Lacuna Coil - Interview - 2007

“A break up that happens like that only comes after a long time of things boiling up.” Andreas crosses his legs and looks to his woolly-hatted band mate.

“Yeah,” Cristina agrees through the opening throws of her autumnal cold, “I don’t think it was a case of ‘I don’t like your hair. You’re fired’.” She smiles a wide Colgate™ smile. “It must have been happening from the beginning.” Lacuna Coil are back in the UK for the first time in a long time, but despite a wealth of Coil activities to catch up on, the hot topic of conversation is Tarja being given her P45 by the rest of Nightwish. 

“They’re probably not the same people now as they were when they recorded their second album,” Andreas offers. “I don’t want to say who is worse: I don’t want to say Tarja is a complete ego maniac or [Marcello] - I don’t know them so I can’t say, but it probably comes down to ego.” He looks down at his hand and flexes it thoughtfully. “It happens when peoples’ egos change as the band gets more successful.”

From the internet to the traditional rock rags, the rumour is that Tarja’s husband and manager, Marcello, was whispering words of dissent; and sewing the seeds that would ultimately lead to Tarja’s alienation from her band and of course her subsequent sacking (which, done by letter, reminds you of the kind of gutless dumping a fifteen year old boy does by text). 

“I think that was wrong.” Cristina’s face shows real compassion. “When it’s your problem you should keep it private. Sure fans want to know, but reading the [redundancy] letter they gave her you think ‘why do we need to know all this?’ All we need to know is that they split with Tarja, that’s enough.”

This is all clearly alien to Lacuna Coil, a band more inseparable than mating mastiffs. From young, volatile and struggling bands right through to lumbering aged rock mammoths both personal and professional relationships can get personally and professionally claustrophobic – often proving the end of band. But for some reason Lacuna Coil have weathered this storm like a nuclear bunker in light drizzle. And made it look so easy as well.

“I think it comes from friendship.” She pauses, as if like asking why they’re such united band is a stupidly obvious question. “Sure we get bored of each other when we’re on tour, but the after we’re back we’re on the phone to each other. We always hang out in Milan even when we’re not touring. We’re just great friends.”

Lacuna Coil may have a high profile female singer, but this is one of very few similarities between the two bands: while the atmosphere became increasingly quiet and frosty within Nightwish, the hot-blooded Milanese six-piece keep it room temperature through healthy heated discussion and the venting of views.

“We don’t hold grudges,” Cristina explains as she adjusts her woolly hat. “At the end of every show we get everything off our chest. If you come into our dressing room after a show and see us – especially if you don’t know Italian – you really think we’re going to kill each other.” So saying she flails about on the sofa and screeches like a tantrumming toddler. “But half an hour later we’re all friends again. But that’s usual for Latin people,” she says with a gloriously Mediterranean matter-of-fact look, before smiling an open smile again, “as you can hear.” 

“Maybe that’s why people like Nightwish – from the North – find it more difficult to talk to each other,” Andreas continues. “It’s a cliché but people from Scandinavia are less immediately open to discussion.”

“Maybe after a couple of shots,” she says wryly before adding, “[Nightwish] should be more united than ever because now they have what they’ve been fighting for for nine years.”

The Coil are as big-hearted as a granny with a chequebook at Christmas time, but surely they aren’t complaining about their key competition potentially dropping out of the running.  

“That kind of rivalry is created by the press or the fans of other bands.” Cristina is keen to iron this issue out. “I remember when Evanescence blew up. Everyone was questioning me and trying to make it into a contest. I was like ‘we do our music, they do theirs. We don’t really care’. There is no rivalry.”

So how much money would you want to join Nightwish? 

Cristina looks incredulous.

A million quid?

“No.”

Two million quid?

“No no no.”

Come on. Ten million quid?

“The problem is I don’t fucking care.” Her mind’s made. “It makes no sense to me to do something I don’t really like just for money. I just don’t fucking care.”

The question ‘where have they been?’ could quite easily be answered with another question: ‘where haven’t they been?’ Sure, save Download this year they’ve taken a sabbatical from UK activity, but since the release of their last album, ‘Comalies’, three years ago, Lacuna Coil have barely left the road. As well as touring the world with the likes of Anthrax, Opeth, Type O Negative and Ozzfest, the band took only a month off to record their new album, ‘Karmacode’, due in April. Relative newcomers to America, Lacuna Coil became the triumphant conquerors of Ozzfest – becoming the second best seller at the merch stand shared with Slipknot and Slayer. 

“I think we’ve established an image as a strong band.” Cristina rests on her haunches and dabs her nose. “People now know that we are a real band, on stage we like to give and to take a lot from the audience: we’re not some band that some one put together just to put out a record.” Andreas explains that there is no shortage of people pointing the ‘your manufactured’ finger at Lacuna Coil. “People see a nice girl in the band and they assume she’s there as a magnet to collect fans.” With his long dark hair and distinctly Hispanic facial hair Andreas is as disarming and honest as his female counterpart. “We never cared too much about the image of the band.”

Such a statement from any other band would be hard to swallow, but sitting with a pair of rising metal gods that make you feel more instantly comfortable than an orthopaedic shoe or a fleece-lined parka, it’s real. But let’s face it, with the flawless beauty of her romance features who wouldn’t allow Cristina to occupy the spotlight. 

“A lot of the time, the representation of the band isn’t our choice.” Cristina says. “Let’s admit it every magazine tends to choose a picture with the nice girl.” Guilty.

How does a band that have enjoyed such global success fail to become egocentric and condescending prima donnas? Particularly the girl who’s face is plucked from the line-up to adorn front covers alone from here to the Pacific. Come on guys, where are the outsize egos?

“So many new rock bands have massive egos,” Andreas says, smiling, “and then their next album doesn’t sell – where is your ego then? We were used to doing regular jobs before this, and we’ll probably go back to them one day.” 

“Plus it’s not cool to be seen as an asshole.” Cristina adds “I don’t think anyone has ever caught me in a bad mood and thought I was a bitch. My problem is the opposite: I talk too much,” she laughs. “We’re always really polite and like to meet people.”

Through a chuckle Andreas adds, “sometimes we give too much: we end up with 300 people on the bus. And it feels wrong to then say ‘we have to go now’.”

Cristina’s smile falls as she makes eye contact to explain that the band “know it’s really important to subscribe to the fact that we would be nothing without fans. It’s like an exchange: you’re buying our music, so we try and give something back to you.” It’s hard to imagine Lars Ulrich saying that about Napster?

Me interviewing Cristina Scabbia

Despite increasingly fickle fans – eager to hop on and off the next bandwagon before it even arrives – Lacuna Coil faithful remain so. The queue has been growing steadily since morning rush hour, and by seven in the evening the line stretches down the road three-thick from London’s Scala like an optical illusion that implies infinity.

Not only have the Coil been absent without leave, but tonight they are debuting their first ever acoustic set; to be precede their signature electric show.

The Scala is crammed full like the venue equivalent of Monty Python’s Mr Creosote (‘One wafer thin mint?’), and the Coil sidle onto stage to deafening applause. The band take their seats and the crowd quiets; with a whispering tip-toe of guitar picking they sail into a lush set of acoustic renditions of Coil favourites. The five unplugged songs leave the audience enchanted – like the result of some hypnotic epiphany.

Only four hours ago Cristina was battling a cold and implicitly disclosing that the acoustic set is an act of genuine altruistic generosity: giving something back to a British fanbase who have waited so patiently for them.    

“The acoustic show is nice because it brings out an emotional edge in otherwise heavy songs.”

“We’re previewing a couple of new songs, but only in the heavy set – it’s better to present new songs in a heavy and energetic way because we put so much energy into the real show. That’s us at our best.”

Before long the lights dim once more and a costume-changed Cristina leads her band once more out to a crowd on the verge of ecstatic meltdown. They’ve waited three years for this and the exultant Italians leave no one disappointed – setting the new Kings Cross land-speed smiling record.  

Cristina’s explanation of Lacuna Coil’s symbiotic relationship with their audience is interesting enough, but to see it in action, and the euphoric results, is as magical as watching David Blaine levitate or Derren Browne read someone’s life through their eyes.

“There’s a lot of loyalty in our fans,” Cristina chirrups. “I can’t say that they’re friends – of course it’s impossible to be friends with everybody. But what they get from us is a lot of friendship.”