Goth-influenced Italian metal band Lacuna Coil has never shied away from “the darker side”, singer Andrea Ferro tells the Straight, Skyping in from Sacramento, before an appearance at the Aftershock festival.

“Usually, we get way better inspiration from a negative moment in our life,” observes Ferro, who shares vocal duties with Cristina Scabbia, “because you start to reflect and analyze and be more creative than when everything is happy.”

Call that an aspect of the band’s goth side, if you will, also evident in the atmospheric keyboards and the deep tones that result from the use of seven-string guitars and a five-string bass. Then there’s the acknowledged influence of Italian horror-movie masters like Dario Argento and Mario Bava, and the dramatic, cinematic music written by bassist Marco Coti Zelati—usually while watching war documentaries and horror movies with the volume turned off.

However, unlike some metal acts, Lacuna Coil tries “to find a way to use the dark in a positive way, turning negativity into a positive outcome,” Ferro says.

A good example would be “Die & Rise”, off the 2014 release Broken Crown Halo, which starts with a man hitting on a blond girl in a club, and bombing out, only to find himself revitalized by the experience. (“I cheated death and I came back alive.…With no regrets!”) Or there’s the anthemic album opener “Nothing Stands in Our Way”, which, somewhat surprisingly, references the current economic crisis in Italy.

“We’re from Milan,” Ferro explains. “It’s kind of the business capital of Italy, so we don’t feel the economical crisis as much as other cities, but the country has been hit very heavily. The people are very tired of the situation, not only because of money, but because of the way the politicians have been dealing with it. So there’s been a lot of frustration, and there was a certain moment last year when it seemed we were on the verge of a social riot, people getting really pissed off and angry in the streets. It’s kind of weird for Italy, because it’s not in our nature to be like that; we’re people that enjoy life, usually!”

Ferro continues: “It was very important to do a song like ‘Nothing Stands in Our Way’, because it’s a statement for us. We’ve been here almost 17 years as a band, we’ve been going through highs and lows like everybody else”—with lows including the 2013 death of former member Claudio Leo, of cancer at age 41, and the recent retirement of two members, Cristiano Mozzati and Cristiano Migliore, present on the album but not the tour.

“But we’re still here, and we still have a following. It was very important to say, no matter what you have in life, you still need to be positive, and see that nobody can take away your vision of the future.”