Alien Blaze

AlienBlaze is a 20-year-old artist from the UK with a decisively genre-fluid back catalogue, embodying a blend of dark alternative pop, grunge, and emo. Her journey to becoming an artist began at a young age. Due to an illness at 13, she missed almost three years of school, during which she delved into music, learning guitar on her old Gibson U2, a journey that evolved from countless hours of practising to writing her own songs, recording demos, and teaching herself to sing. Her first tracks uploaded to Spotify in 2019 quickly found a global audience, with even Oli Sykes of Bring Me The Horizon posting about her track Hate Me.

Both immersed in her subculture and deeply in touch with the wider history of music, AlienBlaze reflects “I’ve read so many books to really learn my craft, everything from every genre, which is why I consider my music genre-fluid because I take inspiration from everywhere.” (Kerrang, 2023) In keeping with her image as renaissance woman of rock, she has a hand in composing and producing all of her work; every track running on front-to-back on pure rock’n’roll intuition. Having played both the Download and Great Escape festivals this past year, she looks ahead to big things in 2024.

Congrats on featuring at Download Festival! The journey there notwithstanding, can you share a favourite memory from your time there?

My favourite memory has to be (having been whisked through to the stage as the first artist arriving at the festival due to the traffic delays), to then see all the crowd packed in and waiting patiently in the boiling heat for me to play. They were so supportive and started cheering the minute they saw me appear side of stage. It was a great experience! I believe I was the first artist to play the first day of the festival, so technically you could say, I opened the 20th anniversary of Download Fest!

Your sound is instantly recognizable for the energy and projection you put behind your vocals. How does it feel to push your voice like this in a live setting?

I've always been able to push my voice because it's naturally very loud (not quite sure why)! I've always looked for inspiration to very strong vocalists both male and female, such as Stevie Nicks and Connor from Nothing But Thieves etc as I find my vocal range similar to theirs. I find a live setting is the best place to project my voice because of the energy and atmosphere created at shows, which is obviously a different experience to that of recording sessions.

As well as a vocalist you’re also an avid guitar player. When and why did you first pick up the guitar? Who were your main musical influences starting out?

I actually started playing guitar before I started singing! My original interest was to become a lead guitarist in a band. I first picked up the guitar at 14 because I was very unwell at that age and couldn't leave the house for ages. I learnt to play on my mum's guitar which is a Gibson U2 and spent a lot of time practicing and copying my guitar heroes like Jerry Cantrell from Alice In Chains.

What can fans expect from your upcoming TRAX feature? Can you share a little more about your zine?

I decided to put together a zine because I wanted to reflect the culture that has inspired me, through not just music, but fashion, art and books. Zines have been used by music movements throughout the decades and I wanted to bring my take to that in my own way. Specifically, I wanted to appeal to my own age group, and offer an insight into behind the scenes of the 'scene' direct from myself and other artists.

What’s up next for Alien Blaze?

I'm playing a show supporting my label mates Starbenders in London at Boston Music Rooms, which will be a lot of fun because we're good friends! I'm also planning my own headline show for next year which I'm really looking forward to... more on that soon! I'll be releasing new music in due course too as I have been working in the studio with loads of amazing producers and artists.