Source: Promo Image
Italian gothfathers Lacuna Coil are back with their new album Delirium, the darkest and heaviest record of their career yet. We caught up with vocalists Cristina Scabbia and Andrea Ferro to find out more about the inspiration behind the record, where the concept of Delirium came from and forgetting song lyrics on stage, as well as some nerdy video game chat!
MOSH: So let’s talk about the album first of all – Delirium. The first thing that struck me about it from the first track ‘The House of Shame’ was how heavy it is. Was this a purposeful move to go in a heavier direction or was it more of a natural progression?
Cristina: No it was definitely a natural.. I wouldn’t say progression because we used very heavy parts at the beginning of our career so we did it spontaneously but at the same time we knew that this record was gonna be heavier just because we are enjoying more to play on stage the heaviest songs that we have, so we said, “Why don’t we write heavier songs?” And plus we didn’t want to put a limit to ourselves. If we felt that we were going on a heavier direction we’d go all the way, even if it was different from what people were expecting from us. I really like this record. It’s the heaviest we’ve ever done so far and I’m happy that everyone seems to embrace it.
MOSH: Andrea, I wanted to talk about your vocals. You’ve done a bit of screaming before but not as much to this extent.
Andrea: (nods) Never as much.
MOSH: Is that something you’ve always wanted to explore?
Andrea: Yeah, I mean when Marco (Coti Zelati, bass and keyboards) was coming to the music and there were some heavy parts, this time around we decided to just push it even further in the heaviness instead of trying to compromise and make it sound a bit closer to what we have already done in the past so we just said “We got double bass, we got a riff – why don’t we scream on it?”, ha you know, and we just tried it and went very free on the demos. At a certain point I was even almost sceptical it was the right thing to do because it was getting more and more heavy, but in the end we loved so much the results that we said, it has to be like this, there’s no other way you can write these songs. So we just followed what the music was demanding more and for me I always liked to sing like that as well so it was no problem at all haha!
MOSH: So I know you guys are quite big horror movie fans. Did you take inspiration from any particular films on this album?
Cristina: Not strictly from movies, I think that this time of inspiration will always come up in the subconscious no matter what, but this time the inspiration was coming from real places that we visited like some abandoned asylums that are around the Milano area, so when we started to think about the word Delirium, that’s where everything started. We immediately visualised the location where the album was taking form and we imagined this old asylum – cold, uncomfortable, with patients that were sharing their stories with us, and we thought about a parallel in between something as serious and intense as the type of mental illness to compare it, to make a parallel to the life that we’re living today, with all the little insanities that we could experience and also the chaos that’s going on in the world nowadays. So we imagined everything. We imagined the pictures that we wanted to take, the artwork on the record… it was hearing the record, feeling it and seeing it. We had the whole package all of a sudden.
MOSH: So it’s quite conceptual almost.
Cristina: Yes definitely.
MOSH: This album saw you take complete creative control, with Marco producing the record and conceptualising the artwork. Is it kind of like a sense of liberation for you guys?
Cristina: The sense of liberation was at the end of it all because to self-produce a record comes with of course a great reward which is “I did it!” you know I can do everything, I can work on every little detail myself, but you also feel the pressure of the schedule of time and you feel very nervous during the whole process because obviously you want to deliver the best record you want because you know that it has potential, you love your songs, so you want them to come out the best shape possible. But importantly you also have a schedule, you also have a deadline because it’s not just about our music but it’s also a lot of other things that you have to take care of, so it was really rewarding when we finished everything and we listened to the record and we heard that it was a very good record and we did it all without anyone’s help!
Andrea: We have noticed how much we have learned working alone instead of having a big producer helping us you know, even if unconsciously you always do what you wanna do, but obviously when you have somebody that you pay to give an opinion, you listen to it and you try to take advantage of it. So this time we realised how much we have learned musically and for the vocals, for the lyrics as well, how much we have learned from all the previous experiences, how much now we are able to stand on our own. Even if – I’m not saying we’re not gonna work with a producer again – but for sure we really enjoyed the fact that we’ve been able to make it ourselves completely.
MOSH: Karmacode turns 10 this month – it’s one of my favourite records from you guys. How do you feel like you’ve grown since then personally and artistically?
Cristina: In many ways…in every way! Ten years are gone, not only musically but as persons we are more capable of doing things. Strictly talking about recording and using our voices, using our instruments, performing live we are more conscious about our potential and limits and the limits that we want to pass to get over and grow up even more.
Andrea: I think there is also a connection, like this record is very, as you said, has a strong concept, but also Karmacode at the time had a very strong concept with the image, with all the stage set up and the mask we were using on stage… everything was very connected, and Comalies too. So I think those records do have a special connection for some reason with this one, so it’s great that its actually ten years after… we haven’t thought about this before actually! (laughs)
MOSH: Everything has sort of come full circle almost! So you’re on your eighth album now and you’ve got this huge back catalogue. How do you work out which songs you’re going to play live?
Cristina: It’s not easy because the problem is that you can play with all the songs you want but you know that you will kinda have to play some classics because your fans are coming to the show. They wanna hear some songs that are… there pretty much all the time and then you know sometimes it depends because sometimes the choice is made if we want a more heavy set we pick up some songs; if we want a set that will include some breaks in between, or maybe we have the chance to do it in the evening so we have lights and we can have a specific atmosphere. Or maybe we’ll go for the most atmospheric songs.
Andrea: Usually we start from the Comalies album, because that’s the album that made people discover the band, even if some people followed us before, that’s usually where we start. In the past we have always brought songs from Unleashed Memories or Reverie but when we did that especially in places like the States where people really discovered the band from Comalies, a lot of people were looking at us like “What is this?!” – they didn’t know what the song was you know, and so for us it kind of makes sense to start from Comalies and move on. I think in the future maybe we will dig deeper and try to bring some different songs, even from those albums but yeah, it’s just that we started to have a lot of material so by the time you play the new ones and the classics from each of the last 4 or 5 releases, it’s already quite a set you know?
MOSH: As vocalists, have you ever forgotten lyrics to songs on stage?
Cristina: Oh yeah!
Andrea: All the time! (both laugh)
Cristina: It happens and it’s kinda crazy because sometimes lyrics are coming out automatically. Sometimes you don’t even think about it and it happens especially when you’re like tired because we’ve maybe been flying from one place to another, you’re not completely focused because you’re too tired and all of a sudden you freak out it’s just like, “I don’t remember, I don’t remember, I don’t remember!” And then they might come out at the very last second spontaneously… or, you sing something completely different and it’s like, what the hell is that?!
Andrea: Or you resing the first verse.
Cristina: Yeah it happens.
Andrea: Sometimes it’s confusing on some of the older songs because… the newest one, we tried to change a lot the lyrics between the first verse and the second one, but in the past we were changing them slightly sometimes, so when you only have a few different words, it’s harder to remember them than when you have a complete different verse.
Cristina: Oh yeah, I’m sure I even sang like a fake English part just because I completely forgot about it so I came up with a vocal melody (sings melody in random syllables) pretending I was speaking English!
Andrea: Or just pretend that the mic doesn’t work.
MOSH: You’ve been playing together for many, many years – does touring ever get tough?
Cristina: I think touring it’s tough after you’re away for a long time because it’s not really a problem of interaction or hanging out with each other because I think that we’ve been…we’re pretty tested on that, I mean we are spending time together at home as well – we’re friends, we’re not a band put together by someone else for business, so we know each other very well as in a family. We know the good and bad points, we know when it’s time to leave somebody alone, we know when someone is freaking out we know it’s because of tiredness or because there is an issue at home. We all know each other’s family as well. When you’re on tour for a long time, for like 3 or 4 months altogether without a break, then you’re starting to feel it but not really because you’re with the band. You would feel it probably with any other person on earth, cos living on a tour bus, it’s living in a very constricted place, sharing small spaces. You only have your own bunk which is a sort of a holy space but it’s not exactly private. You might have a hotel room sometimes, but it’s not exactly the same thing as being home in your own bed.
MOSH: How do you stay sane on tour?
Andrea: We try to do as many things as possible, like we go visit places like if we have a day off in a place where there’s something to see, or we go shopping or just walk around town, have breakfast… we try to move, not stay stuck. Sometimes we can’t, you know if you’re in a parking lot somewhere and there’s nothing around then you just have to stay on the bus and watch TV or play video games…there’s not much you can do, but when there is the chance to see something, we do it, so this way it’s also interesting to tour, discover something about the city or you meet a friend that you haven’t seen since the previous tour and they come to see you and take you some place.
Cristina: But we always try to go out, even when we’re in the middle of nowhere, in a hotel especially in the States it’s really easy that you stop at a place where there’s nothing..we just get a cab and we go.. even if it’s just going to a mall, just like walking around and seeing people. We don’t close ourselves in the rooms and stay there til the next day, we like to do stuff!
MOSH: You mentioned video games – Cristina, you’re a bit of a self-confessed geek, what kind of games are you playing at the moment?
Cristina: At the moment I am halfway through the new edition of Resident Evil, which is Resident Evil Origins. I’m a huge fan of Resident Evil so when the remake of the first game came out I freaked out! It’s so well done and it’s still as creepy as it was years ago. I also started Assassin’s Creed, the new one, but I have to go back to the old ones. I wish I had more time to play cause I have a lot of games to play but they take time cause they’re not the games that you just put on and play for five minutes like some others. I like games with a story that goes along with the game itself.
MOSH: What would you say is your favourite video game of all time?
Cristina: Resident Evil or the first Silent Hill, but I will go with Resident Evil…and Final Fantasy XI.
MOSH: So you’re heading off to the US next?
Andrea: We’re doing Asia first..
Cristina: Philippines, China then US.
MOSH: Will you be coming back to the UK to do a tour?
Cristina: Probably in the Fall, you know we don’t forget about the UK at all!
Andrea: Yeah we’ll be back for sure, we don’t know yet if we can make it back for one show in the summer or if it will be coming directly in the Fall, so one of the two.
MOSH: Finally, is there anything else you’d like to say to your fans who are reading this?
Cristina: I hope that they will love the record as much as we do. It is a very deep record that they will know more, the more they listen to it and they’re all welcome in our Delirium you know – it’s a place that might not look so beautiful and comfortable but because of that everybody’s welcome. Everybody that feels abandoned, damaged, alone can find comfort.
