Metal maiden
By KEVIN MAIMANN, Edmonton Sun

http://www.edmontonsun.com/entertainment/music/2010/07/08/14650471.html

Brittany Paige’s petite stature and blonde locks hardly scream heavy metal; but that’s exactly what she does best.

The Kobra and the Lotus frontwoman has more vocal muscle than just about any man in the scene, and she has to prove it every night.

“On this tour, almost 80% of the venues that we’ve walked into, the people have asked me, ‘So, are you the merch girl for Kobra and the Lotus?’ ” Paige says.

“I got so sick of it that I just started playing along and then I’d just be like, ‘Yeah, I’m his girlfriend. Yeah, I’m the merch girl.’ ”

With a laugh, she adds, “And then we’d go up and play and I’d sing.”

Calgary’s up-and-coming metal sensations are in town for this weekend’s inaugural SOS Fest, playing Wooly Bully’s Pub, 8230 Gateway Blvd., Saturday night.

A classically trained vocalist, Paige snarls like Dave Mustaine and wails like Ronnie James Dio, taking many metalheads by surprise when she performs.

She says fans’ and promoters’ preconceptions can be frustrating, but after a year and a half, she’s gotten used to it.

“The really weird thing is that most people know what they’re getting — they know that they have booked a female-fronted metal band to play — so it’s funny how it just doesn’t click when I come with the band,” she says.

“I’ve also gotten, ‘Do you wear a headset?’ And I’m like, ‘This is a heavy metal band, man.’ ”

Frustrations aside, her looks have also helped the band get noticed in ways no male singer could.

She was selected as the February 2010 pin-up girl for esteemed U.K. magazine Metal Hammer’s Metal Maidens calendar, when the band was only six months old.

“Oh my God, I was actually pretty flabbergasted,” Paige says with a laugh.

“It was just something that I couldn’t believe. But we had to jump on the opportunity because it was a great way to have exposure. I believe I’m the only Canadian in there too, which I thought was really rad.”

Not that the band can’t get anywhere on its musical merits.

The quintet’s well-crafted songs incorporate diverse influences while remaining rooted in the school of Iron Maiden and Judas Priest.

Its full-length debut Out of the Pit has received international distribution, while its video for the track Cynical Wasteland is getting airtime on Much Music.

This fall, Kobra and the Lotus will make its second trip to Europe, which will include a gig at the Hard Rock Hell Festival in the U.K., after wrapping up an extensive Canadian trek and spending some time in the studio.

“It’s definitely overwhelming, that’s for sure. I feel like we have so much stuff to do but we’re having a tough time keeping up,” Paige says. “It’s definitely been a lot to take in.”

Her penetrating vocals are also drawing increasingly more women to the band’s shows, a welcome change for typically testosterone-driven metal crowds.

“We have a lot of women that really take to the band. And we’ve really noticed it on this Canadian tour,” she says.

“I’m finding that it actually does appeal to girls just as much as men almost.”

An ’80s metal junkie, Paige is convinced the harder she works with Kobra and the Lotus, the more people’s perceptions will change on female headbangers.

“In the end I just go up and do my thing and it doesn’t matter,” she says. “Because afterwards, if they liked it, they’ll never, ever judge a book by its cover again.”