ARCH ENEMY's ALISSA WHITE-GLUZ: It's Absurd To Call A Category Of Music 'Female-Fronted Metal'

November 27, 2014

CrypticRock.com recently conducted an interview with guitarist Michael Amott and vocalist Alissa White-Gluz of Swedish / Canadian / American metallers ARCH ENEMY. You can now watch the chat below.

Asked how she feels about female-fronted metal bands being lumped into the same category, Alissa said: "I agree that it's absurd to call a category of music 'female-fronted metal,' because if you look at OTEP or EPICA or ARCH ENEMY, we don't sound anything alike. Or LACUNA COIL or HUNTRESS or any other band you wanna put in there. It's all different kinds of metal. Just because the gender of the vocalist is the same, that doesn't actually tell you anything about the sound of the band."

She continued: "But, yeah, I think it's a blessing and a curse, in a way, because there are some fans out there that, as soon as they see a female in a band, they're automatically supporting the band and they're happy to do it. And that's cool if that's what they like. I think it's a little weird, because sometimes maybe those bands really aren't as great as another band that has a male singer and won't get as much attention. But that being said, there's also the other side of the coin, which is that there's some people that just won't accept the band if there's a woman in the band. So there's a positive and a negative to being a girl in a boy's club. But I don't even think about it anymore, to be honest. 'Cause I've been doing it quite some time now. Probably when I was first starting out and didn't have as much of an established persona or whatever, I faced a lot more of the novelty-type attitude, like people just, like, 'Hey, you're hot,' or whatever. But now nobody even talks to me. [Laughs]"

ARCH ENEMY earlier in the month parted ways with guitarist Nick Cordle and replaced him with Jeff Loomis. Loomis is making his live debut with ARCH ENEMY on the band's European tour, which kicked off on November 26.

ARCH ENEMY played its first show with Alissa White-Gluz on May 23 at Turbohalle in Bucharest, Romania. Angela Gossow, who joined ARCH ENEMY in 2000 and made her debut on the now-classic "Wages Of Sin" (2001),has stepped down as frontwoman and will focus on management, while Alissa takes her place.

ARCH ENEMY's new album, "War Eternal", sold around 8,000 copies in the United States in its first week of release to enter The Billboard 200 chart at position No. 44. The CD was released on June 10 in North America via Century Media Records. The cover artwork was created by Costin Chioreanu.

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