LACUNA COIL’s CRISTINA SCABBIA On Split With DIEGO CAVALLOTTI: ‘The Things That We Weren’t Agreeing On Weren’t Changing’

In a new interview with Scott Penfold of Loaded Radio, LACUNA COIL singer Cristina Scabbia was asked about the addition of Italian guitarist/producer Daniele Salomone to the band as the replacement for LACUNA COIL’s longtime guitarist Diego Cavallotti. She said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “Yeah, Daniele is not like an official new member of LACUNA COIL. We’re still, let’s say, testing him. He’s a great friend and we love him to pieces, but he’s relatively new to the band. He came in at the very end of the recording cycle, the writing cycle to help us out. I mean, he helped us out in the past with many guitar sounds. And he was actually helping Diego to fix some things. So he was the first name that we thought about when we found ourselves in need of a guitar player, because we had gigs coming.”She continued: “We could have had many session guitar players — we know many and they’re all great — but we wanted to have a person that we knew that could share the time with us on a tour bus, because for us being on tour is like traveling with your second family. So it’s cool to have someone that just comes on stage and plays, but we need the band to be cohesive like a family. So we took the decision to not to work again with Diego, because every person in the band has to contribute to songwriting, and, of course, Maki [bassist Marco Coti Zelati] is the internal producer and so-called leader of the band because he’s been there from day one and he knows exactly what we want to achieve with the LACUNA COIL sound. Myself and Andrea [Ferro, LACUNA COIL co-vocalist] are responsible for vocal lines and lyrics. But it needs contributions from the outside. It doesn’t need to be taken for granted. If you’re in a band, you have to contribute. Even only with your passion for the band or just hanging out with the other members because you feel you want to be with those people and you want to play that type of music. Not only just to be on tour and have fun. So we thought about a new start with a new cycle, and we feel that it was the right decision.”Asked if the split with Diego was “a mutual thing” and whether there is “still a relationship there”, Cristina said: “No, no, no, no, no. Obviously not, because we had a different opinion. [Laughs] We had a different opinion, so yeah, sometimes it happens that you disagree. We had some talks before we got to that point, but we saw that nothing was changing — the things that we weren’t agreeing on weren’t changing — so we said, ‘What’s the point?’ There was no change there.”It’s like a relationship,” she explained. “Sometimes it’s not even like a fault. I mean, you are who you are, so there was no guilt in that. And whatever you do, you do it because you feel like [it], so there is nothing else to add. It just happens.”Cristina previously discussed Daniele’s addition to LACUNA COIL earlier this month in an interview with Full Metal Jackie’s nationally syndicated radio show. Asked how Salomone came to join the band, she responded: “We’ve been knowing Daniele for a few years now. He came on board, actually, a few years ago because he actually helped us during other recordings as well, just helping us setting the guitar tunes or just taking care of some equipment. So we asked him to help us out for the cycle.”[When] we had this lineup change, we immediately thought about him because it’s a person that we know personally, so we know that we can get along well,” Cristina explained. “We know that he’s an incredible, great guitar player. He knows everything about the equipment, because he has a studio himself, he produces other bands as well, so he knows how to handle things. And he was the first person that came to our minds when we were searching for a person that would play guitar.”Scabbia went on to clarify that Salomone has not yet been made an official member of LACUNA COIL and is currently touring with the band in a session-musician capacity.”He’s not like the new guitar player of LACUNA COIL because we always need some time — we need some time,” Scabbia explained. “In order to be part of the family, you just have to tour with LACUNA COIL to see if it’s your thing. So you don’t know if it’s something that you can actually take because the lifestyle of a musician is not easy.”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.LACUNA COIL’s new album, “Sleepless Empire”, will be released February 14, 2025 via Century Media Records.Inspiration to create “Sleepless Empire” came during the sessions for “Comalies XX” (2022),the acclaimed remake of LACUNA COIL’s breakthrough third record “Comalies”. Writing and recording took place in northern Italy between Milano (the band’s hometown) and Como, where SPVN Studios are located. As with their previous albums, production was done in house with Marco “Maki” Coti Zelati at the helm, and artwork was hand curated by the talented Italian artist Roberto Toderico. Two other very special talents enrich the album, namely the guest vocalists: LAMB OF GOD’s Randy Blythe on the song “Hosting The Shadow” and NEW YEARS DAY’s Ash Costello on “In The Mean Time”.As a token of the band’s love for the gaming world (which we’ve seen in past endeavors such as their card game “Horns Up” and their collaboration with Zombicide for which they wrote the track “Never Dawn”),the band have created an oracle “game” to be played with custom made dice available only in the box set version of “Sleepless Empire”.Photo credit: Patric Ullaeus[embedded content]