Many men have suffered at the hand of Cage Fight frontwoman Rachel Aspe. Even now, she’s arched over her latest victim, gun in one hand as the other dabs at a bloodied chest with a paper towel. When she pulls away, we lean in to inspect the damage – and we’re met with a striking tattoo, blackwork arching high up the neck, over the shoulders and cutting down across the chest.
Rachel’s (tattoo) gun continues to buzz in her hand as she narrows her eyes, mentally mapping out her next move. Her client, Steve, winces a little when she finally dives in for more – but don’t let that fool you. It’s his fifth session, and he’s been getting inked all day, so Steve’s no weakling.
“Some guys can’t handle it,” Rachel smirks, a charming French lilt colouring her tone. “I once had this big, muscly, manly man come in refusing to eat something before his tattoo. Then he fainted. Twice.”
Article continues belowWe’re currently at a tattoo studio in southeast London, but when Rachel’s not humbling men under the needle, the frontwoman makes good work of doing it onstage with Cage Fight, backed by Tesseract guitarist James Monteith, drummer Nick Plews and new bassist Will Horsman. In the past, male bandmates have forced her to “dilute” her natural tone, belittled her, and made her feel uncomfortable – but now she’s serving up a firm middle finger to them, with latest record Exuvia coming as the ultimate knockout blow of vitriolic, thrash-infused hardcore.
I once had this big, muscly, manly man come in...he fainted twice
Rachel Aspe
From Pig’s infernal clapback against men who send unsolicited dick pics – complete with genuine messages from them throughout the music video – to Un Bon Souvenir’s final laugh in the face of an ex-bandmate who was narcissistic to the point of thinking he was “an ancient god”, this record doesn’t hold back. Throughout, Rachel is a full-force steamroller crushing chauvinistic male egos, serving as a mouthpiece for women in a genre that doesn't often place female voices, narratives or perspectives at the forefront.
Just like Rachel’s music, the abstract piece she’s carving out on Steve is jagged and pretty brutal. The stark, sharp black lines are as bold and unmissable as Rachel’s unflinching persona. Of course, it’s taken years to reach this point of personal and professional confidence. Growing up in Grasse in the south of France, an area where “a very small percentage of people listened to metal”, the frontwoman felt like an odd piece in her youth.
“Everyone always looked at me like I was an alien,” she sighs, rolling her eyes. “When I first moved to the UK to join a band up in Glasgow, it felt like freedom.”
Rachel’s love of death metal and hardcore started when she overheard a school band covering Morbid Angel. Instantly, her fate was sealed. For someone “born with a voice completely off key” (a fact that Steve contests, revealing that she “loves to sing while tattooing”), gut-wrenchingly heavy growls were an easier mode of self-expression – even if she couldn’t find the right words to pair with her screaming just yet.
“I used to be so bad at English, so I would just go out onstage and make sounds that sounded like English,” she admits sheepishly, before bursting out laughing. “There’d be one real sentence, and the rest of the lyrics would be absolutely fake gibberish.”
Finally, Rachel finishes the last round of shading on Steve’s chest piece. She beholds it with pride, before cleansing and delicately applying a layer of ointment to his raw flesh.
“I love working abstractly – I think that’s why I struggle to write lyrics, because you have to have some kind of structure,” she says. “In the past, trying to fit into structures made me feel like my lyrics were very childish. But I think focusing on my personal stories for the new album, writing freely like I’m journalling, has helped.”
I used to be so bad at English, I would go out onstage and make sounds that sounded like English
Rachel Aspe
After waving her client off, we’re left alone in the studio. It’s a lovely space that contrasts life and death, taxidermied ferrets and mounted stag skulls clashing with the leafy green vines scaling the walls and hanging from the ceiling. She takes a moment to breathe. Despite only working on one customer a day, arching over tired her out. It’s something that’s been exacerbated by the time she got hit by a car a couple of years ago, an experience that left her with an out-of-place hip, an injury that she’s still recovering from. When she explains this, we’re aghast.
“It was scary,” she admits. “I was lying on the ground, watching the cars start driving past just above my head, just thinking, ‘If I die… who is gonna take my dog on a walk?’”
That’s right – when faced with potential death, this stomping, hardcore juggernaut’s first thought was her dog. When the woman who hit her offered to call an ambulance, Rachel refused. Instead, she made the woman drive her home so she could walk her chihuahua around the block. Only then did she let the woman take her to A&E. “I had to take out Lucky, y’know?” the frontwoman insists, like it’s obvious.
Rachel has experienced a colourful array of ups and downs throughout her life. She’s hopped from France, to Glasgow, to London in pursuit of her dreams, with plenty of “bad decisions” along the way. One positive move, however, was performing a cover of Sybreed’s Emma-0 on French talent show, La France A Un Incroyable Talent, in 2012. “The show wanted to make me look a bit stupid, but the clip helped me when I applied to join Eths,” she explains, referencing the French metalcore band she fronted between 2013 and 2016.
Despite idolising Eths in her teenage years, the experience of being in the band soon soured. In Cage Fight, the power and strength of Rachel’s voice is blatant. In Eths, Rachel was forced to squeeze into the original frontwoman’s shoes. “I dreamed of being like Candice Clot,” she sighs. “But, when I joined, they made it obvious that they wanted me to become a total copy of Candice. I was happy to have the opportunity – it was an honour! But I just wanted to be myself.”
Rachel recently stumbled across an unwelcome blast from her Eths past. “I saw an interview and a member was talking about me, saying, ‘She had the technique, but she didn't have the same emotion or charisma as Candice,’” she recalls with a scoff. “It wasn’t very nice! But, at the end, he said, ‘But it’s still Un Bon Souvenir…’” That closing phrase, translating to ‘a good memory’, served as a catalyst for the scathing track of the same name on Exuvia.
Other childhood idols have appreciated Rachel’s talent. The Black Dahlia Murder’s late frontman, Trevor Strnad, took a shine to her after discovering her cover of Statutory Ape on YouTube. “He messaged me and he was like, ‘Oh, this is sick,’” she recalls warmly. “He asked if I was in a band, and when I said I wasn’t, he said, ‘Oh, you should replace me in Black Dahlia!’”
He then made it his mission to find Rachel a band.
“He said he’d help me, and he shared it on his page with the promise that, “Tomorrow, you’re gonna have a band’… James [Monteith, Tessaract/Cage Fight guitarist] messaged me the next day.”
Trevor would go on to feature on the track Eating Me Alive, from Cage Fight’s self-titled, 2021 debut album. While the record holds plenty of magic, Rachel notes that most of it was written before she joined. She managed to leave her mark on the cover, however, which features a photo of a palm she inked with the words ‘Cage Fight’.
“We didn’t even have one song out at the time, and some girl agreed to get her palm tattooed,” Rachel explains. “We’ve told her she can come to any gig she wants for free, but she never has. I don’t even know if she’s listened to our music…”
New album Exuvia is a more authentic reflection of who Rachel is, featuring her most confident and personal lyrics yet. She sobbed through the entire writing process of Élégie, an ode to her dead grandfather, while the title track reflects on her grandmother’s cancer diagnosis. For every thrashy riff and vile scream, this record is as heartwrenching as it is heavy.
While some grandparents might not understand the appeal of gutturals and breakdowns, Rachel explains that her grandmother has always been supportive of her journey – even in her earliest days.
“The other day my grandma said the funniest thing,” Rachel recalls. “Out of nowhere, she was like, ‘Rachel, you know why you are singing like this? It’s thanks to me.’ When I asked why, she said that when I was a baby, she would lean into my crib and go, ‘GRRRRRRRRR!’”
Rachel collapses into a fit of laughter. “She said, ‘I was talking to you in metal!’ I don’t know why she would have done that. She’s just weird. In the future, I would love to have my grandma screaming on a track with me!”
As Rachel sits before us, radiating confidence, there’s no denying it’s been a long road to get here. She’s crossed oceans, mastered a second language, and had her talent repeatedly dismissed. When we map out her arduous journey, a flicker of pride crosses her features. Yes, she’s dealt with a lot – but the future for Cage Fight is looking bright.
“In the past, I was young, naive and let myself get treated like shit,” Rachel reflects. “But I’ve learned, and I’ve grown. And I’ll never let anyone treat me like shit again.”
Exuvia is out now via Spinefarm. Cage Fight play Dark Reign Festival on May 2 and Radar Festival on July 31
