Latest / HEAVY Music Interviews / Building An Empire With ANDREA FERRO From LACUNA COIL
Transcript
- 0:23Speaker 1: Hello everyone.
- 0:24Speaker 2: I'm Andrea from the band Lacuna Coil based in Milano, Italy,
- 0:27Speaker 2: and we're about to release a new record on February fourteenth,
- 0:32Speaker 2: Valentine Day, called Sleepless Empire.
- 0:35Speaker 1: It is our tenth album and we can't wait for
- 0:39Speaker 1: people to hear it. It's a good compilation of mixing
- 0:45Speaker 1: of the old school sound of Coil with some newer influences.
- 0:48Speaker 1: It's quite a heavy, dark record altogether. And yeah, we're
- 0:54Speaker 1: very excited to start a touring cycle and play for
- 0:57Speaker 1: people all around the world and let them listen to
- 0:59Speaker 1: the record. Fantastic.
- 1:01Speaker 3: Thanks to join us today, mate, it's a pasure to
- 1:03Speaker 3: speak with.
- 1:03Speaker 1: It my pleasure and we're very excited and loaded for
- 1:08Speaker 1: the things to come. You know. We're still finishing some
- 1:12Speaker 1: of the promos. We'll have to shoot one video before released,
- 1:16Speaker 1: and we have a few photos to do. But we're
- 1:20Speaker 1: in a good position, like everything is getting in the
- 1:23Speaker 1: right place, very good.
- 1:25Speaker 4: And you said that this is your tenth studio album, mate,
- 1:28Speaker 4: and you guys have been around for quite a long time,
- 1:29Speaker 4: but you still get excited about an album release or
- 1:32Speaker 4: is it just yeah, you've gone through the motions now
- 1:35Speaker 4: and it is what it is.
- 1:37Speaker 1: No, we're very excited because we love touring a new album.
- 1:41Speaker 1: We love the reaction of the people when they hear
- 1:44Speaker 1: the new songs. So it's still a very challenging process
- 1:49Speaker 1: because it takes a long time for us to work
- 1:51Speaker 1: a record, and we don't release albums just to release it,
- 1:54Speaker 1: especially after all these years. We really want to release
- 1:57Speaker 1: something when we have something new to offer, something new
- 2:01Speaker 1: to say, and and so we're very happy. And if
- 2:05Speaker 1: we wouldn't like anymore what we do, then we would
- 2:07Speaker 1: quit because it's impossible. There's too much energy and effort
- 2:12Speaker 1: to be put in what we do in front of
- 2:14Speaker 1: a new album cycle to not loving it.
- 2:17Speaker 4: You know, it's a quite a romantic gesture putting it
- 2:21Speaker 4: out on Valentine's Day too. It's a bit a bit
- 2:23Speaker 4: of metal for Valentine's Day?
- 2:25Speaker 3: What could go wrong?
- 2:27Speaker 1: Yeah? And I mean, actually there's going to be a
- 2:29Speaker 1: surprise exactly on Valentine. They connected to the meaning of
- 2:33Speaker 1: the of the date, but I can't announce it yet,
- 2:36Speaker 1: but it's going to be a special surprise, very very
- 2:40Speaker 1: on purpose, let's say.
- 2:42Speaker 4: And then where can people hear the surprise that I
- 2:44Speaker 4: have to come be a website or you doing a stream.
- 2:47Speaker 1: No, it's more like music and images. It's like a
- 2:51Speaker 1: combination of the two, and but very very on point
- 2:55Speaker 1: for Valentine's and a very special relationship.
- 3:00Speaker 4: Beautiful funny that adversary reworking in the album Permilies. This
- 3:06Speaker 4: will be your first new album since Black Anime back
- 3:09Speaker 4: out in twenty nineteen, So what's changed with the band
- 3:12Speaker 4: in that period.
- 3:15Speaker 1: Obviously, we've been home for a couple of years, as
- 3:18Speaker 1: everybody in the world, and that didn't felt like a
- 3:22Speaker 1: creative moment for us, not very inspiring. We kind of
- 3:25Speaker 1: felt more flat, although we kind of enjoy staying home
- 3:29Speaker 1: for a little bit because we haven't been home for
- 3:31Speaker 1: such a long time in many, many years. But besides that,
- 3:35Speaker 1: we really needed to, you know, recharge and reload afterwards
- 3:39Speaker 1: before we actually found the motivation and the inspiration for
- 3:43Speaker 1: a new record. So basically we've done that. Then we've
- 3:47Speaker 1: start touring again in the United States in the beginning
- 3:51Speaker 1: and slowly put in motion the normal routine of the band,
- 3:56Speaker 1: and then the anniversity for the twenty anniversary of the
- 3:59Speaker 1: classic record Cabalized came up, and we didn't just wanted
- 4:02Speaker 1: to do a remix or remaster of the record, but
- 4:06Speaker 1: we wanted to do a bigger operation in order to
- 4:08Speaker 1: really celebrate the record, and we decided to kind of
- 4:11Speaker 1: rearrange and rewrite the record with the current lineup, with
- 4:15Speaker 1: the current sound of the band, and it to tribute
- 4:18Speaker 1: the original one, and so we needed a special release
- 4:21Speaker 1: with the original one and the new version of the album.
- 4:24Speaker 1: And that kind of a thing gave us also the
- 4:27Speaker 1: right motivation to restart. You know, going in the studio
- 4:30Speaker 1: without the pressure of a full new record really gave
- 4:34Speaker 1: us the wheel to restart and the understanding and also
- 4:38Speaker 1: kind of influence the newer album because you think, we
- 4:41Speaker 1: go back and revisit those atmospheres of twenty years ago
- 4:46Speaker 1: and kind of rethink what we were doing back then,
- 4:49Speaker 1: and that kind of has been brought somehow spontaneously in
- 4:53Speaker 1: the new record as well.
- 4:54Speaker 4: I think, yeah, and some paper could get confused by
- 4:58Speaker 4: that and think that you've gone off in a completely
- 5:00Speaker 4: different direction by saying that, But the album is still
- 5:03Speaker 4: looking to coil that it's called. But it's just you're right,
- 5:06Speaker 4: and it feels like it's a refresh button and it's
- 5:08Speaker 4: all come out and just gone.
- 5:11Speaker 3: This is how we want to have fun.
- 5:13Speaker 1: Yeah, I think at this point in our career we
- 5:16Speaker 1: do have a trademark sound that no matter what, is
- 5:19Speaker 1: not going to change. You know, you're always going to
- 5:21Speaker 1: recognize my voice, Christina's voice, and certain way of harmonized
- 5:26Speaker 1: the music of Lacuna Coil. But obviously we always try
- 5:29Speaker 1: to bring a little bit of freshness, a little bit
- 5:32Speaker 1: of a contemporary sound. We like to the album to
- 5:36Speaker 1: be relevant. Even for somebody that only listens to Acuna
- 5:40Speaker 1: Coil for the first time. Now you know, you.
- 5:43Speaker 4: Actually spotted on them, because like, I've heard of you
- 5:45Speaker 4: guys tapes and I've heard bits of music here and there,
- 5:47Speaker 4: but I've never sat down and listened to a whole album,
- 5:49Speaker 4: I'm sorry, until this one, and.
- 5:51Speaker 3: It just blame me why. I was, like, what have
- 5:53Speaker 3: I been doing all these years?
- 5:57Speaker 1: I mean, you know, we always have that. You know,
- 5:59Speaker 1: a lot of people know the name of the band
- 6:01Speaker 1: and know that we've been around, but maybe they never
- 6:03Speaker 1: took the chance to listen to the music because they
- 6:06Speaker 1: thought we were doing something a little different than what
- 6:09Speaker 1: we actually do, or they for some reason they never
- 6:12Speaker 1: really put attention into it, you know. So there's always
- 6:15Speaker 1: people discovering the band. Even if you are quite an
- 6:18Speaker 1: established band or you have a name that everybody sort
- 6:20Speaker 1: of know, but that doesn't mean that everybody really listened
- 6:24Speaker 1: to your music, you know. So it's always great to
- 6:27Speaker 1: expose yourself to different audiences, you know, newer or even
- 6:31Speaker 1: older than never pay attention before.
- 6:34Speaker 4: I think a lot of that comes down to to
- 6:36Speaker 4: the labels of music for some people these days, Like
- 6:39Speaker 4: you've been always labeled as a gothic metal band, and
- 6:41Speaker 4: that's all I've heard if you guys are a gothic
- 6:43Speaker 4: metal band, and I'm just like, I don't want to
- 6:44Speaker 4: sit through a whole hour of synthesizers and bullshit.
- 6:47Speaker 3: That's part really you've been short changed, I think byle
- 6:51Speaker 3: being lumbered into one genre.
- 6:55Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, that's that always has always been sort
- 6:57Speaker 1: of a not a problem, but an issue with us,
- 7:00Speaker 1: because we started from that scene for sure, from the
- 7:05Speaker 1: gothic metal of the end of the nineties, and our
- 7:09Speaker 1: label was producing a lot of those records of those
- 7:12Speaker 1: bands of that movement, and so it was a natural connection.
- 7:16Speaker 1: And in the beginning of the career, I think we
- 7:18Speaker 1: did apply completely to that style because that's where we
- 7:22Speaker 1: were getting our inspiration. But then I think already on
- 7:26Speaker 1: the third fourth record, we kind of start to contaminate
- 7:29Speaker 1: more the music and some records being a bit more
- 7:31Speaker 1: metal record, a bit more dark, maybe some more rock.
- 7:36Speaker 1: But in general we have kind of melt that gothic
- 7:40Speaker 1: atmosphere and blended to some heavier stuff, some more groovy stuff,
- 7:46Speaker 1: and always open on different influences. Sometimes it's been a
- 7:49Speaker 1: bit more New Battle, sometimes a bit more metal core,
- 7:51Speaker 1: and I think nowadays we kind of include all of
- 7:57Speaker 1: these together in the records, you know, But I think
- 8:00Speaker 1: it's normal that it's once you get labeled, it's hard
- 8:03Speaker 1: to move away from it. Now they call us alternative metal,
- 8:06Speaker 1: which I don't know exactly what it means, but maybe
- 8:09Speaker 1: it's it's just a bit more generic than gothic metal.
- 8:13Speaker 1: I don't know.
- 8:14Speaker 3: I just got back to the basics and say, fucking
- 8:17Speaker 3: good band.
- 8:20Speaker 4: To me.
- 8:21Speaker 1: To me, there is not a huge difference even between
- 8:23Speaker 1: rock and metal. I don't make it.
- 8:24Speaker 3: Yougue.
- 8:25Speaker 1: If I like music, alternative music in general, whether it's electronic,
- 8:30Speaker 1: it's whether it could be even hip hop or metal
- 8:33Speaker 1: or rock. I like everything that it's has a kick.
- 8:36Speaker 1: You know that there's something spicy to listen to. I
- 8:39Speaker 1: like it. You know, I don't care what it is.
- 8:40Speaker 3: You know, I'm with you.
- 8:42Speaker 4: Try run on a heavy metal magazine and see how
- 8:44Speaker 4: many people get up here for putting something on that's
- 8:46Speaker 4: not metal enough.
- 8:47Speaker 1: You know. It's like, I know the topic really well.
- 8:52Speaker 3: Back to the new album, Sleeping Empire.
- 8:54Speaker 4: I like, you can tell what's gonna be a good
- 8:56Speaker 4: album when there's a hyper singles released, and this one's
- 8:59Speaker 4: no exception. You've got gravity, there's Oxygen, I Shadow in
- 9:03Speaker 4: the meantime and never Down.
- 9:05Speaker 3: That's not a bad effort.
- 9:07Speaker 1: Is the one we just released like two days ago
- 9:09Speaker 1: with the video, and before that we get Oxygen and
- 9:12Speaker 1: never Done and in the Meantime was the previous one.
- 9:16Speaker 1: But it's been quite a chunk of time. We release
- 9:19Speaker 1: it through times because nowadays it's just different, you know,
- 9:24Speaker 1: music work differently with the streaming services and stuff like that.
- 9:27Speaker 1: Everything it's like step by step. It kind of went
- 9:30Speaker 1: back a little bit to the to the era of
- 9:33Speaker 1: the singles, you know, that was like the in the sixties.
- 9:36Speaker 1: You know, when Elvis was released. In music, it was
- 9:39Speaker 1: mostly singles after a single, you know, and not before
- 9:42Speaker 1: you actually put out a full album, you have a
- 9:44Speaker 1: collection of singles, and nowadays with the streaming policy, it
- 9:48Speaker 1: kind of went back to that. You know, you have
- 9:49Speaker 1: four or five songs before you actually put out an album,
- 9:53Speaker 1: which is different than when we started for sure.
- 9:56Speaker 4: Yeah, do you think those songs overall represent the album
- 10:00Speaker 4: or dies tised what was on there?
- 10:03Speaker 1: I think there's still a couple of different moods that
- 10:06Speaker 1: we haven't really portrayed in the singles, and after that,
- 10:10Speaker 1: I think more or less you've got an idea of
- 10:11Speaker 1: the album, but there's there's a song like I Wish
- 10:14Speaker 1: You Were Dead, or a song like a Scarecrow, maybe
- 10:19Speaker 1: slip paralysis. Those three are still a little different than
- 10:23Speaker 1: what we have offered so far, and then the rest
- 10:26Speaker 1: is more or less in the veins of the what
- 10:28Speaker 1: you heard, you know.
- 10:29Speaker 3: Yeah, I've also got two guest artists on there.
- 10:32Speaker 4: You got Ash Costello for me It's Day on the
- 10:34Speaker 4: track in the meantime, and you got Randy Bryde from
- 10:36Speaker 4: lamc God on Hoisting the Shadow. So you guys are
- 10:39Speaker 4: the size of your career where you don't need guest
- 10:41Speaker 4: artists to help sell your album. So they've obviously brought
- 10:44Speaker 4: something to each song. What did they bring?
- 10:47Speaker 1: Yeah, Randy For First of all, Randy is a longtime friend.
- 10:51Speaker 1: We met each other on the Odds fest two thousand
- 10:54Speaker 1: and four in America and we became friends. And then
- 10:57Speaker 1: after that we've toured plenty of times together everywhere in
- 11:01Speaker 1: the world. We played festivals all over the place together
- 11:04Speaker 1: and with Randy, we were longtime friendship is part of
- 11:08Speaker 1: the family. He is a big fan of our music.
- 11:10Speaker 1: We're a huge fan of Lamba God as well, and
- 11:13Speaker 1: so was the natural once we brought out the idea
- 11:16Speaker 1: of having some guests, we say Randy has to be
- 11:19Speaker 1: one because we're friends, you know. When he finished a
- 11:22Speaker 1: European tour. Sometimes he just come down to Milan and
- 11:25Speaker 1: hang out with us for a couple of days and
- 11:27Speaker 1: we go to eat together, we go see a photo
- 11:29Speaker 1: exhibit and stuff like that. So it is a true friendship,
- 11:33Speaker 1: you know. So it was a very spontaneous collaboration and
- 11:37Speaker 1: Ash she's we didn't know her really well, but we
- 11:40Speaker 1: were looking for a female voice on to add on
- 11:43Speaker 1: the song that wasn't too clean or too operatic, so
- 11:47Speaker 1: we went to look for somebody with more of a
- 11:50Speaker 1: recipe dirty ish kind of voice. And and she she
- 11:54Speaker 1: represented that, and then we centered the song. She immediately
- 11:58Speaker 1: was excited about doing it and she did a great job.
- 12:00Speaker 1: And she also brought some different kind of arrangement to
- 12:03Speaker 1: the part that we wrote that we probably wouldn't have
- 12:06Speaker 1: done because we didn't have the kind of American flavor
- 12:08Speaker 1: to the vocals. And so it was cool, cool experience,
- 12:12Speaker 1: and we decided to do just two songs so it's
- 12:14Speaker 1: not too much because we already have two vocals vocalists
- 12:17Speaker 1: in the band, so we didn't want to overdo it
- 12:20Speaker 1: for the first time.
- 12:22Speaker 4: And Benny said the album by like, you guys have
- 12:24Speaker 4: done a lot of writing over the years, so you
- 12:26Speaker 4: think it gets easier or harder to come up with
- 12:29Speaker 4: new material the more you do.
- 12:32Speaker 1: It's it's easier because you know what you have to
- 12:36Speaker 1: go through, but it's harder because everything you do you
- 12:40Speaker 1: kind of feel you've done it already, you know, so
- 12:42Speaker 1: you have to And then when we feel that song
- 12:45Speaker 1: sounds too much like something we've already done, we use
- 12:48Speaker 1: it usually as a bonus track, so we put it away. Okay,
- 12:52Speaker 1: we're going to And normally the first songs you write
- 12:54Speaker 1: are more similar to what you've done before. You know,
- 12:57Speaker 1: the more you write, the more you develop, and you
- 13:00Speaker 1: kind of went away from the classics, from the obvious,
- 13:05Speaker 1: and so we we it's getting harder on that and
- 13:08Speaker 1: being really satisfied with what you do because you've done
- 13:11Speaker 1: it and you want the kind of freshness then it's
- 13:14Speaker 1: hard to get when you've done it so many times,
- 13:16Speaker 1: you know.
- 13:17Speaker 4: And because as a bad like you've been around for
- 13:20Speaker 4: like you say, I have for forty years, which is
- 13:22Speaker 4: its acical effort. But it's going to be inevitable that
- 13:25Speaker 4: one day you just have to call in the day
- 13:27Speaker 4: he say, what do you hope the inscription would be
- 13:29Speaker 4: on your musical team stone when you when you retire.
- 13:34Speaker 1: They weren't too bad? I'm kidding, No, I don't know.
- 13:42Speaker 1: I mean it's it's it's hard sometimes, but sometimes we
- 13:45Speaker 1: have to think about the future. You know. We were
- 13:48Speaker 1: more people that live in the present a lot, so
- 13:51Speaker 1: we don't look too much in the past, neither in
- 13:54Speaker 1: the future. But obviously there will be a day when
- 13:57Speaker 1: we were too old to head bang, too old to
- 13:59Speaker 1: go all whatever, or to double bass. Maybe I think
- 14:03Speaker 1: before that there will maybe maybe an acoustic part of
- 14:06Speaker 1: our career when we're gonna go only acoustic and do
- 14:09Speaker 1: some stuff like I don't know, like Johnny Cash did
- 14:12Speaker 1: on his latest work where it was going only doing
- 14:15Speaker 1: the low voice acoustics, which I think was a brilliant move,
- 14:19Speaker 1: because once you don't, we're not physically able to do
- 14:23Speaker 1: those highs, those crazy things. It's much better to go
- 14:28Speaker 1: simpler and acquieter, but do something with style, you know,
- 14:31Speaker 1: instead of trying to be what you were and what
- 14:33Speaker 1: you're not anymore. And I see many bands nowadays that
- 14:37Speaker 1: are they have been historical band and they can't handle
- 14:40Speaker 1: it anymore to be as good as they used to be,
- 14:42Speaker 1: but they keep doing it and sometimes to say why.
- 14:45Speaker 3: You know, that's very good point, very good.
- 14:48Speaker 1: Now.
- 14:48Speaker 4: I don't look through your turn schedule before we spike, mate,
- 14:51Speaker 4: and you've got a lot of shows coming up, but
- 14:52Speaker 4: I did not see Australia on there.
- 14:55Speaker 1: There will be, There will be. It's just that we
- 14:57Speaker 1: we start normally from the closes market, which is Europe
- 15:01Speaker 1: and the States, which are in the main territories for
- 15:04Speaker 1: our music. But I'm sure we're going to do both
- 15:07Speaker 1: Australia and Asia as soon as possible, maybe already in
- 15:12Speaker 1: this year. If not next year, but for sure there
- 15:16Speaker 1: will be Australia.
- 15:18Speaker 4: Now, before we like you, I've started a new segment
- 15:20Speaker 4: called Fighter Bomb. So before I speak with you, child
- 15:23Speaker 4: three social media and come up with a couple of
- 15:25Speaker 4: bios that I want to ask you a little bit more.
- 15:28Speaker 3: The first one I've got is.
- 15:32Speaker 4: I've been to a lot of parties in my life
- 15:34Speaker 4: before mate, but I've never been to a tram party.
- 15:38Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. That was when we released the DVD from
- 15:43Speaker 1: the show, the special show we did for the twenty
- 15:45Speaker 1: universally in London called the one nineteen show. We did
- 15:49Speaker 1: the show, we filmed it and we released a DVD
- 15:52Speaker 1: and this was the meet and greet for the special
- 15:55Speaker 1: show in Milano and celebrating the DVD. We rented a
- 15:59Speaker 1: trend that is actually running normally in the city and
- 16:03Speaker 1: we if you see the outside is completely wrapped with
- 16:06Speaker 1: the hard work of the DVD. And then we got
- 16:10Speaker 1: two rounds of people because it was too many requests,
- 16:13Speaker 1: so we split in two rounds. It was about an
- 16:15Speaker 1: hour traveling around the center of the city, and I
- 16:19Speaker 1: was also tour guiding, like explaining, oh, this is this building,
- 16:23Speaker 1: this is the place where we did this, and this that,
- 16:25Speaker 1: so it was really really fun front time for one
- 16:28Speaker 1: one entire day on our own tramp.
- 16:31Speaker 4: That's a fantastic mate. And this party doesn't look like
- 16:34Speaker 4: it would have been as much fun.
- 16:36Speaker 1: Oh yeah. This was in a South Dakota in Aerica
- 16:43Speaker 1: and the United States, and we just our tour bus
- 16:46Speaker 1: eat a snowstorm and we slowly slide out of the
- 16:52Speaker 1: road like this in a in a canal that was
- 16:54Speaker 1: right behind on the street and our bus went this way,
- 16:59Speaker 1: and so we have the police coming and saving us. Luckily,
- 17:03Speaker 1: we were going really slow and we so we slowly
- 17:06Speaker 1: slide out without crashing too hard, and and we the
- 17:10Speaker 1: bus actually stayed on, so we had the eating system
- 17:13Speaker 1: still working because the police came and say, it's going
- 17:16Speaker 1: to be an hour before we can pick you up
- 17:18Speaker 1: and bring you to an hotel, and so okay, but
- 17:21Speaker 1: everything was working. We got a power running, so no
- 17:24Speaker 1: big deal. So we had to slept like this for
- 17:27Speaker 1: an hour and then they took us in the police car.
- 17:30Speaker 1: All talked together, and they got us in this small
- 17:33Speaker 1: hotel and we spent three days in that hotel eating
- 17:36Speaker 1: all the frozen food they had and until you run
- 17:39Speaker 1: out because it was a really small town and you
- 17:42Speaker 1: could walk anywhere because it was super sleeply because of
- 17:45Speaker 1: the eyes, and and so we had to be three
- 17:48Speaker 1: days and missing two shows in that hotel.
- 17:51Speaker 3: Wow, that's that's a story in a half mate.
- 17:56Speaker 4: Yeah's project Spake with This Leaper's Empire is out on
- 18:01Speaker 4: February the fourteenth, and it is a really good album.
- 18:04Speaker 4: You've made yourself a new fan, so I'm going to
- 18:05Speaker 4: go back and listen to the other Night albums.
- 18:07Speaker 1: This week's thank you very much.