Good Karma
Lacuna Coil pens for Rob Zombie Saturday night, an ethereal goth-rock appetizer for a bloody-meat-craving crowd. The band from Milan, Italy, also plays a three-song acoustic afternoon set at Borders (9108 Metcalf in Overland Park), where its own warm-up act might be a store employee reading Walter, The Farting Dog. (Such an impromptu performance preceded a Dresden Dolls gig at the bookstore earlier this month.) Obviously, both venues hold unique hazards. We asked singers Andrea Ferro and Cristina Scabbia about their double-duty schedule and their ideal tourmates.
How are the fans treating you on the Rob Zombie tour?
Ferro: The new album [Karmacode], is appealing to his kind of crowd, so I don’t think we’re going to have many problems. I admire Rob’s music and his creativity in general, with his movies and horrific imaginary gift.
Lacuna Coil has been playing more unplugged sets lately, which leaves your vocals relatively naked. Have you taken voice lessons?
Scabbia: No, never. I’m a lazy bum. I would love to learn more about how to use the voice, but I’m worried that I would lose my personality. There are a lot of voices in the music business, and not all of them are perfect. Those are the ones I like the most, because they have the most personality. I’m trying to put my heart in the songs. I don’t want to just show my skills to look cooler than I am, because I don’t really care.
Ferro: I always wanted to take some lessons to change my style because I started as a death-metal singer, all growling and screaming. For the first time, I had the time and money to take lessons, and I feel it makes our music more complete, not only the powerful parts but also the atmospheric songs. Singing with a vocalist like Cristina is very demanding because you have to be as good as she is.
It must be quite a tonal change, going from playing in a bookstore to performing some extremely loud songs in a concert hall the same night.
Scabbia: I love those contradictions. I like very much to meet the fans [at the Borders shows] and see their faces — like, “Oh, my God, they’re right in front of me!” It’s familiar and intimate, absolutely awesome. My dream would be to do a show with strings, combining the energetic part of the stage show — us rocking out — with an orchestra.
You’ve played with Anthrax, Danzig and now Rob Zombie. Do you have any idols left with whom you’d like to share a stage?
Ferro: Metallica. I’m not a big fan of their latest material, but I still consider them the godfathers of this movement. We were on the same festival bill once, but I didn’t get the chance to say hello.
Scabbia: Metallica. I’ve always loved Depeche Mode [Lacuna Coil covers “Enjoy the Silence” on Karmacode], but they don’t have a heavy show, so people would freak out.
