Took from Mtv.
It's November 20, and Alissa White-Gluz — the comely singer for Canadian metalcore outfit the Agonist — is in a hotel room in the middle of Colorado. The day before, heavy snows crippled the bandmembers' trailer as they tried to make their way through the Rockies.
White-Gluz said the trailer started swerving, and inevitably, dragged their van into a ditch, where they were stuck for hours. The setback forced the Agonist to drop off their tour with Enslaved. White-Gluz is just glad no one was hurt — but the band's gear certainly suffered the brunt of the mishap.
"No one even had a scratch on them, so we're thankful for that," the singer explains. "A blizzard hit, and we were trying to get off the highway, and every exit was snowed in, and we couldn't get off. At this point, we were driving with the hazard [lights] on, going 30 miles an hour, and even at that speed, pulling a trailer was just a deathtrap. The van is fine, but the trailer ended up upside-down, on its nose, and snapped off of the van. Basically, the trailer took the hit for us."
Now, she's sitting around, waiting to find out what the Agonist's next move will be. She kills time talking to Metal File about being a woman in a male-dominated genre; the album the band is in the midst of writing (the eventual follow-up to this year's Once Only Imagined, which is in stores now); and her experience on "Canadian Idol" back in 2006.
"It was a joke that went too far," she explained with a discomfited chuckle. "We'd already signed a deal with Century Media, and I was at school, which was close to where they were holding the auditions. My boyfriend was like, 'Go do it — it will be funny,' and I went and did it. The producers seemed to like me and filmed a lot of footage of me and kept putting me on the show. It got to a certain point where they make everyone sign an exclusivity contract, and so I told them, 'I'm not signing sh--.' I already had a contract, but they wanted me to be on the show. I told them I would if they exempted me from the contract. So, after a two-and-a-half-hour meeting, they decided to keep me in there for an allotted period of time, and then they'd let me go.
"It was funny for me, and it was interesting to be there with so many people who just had to make it; I didn't care at all," continued the staunch vegan, who has been working with PETA to spread her animal-rights beliefs while on the road. "I was kind of thinking, 'Can I expose a bunch of teeny-boppers to metal, so they can see what it's about?' I guess I managed to do that a little bit. I so did not fit on there, so it was just really funny."
Named one of Revolver's Hottest Chicks in Metal in 2007 (let's face it — the talent pool's not that deep), White-Gluz said she wasn't really all that honored by the "distinction," but used it to her advantage. "We should be pointing out people's accomplishments rather than their looks, but if it can promote our band, why not?" she explained. "As a female in metal, I'm going to get ostracized one way or another. So, if I'm going to have people hating me because I'm a female in metal, I might as well get people loving me because I'm a female in metal, too."
White-Gluz also said says she's noticed while on the road that females don't always get the love when they take the stage — she has to counter the resistance by winning over audiences during the Agonist's live sets.
"For some reason, people don't want to see a girl onstage. Whether it's a girl or a guy, if you like the music, who cares?" White-Gluz asked. "From seeing who our true fans are, we've noticed that there are people who latch onto us really hard — they love us, and everything we stand for. Then there are people who absolutely refuse to open their mind to us because they don't want to have anything to do with a modern, female-fronted band. We get both extremes."
And with any luck, the band's next album, which remains untitled, will convince critics the Agonist aren't just another flash-in-the-pan led by a pretty face.
"The songs on our first album, [Once Only Imagined,] we wrote about three years ago, so we've been working on the next one for a little over a year," she said of the follow-up, which they're hoping to have out by September. "The difference between the first record and this next album's our drummer, Simon [McKay]. We have him to work with us on this album; the drummer we had on our first album really just wasn't that good, and he also didn't even really like metal that much. So he was holding us back. Simon, he's an amazing drummer, and he's very into black metal. He's solid behind the kit, but also has feel to his drumming.
"The songs we're working on now," which number around eight, "are a lot more mature. Since I joined this band, I've always been pushing, 'Let's go heavier, darker, faster.' That was hard to do with our old drummer. This next one's going to be a lot heavier, darker and faster, but it will still be catchy enough so that people who don't necessarily like metal may still like it."
Just then, one of the bandmembers knocks on White-Gluz's hotel-room door and pops his head in: "The front desk just called, and they need to know what's going on or else they're going to kick us out. So we're going to get out. Start packing up your stuff."
The door closes, and the interview needs to come to a close. It's been one hell of a week for the Agonist, but White-Gluz takes it all in stride.
"The fun just never stops," she laughed.
Subject: The Agonist Singer Recalls Painful Time On 'Canadian Idol' 
Sun Jan 18, 2009 12:46 pm
