Alissa White-Gluz is currently juggling three projects: her debut solo album, "Alissa"; her new all-woman band BLUE MEDUSA; and her recently announced role as DRAGONFORCE's first-ever frontwoman. In an interview with Paolo Phoenix of Magenta TV, conducted at last weekend's Wacken Open Air festival in Germany, the former ARCH ENEMY singer explained how she keeps all three moving.
"For a lot of artists, we have a creative force in us that we need to get out, and it's fun to do it across multiple things," she said. "So for solo project-wise, I'm just me. So everything I'm doing, I guess, is just something that I feel like is fun for me to do or fulfilling artistically, and that's why I do all sorts of collaborations. And then BLUE MEDUSA is my main passion and my main focus. That's where I'm putting all of my energy and all of my attention into every detail, and it's really the band that I've just always wanted to have. And then getting to sing with DRAGONFORCE, who are just amazing legends and super-nice people, super-great musicians, great songs, that's obviously an honor also, and I'm very happy to be doing that. But my main passion and the bulk of my focus is on BLUE MEDUSA."
Asked to draw the line between the two bands musically, she said: "BLUE MEDUSA is really — it's me. That is the music I love. That is who I am. That's what I wanna be doing. That's how I wanna sound. It's what I wanna say. And DRAGONFORCE is so high energy, and that's super important to me as a performer. I like to perform really high-energy music.
"Almost by coincidence, their songs are written really in a very comfortable range for me, really in my Goldilocks zone, so it's a lot of fun to sing their songs. And I feel like I'm able to express a side of my voice that I've been wanting to express for a while. For example, I'm a huge fan of musical theater, and so when I'm singing with DRAGONFORCE, I almost feel like I'm flexing my musical theater voice a little bit, because it's obviously very epic, and it's very challenging vocally, just in the pace and getting the breathing, but it's something that I really want to improve at, and I want to be able to practice. And now I have a reason to."
BLUE MEDUSA features guitarists Alyssa Day (MINDSCAR, ABSENTIA) and Dani Sophia (ex-Till Lindemann), with bassist Alicia Vigil (DRAGONFORCE, VIGIL OF WAR) and drummer Delaney Jaster (STITCHED UP HEART) handling live duties. Two singles have appeared so far: "Checkmate" and "Flying Monkey".
White-Gluz, previously of Canadian extreme metallers THE AGONIST, joined ARCH ENEMY in 2014 as Angela Gossow's replacement and recorded four albums with them — "War Eternal" (2014), "Will To Power" (2017), "Deceivers" (2022) and "Blood Dynasty" (2025). The split was announced in November 2025; the same day she released "The Room Where She Died", the first single from her solo album. Her final ARCH ENEMY show was on November 15, 2025 in Düsseldorf. She made her live debut with DRAGONFORCE on May 9 at Welcome To Rockville in Daytona Beach, Florida.
Source: blabbermouth.net