LACUNA COIL's ANDREA FERRO: 'This Is A Friendship, Not Only A Band'

Michael O'Brien of Australia's The Metal Forge recently conducted an interview with LACUNA COIL singer Andrea Ferro. A few excerpts from the chat follow:

On whether they feel proud of the fact that they are Italy's greatest heavy rock export:

'Yeah, we do (feel proud) but sometimes it's the other bands that they don't feel the same. They get jealous or make stupid comments. Some of them, not all of them of course, some bands feel like we don't deserve this but they don't recognize that even if you don't like our music the most important thing is we are opening some doors for heavy music in general from Italy and that's the most important thing. It's not the fact that you like or don't like our music. You have to recognize what we are doing for everyone, just because we are doing it, not because of what we are."

On the perception from some longtime fans that the band has abandoned its roots:

"Every time you try to step a bit in a different direction you always have the old-school fans that don't approve and you have new people coming to you. I think its normal for every band. We are the kind of band which try to change a little bit on every album, improve and move in to a different direction, so it's normal for us to receive these kinds of comments. It's just a natural thing, it's a spontaneous thing. For every band there is an evolution. If you play the same style album after album it can be more rewarding in a way for the old-school fans but it's just not the way we are. We've never been like that. It's a natural course for us to change album after album. . . It's not honest if we just keep doing the same album because we know a certain amount of people are going to buy it. It's just not honest for us because we're not the same people we were in 2001 when we wrote the previous album. It's normal that in 3-4 years you change, you experience different things. It's not like we are going to do a techno or hip-hop album, it's still going to be a rock/metal album but of course there's going some little different directions we are going to take because it's just the way we experience our life and we can't just live forever with the same sound or the same riffs. We try to evolve the music.'

On the criticms that LACUNA COIL's latest album, "Karmacode", has a much more straight-edged rock sound to it:

"I think the evolution is not only on the sound of the band, it's also on your taste. On what you listen to or what inspired you in general in your life. It's altogether a personal change and also a musical reflection of the personal change. Otherwise it would be fake just to do a rock album because you think that it's cooler or because it's easier to do better in the charts. You have to do it because you feel it's the right time for you to do it. We aren't kids anymore and we've been doing rock music for a while now. We are just following our personal growth and our personal experience and the music is reflecting this."

On whether having six members in the band makes it harder to make decisions or split various duties:

"We try to work as much as we can all together. Of course it's not always possible so we try to split the different roles in the band in between the members, like somebody is taking care of the internet, some are taking care of the promotion, some others do management, contact or economical situations. We try to give everybody a role so that everybody works in the same way. We share all the income in six so there is no discussion about who wrote this or who wrote that. We just write the best music for the band and that's it. We don't write music just because we get 40% of the royalties or something like that. We try to keep it as a good business for everybody and try to keep it active for everybody so everybody feels involved in the band and not left apart from everything. It gets hard when you have somebody who isn't happy anymore. This is a friendship, not only a band. We started the band as friends in the pub so it's not like we were planning to become professional musicians. Everything that happens we have tried to manage as a bunch of friends instead of just some musicians put together to do the band."

On having vocalist Cristina Scabbia as the focal point of the band in the eyes of the media:

"It's something that we have learned to deal with. It's not something that you feel inside the band, it's something that you receive from the outside. I think it's the same for every band that has a nice female in it. I think we have learnt how to manage it. If it can bring some different attention to the band it's fine. The most important thing is that when people come to the show, they come and see a show and not beauty on the stage and that's it. Cristina can use her image but she is also a very good singer and a very good entertainer live. So the most important thing for us is that she isn't just an image. She also can also play with her image and sometimes with the help of some media that is a bit too much exposure. Some people who are more superficial maybe just get that from the band. It's just the way it is. We can't do much about it (and) it's not a big problem for us. We are like a little family, we are all friends (and) we don't really care. We take it more as being a funny thing. People think, 'how can you stay behind such a beautiful girl?' and they don't imagine that for me she's like a sister. She's just like one of the guys in the band. And it's the same for her. It's a completely different situation from inside (the band) than from outside."

Read the entire interview at www.themetalforge.com.