"I got compared to Avril Lavigne": Arch Enemy's Alissa White-Gluz laughs off lazy comparisons, reveals solo album plans

Arch Enemy 2021 — (Image credit: Century Media)

Arch Enemy vocalist Alissa White-Gluz has laughed off lazy media comparisons to other female vocalists, and revealed to Metal Hammer that she was once compared to fellow Canadian Avril Lavigne.

Speaking to Metal Hammer's Matt Mills for an In The Studio report to feature in a future issue of the magazine, White-Gluz was asked if it annoyed her to see rising stars Jinjer and Spiritbox compared to Arch Enemy purely on the basis that all three acts have a female vocalist. The singer responded, "No, I mean, I haven't really heard that comparison, but comparing bands with female front people is nothing new."

"That's been happening forever," she says. "I guess that's just something that people do. I can't blame them, I guess. I mean, yeah, we're all female. I know both of those bands and I really love both of them. So I'm happy to hear that but I don't think we really sounded alike musically. And I also don't think that those two sound alike musically. I've been getting compared to other bands that have female front figures for 20-something years. I think the first comparison I got was Garbage, and then Evanescence. Then I even got Avril Lavigne."

White-Gluz also reveals to Hammer that she moved to southern Germany during the pandemic in order to work on the forthcoming Arch Enemy album, Deceivers, which is scheduled for a July 29 release via Century Media.

"I ended up... staying in Europe for an entire year," she says. "I didn’t want to risk being far away from our hub, which is basically in Sweden and Germany, and not being able to get back to it. I rented a car and found a little home for myself in southern Germany; I stayed there for a whole year. I set up a studio down there and continued working on a lot of solo material.”

Asked if this means the world will soon be getting a solo album from the singer in addition to the new Arch Enemy collection, White-Gluz responds, “Yeah, I’m working on that, but it’s gonna come out way after Deceivers. The Arch Enemy album is the one people should be looking forward to right now.”

You can read more of the vocalist's insights on the new Arch Enemy album in a future issue of Metal Hammer magazine.

A music writer since 1993, formerly Editor of Kerrang! and Planet Rock magazine (RIP), Paul Brannigan is a Contributing Editor to Louder. Having previously written books on Lemmy, Dave Grohl (the Sunday Times best-seller This Is A Call) and Metallica (Birth School Metallica Death, co-authored with Ian Winwood), his Eddie Van Halen biography (Eruption in the UK, Unchained in the US) emerged in 2021. He has written for Rolling Stone, Mojo and Q, hung out with Fugazi at Dischord House, flown on Ozzy Osbourne's private jet, played Angus Young's Gibson SG, and interviewed everyone from Aerosmith and Beastie Boys to Young Gods and ZZ Top. Born in the North of Ireland, Brannigan lives in North London and supports The Arsenal.