Former Arch Enemy and current DragonForce and Blue Medusa vocalist Alissa White-Gluz recently admitted that not believing in the afterlife makes her terrified of death, sharing her thoughts during an appearance on The Downbeat Podcast.
During the interview, White-Gluz discussed her fear of death, which she referred to as thanatophobia, and expressed her hopes for how the final moments of life feel.
“Death. I’m terrified of death. Yeah. Thanatophobia, I think it’s called,” White-Gluz said. “I mean, I hope that our brains function in a way where you do have, like, this release of endorphins or whatever that causes euphoria right before you go, so that you can go… I hope it’s like — you know when you’re starting to fall asleep and you’re so tired and you just get that nice feeling where you’re, like, ‘Ah, I’m falling asleep. This is great’. I hope it’s that.”
She went on to explain that the uncertainty of death and the realization that she will eventually have to stop experiencing life and learning new things is deeply unsettling to her.
“The thing is we don’t know what it is,” she continued. “And also I like to do stuff and learn stuff and meet people and experience things, and I don’t wanna stop doing that. And so it bums me out that I will stop doing that at some point.”
White-Gluz also opened up about her lack of belief in any form of afterlife, noting that while believing in something might offer comfort, she cannot find logic in it.
“No, unfortunately I don’t believe in anything after death,” she added. “I wish I did, but none of it makes sense to me… If I believed in something, then it would be cooler. Then I’d be, like, ‘All right, well, I’m just going on to the next phase.’ But, unfortunately for me, I really believe that it’s just that’s it.”
She concluded by sharing her view of human and animal existence as purely physical and biological processes, which cease entirely once the body stops functioning.
“I think we are a functional body of blood and flesh and electrical impulses and nerve endings, and I think we’re amazing,” she said. “I think all animals are amazing. That’s why I respect them so much. But I do think that everything that’s happening in our brains that makes us have personalities and experience the world, these are things that are happening on the basis that this physical mass of tissue and this all continues to function the way that it’s supposed to. And if it stops, I think all of that goes with it, unfortunately.”
The comments arrive at a busy point in White-Gluz’s career, and her reflections on mortality fit a pattern of blunt, personal honesty that has followed her through more than a decade in metal’s biggest bands.
White-Gluz joined Arch Enemy in 2014 and served as the band’s frontwoman until the group announced her departure on November 23, 2025, ending a run of more than a decade. She announced the formation of Blue Medusa, a project featuring guitarists Alyssa Day and Dani Sophia, on March 8, 2026, and officially joined DragonForce as a co-vocalist on May 6, 2026.
White-Gluz left Arch Enemy to focus on her solo career, while Blue Medusa was formally introduced in March 2026 as an all-female metal project. The report also notes that her DragonForce arrival marked a new phase for the vocalist after her departure from the Swedish melodic death metal outfit.
