Throwing Out The Formula, The Shocking Loss Of Warrel Dane, & White-Gluz's Solo Side Project

The Music converses with Arch Enemy's powerhouse Canadian vocalist Alissa White-Gluz the day after the death of former Nevermore singer Warrel Dane. Aside from being label-mates, Arch Enemy shredder Jeff Loomis also formerly played alongside Dane in Nevermore and Sanctuary. Unsurprisingly, the wound is still raw for all concerned.

"Oh my God, that was shocking," she says from Montreal. "All of us, but especially of course Jeff, are going through a tough time right now. Just sending huge condolences and deepest sympathies to his family and friends. And fans of course, myself included. Because that was way too young, and not something we expected. I just think it's very unfortunate, and if anything, I hope that this happening can maybe help maybe some other people that are struggling, and maybe show them that they need to maybe take control of their lives. I just don't want to see this happening too much more. It's been happening quite a bit, and of course Warrel's passing is just a shock to all of us. I don't think that's something that we're going to get over anytime soon."

It was a tragic conclusion to an otherwise banner year for the Swedish metallers. After unleashing a live set captured at Germany's none-more-metal Wacken Open Air festival, they also released studio effort Will To Power, White-Gluz's second album fronting Arch Enemy. High-octane metal remains the quintet's stock-in-trade, but having almost entirely eschewed clean vocals prior, the record's curiosity piece is their first "ballad", Reason To Believe. It features White-Gluz's grunts and pristine singing.

The track represents incremental progress for a band often derided for adhering to the formula, and has seemingly puzzled some. However, those who had heard the former The Agonist vocalist and Kamelot guest — handpicked by her predecessor, and now Arch Enemy manager Angela Gossow — sing cleanly on other projects wouldn't have been astonished by her prowess in that regard. "It's surprising to me how many people didn't think that was me singing," the vocalist laughs. "Like a lot of people actually were like, 'wait, who's that?' And I'm like, 'It's me,'" she laughs again. "They're like, 'Who's the guest? It doesn't say in the album who it is.' I'm like, 'There's no guest, it's me.'

"That was surprising to me, because it's funny how small our worlds are until they expand. I'm sure that my world right now is still really small because I'm in the metal world. I don't know anything about the R&B world, for example. So it's still my little bubble is what I know about. But I was under the impression that everybody knew that I did clean singing, but that actually wasn't the case. Surprisingly, Reason To Believe has been amongst the favourites so far. We've done a lot of promotion, talked to journalists, and done meet and greets and talked to a lot of fans. And a lot of people really love the song. A lot of people are like, 'Yeah, it's clean singing and that's weird for Arch Enemy, but I like it.' That's kind of how we are too. We aren't of the opinion that we have to stay stuck in a box."

The group's strenuous touring schedule in support of Will To Power aside — 2018 will feature their return to Australia as part of the inaugural Download Festival — White-Gluz hopes to scrape together sufficient time for her solo project. "That is something that I am doing whenever I have a little bit of time off from Arch Enemy. The issue is that I usually only have like maybe a week off every few months," she laughs.

"So I'm just sort of putting it together in bits and pieces, and accumulating a file with a lot of different song options. Then I hope to, in late 2018, get at least a chunk of time decent enough for me to organise which songs will be on the album, get those all demoed and pre-produced, and then get into a studio and record that. So I really want to get that done by the end of 2018. But of course Arch Enemy takes priority, so I don't know if I'll be able to do that or not.

"The nature of the solo album is that of just artistic creation, very free-form, no labels, no precedents. I know people are getting impatient, and I am too, but I only want to release good stuff, and I don't want to rush it. So I'm going to release it when it's ready."