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Infected Rain

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Interview with
LENA SCISSORHANDS
from
INFECTED RAIN
(3rd July 2024)

Interview with Dave Bruce

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Photo @victoriawonkaphotography

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Dave: How are you?
Lena: Hello, I’m good. Thank you for having me.

Dave: You’re welcome. The group was formed way back in 2008 in Moldova. How did you all come together?
Lena: It was a really typical situation where friends, musicians got together and started having fun. I wasn’t a musician. I had a lot of friends that were metalheads and some of them were in bands before or previously in bands trying to write their own music. And I just was invited to one of the rehearsals of my guitar player and his best friend. He was a DJ, a live DJ.
It was just the two of them at the time and they would just have fun and do a lot of covers and some of their own songs. And yeah, I wanted to do some solid covers just for fun only, but in the rehearsal room. And I did it.

Dave: So you all came together as adults, previous bands, et cetera?
Lena: Not all of us. I was the only one that did not have a musical career before. I had never tried being a musician. I had a completely different career choice. I was a hair and makeup artist. Never sung?

Dave: What? Never sung?
Lena: No, never. So now I started really just exploring this. I took some vocal teachers and then we started playing shows and things became quite serious and I really wanted to learn more about it and I’m still learning. I have teachers and I try to always train. It’s just that’s how it all started back in 2008.

Dave: Excellent. You’re considered the most eccentric vocalist of Moldova. Why?
Lena: I don’t know. I’ve been told that before by other people that were interviewing me. I don’t even know where this information is even. But I don’t know what to tell you. I don’t live there. I don’t know why people would call me eccentric.

Dave: OK. You don’t live in Moldova.
Lena: Not anymore, I moved.

Dave: The band, the whole band or just you?
Lena: No, just me.

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Dave: So what can you tell me just quickly about Moldova?
Lena: Moldova is a very small country in Eastern Europe. It is bordering with Romania and Ukraine. We used to be part of Romania like 400 plus years ago. We were part of Romania. That’s why we speak the same language. We don’t have our own Moldavian language. We have Romanian. It is a slight dialect of Romanian, of course, people can understand that, you’re from Moldova right away based on the accent, but it’s the same language. Now, also Moldova used to be part of USSR for the entire USSR life. And that means that we were also forced to have another language, which is completely different, Russian. When we were children, kids my age, we were forced to learn Russian in schools, which I’m actually very happy because it makes me know two languages on the same level. And I can speak with people more, understand people more. I always had a passion for languages, but yeah, in Moldova, we speak two languages. Nowadays, Romanian predominance way more because of course it’s been already so many years after the USSR, you know, breaking down. So the more years pass, the more I feel like Moldova goes back to the roots of Romania and because we really have the same ancestors.
Still, I think that we have so much to be proud of. And I think that Moldova has the most fertile soil that I’ve ever, I don’t know, myself encountered and saw the results because it’s great. The best fruits and vegetables that I’ve ever tried are in that country.

Dave: Yum. Sounds good.
Lena: They grow on trees and they grow there and people sell their own and there’s some sort of connection like that. And I love that very much. I don’t see that here in America.

Dave: Where do you live now?
Lena: I live in America. In Las Vegas.
The only one negative aspect here coming from such a poor country, a country that had a lot of restrictions for traveling back in the day, it was insanely hard to start a band and start touring. So many aspects, right? I will tell you that this one negative aspect though, time.  It took us a lot of years to be where we are. And I’m not saying that where we are is the limit or where we are is somewhere we wanted to be or where we are is just a transition. Wherever we are, we love it. And wherever we are going to be, we are going to love it because we are putting so much energy and so much effort in this project. And we are very, very stubborn. And we never gave up.
We are on album number six and for the first time only now we are visiting Australia. If we were from a different country, we’ve already been to Australia, maybe on album number two.

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Dave: Tom was released earlier this year. Can you describe the album origin and evolution?
Lena: It’s basically what I’ve just told you. It’s all that. Okay, the Babbage brothers left in 2023.

Dave: Was the album already down then or did the album come after that?
Lena: In reality, this lineup change happened. Basically, lineup change happened in 2022, in the end of the year after a tour. And in 2023 is when we found a replacement for our bass player. We decided not to replace the second guitar player and we just to try it and we really love it so far. So for now it’s like that. Yes, we chose Alice Lane among a few other bass players that were auditioning and she is absolutely fantastic. And how did this album differ from the previous five? It was more the energy in the band. We were in a very new place, but quite challenging and scary place where we have to remember what we are doing and what we are doing it for and not let all the, you know, all this changes affect us negatively, but affect us like we learn from them. So I love every single song on this album and I’ve had so much fun creating. I feel like I’ve opened up on quite a big level with this album, even though I’m always very emotional and very open with my lyrics. But with this album, I feel like I dug a little bit deeper, if that makes sense, with certain songs. So it is very powerful. I’m a big fan of this album, honestly.

Dave: What are the signature tracks? What are the tracks that, you know, if someone was listening? Which are your favorites to play live?
Lena: “Never To Return” and “Dying Light”. I feel like these two almost sound even better live. They are very powerful songs when it comes to sound in general.

Dave: On to the tour down under in September with Cradle of Filth. What are you looking forward to and what can the fans expect?
Lena: It’s quite an often asked question. I think people should not have any expectations. Life will be so much more fun when you don’t have high expectations or low expectations, you know, and just enjoy. Music is awesome. Music is amazing. You know, if you haven’t discovered us yet and you will through Cradle of Filth, you know, we thank you so much. And if you already discovered us, we thank you so much for coming to shows. It will be just a lot of connection. That’s what we do. We give a lot of energy and we connect.

Dave: Have you played with them before?
Lena: No, actually. First time. We are quite excited.

Dave: Yeah, Danny will be an experience.
Lena: Absolutely.

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Dave: Also, the tour looks like it’s coming at the end of a lot of touring. So you tour a lot or is this just the over the years? You’re on the road a lot.
Lena: We do three tours a year. At least every tour is like a month, a month and a half, even two. Yeah, sometimes even four times a year.

Dave: And have you toured the States?
Lena: Yes, of course. Multiple times.

Dave: Obviously because you live there. And how does it go across? I mean, where do you find metal accepted most? Europe?
Lena: Everywhere. Everywhere, absolutely. To be honest with you, I don’t really see nationality or country when I look at the crowd. I see people, human beings. Of course, I can tell you that some specific countries have a specific type of crowd for sure, like in France. People go very crazy at shows. But if you go to a show in Switzerland or even Norway, Belgium even, the crowd is very static and they support you. They will clap and they will put their hands up and they will support even with merchandise and everything but they are not an energetic crowd so there’s beauty in all of it. We just released a live show from the previous tour on our YouTube channel, a full show from Belgium. If you read the comments everybody’s asking what’s going on with the crowd because they just don’t go crazy. It’s very typical.
Or in Belgium, it’s how it is, but they will come to the show, they will buy your ticket, they will be there. So it’s, I don’t know, I mean, of course, as a musician, I will be honest with you that seeing people interact and actually feel the music and move, it’s satisfaction on a different level.

Dave: If you could perform with any music artist, alive or dead, who would you choose?
Lena: Freddie Mercury. I really love Queen. yeah, they’re the best.

Dave: What long-term aspirations you still have?
Lena: Well, all my aspirations are actually connected to my band and my music because really it became a big part of my life, a part of my life for what I sacrificed many things on a personal level, on financial level, on many levels. And it is okay. And I want to invest more and create more because it really helps me mentally, physically helps me move on and learn to live with certain, you know, certain pain with myself.

Dave: Of course, that’s great. Have you ever thought of acting, for example, like you moved into singing and learned?
Lena: I did actually think about acting like to try in general. I don’t think that would ever take over the satisfaction that music gives me, but I really like being creative, like in this aspect with photography and videography. And a lot of people have told me over the past that I would be a good actress. I don’t know because I mainly, like my own acting is only in my music videos where I’m actually not really acting, I’m just showing that emotion I’m writing, I wrote about. That’s what I know.
In your music videos you’re being you and expressive acting is all about being whoever the script demands and whoever the director demands. I don’t know if I would say that. A different discipline.

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Dave: All right. We’re going to end with some some questions. I’ve got about a dozen odd questions and a quick-fire sort of questions if you could. Let’s go.

Dave:What’s the craziest thing you’ve ever done?
Lena: I mean, I’ve done a lot of crazy things deciding to move to a new country with a language that I didn’t know with a culture that I didn’t know. I think that’s the most crazy thing.

Dave: When did you do that? How long ago?
Lena: I did that a couple of times ago. I’m sorry, a couple of times years ago, I wanted to say. Well, I live in Armenia because my father’s Armenian and I had to spend certain years with him and his family there and I did not know the language. I had to learn from scratch, go to school. It’s a very complicated language. It doesn’t have any similarities. Then I came back to Moldova and then my family moved to Italy. Another language that I never spoken, that I had to learn, go to school, finish high school. I went to university even in Italy. And then I came back to Moldova. We created Infected Rain, you travel the world. And eventually I just pulled the trigger and decided to move to America.

Dave: I think there’s a book in there, Elena. You might be writing a book at the end of all this. What’s the one topic you can talk about for hours?
Lena: Animals and love for animals.

Dave: Any particular type?
Lena: Yeah, dogs, cats, or just all animals in there. Just all of them. I really love all of them.

Dave: What’s the thing you most like about yourself?
Lena: I like that I am…I don’t know how to put it correctly in words. I like that I am honest with myself. Yeah.

Dave: So you have personal integrity.
Lena: Yeah. Thank you. I think that’s yes, it gives definitely a lot because I felt in a certain time in my life in the past, I felt very trapped, so trapped where I was not sure what really was me and what I really liked and didn’t like. And that scared me because I’m a pleaser and I felt like pleasing people that I love made me lose myself. So I started working on that quite early. I mean, I was like 25, I believe, but I’m still working on that. It takes so much time.

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Dave: We’ll finish with this. A few favourite questions.

Dave: Favourite album?
Lena:  Deftones, White Pony.

Dave: Favorite artist.
Lena: Queen. Freddie. Freddie’s a legend.

Dave: Favorite movie?
Lena: The Fifth Element.

Dave: Favorite place to visit?
Lena: I have many. For now, out of my experience, it’s going to be Hawaii. But I really want to see New Zealand, Australia, and there are other places on the planet that I really want to visit. I am in love with nature.

Dave: Favorite venue to play?
Lena: I absolutely don’t have a favorite venue. So wherever you are.

Dave: Favorite food?
Lena: I like vegan pizza. Vegan pizza.

Dave: So you don’t eat meat?
Lena: I’m vegan, I don’t eat animal products. No animal products.

Dave: Favourite drink?
Lena: I am guilty, I really like coffee, but I am very good at pacing myself. I drink it only once a day and only a good coffee, not American coffee that is like super big and long. I can’t do that. I lived in Italy, you gotta give me at least one guilty pleasure from Italy, you know what I’m saying?

Dave: I don’t even think it’s too guilty. I think coffee is like meditation. It’s almost necessary. It’s almost, you’ve got to drink coffee.
Lena: Thank you. Basically, if you’re not drinking coffee, you’re not having a chat over a table, you’re not relaxing after a hard day, you’re not waking up and just, you know, getting everything going. Coffee, you need coffee.

Dave: Favourite person in history?
Lena: My favorite person at the moment is my sister Rosa. I have many sisters and at the moment she’s my favorite human because I’m very, very proud of her. She just achieved her second degree in university. She’s very smart. She is a Doctor of Psychology and she is insanely smart. And I’m very proud of her because we had a very difficult upbringing and all these traumas are coming out the more she learns about mental health. She lives in Italy – all my family live in Italy now.

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Dave: One question, and usually it’s just a quick question then we’re finished, but for you it’s obviously going to be a bit more than just a small question. Usually it’s favourite tattoo, but you’re going to have to spend a few minutes and tell us about the journey of your tattoos and what’s taken place here, because obviously it’s an important part.
Lena:  Absolutely it is because I think that liking yourself physically is very important and I’ve loved tattoos since I understood that tattoos existed really basically I’ve saw them in the movie and I thought my God that’s so beautiful. Now of course throughout the years tattoo artists had brought the tattoo industry on the incredible level right now certain tattoos look better than certain pictures and the skill and everything has changed to such incredible level. I started collecting, I did my first tattoo when I was 16 with permission of my mother in an actual tattoo parlour. It was on my left shoulder blade. And for a while I did not have any other tattoos. As I mentioned, my family moved to Italy. So eventually while I was…I believe first year in the university, I decided that I wanted another tattoo and that was when I started collecting. Around the age 19, I got my second tattoo, and I knew that I want more of them. How many more? I never planned. I never thought I want my entire body. Slowly, I wanted to add certain elements on one sleeve and then it became a full sleeve and then I wanted something else, and I just kept falling in love with how my body looks and it feels very interesting energetically as well. It’s almost like you’re wearing an armor. Does that make sense? On the mental level is really interesting and it was quite hard for me because both in Italy and in Moldova especially back then tattoos were only for people that were in prison or drug addicts. So I was judged a lot, bullied a lot, made fun of on streets a lot. Nowadays in Moldova, when I travel for the band touring or work that we have to do together, I feel like there’s such a big change, but still the older generation of people of my mom or my grandparents, they are still quite judgmental and they might, you know, be quite rude with you just because you look this way and no one even cares that you have a university degree and you are, you know, working on a job. You know what I mean?
But as of this moment, I am finishing my right leg sleeve and I have the majority of my body covered in tattoos.

Dave: Different artists or do you have a particular artist?
Lena: I have a few particular artists that are, I dedicate specific areas on my body.
And they’re in different countries. Right now, the two people that work on my body are in the States, but one is actually from Russia, him and his wife, they’ve done a lot of work on my body, they’re both tattoo artists, we are really close friends, they really became friends because they were working here and they got stuck because of COVID. So we became friends.

Dave: That’s it. Thank you.
Lena: Thank you for having me… Namaste.

Dave: Thank you very much for your time and your communication. Have a great tour and we’ll be looking forward to seeing you when you come out in September. Thank you so much.
Lena: See you there. All the best. Bye now.

Dave: Bye.

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Follow LENA SCISSORHANDS
Facebook – Instagram – Spotify

Follow INFECTED RAIN
Facebook – Instagram – Twitter – Spotify
Website – YouTube – Tik Tok

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Press Release 1st May 2024 (below) HERE

CRADLE OF FILTH
and INFECTED RAIN
Australian Invasion
September 2024 Tour

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Cradle Of Filth

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CRADLE OF FILTH
and INFECTED RAIN
September 2024
Australian Tour Dates

Tuesday 24th – PERTH, Metropolis Fremantle
Wednesday 25th – ADELAIDE, The Gov
Friday 27th – MELBOURNE, Northcote Theatre
Saturday 28th – SYDNEY, The Metro
Sunday 29th – BRISBANE, The Triffid

Tickets from: HERE

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AMNPLIFY – DB