Interviewed by Brian Rademacher
Date: December 2006

Hello Francesca, and welcome to Rockeyez.com!
Thank you so much, you guys rock!

Tell us a little about the youth of Francesca?
Mmmm… we start with an easy question, ha, ha. Let’s see…I was born in Padova, a small town close to Venice, and had a pretty normal life except that I was a very strange little girl. I remember I invented stories all the time and convinced all my little friends that they were true. I was so determined that at the end everybody believed me and thought I was a really lucky girl, some kind of a superhero! Ha-ha-ha it was really funny, but in some way those were dreams and I really thought they were true until I grew up. Then I realized how hard it was to make a dream come true.

Tell us about the first concert you ever attended?
My first concert was EUROPE. I was maybe 12 or 13 and I ran away from school to reach the venue in the morning. I was totally in love with Joey Tempest… can you believe that? Some years later I got to meet him and he told me to get away… really frustrating!

What was the first record you ever got?
My first record was “Thriller” by MICHAEL JACKSON and my second one was “Burn” by DEEP PURPLE. I still have those tapes.

You studied guitar and composition. How has that helped you in your music career?
Well, I think that in the beginning it was very useful to know what music is all about. It helps a lot to practice and get an ear. I still play guitar when I write music, so it has been great for me, learning when I was very young.

What was the first guitar you played with?
I bought my first guitar for $15 in the States when I lived there. It was a Yamaha… actually an awful cheap Yamaha; but I had a teacher, who taught me how to play “Soldier Of Fortune,” and that was enough for me. Then when I got back to Italy, I bought the guitar that I still use, which is an Ovation, the same one that Lita Ford uses in the video with Ozzy for “Close My Eyes Forever”, one of my favorite songs actually!

At the age of 13, you wrote your first song, “Survivor.” Did you sing it in English or Italian?
Oh, I’ve always written songs in English because it’s a lot easier. That song was really awful, but it had an incredible atmosphere… unbelievable. I was only 13 when I wrote it and this guy put down the chords for me.

Do you remember the first job you had?
Oh man, how can I forget it? I worked at a wedding agency. I was 19 and I had just moved to Milan without money and with the highest rent ever! I had to work so I found this job, they paid me maybe $500 a month and the rent was $400. The girl I shared the apartment with and I ate cheap rice for one year… we almost became Chinese! But we had a blast in those years, probably the best of my life!

You also worked selling wine over the phone. What is your favorite wine?
No wine, no beer, no alcohol at all, I know it’s not very rock ’n’ roll, but I hated the taste of alcohol since I was a kid. If I drink a few beers I start laughing so bad and then I become contagious so all my friends want me to drink all the time because they say I’m fun! That’s awful, isn’t it?

What was the name of the first garage band you had, even before you started with the band THE FLU?
Oh, I’ve had tons of bands, but the first serious band was called MYSTERY. I still lived in Padova. Simon, THE LOVECRAVE bass player, used to play with me in that band. We recorded an awesome demo. I’m not kidding, it still sounds huge, even if we are talking about a lifetime ago. It was a hard rock demo and we had great reviews at that time. I’d like to mention the guitar player of that demo, Mauro Lentola, who died a few years ago. He was a genius on the guitar.

THE FLU was a punk metal band, so how did you jump into a gothic genre with THE LOVECRAVE?
THE FLU was very gothic. Our style was close to THE SMASHIING PUMPKINS- a little bit more punk, maybe, and much heavier. It was a cool project, but when we entered the studio we met the wrong producer who turned the whole thing into a much mellower project. That’s how we learned how to produce our records ourselves.

Was 1992’s “MYSTERY” EP your first release?
Hey! You know my life better than I do! Ha-ha-ha yes, I think it was 1992.

So you put out a few singles on Sony before your first full-length CD, “Il Parco Dei Sogni,” which came out in 1999. How did you get signed by Sony?
Some people of Sony happened to be at one of our gigs with THE FLU and contacted us. They wanted only me to sign for them. It had been a very tough time for the band and I let them decide. At the end they decided to accept, and all the music releases came out with my name on the cover. It was a pain every time for me and for them. That story started the wrong way; it couldn’t have a happy ending. I will never make that mistake again.

So from 1999 to 2006, what have you been doing?
Those are my dark years. After the Sony release, the label left me alone-but I had a 5 years publishing contract keeping me unable to do anything else. This contract expired in year 2003 when THE LOVECRAVE was born. See this band for me is a big revenge, it is the freedom after the imprisonment. This is why we are exploding with positive energy.

Now we are at the stage of THE LOVECRAVE. You were in THE FLU with Tank Palamara, your guitarist/producer, and now with THE LOVECRAVE. Are you married?
Ha-ha-ha, no we are not married!!!!

Were you offered a deal by Sony for THE LOVECRAVE CD?
We don’t want it! At least we don’t want it with the Italian Sony! No way, no more black holes! Better to be broke and happy.

For THE LOVECRAVE CD “The Angel and the Rain,” you did all the artwork?
Yes, I am a graphic designer during the day, so it was very important for me to take care of the visuals of the band. It has been a long time working on the digipak. It seems easy, but it’s not at all.

Listening to the CD, you have a wide variety of sounds from Heavy Metal and Goth to pure Power Metal. Was it your intention to draw a wide variety of fans to your music?
For many years, we looked for a sound that could contain all the music we’ve listened to through the years. It is something really hard to do, so it took a lot of research, but now we found a way that doesn’t sound complicated at all but hides a big work. Only musicians or expert listeners can figure out exactly what it takes to make a record like this one I think, but it’s very important that everybody can just enjoy it without thinking too much, getting only the pure emotions.

I am surprised you were never offered to do a soundtrack with the song “Vampires,” which is a killer tune. Would you think about doing a soundtrack for a movie?
Oh, yes, that is our dream-but unfortunately, we don’t have the contacts to reach a movie production company. It’s not easy from Italy. Iakk said he is available to have sex with some important movie producer lady to make that happen…we’ll see...ha-ha-ha

THE LOVECRAVE CD received 4.5 stars out of 5 stars on our site, Do you think you will be able to capture that same essence on your next release?
We want 5!!! We’ll pay you to get 5!!! Ha-ha-ha Oh well, I don’t know, we already have some ideas on the new songs but we can’t tell you now. It has been a huge sacrifice for us to make this record, because we all work during the day and could only work on the music during weekends and nighttime. It took us two years to finish it. I hope that we will go faster with the next on...but I doubt it.

Every song on “The Angel and The Rain” has great hooks and pumping beats, and your vocals are outstanding. Did the CD take long to record, and did you film any of the recording session for a DVD?
Yes, as I said before it took us two years, but we’ve done most of it at home and we often got stuck on one single sound until it was perfect. So we were never satisfied, no matter how much time it took us to finish it. We basically did it for ourselves: we wanted to make good songs and record them professionally. We could only put on 10 because of our low budget, but those 10 had to be great for us. No we haven’t filmed anything…maybe its better because our faces on the pc after 10 hours at work were awful!

How many songs were written for the release? Will any of the ones that didn’t make it appear as singles or future releases?
We wrote about 15 songs in one month for “The Angel and the Rain,” but we have so many songs that we couldn’t use because the publishing was signed. Anyway, we write songs all the time-fortunately-so we don’t have the problem of running out of ideas by now. The only song we use from the past comes from “Il Parco Dei Sogni” and we play it right now as the first song of our show.

Have you ever thought about going into modeling?
What? No way! I hate the makeup, I hate taking pictures and I hate looking so good on photos because I’m not like that!

Everyday I listen to the CD. I have a new favorite today-it’s “Little Suicide.” How is the CD being received by fans?
“Little Suicide” is my favorite too! I think that this CD might sound easy but it’s not. We realize day after day that people are discovering it slowly. At the first listen you think you’ve heard this stuff already but if you take the time and go through it once more you notice little elements that you missed the first time. When people start to get into it then they start loving it, so now we are receiving wonderful messages from all over. I’m keeping them all because they give a big sense to what we are doing and give us the strength to push and to run faster.

Please mention to Tank for me that he is a god!
Ha-ha-ha he will be so happy about this! You should know Tank, he is the funniest guy in the world and his heart is huge. Everybody knows him in Milan, ‘cause he walks around with awful clothes and with crazy hair saying “rock ’n’ roll” all the time. He is awesome, and we are all so happy to play with him. He is generous, too, and an excellent electric and classical guitar player. He also has a bad attitude and screams all the time, but one second later he forgets about it and starts laughing. So cool! If you meet him you can’t forget him.

I have a little surprise for you and the band. THE LOVECRAVE was named third best CD on our Rockeyez year in review. Plus, you were also named fourth best new band. How does that sound?
I really have no words to thank you enough. Thank you for your interview, for your review and for this awesome chart!!!

What can I say in conclusion, except what a fantastic CD! I hope everyone has the chance to hear it and get on the bandwagon of THE LOVECRAVE. Francesca, it has been a pleasure talking with you. Would you like to say anything in conclusion?
It has been my pleasure and I want to say that I miss America so much…somebody makes us play some gigs over there please! Ha-ha-ha We will make it, I promise, and you and everybody at Rockeyez will be the first ones to be invited!!! Thanks again YOU RAWWWWKKKKK!!