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When Lacuna Coil singer Cristina Scabbia wraps her voice around the lyric "I've been burnt so bad but I still play with fire" in "I Won't Tell You" off the band's latest album, this year's "Shallow Life," it's hard not to be reminded that Scabbia and her cohorts in the Italian metal outfit have been at this for more than a decade.
However, Scabbia said, the band members view themselves as anything but old-timers in the metal world when working on their new LP. "We didn't really think about being survivors just because we've been around for a while because honestly, we look at ourselves as a fresh band, we don't look at ourselves like the veterans in the music business because we don't feel old at all. We still have a lot of fresh ideas and we're always trying to create something new.
"We're definitely not one of these bands that are doing the same thing over and over just because they can be sure that all the old fans are going to buy the record. We're always trying to be honest and creative, even if sometimes you can loose some fans, you can win over some new ones, but we definitely look at ourselves as a newcomer with every album, just because we like it like that, we keep the passion alive."
The band will be returning to New Jersey on Friday (Nov. 13) with All That Remains at Starland Ballroom in Sayreville. Scabbia recently called Metromix Jersey Shore before a tour stop in Edmonton, Canada to discuss the band's origins and working on "Shallow Life" with producer Don Gilmore, whose credits also include work with Pearl Jam, Linkin Park and Avril Lavigne.
How do you think the reactions you get from fans in America and Canada is different from the reception you get back home in Italy?
It's completely different just because in Italy there's not like a huge rock/metal scene. I mean, even if we're popular because we're the main export, basically, there are no bands that ever did anything like we did, get success over the ocean, enter the Billboard charts, nobody did it before. But, at the same time rock and metal are not the main music over there, so of course we have a lot of fans coming to the concerts but it's not that we walk around and everybody's recognizing us or anything like that. But the fans are good as much as the American and Canadian ones, they're really passionate, they love our music the same.
Like you were saying, there isn't that much of a metal, hard rock scene in Italy. What made you guys decide to start playing this kind of music?
Just because we liked it. I mean, we started to listen to bands like Type O Negative or Pantera, Paradise Lost and we just started to play this music. Actually ... Andrea (Ferro) our singer and (Marco Coti Zelati), our bass player, put the band together and they asked me to do some choruses and when I started to sing with them they liked the result and we decided to stay together and go and search for a contract and that's how we made it, but we just liked the bands that were playing rock/metal style.
Now, when you guys are playing these days, how much material from the new record is in the show?
Oh, a lot because obviously this is the album that we are promoting right now and also because we don't have like a huge amount of time, we have like 40, 45 minutes a day so obviously we're trying to focus more on the new stuff and also because this is the third tour we played this year it comes out really natural that all of the new songs are the most played.
And how has the fan response to the new stuff been?
It's awesome, it's awesome because it really seems that this album is connecting extremely well with the listener because we can see it from the people singing the choruses, especially the songs that came out as the singles, like "Spellbound" for example, the crowd is really singing along with us and that's a sign.
The new record is definitely an evolution in the band's sound. Can you tell me a bit about the new direction you guys are going in with this record?
I don't think it's like a new direction; I think it's an evolution, because obviously the production, I would say, is much better, because working with a producer like Don Gilmore obviously brings something different to the table, but I think that maybe the main difference is that this album is more rock than ever, it's probably a little less goth and probably classic European metal. But, I think this is also natural because we've been traveling so much in the U.S. that obviously we've incorporated a lot of new elements in the band, because the songs were already written, it's not that Don wrote anything.
So, it's definitely something spontaneous within the band due to the fact that we've been traveling so much and due to the fact that a few years are gone after "Karmacode" (2006), so obviously a band progresses and changes tastes a little bit, listen to different music, watch different movies, read different books and live a different life. So, there are a lot of differences but I think it's just an evolution. It's not that we wanted to move away from something that we did before. I think that the Lacuna Coil roots are still there and pretty clear as well.
This was your first time recording in America and with an American producer. Do you think that played a part in the sound of the record at all?
I think so, I think so, I mean, the American sound is different from the European sound, it's just more powerful, it's gigantic compared to a lot of European productions so for the first time we wanted to try to get the same result and that's why we chose Don Gilmore; I mean, his portfolio's amazing so we knew that even if we've never met the guy before, obviously a couple of weeks before the production, we were sure that we were going to have a good product at the end of the day. And, we wanted to hear how the result would have been, and obviously the only way to try was to make a record in the U.S. with an American producer, and we're really happy with it.
I think that the sound is definitely more powerful and I think that also the lyrics are better than in the past, because in the past they were more poetic, but sometimes they weren't clear at all. This time, everything's there, if you read the lyrics you understand what we're talking about, so it's easier to get connected.
Now, after all this time together, how have you guys learned how to balance the personalities of six different people when you spend so much time together?
Like in a regular family. Of course, you know, sometimes we argue, sometimes you fight, but in the end you love each other very much, so we all know that we can have a bad day sometimes but we also know that during this bad day this person can stay alone, just chill out a bit, relax, and the day after we'll be smiling again, so it's something that we've learned in more than 10 years together. And plus, we're real friends in real life, we're not like a band put together by a label, so that's really important and really rare nowadays.
