Lacuna Coil's Cristina Scabbia Is Proud To Be A Hot Metal Chick

Italy's Lacuna Coil are coming to Canada this month to headline a North American tour dubbed The Hottest Chicks In Metal that includes five other bands with hot chicks: Within Temptation, The Gathering, In This Moment, Stolen Babies and Kylesa.

"I think there's going to be a really positive vibe," Lacuna Coil vocalist Cristina Scabbia says of the tour. "Every band is really excited to be on tour and I think it's going to be fun — a lot of energy and a really good technical show."

Lacuna Coil are touring in support of last year's Century Media album, Karmacode, which debuted at #28 on the Billboard top 200 chart. While they're headlining the estrogen-fuelled tour, Scabbia says calling it The Hottest Chicks In Metal is nothing more than a tongue-in-cheek way of highlighting the females involved.

"It's a common belief that if you have a woman in the band, or if you are a woman, you want to try to sell your image. As soon as I heard about all the bands taking part in this tour — they are all really talented and all the girls can really sing — I thought of it as a way to kill this kind of preconception with a funny name for the tour."

Scabbia admits that while her looks may be exploited to help sell her music, she doesn't take it too seriously because she knows she has the talent to back it up.

"It would be a different story if the band sucked or if the girl couldn't sing, but I know it's not like that. For some people it's like, you're using the female on the cover, you're using the female on the 'net, that means you're selling out. But what some people don't realize is that if the talent goes along with the look, then this is just something good."

Scabbia is proud to be considered one of the hottest women in heavy music. And she adds that using a lead singer to sell bands isn't limited to female-fronted groups.

"Of course the music is 99 per cent of everything, but there is always a person behind it," says Scabbia. "There is always a presentation of the band and an image of the band that is really important

."It's been important to almost every band so far, and I don't think you have to change it just because you're female, or be afraid to show that you are a woman just because people could think you're selling out because you're wearing a skirt. I don't really care. I'm a woman and I'm proud of it."

Here are the Canadian dates for The Hottest Chicks In Metal Tour:

May 13 Montreal, QC @ Club Soda
May 15 Quebec City, QC @ Theatre Imperial
May 16 Toronto, ON @ Opera House
May 22 Winnipeg, MB @ Garrick Centre
May 23 Regina, SK @ The District
May 25 Edmonton, AB @ Dinwoody Lounge
May 26 Calgary, AB @ MacEwan Hall Ballroom
May 28 Vancouver, BC @ Croatian Culture Centre