socials themes as in "Ethnic Ghetto"and "Pressure"?

Edson: You got it and that’s great. We always write about what is around us or what we feel. Some lyrics of this album are true stories, things that really happened.

We are four in the band and we are very different in personality, but to write lyrics we are the same, we always write about our world. This is very interesting because a lot of people get it and identify themselves with it.

why a death metal band decides to play a cover of Kiss?

Edson: Kiss always been an influence for us, it is a band that we respect a lot. This version was a kind of homage to them and the final results was very brutal. I hope people like it.

How has been the Inside's reception and the gigs of the band?

Edson: Great. Inside Brazil "Inside" was considered one of the 5 best albums in 99 in the readers election in two great magazines ( ROADIE CREW and ROCK UNDERGROUND), we also got the "brightest hope" 99. We have been receiving e-mails and letters from the whole country, there are a lot of people giving much value to our work and I thank everybody for this here!! About the media, Inside has opened the doors for the band. We have received lots of praises from magazines and websites from the whole world and all this material is available on our official web site. All this stuff resulted on two tributes (one is "80’s Metal and the other is an Anthrax tribute) by the label Conquest Music ( USA), they will be released very soon.

What are the Panzer's plans for the future?