Lacuna Coil have, in recent years, become that rarest of rare things – an internationally succesful Italian band. Their debut, and second albums were received with glowing reviews by music magazines across Europe, including in the UK and Ireland. They have toured extensively, with bands of the stature of Anthrax and Type-o-negative. They are about to embark on an American tour with P.O.D and will be on the bill for this year’s Ozzfest. Three Monkeys Online exchanged emails with the band during their recent European tour.

For the benefit of readers who haven’t heard you, how would you describe Lacuna Coil’s music?

Lacuna coil’s music it’s a mixture between rock, metal and gothic with a modern touch. It’s difficult to describe our music, we’re open minded and we don’t want to enter in any clichèe. People should just listen to our music to suck the passion from it.

Though you are an Italian band, you sing primarily in English – why? Does it change the way you write lyrics?

English is a better language to give a poetic meaning even with simple concepts. The problem of the italian language is that the most melodic words are really silly, and we are not into silly lyrics.

What are the main musical influences in the band?Too many to be mentioned, from classic to extreme stuff. If we like a song we don’t really care about the genre. We just care about what this song is able to express to our ears and hearts.

How has the latest album gone down with press/critics – are you happy with the response?

We are absolutely happy. Both press and fans in general have supported “Comalies” 100%. The coolest thing is that “Comalies” is an album which is not totally new and is still having good responses lately.

You all support A.C Milan(with the exception of criz?) ? Was “il Cavaliere” right to come out with his own coaching tips recently( Editor’s note: Silvio Berlusconi -“il Cavaliere” is the president of AC Milan, and recently publicly interfered with coach Ancelotti’s tactics)?

I think that is the coach that should have the responsability of his own actions, but il Cavaliere is the owner of the team so is free to express an opinion. Right or wrong, he’s a businessman too.

Could you accept an “Interista”(Editor’s note: Fan of AC MIlan rivals Inter-Milan) in the group?

We do it already! Our drummer Criz sympathises for Inter even if his main team is Piacenza. I’m enough intelligent to judge and accept people from other things, not the team they support.

If you got an invite to San Remo(Editor’s note: Italy’s answer to the Eurovision) would you play?

Uhm, definitely not to participate in the contest!!! Maybe as super special guests (laughs)

You are one of the most well known Italian bands outside of Italy, do you think you get enough recognition within Italy?

Yes, sure, we are probably the most popular band of the moment, in the scene.

How do you feel about comparisons to “Evanescence”?

I feel is an honour for us to see our name included as one of their inspirations. It would be nice a tour together.But I still feel that we are totally different, we still belong to the underground scene and we are definitely more powerful.

You got a lot of acclaim for your cover of Dubstar’s Stars from your Halflife e.p – how did that come about, and why didn’t you include it on the latest album?

We didn’t included it in the full length because it was a special track for the EP Halflife only.It came out spontaneously, I really liked the original version and I just proposed it to the guys. Even if they didn’t really know the song it’s been really interesting for them to experiment with something new and transform it in a Lacuna coil song, with our print.

You’ve included some lyrics in Italian in your music – how do the audiences outside Italy react to these?

They reacted very well, of course! Italians are really proud and it’s cool for them to have an international band proud to be italian too.

Is there a place for Politics in music, and more specifically in Lacuna Coil’s music?

Not at all. I hate politics and I really believe that most of the politics are false. Everybody will always be working for himself.We’ll never talk about politics in our songs.

You have two singers? How does that work?

It works even better than other bands with just one singer because we can use all the spectrum of notes as soon as Andrea is able to reach low tunes and I can reach the high ones. Plus we can be free to sing mixing growl and clear vocals. What more could you ask for?

What type of album will you bring out next – any thoughts on future directions?

We can’t talk about the next album now, we don’t consider a song finished until the day we recod it. I just can tell you that we won’t be changing our style, our mixture of powerful moments and ballads, we’ll keep our identity so it won’t be a techno album.

Are there any other Italian bands at the moment that you like or could recommend?

There are a lot of good bands here. I could recommend the band NODE, brutal and technical.

Lacuna Coil’s Official Site