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Interview with Andrea Ferro of Lacuna Coil
By : Chris Downie
After three years of relentless touring and their phenomenal recent stateside success (where they surpassed the 200000 sales mark with their last LP Comalies and appeared at the prestigious Ozzfest), Italy's LACUNA COIL are about to embark on their first UK headlining tour this month. They are promising a special experience for the UK fans, with a preview of new material which is scheduled to appear on their next album. On the eve of the UK tour, which promises to be a momentous occasion, we secured an interview with the band's male vocalist ANDREA FERRO about the band's humble beginnings, their recent success story and the evolution of the band.
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First of all, how does it feel to finally be doing your first UK headlining tour?
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We are really happy about it, we feel that the name of the band it's growing a lot in the UK and finally we have the chance to play and travel around the country and not only in london. It's something we would like to do in every territory but very often we don't have enough time. Plus for an Italian rock band it's not that common┘
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| The word is that you are planning something special, ie. 2 mini sets, with one being entirely acoustic. How did that idea come about? |
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Actually in the past we did something similar in Philly but that was more like a surprise for the fans, a couple of acoustic songs just before the encore and that was it. This time it's more of a special night, we will combine a little acoustic show followed by the regular set we will also play 23 songs from the upcoming album. Basicly we wanna offer an exclusive and tasty starter to the UK fans.
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In the past, the UK and us markets were the most elusive to crack, especially for European bands. Yet you enjoyed great success on the 2004 Ozzfest. Was this breakthrough a surprise?
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Honestly all our career has been a surprise because when you come from Milano, Italy and you play heavy music it's not that automatic to have any kind of attention from the international scene. The ozzfest has been surely the highlight of our history so far, something we always watched from the magazines and we never expect to be part of one day.
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| With the success in the US, are you hopeful that you can make similar progress in the UK? |
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Surely we have already seen some reflections of this success in the European market and UK i think it's even more connected to the states compare to the others.
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Having been such a prolific touring band over the last 3 years, what do you think are the most important lessons you have learned as a band?
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I'm positive that we have learnt a lot of things about playing live and how this business works globally but most of all we have understood that this is what we really wanna try to do in our life and that we can survive together as a unit without killing eachother┘
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You have toured with a hugely diverse range of bands, from P.O.D to Black Sabbath and even bands like Anthrax. How has your music been received by the various different crowds?
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Every time we have met different kind of people, the christian crowd of P.O.D. it's pretty different from the Type O Negative's wild crowd but in the end of the day people just wanna have fun and spend some hours far away from their everyday problems. With our mix of heavy and atmospheric sound we have appeal pretty well to every crowds.
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The relentless touring for the Comalies album has delayed the completion of the next album. Do you have a possible release date yet?
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The last update i've got about the new album release - it's march 2006.
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The band have stated that you've been working on new material for some time now. How difficult has it been to combine songwriting with constant touring?
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It has been the first time for us to write an album after almost 3 years from the previous one and to stop and start again and record the songs in different sessions. Our way of working has changed and we had to get along with it. So far we are pretty happy about it and we feel like we have more chances to find the right idea for a song even if been involved in songwriting for such a long time has been a bit stressful.
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| Listening to your albums back-to-back, you have made significant progress between each release and evolved at a steady pace. What direction is the new material taking? |
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We are a band and a bunch of people in continue movement and evolution, our music has to follow our ideas and our lifestyle. The new album is gonna be more complete and various compare to comalies. The heavy songs are gonna be groovier and with a bigger sound, the vocals more balanced and with a lot of harmony. The atmospherical songs will feature some classic and tribal instruments and sounds.
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Century Media records have recently re-released your back catalogue, with considerable re-packaging and some bonus tracks. Looking back, what do you consider to be the high and low points of your recording career so far?
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As i mentioned before we're coming from Milano, Italy and when we have started in 1996 we were expecting almost nothing of what has happen along our path. Of course our previous album could have sound immature or unexperienced just becouse we were like that! Every single tour and record has been an outstanding experience for us and i can▓t consider nothing of that like a low point.
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When you started out in the late 90's, you were one of the few Metal bands to have a full-time female vocalist, yet now it has almost become a trend. Do you see it as a good thing, that so many women are stepping up, or do you think the scene has become predictable and boring?
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Me and Marco chose to add Cristina to the line up because at that time was something very interesting and new for a heavy band. Even if that doesn't give us any copyright about it today i see many bands just playing the card of the female singer without focusing on writing good songs and developing a personal sound. Some of them just try to jump on the bandwagon.
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| Another problem faced by female-fronted bands is the way the media seem so keen to categorise them all, without really paying attention to the music. How difficult has it been to distance yourselves from the unfair comparisons to bands like Evanescence? |
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In the beginning we were a bit disappointed about it, especially when somebody have tried to tell us that we were ripping them off┘ but then we have seen that their succes has brought a lot of attention also to us and from that point on we can't really complain that much.
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One thing which has always followed the band around is this "Goth-Metal" tag. Do you find it restrictive, to be labelled in a much-criticised genre such as this?
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I think that the Goth-Metal scene is where in a way we're coming from┘ i also think that our musical style has develop a lot in this years and today we are something different even if we still keep some Gothic moods in our sound. A fact that i like from our band is that we are still able to play in a goth festival aswell as in a Metal or Rock festival.
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Finally, now that you have built a solid fanbase in mainland Europe and conquered America, what are your expectations for the future?
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Keep on promoting the band in this territory and maybe play some shows in Asia, Australia and South America. See ya at the UK shows!
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