Milan, Italy may not exactly be the hub of all things metal, but it is the birthplace of one of the biggest up-and-coming hard rock acts around at the moment – say hello to Lacuna Coil. Although the sextet has technically reigned supreme among the heavier circles in their home country for just over a decade now, it was only following the release of their third album Comalies in 2002 that they managed to fully grab some well-deserved attention on a worldwide scale. Sure, the tunes were catchy – some would even argue poppy – but by God Comalies also simply slayed thanks to its gothic, doomy atmosphere and crushing riffs which, unsurprisingly, earned it the title of Century Media’s best-selling album ever.
Onwards and upwards it was yet again with their follow-up Karmacode [2006] which saw Lacuna Coil delve further into spicy melodies, chunky guitars and hook-laden riffs that ensured them the no. 28 spot on the Billboard Top 200 and jettisoned them onto the stages of Ozzfest and Download. Now, one year later, all ears are primed for what the band does next…
“We’re basically just starting to collect some ideas for the next album,” announces one-half of the vocal duo, Andrea Ferro, over some coffee and breakfast. “We’ve spent three months in the United States for the last tour so the plan is to hang out at home and chill out for a bit. Then, once everybody gets all the pieces of their life in the right place, we’ll gather and start to work as a unit again.”
So far a rough demo is about as close as Lacuna Coil has come to a record. “Yeah, it’s very rough and mostly bits and pieces,” reveals Ferro. “I think we are going to try to change a bit with the next album. By that I mean change our way of working together. We don’t want to only sit in front of the computer and write songs and then have everybody come in and add their own arrangement or vocals or whatever. This time we want to try to jam together as a band.”
The creative juices are certainly flowing, with the band hoping to pen together possibly up to 30 songs. “It would be good to have 30 songs, for example, and then be able to pick out the best 12 or something,” explains Ferro. “We’re hoping to have a much bigger variety of songs to choose from because, usually, we would come into the studio with just the right amount of tracks we would need for the album, or maybe a couple of extra ones, so this would be a different way of putting the record together for us.”
As far as the Lacuna Coil ‘sound’ itself is concerned, die-hard fans need not worry – the band seems to be quite happy with where it’s at, according to Ferro. “The next album will obviously be like growth for the band, for sure, it’s only the natural next step for every band to evolve. But it’s not about changing the sound anyway, it’s only about trying to write the best album possible, whatever it takes. I remember even after Comalies, we didn’t know where we should go with our sound. We didn’t know if the next record we made should be like Comalies or something totally different or maybe mellower. At the end of the day, we just sat down and wrote the best record we could without caring if it was too soft or too this or too that. And that’s what we want to do with the next album.”
If Ferro’s own stance on the Lacuna Coil sound appears a little blurred and scattered, it also reflects the position of the music critics who have tried and failed time and again to pigeonhole his band. Ferro agrees Lacuna Coil sits somewhere in between heaven and hell... “We are definitely in the space between the two. We are considered to be a band that is not underground but that is not mainstream either. I mean, sometimes we get mainstream media attention and sometimes you can find us back in the metal fanzines or the typical metal media. The point is, it’s just such a weird feeling, we never planned for it to be like this.”
And who could blame him? Coming from a country whose biggest musical export to date was the late Pavarotti, the thought of someday conquering the international metal audiences couldn’t have seemed more far fetched for the Italian rockers.
“We come from a country with no history of international success for any band,” explains Ferro. “Italy was just not a country for the type of music that we made. So, in my opinion, I guess one of the reasons that we got to where we are now is because, despite the odds, we tried to make it internationally right away without passing through Italy first. I guess that’s one of the main differences between us and other Italian bands. We also sing in English because the music we’ve listened to 99 per cent of the time was made in English, which is another difference between us and other Italian bands who sing in Italian instead of English. Italian is a very melodic language that sounds good with melodic music, but not really with rock and heavy music, so we felt this would probably be the best way to go about it.”
And it’s worked. Fast-forward a decade since Lacuna Coil’s humble beginnings, this is a band on top of its game. “At home we are seen as the biggest export band so we do get a lot of recognition, especially since we started selling out North American shows,” admits Ferro.
“I guess people see that as the standard. It’s nice but it’s weird because no matter where you are, overseas or at home, you’re still surrounded by this musical environment which is not like in the past, where we’d play a show and then we were back to being nobodies that had to work to pay the bills. This is not really like a job, it’s more like a party. Of course, there are still some routines and stuff you have to do even if you don’t feel like it, but at the end of the day you can’t really complain because you get to experience things like Ozzfest where you’re partying with these crazy people you only see in the pictures of a magazine.”
And the never-ending party isn’t getting tiring just yet for the band who are currently in Australia as part of Dave Mustaine’s musical blitzkrieg, Gigantour. “We know the guys from Devildriver very well because we did the Ozzfest tour in 2004 together so it’ll be good to see our friends,” enthuses Ferro. “Japan and Australia are both a first for us - we’ve never been on that side of the world. We are very curious about everything, not only with the musical side of things but with the personal side too.”
“It’s all really interesting to us and we’re so excited about new countries after spending such a long time in Europe and North America. I don’t know how much time off we’ll have in between shows but I hope we get to see as much as possible. Actually, we had an invitation from this guy who has a kangaroo reserve in Australia and who wanted to take us there and show us the animals for free, so hopefully we’ll get to do things like that.”
The buzz these Italians have managed to generate has been nothing short of electric, so it’s safe to say that right now fans worldwide only want to know one thing – the release date of Lacuna Coil’s next album.
“Well, after Gigantour there will be some single shows in Europe up until Christmas time, then we go into the studio,” finishes Ferro. “Basically, that’s what we mainly want to focus on next year, just getting this next album out. We still have to meet with the label and management to discuss the budget, and we still need to find the right producer, so it will be some time…But I would say possibly in 2008.”
