REBEL MEETS REBEL: LAURA NICHOL INTERVIEWS ANGELA GOSSOW

Light This City’s lead screamer goes note for note with Arch Enemy’s leather-throated frontwoman

By Jon Wiederhorn
Illustration by Egrart.com

It’s a few minutes before Light This City singer Laura Nichol picks up the phone to talk to Arch Enemy vocalist Angela Gossow, and she can hardly contain her nervousness. Gossow was one of Nichol’s main inspirations growing up, but that isn’t the main reason for her jitters. Last year, when Revolver put together its “Hottest Women in Metal” issue, Nichol talked about not wanting to be compared to Gossow, and she’s afraid the German-born singer might have taken it the wrong way.

“I love your voice and totally respect what you’re doing as a musician, and people ask me about you all the time,” Nichol explains to Gossow soon after the two connect. “What I meant to say in the article was that I think you and I have completely different voices, and you don’t hear people comparing singers with different voices unless they’re women.”

There’s no need for Nichol to defend herself. “I totally understood that,” Gossow replies in thickly accented English. “I mean, you wouldn’t compare [Carcass singer] Jeff Walker to [Morbid Angel’s] David Vincent, but I get compared all the time to women singers, so I understand your frustration.”

It’s not just their voices that make these two women different from each other. Gossow is 12 years older than Nichol, and she’s reached a higher level of popularity. She’s sung on four records, compared to Nichol’s two, and she’s toured the world numerous times, whereas Light This City have yet to leave North America. But both performers see eye-to-eye about lots of things: their roles as frontwomen, their desire to have children, and the joys and hazards of touring. Gossow is even a Light This City fan.

“The first time I heard of you was in that Revolver issue,” she tells Nichol. “I thought, ‘Oh, that’s cool. Another band that dares to have a female singer in this kind of music.’ I think you sound really good. And you’re really young, so I think you have a good, long run ahead of you.”

With the mutual admiration taken care of, the two begin talking about everything from media exploitation to naked Swedes to drunken misadventures involving lap dances and table handstands.

LAURA NICHOL When I was a kid, I wanted to be a volcanologist. What did you want to be when you were little, and when did you realize you wanted to be a frontwoman?
ANGELA GOSSOW I wanted to be a nurse. I actually worked for a year in a senior home with people who were terminally ill. I never planned to tour the world in a band. Northern European people are small thinkers. I just thought it would be cool to be in a band and get in a van and play three shows over a weekend, but that’s about it.

How did you end up joining Arch Enemy?
I started writing for a metal magazine, and I’d pass our demo tapes to bands I interviewed. I thought, Wow, it would be cool if we could support [those bands] the next time they played here. And that’s how I got the job in Arch Enemy, basically.

Was it a major adjustment for you?
Yes, because I started touring at a late age. I was 26, and before that, I was used to the good German life. You work, you have a good wage, your apartment, and a car. It’s a very common, boring life, but you get used to it, so when you get on tour, it disrupts all your routines. In the beginning, I felt so insecure being out there really far from home.

It took me a while to get used to being on the road. At first, I had panic attacks, but I found out that the touring lifestyle actually helps me because you’re forced to go with the flow and take things as they come.
The good thing about touring is it takes away worries about anything else. Being on the road is all you think about, and you arrange everything around that. That’s good for me because I usually worry a lot about everything. I actually have to stay away from the news as much as possible because I find it too upsetting. So touring is like therapy. I’m there to make sure people have a good time. They might have a total shit life. They might be abused and have lots of problems, but you can make them happy for one night. And that’s cool.

Are there any messages you have for fans?
I meet a lot of women who are just like I was. They’re insecure, they cut themselves, they don’t eat, they overeat. Whatever. I always tell them, “You think I’m so cool right now, but I was just like you.” So there’s hope, you know?

Some of my best tour stories are about the really gross houses we’ve stayed at. Can you describe the most disgusting places you’ve seen on tour?
We played a place that had a shower in the basement that was just a big hole covered in mold. I hadn’t showered for three days, so I went in and the water comes out, and it’s warm and I’m happy. Then I look up at the ceiling and it’s covered black with cockroaches, and they start to fall. I usually take an hour in the bathroom, but I got dressed in 10 seconds.

We haven’t done a bus tour yet. Mostly, we stay at our friends’ houses. Recently, we were in L.A. at a fan’s house, and as soon as the door was opened, there was this stench of smoke and cat piss and garbage. There were three-day-old dog turds on the carpet, and the mom of the house had a black eye. I just got the hell out of there.
How do people live like that? I would just want to kill myself. That rat hole would be my home and that would be my life with the black eye? I would probably start killing other people. Staying with fans is dangerous. You can get raped and strangled and wake up dead.

You guys get to avoid that because you stay on the bus.
The problem with the bus is it’s so expensive, you can’t afford a day room anymore. And that means a lot of the time, we can’t shower. Being a woman in a band is tough because you try to maintain your voice, and that’s one thing. But you also try to maintain your looks a bit. People want you to be that hot chick from that band. And it’s like, “Well, right now I’m not really hot. I’m sweaty and greasy.” Sometimes I wish was a guy because nobody cares how they look.

Totally. In the metal scene, women are portrayed differently, and there’s a different kind of expectation. What do you think the feminine ideal is in the metal scene?
I think every woman’s different and has the right to be. A lot of times it’s not the woman who wants to portray herself as the sex object or the gimmick. But the media wants that, and they ask you all these funny questions that don’t have anything to do with the band. I’ve been approached so many times by editors who go, “Yeah, we want you for an exclusive feature, and we really want to talk about your sex life.” And I’m like, “Okay. No, thank you.” And guess what? They don’t do a story at all.

Oh, man, that sucks.
The media pushes you into that position if you’re female. They say, “Yeah, we want some hot pictures of you. We’re running the Hottest Women of the Year issue, like Revolver did last year. And I have to say, I didn’t want to be in that because I thought it was the wrong idea for me. And they put a picture of me in there anyway with some quote. I’m sure the guy [who did the story] is listening right now. I know that you were in there as well.

Yeah, I thought it would be cool to have some fun with it. People might have thought I was using it as a gimmick, but I wore my Carcass shirt and I saw it for what it was.
That’s cool, and for women who choose to be a sex symbol, it’s totally fine because I think that’s what makes a strong woman. A strong woman has a choice, and if she wants to put her tits out and show her ass, so be it. But if she gets pushed into it, that’s when she loses her choice and gets degraded. I have pictures where I’m standing there with military pants, big boots, and a Morbid Angel T-shirt. And that should be seen as being as cool as me standing there in high heels and really tight pants. Nobody has the right to judge me. I’m not a feminist; I’m just a woman who does what she wants. And the guys in my band can take their shirts off every night, and nobody thinks they’re selling their bodies. Give me a break. But one thing is the way you look, and the other thing is what you actually do as a musician. And I think [it’s that latter] that’s much more important.

Do you think the fact that you took [male singer] Johan Liiva’s place in the band affected your choices or changed the group?
I didn’t feel any pressure, vocally. But I really wanted to be female. And being feminine doesn’t mean being demure. Women can be extremely aggressive, and I just wanted to bring that sort of female aggression into the band. A lot of older fans couldn’t really take it because they were so used to the old formula of some guy singing, and the music took on a different vibe as soon as I joined.

My actual singing voice sucks, which is why I scream. But a lot of women metal singers have these beautiful voices.
I’m the same way, so I had to promise the guys I would never try to sing onstage. But I think metal has to be aggressive. And the bands that have a female vocalist with no edge are not real metal for me. It just sounds cute. If I want cute music, I’ll listen to Kate Bush.

You’ve said that you want to eventually settle down and have a family, and that’s definitely a dream of mine. How do see that affecting your music career?
The guys in the band have children, and it’s only possible because they have women sitting at home with the children. I think if you’re a woman in a band and you have a kid, it means you tour very little. And that means I’m going to be a very old mother because I want to tour for a long time. But I do want to have kids. I think people get really egocentric and boring when they’re old and don’t have children. They’ve just been thinking about themselves for their whole life.

I can’t imagine not touring, but I want to have kids, too. I have these two parts of me that are totally contradictory. I love touring in this band, but I’m really family oriented.
Yes, I have three siblings. I’m used to a lot of kids, basically. But how old are you now?

I’m 20.
Twenty! Look, you have lots of time. You don’t even have to think about that now. I’m 12 years older than you. My clock is ticking. Every time my mother sees me, she says, “Tick tock.” But I think with most people, it just happens. One day, the condom gets lost, and you’re just pregnant and you have to fucking deal with it. And it’s usually, when the condom falls off, he had a really small dick, and you don’t really want to get stuck with this guy for the rest of your life.

Oh, man. I’m totally blushing right now. [Nervous giggle. Long pause.] Ummm, what do you do to wind down from touring when you’re home?
Within 24 hours, I’m the old Angela who takes care of other people and washes clothes and cooks food and gets updated by her mom about everybody else’s life. I don’t know what people mean when they say “winding down.” There’s life on the road, but there’s life at home as well, and you want to live both as long as you can. It’s good to wind down when you’re really old. I’ve got plenty of time for that.

Even though you’re from Germany, Arch Enemy is seen as a Swedish band. And my band has been hugely influenced by bands from Gothenburg. How do you feel about the scene there now compared to the golden age with bands like In Flames, At the Gates, and Dark Tranquillity?
Some of the bands there have changed musically, but some of them are the same. But mentally, nobody has changed. They’re very friendly, very Swedish, very calm. I like to give them a big-ass drink, and then they get totally crazy. They usually like to get naked after a few drinks and slap their asses in public. I don’t know what this is about, but I’ve seen it so many times.

I grew up in San Francisco, so Testament, Exodus, and Metallica have all rubbed off on my musical tastes. How did your culture and where you grew up affect you musically?
I’m totally into Kreator, Sodom, and Destruction. That’s where I come from. That’s the part of Germany where I grew up. I love the really good German thrash metal, like [Kreator’s] Pleasure to Kill. [Sings] “It’s time to raise the flag of hate!” The big thick German accent. That’s really important in this music.

We just went to [Vinnie Paul’s strip club] the Clubhouse in Dallas and all the guys on tour bought me a couple lap dances. It was just a crazy, fun time. Do you party it up with your bandmates also?
I’m not allowed to party anymore because when I’m really drunk, I do things I wouldn’t normally do, and the next day people are putting videos on MySpace of me doing handstands on the table in a short skirt, and I don’t even know if I had panties on. Drinking brings out the evil Angela. On the Jägermeister tour, [Slayer’s] Kerry King and [Hatebreed’s] Jamey Jasta were chasing me with Jäger every day because they’d heard about me and wanted to see that. And they saw it once or twice and were pretty shocked. Also, when I drink, it fucks me up the next day and I can’t perform properly.

I agree. Once in a while, it’s fun, but it’s hard playing with a hangover.
We did Gigantour, and our guitar player Fredrik Åkesson got so drunk he passed out behind Megadeth’s tour bus. If nobody had found him, they would have backed right over him. So drinking too much can actually be dangerous. You must always be able to walk. That’s the rule in our band. If you can’t walk anymore, get in your bunk and shut the fuck up.