Lacuna Coil
Our Truth

12.02.2009

We wanted for a long time to provide you with a closer look on this band, which laid quite a few cornerstones in the foundation of gothic metal and paved the way for such acts as Within Temptation and Evanescence before turning into superstars in the U.S. with ultra-successful “Karmacode” (2006). It all seemed to be in vain – “They are now superstars, so it’s difficult, you know”, as we were told by a record industry official when we once again tried to gen an interview with the band. However, when the band came to Moscow for the very first time in December 2008, there was nothing superstarish in Christina Scabbia and Andrea Ferro, who came out to represent Lacuna Coil at our interview. Very relaxed and down-to-earth individuals, and even though we have gotten used to famous musicians turning out nice people backstage, we couldn’t but be impressed. Moreover, Christina and Andrea agreed to talk to us BEFORE the show, which is a taboo for many singers who are over-obsessed with the quality of their voice. Overall, a great experience, which, we hope, at least partially comes through in the text below…

You have recently recorded a new album called “Shallow Life”, which will be out next spring. Was it difficult to write new material after the massive success of your previous album “Karmacode”?

Christina: Well, we started writing the songs in March or April this year, and it’s not that difficult, everything turned out to be natural and spontaneous, it was like an emotional pressure.

Andrea: We changed bit the way of songwriting a little bit, we were practicing a bit and then we went to a little studio where we had computers for recording the instruments and vocals, and every time we had a new idea we were changing something. We went there nearly every day for doing a really big pre-production for like six months. After that we went straight into the studio, because we didn’t want any weak points, so we did pre-production in L.A. with the producer, and then straight to the recording.

It was easy to notice the change of style on “Karmacode”, and a lot of reviewers and listeners started calling Lacuna Coil “a nu metal band” after that. Do you think this definition suits you? And how would you describe the new album?

Christina: I agree that we are not a classical heavy metal band, and we have never been this way. And under nu metal you mean rock or metal with new influences. We have always been like a weird kind of band because we incorporated different styles and different influences, feelings. We use music from more aggressive stuff to more melodic stuff, and this all reflects on our new album.

Some journalists compared your style to Evanescence, what do you think about it?

Christina: We consider that we play the same musical style, and we did this music ten years before Evanescence, and we can do nothing with this fact. They basically didn’t invent anything in this style.

Andrea: I should say it’s more complicated, when the band has a female vocal, it is always compared. We have been compared with Nightwish or Theatre of Tragedy, and we can do nothing with it.

Christina: All female vocal bands are compared to each other, and when the guy is singing, it doesn’t even happen.

Andrea: Probably we are closer to Evanescence than to Nightwish. Nightwish has a more traditional sound, they play a symphonic kind of metal. And we have a more modern sound, but I can say that we are not the same in any case.

Christina: The thing is that when the band is so popular like Evanescence, all other bands which have a bit similar sound, even if they have it long time before, they will be always compared to the more successful one.

Why did you choose to record in the USA this time, and how did you end up working with producer Don Gilmore? He’s more famous for working with alternative bands, so why him and not Rob Rock or Rick Rubin, for instance?

Christina: We decided to do that for different reasons. First of all we never did it before, and we always recorded in Europe, so we wanted to hear the differences in sound. The second reason is that America is our bigger market, and the quality and amount of production there is superior. And it’s so clear; the best producers are coming from there. We met Don Gilmore after we sent several copies to different producers, we waited for some feedback and we decided to choose Don, because…

Andrea: He really liked the demo we sent him. We met him, had a dinner and talked about the music we wanted to do and about the experience we wanted to try in the studio. We felt a really good relationship or cooperation from him, so we decided to go on working with him. It was a good idea to try, and when you are in the studio with some guys you never know if it turns out really great, until you try to work with him.   

Christina: Don is a very relaxed person, and because of some of his advice, we could do the things much better. With him we still sound like Lacuna Coil but we definitely made a big step and we are on a higher level now. We learnt so much from him, because everything was different, I mean, the studio, the equipment, also the way of recording the material. And the way we wrote the lyrics changed. Everything was completely different.

Andrea: Don has never pushed us, and he didn’t push us that we sounded like an American band, he helped us that each song sounded the best, and did everything possible. Also he recommended us the structure of the songs that will be more suitable for the radio. You know, all the criticism of “Karmacode” was in a mental way, that album was recorded in Milan with a German producer. And everyone said that it sounded like an American album. So it really doesn’t matter where you record the album in the end.  

Christina: Sometimes they say so just because you are so much in an American style, and this style is very expressive.  

“Karmacode” was extremely successful in the U.S. – the previous record “Comalies” was #178 in the Billboard charts, and “Karmacode” ranked as high as #28. Was it something you aimed at from the beginning of the work on the material, or was it a surprise for you?

Christina: We took this position only because we made so much promotion for this album over there. Probably nearly 80% of our concerts have been in America, and it’s absolutely normal - you promote the band there and you get more successful there, so it’s just a combination of things.

Over the past few years you have spent a lot of time touring the U.S., so you have had a chance to get to know that country. What do you like most about the U.S., and is there anything that you dislike about it?

Christina: I like the mentality that Americans have, because in Europe rock-metal fans tend to close in sections. I mean, this band is metal, and this one is black metal, and if you go to the concert of this band, you can just find people who listen to this kind of music. In America any kind of music, if you are metal, rock / metal, power metal or whatever, is under the family of rock, so they don’t care, they don’t close you in a cliché. They just like the songs and they really don’t care to which style you belong. You can even meet people who are dressed in hip-hop style, but go to a metal gig, only because they like the music. This doesn’t happen in Europe, people just go, “Eeeh, this album is weak, not enough metal” but actually nu-metal came from Europe and not from America. All the criticism of the material is coming from Europe but not from America. The American fans are more tolerant and open-minded. If they like the music, they don’t really care about the kind of music or its belonging.

Andrea: We don’t say that there are no people in Europe who divide the bands that strictly. But in general, American fans have a bit more freedom in their mind, but it’s said just in general. Americans are open-minded and Europeans are warm-hearted. But the thing is that the European fans want that the band to sound always the same.

Christina: But at the same time they always complain that the albums sound the same, we never know… (laughs)

It is often believed that the European and American audiences are extremely different, and that it’s hard for a European band to reach U.S. fans. How did Lacuna Coil manage to come across this barrier? Do you have a secret of how to appeal to both European and American crowds?

Christina: Playing and playing, that is the secret of our success. And we should do quite many interviews, and staying at the territory, promoting the band or the album. That’s how we do it, and it works like that.

Andrea: You need to be there and give many shows for each CD. And we had already been there nearly ten times and even more, we did many tours in America, playing in every big town…

Christina: We can even be three months on a road.

Andrea: We have been some time there on a radio, but not all over the radio, if we compare it to Evanescence.

Christina: To tell you the truth, we don’t have some special secret, and we can see that people like our music from any of our internet pages, they write us from all over the world, and we can see what kind of feelings they have and that they love our music.

Andrea: Our fans are very nice, no matter where we go. And we don’t feel the big difference between our Japan fans or Australian ones. They are really good people, and they are really devoted to the band.  

You have worked with Century Media Records from the very beginning, and you are now this label’s top selling artist. In your opinion, how much of the band’s success is due to record label support?

Christina: For sure it’s the label’s work to promote your album, giving advertisement, interviews in magazines and posters. But at the end, people buy your album because they like your music. If you don’t put out good music, or the music that people don’t like, it doesn’t really matter which label you are with. Of course, Century Media Records helped us to promote the album. But I don’t want to sound like too egomaniac, but nearly 90% of our success is because of the band, because of our playing, giving the interviews and because of the band writing the songs.   

Andrea: I think that at Century Media Records there are really dedicated people, who do their best wherever they can. And everything they can do, they have done. But they are not that super huge major label, they are limited, because they are smaller and independent. But they do a very good job for what they are.

Your latest release on Century Media is the “Visual Karma” DVD. How did you pick up the material for it? Why did you choose the shows at Wacken and Loudpark festivals to be featured on the live portion?

Christina: We looked through the material and they were the most appropriate videos for the DVD. Wacken is one of the biggest festivals in Europe and the reaction of the crowd was amazing, we had a lot of energy. And there were like five cameras, they filmed the gig from many sides, so that you can really get the vibe of the concert as if you were there with us on the stage. And Loudpark… we were the first time in Japan, and the atmosphere was much more intense, more intimate, so it was a good point to show two different live shows. Sometimes they can be quiet and sometimes very intense…

Andrea: ..And also it was about the “Karmacode” album. We didn’t want to choose other shows from the past tours, because the DVD was just about “Karmacode”. This DVD was between “Karmacode” and the next album, and we just decided to fill the gap between them. Also everyone was asking about the release of a DVD…OK, we decided that we can do this, because for the first time we didn’t have so much touring, so we could look through different material. In the future we can do different videos like a club show or huge shows which we had, or maybe going back in retrospect of our previous albums.  And we can do more about the history of the band.

It’s common nowadays that bands release double DVDs, but don’t you think that the playing time of 250 minutes is too much for most of the audience? How often do you personally sit and watch DVDs by other bands from start to finish?

Christina: As to our DVD, we watched it many times and we know every single moment of it. And speaking about other bands, yes we do watch the DVDs of Type O Negative, for instance.

Andrea: I like very much the live shows, but I don’t like to watch them on TV, so for me it’s more interesting to see the backstage, the band itself and the things about the touring. I really like to visit the live shows, because the atmosphere is very different, and you will never reproduce the emotions or the real energy of the show on the DVD. Unfortunately I have never seen the DVD that sounds as good as a live show.

Even though you now have an extremely broad audience overseas, “Karmacode” contains the song “Without Fear”, which is almost fully sung in Italian. Why did you come up with Italian lyrics for this particular track? And what are they about?

Christina: It just happened. I mean, we don’t start writing a song knowing that it will be in Italian or English. We just wrote the lyrics, and they sounded really good in Italian, so we just kept it in Italian. But on the new album, “Shallow Life”, there are no Italian songs. Maybe in the future, why not?

Andrea: It usually comes natural; we don’t want to force it. Italian is a very melodic language, and if the Italian words really fit the song, it’s really great. But if we don’t have that kind of song, we don’t want to push it just because we are from Italy.

You have said in an interview that you played your version of “Enjoy The Silence” to the Depeche Mode guys, and that they liked it very much. How did you get to meet them? What impression did they make on you?

Christina: They loved it, they loved it a lot. We know the management of the band and they told us that the guys loved our version and they gave us the permission to make a video for it. They gave it for free, because they liked how the song sounds. We haven’t met the band so far, we were supposed to meet them at an Italian festival, but we didn’t do that because of time.

Christina, a couple of years ago you worked with the Finnish band Apocalyptica on their song “S.O.S.”. How did this collaboration come about? And how much is performing live with Apocalyptica different from a regular Lacuna Coil concert?

Christina: I liked very to work with the guys. Working with them was one day in the studio, and it’s very different from Lacuna Coil, when you are with the guys nearly 24 hours a day and recording the whole album. Apocalyptica just asked me if I wanted to be a guest singer, and the only thing I needed to do is to go the Sweden for recording the song, so it was only one day. We shared the beer after the recording and I returned to Milan. Later I played with them on a big festival in the UK and I made the video with them. They are great guys, but I can’t compare them to my band because they are my friends and even like my family.

Andrea, doesn’t it bother you and the rest of the guys that mass media and the fans focus on Christina too much? For instance, you both did an interview with the British magazine Rock Sound, and on the cover of the magazine’s latest issue there’s only Christina, not the two of you…

Andrea: I don’t feel jealous about it, we have known each other for many years, we grew up together, and I consider her like a sister, so it’s impossible to be jealous. We just can’t do anything about it. Every band that has a female in the line-up, especially a very nice girl, knows that the focus is always on the girl, it even doesn’t matter if she is a keyboard player or singer. It’s just the way things are. It attracts people very often and they put women for selling a car or even equipment for the men, there is always a girl in the advertisement. On the metal scene there are not that many female vocalists, and speaking about the image of the band, there is more focus on women. And it’s something new for the scene. So it’s not our choice.

Lacuna Coil songs have appeared in quite a few movies – “X-Men III”, “Underworld: Evolution” and others. Which one of these movies do you like most of all? And would you like to appear in a movie as an actor, not just a music provider?

Christina: I think it would be great, very interesting. It would be cool to try even if we are not actors. Of course, we won’t be the main characters but it sounds cool. And I’d like to write a soundtrack for any movie.

Andrea: I like the “X-Men” movie in general. I would like to appear there as an actor, it’s really cool.

Several years ago your song “Swamped” was featured on the”Code Red” compilation album that was given to U.S. Marine Corps soldiers on active duty in the Middle East. What is your opinion of such a use of your music? Honestly I would never think that your songs could cheer up people going to war…

Andrea: I think we have discovered it after it was already made. It was not our decision, they just decided to publish it there. Probably our music can give relief to someone, but I don’t care and I don’t mind, I am not in favour of the American troops, or the war in Iraq or Afghanistan. I think there are victims in any war in both sides and I don’t like wars in general. But this was done by the American office of the label, and we only learned about when it was already done. We are not against anyone’s army. And the label added the song because they did the disc. So it was for us like a surprise.
 
When you get down to writing lyrics and vocal melodies, do you need a special mood or state of mind to come up with something? Or do the melodies appear by themselves, and you just have to be able to capture them?

Christina: You just need to be inspired for writing the lyrics. And you never know when the creativity will appear. You can get an idea when you are walking on the street or doing shopping, and you just need to remember it or write it down. And sometimes you can sit at the table for hours trying to think about something and find some inspiration. You can never be sure how it will happen.

What do you now think of the music Lacuna Coil recorded 10 years ago – the first EP, the “In A Reverie” album? Do you still enjoy listening to that stuff, or do you now think you should have done everything differently?

Christina: I think that each band doesn’t want to stay in the past, we always do something new and fresh. Of course, we still like the songs which we wrote, it’s our stuff which we did. But at the same time, we want to evolve, we want to grow up and do something different. We listen to these songs, we like them but we prefer the new songs because they transfer our feeling at the present time. Sometimes we play some old songs but it depends on time which we have. When you have a full concert then you can decide which song to play but when the performance is only 40 minutes, and people know “Karmacode” more…

Andrea: It also depends on the place where you play. In America we started to be known with the “Comalies” album, so people really didn’t know the first two albums. We tried to play “My Wings” from “In A Reverie” there, and it turned out nobody knows it. People just watched us play, but they had never heard the song before. So we play the latest albums more often, because people want to listen to those songs. If there is a chance we can put some extra old song, but nearly all our new fans don’t know these songs.   

We guess you get asked about the title of the new album in every interview. But do you personally believe in karma or destiny, or do you think that a man is the master of his own fate?

Christina: Absolutely! Everything you do will generate the reaction, no matter what you do. If you are nice with a person, he will be nice with you too. And if you are an asshole with the person, you will get a different reaction. That is what happens everyday, and you confirm yourself with different people in different situations, and whatever you do, you will get something different. We can’t change that much our life, of course we can do many things but they can make your life more pleasant. If you have a dream you can try to follow the dream, and try to change it at least. And if it doesn’t happen you won’t have regrets that you haven’t tried.

Lacuna Coil are now Italy’s most internationally famous rock band. What can be the next step for the band? What are your artistic and commercial goals at the moment?

Christina: We definitely opened quite many doors for other bands when we started. There were very few bands with female vocalists at that time. Our band reached the success because we worked and worked very hard, and we will continue working, giving concerts and touring.  

Lacuna Coil on the Internet: http://www.lacunacoil.it

Special thanks to Vera Dmitrieva (Spika Concert Agency) for arranging this interview

Interview by Viсtoria “Ewigkeit” Bagautdinova, Dmitry “Ward” Kulikov
Questions also provided by Roman “Maniac” Patrashov
December 16, 2008
© HeadBanger.ru