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Originally formed in 1996, Lacuna Coil who hails from Milan, Italy has been a band that seems to be constantly on tour. Their latest CD titled Karmacode was released in April of 2006 and debuted at #28 on the Billboard charts. A couple of months later, they were on the headlining stage at Ozzfest. This is where Lacuna Coil started to really make a mark here in North America. Currently, you can find Lacuna Coil on the Jägermeister Tour with Stone Sour and Shawdows Fall. The tour made it’s way to Niagara Falls where I was lucky enough to interview the two amazing voices of this band before their show. What follows is an interview with Lacuna Coil's Cristina Scabbia and Andrea Ferro. Enjoy!
Thank you guys for taking the time to talk to us here at GlamMetal.com. Your new CD is called Kharmacode. Who came up with the name of the CD and what is the meaning of it?
Cristina: We were looking for a name that could describe the whole vibe of the album that it’s not a concept album but we took a specific approach especially with the lyrics. It’s basically an album with a bit of duality sides with a big clash between something spiritual and something modern. Spirituality is not talking about religion but more like an inner search, something more in between you and people around you. And something more modern because we’re living in modern days where it’s all about internet, mobile phones
Like people taking pictures of you while you’re trying to do an interview (friend of the website and photographer Dave Hallet was taking photos during the interview)
Cristina and Andrea laugh…
Cristina: It’s a little exploration on how two things can survive together now a days – so we can up with this beautiful name that explains it all because Kharma immediately reminds you of something spiritual and code is something definitely modern
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You guys just released “Within Me” – it’s your 4th single off the new CD, Kharmacode – how do you guy decide what single is going to be released? Do you guys have a say in that or is it pretty much the record company that says ‘we’re going put this out.”?
Andrea: The main idea is always coming from the label, then we always have our own opinion about it but it’s together. They come out with an idea and we say yes, no. It’s always a little bit of fighting because you don’t know what is going to work in the end. You can suggest the song that you like the most but you don’t know if it’s going to be great for the people, radio or TV so it’s a tough decision to make. I think they also hire some people to test what will work with the radio director or TV. So it’s something all together with the record label and the band.
Which market do you guys test – European or North American?
Andrea: It’s pretty difficult to do we’re the only rock metal band from Italy with mainstream exposure. All of our videos have been in rotation on MTV (Italy) so you don’t need cable or satellite to see it. All you need is a TV and basically you can see our videos. Here they don’t play videos anymore, it’s basically all reality TV. (everyone laughs) Videos here in the US are more important on the internet, (ie YouTube). New artists just release singles to the internet because they have a lower budget. Possibly they could do something more shocking because there’s not as much censorship many artists are doing two different videos – one for internet and one for TV – so its very hard to base the taste on European market and compare to American markets because its so different.
You guys are doing acoustic sets in select cities on the Jägermeister Tour. In some cities there’s more than one show per day. How do you find the energy to do both shows?
Cristina: we’re struggling with that right now.
Andrea: This is the hardest part of the tour, we’re in a stretch of playing nine days in a row without a day off. Some days we have two acoustic sets, one for the local radio station and one for Ovation guitars. On off dates we’re headlining other shows so it’s even a longer set.
Cristina: Its tough but you’ve got to do it. You have to make the wheels spin.
Why do you pick certain cities over others (Niagara Falls was excluded)?
Cristina: Ovation set up the acoustic tour and wants to concentrate on some markets more than others. Plus we have other stuff to do as well.
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Who were your influences growing up?
Cristina: Growing up I was listening to all kinds of music – not just one type in particular. I never really had the dream of being in a band. I always loved to sing but I never considered this thing as a regular job. It was a big passion but I never really thought I could turn it into a job.
I think your voice is fantastic
Cristina: Thank you very much. I love all music, rock music, I think the band that influenced me the most in the beginning was Paradise Lost, an English band. Also Type O Negative, that kind of dark goth metal. Then I started to listen to all kinds of metal.
Andrea: we’ve changed a lot over the years. At first we were metal-heads, but then we incorporated all kinds of elements of music that we like probably because we travel a lot. We opened our minds a little bit more. We see what’s working with the live shows, what gives energy to the people so we gather lot of different aspects of the music and now today our influences are open wide.
We interviewed Zakk Wylde this past Wednesday and my female associate asked him this question, now it’s my turn to ask you the same question. What did you think about being voted rock’s sexiest female by Revolver magazine?
Cristina: (laughs) To say its not a cool thing I’d be an open hypocrite, I mean its always nice when get recognition in any way. I like it better when they say I’m a good singer more than just an image. But I think that if you can combine things being like good looking like pleasing to see but still do your job properly I think that it’s great. But at the same time, I don’t believe in polls in general because most of the time when you vote, you just say the first name you have in mind. I know there are more beautiful girls than me. I know there are more awesome singers. I think it’s cool that a lot of people think that.
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You guys are going to be appearing on the ABC News Now program “The Mix” in early April, can you tell us what that’s about and what you’re going to be doing?
Andrea: A quick chat.
Cristina: I think we’re going to talk about the album - a little bit of everything.
Andrea: we haven’t received any information yet. They want to introduce the band to a mainstream audience. There’s a renewed interest in this tour it’s attracting a different kind a media than what we’ve done in the past. We’re going to do a couple of acoustic tracks. There are more internet TV and regular TV are interested in us. Maybe this tour is bringing a different kind of attention
Cristina: I think its cool we’re getting this attention considering we’re not under a major label. There’s nobody that can really say ‘hey you’ve got to do this’ we’re really getting requests from bigger media sources
I think that doing Ozzfest 2006 helped put you guys on the map. To be totally honest, I didn’t know too much about you guys until I saw you at Ozzfest and I was like “wow!
Cristina: That’s why you tour and this is the perfect tour with Stone Sour and Shadows Fall. The three bands are fitting perfectly.
So you guys are all getting along?
Cristina: Absolutely. We all knew each other from the beginning so it’s even better because most of the time on the tour you get to be friends.
Andrea: It’s like a family on tour. We knew the guys from Shadows Fall, they were on the same label as us for many years and we know Stone Sour from the Slipnot guys and the crew so everybody was really friendly coming in.
Cristina, you recently contributed vocals to the remake of Megadeth’s “A Tout le monde” (set me free) on their up coming CD “United Abominations”. Can you tell us how that all came about? Did Dave Mustaine actually reach out to you personally or did the record label contact you?
Cristina: Not personally, but the management company contacted me to see if I was available to do that and after a bit we made it happen. I think it’s a great coincidence because I always loved that song so it’s kind of crazy to record it again because a lot of people don’t that this is completely new version. It’s still the same song but its not as mellow as it was before – more rock. It was fun, he was a great guy, I’d only met him a couple of times.
You guys got a video for it too, right?
Cristina: Yes we filmed it Los Angles a couple of weeks ago.
I tried to find it and I couldn’t.
Cristina: It’s not out yet. They’re still editing the rough cut.
To me you guys are one of the first major band with two singers of different genders, the way you guys work your vocal is fantastic, how do you guys make it work so well? Who makes the call for who takes the high part and who takes the low part?
Cristina: It comes out really natural for some part because some parts are more aggressive and you really need like a strong growl and Andrea is going to come with it because I can’t growl and I can go for the more melodic parts just in general but the cool thing about our voices is that we like to experiment so al lot of times he sings in a clear way and I sing in a little bit more bluesy raspy way and what is even better is that we work it for the song and we don’t work to show our skills to people there’s not like a big ego in this band. We know our potential that’s fine ‘I’m a good singer, you’re a good singer let’s work for the song so that this part sounds better sung by you let’s do it that way”
Andrea: the more we do it the more we learn. In the beginning it was not so easy to find the right balance. The more we keep writing songs the more we improve because you learn to use the voice a different way so its very important to keep going and keep experimenting to reach a very good level.
You guys are the two songwriters. Lyrics wise, correct?
Cristina/Andrea: Yes
Andrea: Sometimes I sing parts that she wrote with a different idea and I come in and try to do it in a more powerful way – slightly different then its works better. Sometimes it’s the other way around. We don’t care who writes the part the main thing is what sounds better. I don’t have to be afraid of changing something that someone else wrote. Its already easier if she had an picture in mind I don’t want to put my ideas in at any cost if that idea sounds great and I sing it and it sounds great why should I change it just to put my idea – if my idea’s not better then that one then its just stupid to put my idea in, Its not good for the band, its good for myself and it doesn’t have to be like that. That’s why we basically share the same money with everybody in the band and we don’t want people to come up with ideas for the song just because you make more money so I come with a shitty song it has to be there because my personal agenda of the money and of the band has to be there. That’s not the right way to do it. That’s why U2 does the same, for example, you can tell Bono is a big part of U2 but they always share the royalties. We try to make everybody work, if you don’t work for the song you work in another aspect of the band. It can be like talking to manager or doing the website or doing other things.
Cristina: As long as everybody puts forth some effort in the band because to make a band work its not just about music and vocals there’s a lot more stuff behind …..
Andrea: The thing that breaks many bands are the egos of people that they don’t realize that sometimes you have to put your ego on the side because its just the best thing for the band. If you have good ideas they’ll be used sooner or later its just a matter of time.
Do you see a lot of bands now copying your style?
Cristina: I wouldn’t really call it copying, if you can get inspiration from different bands because when you start as a band you’re always inspired by other bands or at least you like other bands. So you say ‘I like their music, their image or whatever it is” Its not that you’re trying to steal something, but you get inspiration from the band and then you make it personal. So as long as the new bands are saying like “wow I really like Lacuna Coil” because they did this or that, let’s try to recreate the same thing but personalize it. That’s fine with us and of course it’s flattering. In the very beginning we were compared to other bands and now new bands are being compared to us. That means that something happened.
Of all the bands that you’ve toured with, who was the most fun and why – got any good stories?
Cristina: Type O Negative, Rob Zombie, this tour is really fun too, Anthrax. Basically every band we’ve toured with. During Ozzfest we had a couple of parties with the guys from Disturbed and Avenged Sevenfold, we were invited to the guitar player’s house from Disturbed (Dan) and we drank a little bit too much but it was great because it was a very familiar environment. I just remember shots everywhere – all night long.
Andrea: Let’s just say that Jägermeister contributed a lot to the party going back to the bus.
Christina: We came back at five or six in the morning and we thought the party was over and two of the Avenged Sevenfold guys said “Come over and party on our bus – lots of dancing”
Cristina, how does it feel sharing a bus with all guys? Are you craving any female companionship?
Cristina: Not really, I kind of am a tomboy
Is there a bathroom protocol (everyone laughs)?
Cristina: Not really because the good thing is that everybody thinks that keeping the bus clean is good for everybody because it’s your house. I mean you have to treat it like your house because you spend a lot of time in it – eating, sleeping. So we try to keep it as clean as possible. Put a lot of shit around that makes it feel like home. Its probably harder for them to share a place for a woman because as a typical woman I’m really messy – I have tons of shoes and clothes and stuff.
When you guys are away from touring, which is obviously never, and you have those precious minutes when your back home what are your hobbies?
Cristina: I basically like to hang out with my family and my friends, nothing special and not partying too much.
Andrea: I go out with friends a lot to clubs and parties. Play video games. We had a longer break, about three months between Christmas and now so I spent time with the family. You have to arrange everything before you leave again, pay all the bills. A lot of things that are normal but you have to do them in three months because then you don’t have time to do it for the next three months.
Cristina: And then we like to eat properly.
Do you guys all live in Milan?
Andrea: Different areas, but all in the same city.
Do you guys actually get together and say “I got some ideas for a song”?
Andrea: Actually we’ll probably start doing this because in the past when were home we’d take a little break from sharing ideas and stuff. Now we have to change a little bit the way we work so far because the touring is starting to get much more hectic, more busy. So we don’t have that much time to stop and recharge and think about it. You have to be on the songs very quickly, straight after the tour. So we have to reorganize a little bit the way we write songs, we need to be faster. We’ll probably are going to pick a place, like a little studio, to work and go there every day for a certain amount of hours.
Cristina: Now it’s easier because with all the programs on the computer you can still record all the ideas you have.
How do you guys keep your voices in such great shape?
Cristina: Cross your fingers (laughs) – that’s how it is. You can’t really know when you’re going to sick. If you play guitar and your guitar string breaks, you can change it. With vocals it’s completely different. We don’t smoke but people around us smoke and we try to stay away from that. We have to try to sleep as much as possible, rest our voices, not to talk too much.
Andrea: What I’ve noticed, I start studying for the last album, I was taking vocals lessons during the recording of Karmacode. Every time I have free time when I’m home I do it (practice). With some techniques you can make your vocal cords stronger, more resistance and some technique to push the voice hard and have a good result live. For example the day before this tour we arrived here from Italy, we did a 24 hour flight from Milan, Italy to Philadelphia then there was a delay, then to Chicago, another delay then to Minneapolis. Then we had to play the night after that. I was very tired and the next few days it was good then after two days I felt I couldn’t sleep longer because of the jet lag and I got sick. My voice was very low for two three shows on this tour. But with the technique I learn I make it do. I don’t push too hard just sing the minimum and let the crowd sing a little bit and I can keep going without many problems.
Cristina: I can’t do that, because every time I say “I feel like shit so I will not try to push it” you see the crowd going crazy and you can’t help it. I’m going to give everything and the day after you’re just like good god!
Andrea: So for the quality of the show it’s better to have one day off between every show but it’s impossible due the cost of everything like the crew and the bus, etc. It just happens when you’re filming for live TV, it is when you’re having problems with your voice and everyone can see it. It’s always the worst show…(Everyone Laughs)..
So you guys can pick each other up when it calls for it?
Cristina: There are little tricks. Like from the monitor guy can push for me or more him depending on how we feel. Every singer, if they’re having problems, will let the audience sing. You’re human and you’re not a machine, so sometimes you can have up and down.
Andrea: You can try coordinate the lack of quality in your voice with the energy you put onstage. You let the people go crazy so they don’t notice as much. 
Do you guys have any closing thoughts to our readers at GlamMetal???
Cristina: I just hope that they will come to check the show out because they just get really impressed by our performance. After a lot of pre conceived notions that they have about Lacuna Coil…..I really want to know how they are or whatever. They should definitely come and check the show.
Andrea: We are headlining a tour starting in May after the Jägermeister Tour in North America. They can check the website or myspace for the dates.
Is this your first headlining tour in North America?
Andrea: Yes. It is going to be a special package with all bands that have females involved in the bands. There is a European band from Holland with us for some shows called The Gathering. This is a special package to make it more interesting, different from other tours.
So you are only going to be off tour for a couple of weeks?
Andrea: The headlining tour lasts about a month and starts two days after the Jägermeister Tour ends.
Thanks Cristina and Andrea for taking time to talking to us here at GlamMetal…
Cristina/Andrea: Thank you!
You can check out Lacuna Coil out on the Jägermeister Tour http://www.jagermeistermusictour.com/index.cfm
Or you can go to their website or myspace page to check out dates for their upcoming headlining tour starting in May in North America http://www.lacunacoil.it / or http://www.myspace.com/lacunacoil
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