from verbicide 17
The Upward Spiral
Cristina Scabbia discusses Lacuna Coil's Metal Masterpiece And Striking Out On An Endless Tour
>>INTERVIEW BY Jackson Ellis >>PICS by katja kuhl

Already Century Media’s best-selling act and only several months following the release of their critically acclaimed full-length Karmacode, Lacuna Coil show no signs that they will be slowing down anytime soon. I spoke to Scabbia the day after Lacuna Coil ended a two-month North American Tour supporting Rob Zombie, and the day before they would conclude their spring show schedule by appearing on the “Jimmy Kimmel Show.” I expected, perhaps, she might be unenthusiastic to spend a rare moment of downtime doing yet another interview, wishing she could rather take her mind off of her music and band, just for a while. Not the case. It was a pleasant conversation with a musician whose energy, enthusiasm, and positive attitude are (compared to all the interviews I’ve done over the years) rivaled by few.

Hey Cristina.
Hi Jackson, how are you?
Great, how are you doing?
Doing great! Busy day, but soon [I’ll get to] relax before the summer festivals. We had a photo session this morning, and now all the guys are visiting [at the Century Media offices in LA], doing some promotions, all the endorsements. And I’m doing another photo session later, and some interviews — and tomorrow it will be the “Jimmy Kimmel Show.”
I saw your recent tour schedule, you guys are pretty relentless.
(laughter) Yes, and that is nothing because you probably just saw the schedule of the Rob Zombie tour! We’ve got a lot of summer festivals lined up, and after that it’s Ozzfest, and after Ozzfest we go back to Europe for another tour. We’re troopers! But it’s fine; we love what we do, so it’s not heavy at all.
It must have been interesting touring with Rob Zombie. In interviews he always seems like a very thoughtful, intellectual person with calculated opinions. Did you get to spend much time getting to know him?
Especially in the last part of the tour, we got to know each other much better because we had the chance to talk with each other. He’s an awesome person; he’s really down-to-earth. It’s unbelievable how an icon like him can be so easy, and so adorable as a person. When he talks with you, he puts you in a comfortable way. He doesn’t put a barrier between you and him. I totally enjoyed our tour — him, the band, the crew were awesome; the clubs were sold out. It’s been a great experience. I would love to repeat it immediately!
Who have been the musicians you’ve most enjoyed touring with over your career?
I would say Rob, for sure, and Type O Negative, for sure — that was one of the best tours ever. They came to see us at the New York show with Rob Zombie; they hung out with us in the dressing room. They’ve become really close friends. I would [also] say Moonspell — I don’t know if you know them; they’re a band from Portugal and they’re pretty big in Europe, pretty “known” in the metal scene. Basically, we’ve had fun with every band! We’ve [toured] with POD, Opeth, Within Flames, Dimmu Borgir, many bands. We’re really nice people; we always respect everybody, we like to have fun, and I think we’ve never had problems with anybody.
As far as the fans go, do Italians — or Europeans in general, since you’ve toured across it so many times — have the same fixation with celebrities and celebrity culture as Americans do?
You know what, gossips are everywhere, and I think it’s always interesting to have a look at them... But as far as I know, especially in the California area, there are a lot more gossips, and celebrities, and stuff — it seems that a lot of people are just living hoping to become a rock star or an actor. There is a lot of [attention given to] image. But I think that, in a way, it might be cool if you approach it with the right attitude, and you just realize that if you become famous, it’s probably for a reason — [it could be] an intelligent reason, or a stupid reason, but there is one. It doesn’t often happen that you wake up someday and you’re popular. The right attitude is to be hungry for more, to work your ass off.
I’ve read many times that there are comforts in America that you enjoy, such as nice tour buses, and the ease with which you can find late-night food—
Definitely, it’s definitely easier. I think it’s because everything here is bigger, and the fact that there are so many big distances between places — there are a lot of truck drivers, and, of course, everything is probably made for them.
[The United States] caters to the traveler.
Absolutely, and to make their travels more comfortable. So that’s the thing with us — we’re traveling with a tour bus, so it’s important for us to stop and eat something, even in the middle of the night.
Do you ever find yourself tired of the rigors of being a well-recognized musician in our celebrity-obsessed culture?
Mmm, no, but what do you mean? We’re not, like, ultra-famous. We can walk around and not be noticed — and to be honest, I’m pretty different from the pictures you see. Everybody expects me to be super-tall, or looking like a model — I’m really tiny, I go around without makeup — I’m kind of a tomboy, because I like to be comfortable, especially on tour.
That probably helps, being around a bunch of guys every day.
(laughter) No, it’s because you can’t really tour on high-heels! If I was that kind of girl who could not leave the house without high-heels I wouldn’t be touring, I wouldn’t be in the band. To be in a band, you have to have the “rock ‘n roll attitude.”
Regarding the songwriting process for Karmacode in a recent issue of Outburn (#33), you mentioned that, “If you don’t evolve you’re going to die. You can’t play the same music for all your life…you have to be open-minded, you have to get different influence.”
That is true, but you have to be careful at the same time. To evolve doesn’t mean that you have to change your style completely, because I’ve always thought — and I’m even thinking about bands I like — that if you want to do something completely different, you should at least change the name of the band. A specific sound belongs to a specific band, so I’m talking about an evolution. I wouldn’t really trust a band that is changing completely from album to album. If you want to express other tastes in music you should definitely get another band — at least in my opinion.
Considering that Lacuna Coil is itself an influential and perhaps somewhat mimicked band, do you all feel any pressure that you have to reinvent yourselves to distance yourselves from those who would imitate your style?
No, honestly not, because I think that if you start to feel this pressure then that means that you don’t have fresh ideas, and you don’t have the same passion. That means that you’re just working to become more famous, or to keep the interest high. And that’s not our case; we still have a lot of passion for what we do, a lot of ideas, there is a lot more we want to do, we want to learn, and we want to achieve. And plus, we like to experiment with our image as well, so I totally feel free to do whatever I want.
In Chord magazine (#37) you said that Lacuna Coil’s sound has “become the missing link between Europe and America,” and that you’ve picked up “the best parts from both cultures”—
At least, that was my idea, because when we started to compose new material, we thought that we liked the American productions — they’re really more powerful compared to European production. But in Europe, at the same time — as far as the music I know and am listening to — there is much more melody, and the structure of songs is completely different. And so we said, why not mix those two things? It’s not that you have to go too much in one direction or another. And plus, I cannot think of another band that has two vocalists like us, using the voices the way we do. Most of the time, if you have a male and a female singing together, everyone is expecting the female vocalist to sing in a lyrical way and the guy to just growl and be the “beast of the band.” We just wanted to sing, you know?
The “Beauty and the Beast,” as I’ve seen the press call it.
Yes, the beast and the harmless princess. (laughter) Sometimes people have a distorted idea about bands in general.
You have been with Century Media for about a decade now, and you’ve mentioned in the past that your relationship with them is great. Century Media is one of the largest metal labels in the world, but have you ever considered Lacuna Coil’s potential for further success if you jumped to a larger, major label? Or do you feel that your creativity, control, or credibility might be compromised too greatly if this happened?
Well, that’s why we didn’t sign [with] a bigger label, because we actually got different proposals from majors. The thing is, we grew up slowly with Century Media. They helped us out with the promotion, and, of course, we helped them out with our music and our image and our work.
They put out your very first EP, right?
Yes. But the thing is that when you go under a major, you always take the risk of becoming the last band they could care about. And if you don’t sell, like, millions of copies [after] your first record, they probably won’t even put in enough budget to promote it anyway, because they’ll be taking care of a bigger “product” — because that’s basically what you are, you’re a product. Let’s be honest — for a company, they can be as much a friend as they want, but, of course, they have to survive as well as they need to. So I think it was absolutely important for us to be totally free, to do whatever we wanted to do; it was absolutely important for us to have the chance to discuss with the company the choice of pics, the choice of the artwork — make a plan all together, like teamwork. I think that this is the secret to making things work, because everything this way is relaxed, everybody has the same goal...and it’s working pretty good.
I’ve read several instances where people ask you the same questions about being a woman in a band, and how important your “image” is to you, etc. I would imagine that gets tiresome, but you consistently reiterate that you consider how you and the rest of the band are portrayed visually, in photographs, to be creative and artistic. Do you believe that this attitude is a result of living in Milan, a city revered for both high-class fashion and fine art?
I think it’s just related to the fact that some people are born to be artists, and I really believe that artists are always really open-minded. That’s how we are. We love to play with our music and image. I just created a Myspace page — yeah, I got involved; I used to hate it in the beginning but now it’s addicting. (laughter) I just posted yesterday a picture of me made-up like a zombie. The last gig with Rob Zombie, we made it a surprise to him; during the song “House of a Thousand Corpses” we all went onstage as zombies. And I just posted this picture because I like to do this stuff, I like to change [how I look]. I would love to do this type of thing for someone else. It’s a representation of art.
Is photography a hobby of yours? Aside from music, do you or any of the members of the band seriously create in any other medium of art, be it visual, literary, etc.?
It’s a hobby of mine; I always have my camera with me to take pictures of every situation, to take pictures from different angles — I have a pretty cool camera at home, but when I’m on tour I have a small one so I can carry it with me. Other guys are good with graphics — our drummer is the webmaster of our official website; Mark, the bass player, is really good with Photoshop and creating graphics for us. It’s teamwork!
As far as your photography goes, have you moved into the realm of digital, or do you shoot film?
Mainly [digital] — technically, I’m a graphic designer because I studied for it and I got my diploma for it. But I like digital better right now because you can play [with images more] — of course, normal photography has a feel that is completely different, I know that. But I’m not an expert, and I just like to play without pretending to be a professional. I have good ideas, but I don’t think I’d be able to work very well with a “normal” camera. Everybody has his job, but to me, photography is just a hobby.
Are you still writing your [advice] column for Revolver magazine?
Yes, yes.
Is writing an interest of yours that you hope to pursue beyond your columns?
Not really, because I’m pretty lazy and I have a very shitty memory, and if you write a book you should be able to remember what you wrote before — so if I would ever write a book, it would take me, like, 10 years because I would always have to go back and look at what I wrote! (laughter)
I haven’t seen your column yet...
It’s funny, because you get really weird questions, and now they’re ever starting to send me through my regular mail. I’m becoming a therapist! (laughter)
Someday you should do a column on the craziest letters you’ve received.
Oh, I have a lot...
You kind of touched on this before, when you were talking about going to LA and how everyone wants to be the next rock star—
Well, it was just a general [talking point]; you know, I’ve never lived here and there is probably a lot of people who are just completely different — but, at least, this is the first impression you get when you come here.
Right. Well, you’ve stated that as a young girl you never had aspirations to be a “rock star”—
Not at all — I’ve always been convinced that, as I said before, every day you should enjoy life, day by day, because everyday there is something new that can happen and can change your life completely. If you enjoy something and you can make a living at it, that’s even better. To me, music was a big passion. I’ve always loved to sing for myself in the shower and for my friends. (laughter) But I never really dreamed about becoming professional. And it happened to me, and I love it, but tomorrow I might find something that is more interesting.
Do you hope to pursue a graphic arts career?
No, not really. I like better to give ideas for weird pictures, artistic [ideas]. Something like that. But I don’t know — there are so many things I like to do: it might be cooking, it might be photography, it might be something else that I just can’t think about right now...I don’t want to put any limitation on [myself].
In an interview with Metal Rules in 2003, you mentioned your admiration for the strong, powerful voices of black soul singers and female singers used for backup vocals in certain touring bands, and that, someday, you’d enjoy doing a tour with all women performing not just metal, but music of many genres. Despite the time consumed by being in Lacuna Coil, do you feel that this is project that you’ll ever have the opportunity to undertake?
You mean like a solo project?
No, more of a collaborative effort—
Collaborative, I would love to do that. I would never go solo, honestly, it’s not something that I find interesting. I’ve met a lot of people so far, and they ask me to do something with them, but it’s always a question of time. We’re so busy ourselves that it’s pretty difficult to work in other stuff — but why not?
Lacuna Coil will be featured on the main stage at Ozzfest 2006. The summer tour kicks off in July.