Lacuna Coil Interview with Cristiano Migliore By                                      Rhys Heal     11.11.2008

I’m talking to Cristiano from Lacuna Coil, thank you for talking to Soundshock
That’s alright

So how are you right now?
Good thanks, this is the second day of the tour and seeing as the first one went well, it looks pretty good for the rest. You know, it’s like, good tour and a lot of people, that’s really great for us right now.

So has this tour been surprising from the reception you’ve had?
I can see from the crowd that there is a lot of young kids and you know, most of them probably don’t know who we are, so for sure it’s a great way to introduce ourselves. This is the best tour around right now.

So you’re a big fan of the United Kingdom then?
We always have a really good reception for one, and our record sales are also very good in the UK- for some reason people like us a lot (laughs from both Rhys and Cris)- and we actually love coming here because of all the shows that we’ve played and like, the great reaction that the crowd gives; it’s just great to play here actually

So how was your trip down from Edinburgh?
Ehhh, long! (more chuckles from Rhys, Cris and Laura)

How long was it?

So you have just released your new live DVD Visual Karma, is that right?
Yeah...

It’s out in Europe now isn’t it...?
Yeeah, yes...

How has that been received by the critics so far?
Well, to be honest with you, I haven’t read anything in magazines or websites or anything like that, but from what the fans have been telling us when we meet them after the shows, they all seem to love it! They love the fact that there is so much more than the live show on it with lots of bonus material. We’re pretty proud of it and we spent a lot of time thinking about what would be cool to include and not, ya know?

How long did it take to make the actual DVD then?
We started collecting stuff since we started touring for Karma Code basically, it’s like on the Zombie tour, then all the festivals and Ozzfest, and you know we tried to get as much stuff as we could. We went through all of it and selected the best stuff, it just wants to be a portrait of what happened in the years we toured for Karma Code. I think it shows very well what happened ya know?

The majority of your songs are very, very anthemic and this is, of course emphasised in your live shows; are these aspects in mind when you are writing?
Well not really to be honest, it’s just something that happens, it not like we do it on purpose or anything. We just write the music and we write the lyrics that fit to the music and this for some reason happens to be the case and the song sort of just turns into an anthem; it’s not like we really plan it before hand.

So are there going to be any surprises tonight then?
Well basically we are gonna try to play all the songs that are very strong in our set list. We’re going to make sure that we play stuff that the people know. It’s hard because we are probably the softest band on the bill [with Black Tide , Bleeding Through and Bullet for my Valentine] but I think it’s going to be a good for the people to have something different to listen to. Of course we’ll put a lot of energy into the show, so we can try to (more chuckles from Rhys and Cris) impress them more.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but ‘Lacuna Coil’ loosely translates as ‘empty spiral,’ doesn’t it?
Yes

...and your music plays on the metaphor very well as it is quite eloquent, mixing melody and gothic metal together. Have you any specific writing techniques to produce your trademark sound?
It’s not like following a particular recipe you know? It’s always about finding stuff that we like, and that all depends on your mood and on the bands you’ve toured with and your life experience you know? One day we can write a really, soft, slow and goth song and then the day after we can go to the heaviest and the death metal (he says with a smile) kind of song; but it’s not that we follow a certain recipe at all, it really comes very naturally and that’s the way it should be.

There are a couple of songs in your history that you have written in your native Italian, like Senzafine and Without Fear; are there plans to write anymore?
Actually, to write a song in Italian is not very easy for us. The Italian language is very hard to put in lyrics! English is a lot easier in this case because it gives you the chance to express more with less words, so for us to write in Italian is obviously quite a challenge. We only do it if we think that a song works very well with it. So, I can’t tell you if there’s gonna be or not gonna be on the new album, but it’s something we like to do if we can but, it’s not like we have to have an Italian song in every album.

So are there any plans for a new album?
We don’t really have any plans at the moment, but of course as soon as the album is released next year, we’ll be touring like crazy but really, I don’t know what our plans will be because we don’t really have anything as we’re still working on a few different options, and we want to try to get the best that we can.

On Karma Code, you covered Depeche Mode’s ‘Enjoy the Silence.’ Do they have on you or on the bands on the whole have any influence on your music writing? Or, you as a guitarist of course?
Oh yeah yeah, absolutely! I mean, the music we play is a result of what we listen to, so, we all love Depeche Mode because it’s a band that we grew up listening to. It’s something that for sure influences our music in some way; it’s not just them, but it’s a lot of different bands like, I dunno, Dire Straights to, I dunno, Cannibal Corpse or Carcass. We were asked to record a cover version and asked ‘Why don’t you ever do it?’ and we were all ‘we haven’t done it already, let’s see what we can come up with...’ so we thought about a lot of different songs at that time and in the end, ‘Enjoy the Silence,’ was the one that we really didn’t need to do much with. Just added some guitars an kept the original feeling, and it worked very well.

So would it be suffice to say that these bands have been an inspiration to you?
Well, of course, when you listen to these types of bands you try to incorporate some of the elements of your music into your own and it doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to have like a double-bass pedal like all the time but some things people would never say, but we for example like Meshuggah; they love to experiment with tempo and drum beat and guitar and crazy time signatures.
We sometimes do that to, but it’s not obvious as in Meshuggah as that’s not the main element of our music but, if people really listen to some of the parts that we’ve written they can find stuff like that and think ‘this is not as straight forward as I thought.’

Could you give me an example of this?
Well, for example, there’s a part in the song, ‘Half Life,’ that’s after the first chorus and it’s really twisted. There are also other songs and it’s usually a very, short part and you can’t even tell, but it’s there!

Right, cmon, spill the beans now- has there been any shows that have particularly memorable for you?  Not just on this tour, but on any tour?
There are many for sure, but the most impressive I think we’ve ever played is Wacken 2007. I think we probably played in front of the biggest crowd we’ve ever been in front of and it was amazing.

So how did it go down in Wacken, as gothic metal isn’t usually seen at a festival that is primarily for black and death metal?
Well, the thing is for one, I don’t think we’re the typical gothic metal band, because we also have songs that are actually faster sometimes, and those really work well in a festival environment. You really try and hit them hard right away and people are like ‘FUCK, I thought I was going to listen to a gothic metal band, and are like 'ooookey sweet’ and you actually get their attention and it’s done! I think you can really see it in the DVD, as the Wacken festival is actually on the DVD; you see all those people jumping up and they do everything you’ve told them to and it’s AMAZING.

So as a band, have you got any strange or weird pre-gig rituals?
Well, not anything weird, but we have our little rituals and stuff like stretching and warming up, but nothing that we really do all the time. We’re very chilled, we’re Italian!

Well that’s it for now, thank you for talking to me. Are there any final comments that you want to make to our readers at Soundshock?
For one, I hope that the DVD that we just put out, that everybody finally got pleased as since we started playing around ten years ago, they we’re like ‘when you going to put out a live DVD?! DVD! DVD?!’ and we were like ‘OK! We’ll do it! We’ll do it!’ and after ten years, this is the first one we’ve ever done, so we’re very excited about hearing what people think about it. We think it’s a pretty good package, and it’s very important for us to know people feel about it. For two, I hope to see a lot of people on this tour as well to get ready for the new album to come.

So no rough estimates when it’s going to come out then?
Well, sometime early next year possibly, which could be March or maybe April, but I can’t be more specific than that because you know, I don’t know! 

Thank you very much Cris, very much appreciated.

Interview by Rhys Heal
Photography by Laura Benson

http://www.lacunacoil.it