LACUNA COIL's ANDREA FERRO Says Writing New Music Has Become Both Easier And More Challenging After Ten Studio Albums

In a new interview with Sandy Syn of the Sandstorm podcast, Andrea Ferro, singer of the Italian metal veterans LACUNA COIL, was asked if it gets "easier" or "more challenging" for him and his bandmates to make new albums more than 30 years after the group's formation. He responded (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "I think it's both, because on one hand we are more experienced, so we know what it takes to write an album. And we feel when the album has a great energy and it is gonna be kind of appreciated by the fans more than maybe some other albums. But on the other hand, you've done a lot, so it's also hard to keep your sound interesting, because, obviously, we kind of exploit a lot of our characteristics as singers, as composers. So sometimes you feel like you are repeating yourself. Obviously we do have a certain sound that we don't escape from it, of course — there's gonna be certain characteristics that are always gonna be in our music — but we always also are a kind of band that always try to make a record that makes sense nowadays. We don't want it to sound too old or too different. We want something that makes sense in 2025, when [we] released [our latest album, 'Sleepless Empire'], but on the other end, you also have to have the characteristics of the history of the band, and don't go too far from certain things. So it's both — easier and harder — because sometimes you feel you've already done this, so you wanna do something a little slightly different. But I think in the whole record, there's some space for songs that are more close to the origin of the band and some other where you can just move away a little bit. But definitely not easy to do."

Asked what drew him to doing extreme metal vocals when he first became interested in pursuing music professionally, Andrea said: "When me and Marco [Coti Zelati], our bass player, we started playing together, it was in the very young age when we were into skateboarding. And so from skateboarding, we were listening to a lot of the hardcore punk kind of genre and also the metal, because when we were kids, it was the '80s, so metal was very common, bands like IRON MAIDEN or HELLOWEEN and all those bands that were becoming really famous back then. And so we had a background of hard rock metal and also hardcore punk. So when we started playing, we were more doing something closer to hardcore punk. And so my vocals was more about the screaming, but not in a growl way, not in a death metal way, but more in a powerful, hardcore way. And then from there we shifted a little bit more towards death metal. We started listening first to bands like PANTERA and then more into extreme bands like OBITUARY and MORBID ANGEL, CANNIBAL CORPSE, and, on the other hand, also bands like PARADISE LOST and ANATHEMA, MY DYING BRIDE. And so we shifted a little bit towards more of a metal, darker side. And so in the beginning I was doing more of the growl, but on the other hand I had also a little bit of the clean because we also listened to bands like FAITH NO MORE, or more melodic [artists], more crossing over between the genres. And so we were doing a mix of the more growl death metal and clean a little bit. And then moving forward, until our demo in '96, I was doing mostly growl vocals, and then we got Cristina [Scabbia, LACUNA COIL co-vocalist] to do the cleans. And then when we signed the [record] deal and started recording, we started to do more singing together on the clean and do more of a distorted voice but not properly growl. Only maybe some songs there were still growl, but the music shifted a little bit more towards a softer side. And so we were using more of the semi-distorted voice, more in the style of PARADISE LOST, for example, 'Icon' or those kind of records, 'Draconian Times'. And in the recent years, since we shifted the lineup from the classic LACUNA COIL lineup to newer musicians, younger musicians, we felt more freedom to go heavier. Marco, in composing the songs, felt he could push more on the double bass, on certain heaviness on the guitars. And so we kind of reintroduced the growl vocals again, and we've been steady in that direction for the last couple of records as well."

Andrea continued: "So I experiment a little bit of everything. I always liked singing in general. I took some vocal lessons in the beginning of the career, but it was more like generic. There was no specific vocal lessons for growling or a distorted voice. It was mostly the clean singing, classic lessons, like the breath technique, the abdominal parts, relaxing the muscles, but just the normal stuff. That is always useful. So I learned a little bit more by myself, how to do the screaming and the growling. And then now I'm focusing more, putting more attention on the different styles."

Ferro added: "I wish I had more time to study and practice because when you are on tour, you kind of try to save the voice more than exercise a lot. It's more important to be well rested and saving the voice because you have a long tour in front of you. So there's no time to study or to do a lot of practicing because you need to keep the voice for the [rest of the tour]. So when I'm home now, I'm gonna take, for example, a break and then I'm gonna study a little bit more new ways of doing [things], [by learning from] singers like the guy from LORNA SHORE or stuff like that. I like to experiment, because I know how to do the growl, but I'm more coming from the SEPULTURA, that kind of growl. I like the growl when you can recognize the singer. I don't like so much the growl when you get too similar to other growls. I like it when you can still hear — like [former SEPULTURA and current SOULFLY frontman] Max Cavalera, for example. When he sings, you can hear his voice behind the growl. And that's what I like — characteristic singers where they can recognize still the voice, the tone of the voice in the screaming, in the growls. But I like also to experiment more extreme techniques. As I just said, I need some time to do it."

LACUNA COIL recently announced the 2026 leg of the "Sleepless Empire" U.S. tour, which is set to start in March. Featuring special guests ESCAPE THE FATE, as well as VOWWS (March 24 - April 13) and AXTY (April 15 - April 29),the tour will kick off in New York on March 24 and conclude in Albany on May 1.

"Sleepless Empire" came out in February 2025 via Century Media Records. Inspiration to create the LP came during the sessions for "Comalies XX" (2022),the acclaimed remake of LACUNA COIL's breakthrough third record "Comalies".

In October 2024, Italian guitarist/producer Daniele Salomone confirmed that he has joined LACUNA COIL as the replacement for the band's longtime guitarist Diego Cavallotti.

Salomone made his live debut with LACUNA COIL on August 4, 2024 at the Rockstadt Extreme Fest in Râșnov, Romania.

In June 2024, LACUNA COIL announced Cavallotti's departure. Diego, who joined LACUNA COIL in 2016, initially as a fill-in guitarist following the exit of Marco "Maus" Biazzi, later said in a social media post that "this decision is not the result of my dissatisfaction or desire to explore new opportunities."

Cavallotti and Salomone played together in the Italian metal band INVERNO, which released its debut album, "Stasis", in December 2023.