Rachel Roberts - Journalist

Photo by Donatello Trisolino on Pexels

My Work

Featured Articles

Explore a featured selection of my writing work below. To take a look at my news stories (rather than features) across Guitar.com and MusicTech please see the news writing tabs on the side bar.

Kerrang! •

From Kurt Cobain to Wes Craven: The icons who inspired Ice Nine…

“Kevin created not just a music festival with Warped Tour, but a cultural movement. [I was always] excited to go to Warped every year, and Kevin gave Ice Nine Kills our shot when we were nobody. The first one I attended was probably in ’99 or 2000, and it was the first time I had seen so many punk bands that I loved in the same place. I would go with my buddy Andrew, and we would sneak backstage and hand out demos. I remember getting thrown out by, I think, Pennywise’s tour manager…”“He’s one of...
Kerrang! •

Witch Fever: “If our mere presence is pissing people off that much,…

“We had a comment before we started this tour asking if we were related to someone in Volbeat and that’s how we got the slot,” sighs Witch Fever vocalist Amy Walpole, near laughing at the sheer absurdity. “The singer of Volbeat isn’t my dad – that’s not why we’re here!”
The Mancunian four-piece – completed by bassist Alex Thompson, guitarist Alisha Yarwood and drummer Annabelle Joyce – are all smiles today meeting K!, squished on a sofa backstage at the 3Arena in Stockholm, Sweden amid their len...
Kerrang! •

VENUS GRRRLS: “We’ve not had a conventional journey… We’re all just…

As artists, VENUS GRRRLS want their music to stand for something. Their slogan – ‘grrrl as fuck’ – harks back to the riot grrrl movement of the ’90s. Fittingly, Venus is also the only planet named after a female god; it’s an entity that does things differently.

“It’s an attitude,” states GK. “It’s always a bit of a fine line we’ve wanted to walk with this, because ‘girls in alternative music’ is not a genre, and that’s a question we’ve come up against during our time as a band.
“That’s not the...
Kerrang! •

Delilah Bon: “The problem isn’t young girls wanting to be a princess……

You brought along Becky Baldwin from your band Hands off Gretel. What was it like to reconnect with her and share a stage together again?“I needed a bass player I knew would be able to learn the songs quickly. Becky was perfect. It’s so nice for me to be able to give her a crowd that’s like the crowd we needed with Hands Off Gretel. Becky is very rock, her style is very metal. As we did more shows, she was saying that she was finding it quite difficult to shake her ass and play bass at the same...
Kerrang! •

The Paradox: “Billie Joe messaged us, ‘How would you guys like to…

Hanging out with The Paradox is like stepping into a time machine. Frontman Eric Dangerfield has a Game Boy Color in-hand, and drummer Percy ‘PC3’ Crews is excitedly telling us what it’s like to work with blink-182’s Travis Barker.
The Atlanta pop-punk crew – completed by Donald Bryant on bass and guitarist Christopher ‘Xelan’ Bernard – recently teamed up with Travis on sugar-rush party anthem, Bender. Practically dripping in ’00s pop-punk sunshine, it thunders with an attitude similar to prime...
Kerrang! •

Pinkshift: “Love is rage, because when you love something, you fight…

“Our frontal lobes have developed!” chuckles Pinkshift vocalist and guitarist Ashrita Kumar, as they look back on all that has changed between the band’s 2022 shiny debut, Love Me Forever, and their brand-new beast, Earthkeeper.
Ashrita, fellow guitarist Paul Vallejo, and drummer Myron Houngbedji were the plucky new kids on the block when Love Me Forever dropped; it was a firecracker of a record that felt wound up and tense, sparkling with pop-punk energy as it tore into the anxieties of trying...
Kerrang! •

Album review: Nova Twins – Parasites & Butterflies

Life has felt starkly contrasted for Nova Twins of late. Both within the band and their lives around it, there have been soaring highs, and challenging lows. While 2020’s Who Are The Girls? debut was an introduction to the two and 2022’s Supernova was a celebration of their power, Parasites & Butterflies is a pause for reflection that looks at the juggle of success and pressure.
The skill and musical innovation of Nova Twins is outstanding, and arguably not discussed enough. On their third stud...
Kerrang! •

Hevenshe: “My fans are my team. They are my investors and my…

“There is a real collective exhale at a Hevenshe show,” says Jenna McDougall, creative force behind the ‘life-affirming femme rock’ project and Tonight Alive vocalist, as she cradles a restless pooch in her lap.
“I’m just starting to properly gauge what my audience feels like to me and what we’re sharing at my shows compared to Tonight Alive,” she adds. “There are a lot of similar people, so it doesn’t differ hugely except there’s no moshing or screaming for your life!”
Off the back of a headlin...
Guitar.com | All Things Guitar •

Here’s how to build your own version of Noel Gallagher’s touring pedalboard – without rock star money

Earlier this July, Noel Gallagher presented possibly the greatest gift to any Oasis gear-obsessive: a complete photograph of his entire pedalboard for the band’s Live ‘25 reunion shows, and even a shot of his amp set up too.The band are currently amid the first leg of the global tour, which kicked off in Cardiff on 4 July and marked their first live performance together since their infamous split in 2009. With both Gallagher brothers in good spirits and bucket hats back in fashion, now is the pe...
Kerrang! •

Album review: YUNGBLUD – Idols

When YUNGBLUD announced that he’d be making a double album, it was pretty easy to envision it being something completely loud, unruly, and bold. Idols is his fourth studio album after all, and we know what Dom Harrison is all about by now. Or so we thought. Opening with a nine-minute rock odyssey is certainly one way to say, “I am not fucking about”, and as he describes it himself, Idols is a “love letter to life; in all it’s fucking madness". It certainly shows.
His most ambitious release to d...
Kerrang! •

Interviews with Teen Mortgage and PVRIS in Kerrang! summer issue

This summer’s mega Download features not one, not two, but three first-time headliners: there’s the unbelievable ascent of Sleep Token, nu-metal kings Korn getting their moment, and of course, festival and stadium-conquering legends Green Day.
Ahead of their massive return to the UK, we catch up with frontman Billie Joe Armstrong about the past 18 months on their phenomenal Saviors era, as well as recent achievements like ruling Coachella and getting their Walk Of Fame star. And it’s safe to say...
Kerrang! •

Neck Deep: “We’re lucky to be here, so it’s just being aware of that…

“We’ve spent a lot of time over the years trying to be the best that we can be,” says Ben Barlow. “That’s definitely important, but sometimes beauty is in that imperfection.”
“I think that maybe Neck Deep isn’t supposed to be perfect.”
The last time the Wrexham pop-punk giants’ frontman spoke to Kerrang!, he told us that being in Neck Deep had never felt easier. Still the case a year on, as the band – Ben, guitarists Matt West and Sam Bowden, bassist Seb Barlow and drummer Matt Powles – kick off...
Kerrang! •

“We knew we were going to have to do this the risky way”: The…

“There’s a saying in Spanish that my mom always tells me: ‘You haven’t swum the whole ocean to die at the shore,’” begins Calva Louise vocalist, guitarist and keyboardist Jess Allanic. She’s nestled on a couch alongside bassist Alizon Taho and drummer Ben Parker, the three of them positioned among a jungle of cables as preparation for their next run of live shows is underway.
The trio are in cheery spirits because, after all, this is what they dreamed of, and making their way to it was at many t...
Kerrang! •

PVRIS: “Art makes people happy, and it’s a connecting tool, and it…

When the 10th anniversary of PVRIS’ White Noise came around in November last year, Lyndsey Gunnulfsen was met with feelings of discomfort. The debut album for the band – these days solely led by Lyndsey, though she had been its prime creative force since day dot – holds up as one of the most treasured alternative records of the 2010s. And yet, there was something about revisiting it that did not feel good to its creator.
“I kept feeling this kind of resistance. Initially, I chalked it up to want...
Kerrang! •

The big review: Glastonbury 2025

Well, we certainly got our steps in at Glastonbury this year, navigating the country's largest festival in the glorious sunshine to find the latest and greatest to grace the Somerset weekender – from Weezer to Biffy Clyro, and Turnstile to Amyl And The Sniffers, it's a veritable parade of K! favourites.
So come with us as we slap on the factor 50 and sprint across the healing fields to find the heaviest, hottest bands that Worthy Farm has to offer…The lower the bassist's guitar strap, the more t...
Kerrang! •

“The bigger your heart is, it’s a superpower”: How De’Wayne took the…

june heavily explores the ‘divine feminine’. What does it mean to you?“I hope that I have the right vocabulary to speak on it being a man, but I’ve been inspired by all of the women that have come into my life. I was raised by women – my grandmothers, my aunties, my mom. I feel like we come from the woman spirit. That’s why, especially as a man, we’re doing everything to get back to them – if it’s being talented or cute, or trying to have a nice car or a nice home. I think the divine feminine pe...
Kerrang! •

Hot Milk: “Why shouldn’t we make England the home of music again?”

In England, the solution to a chaotic day tends to be the pub. And so it is for Hot Milk’s dual vocalists and guitarists Han Mee and Jim Shaw, who are currently running three hours behind schedule for their gig in Brighton this evening, marking the end of a series of intimate shows.
Of course, it's not a Hot Milk tour unless something goes wrong, and today they're dealing with all the fun and games of a tyre blow-out, and having to unload all of their gear at the roadside for it to be repaired i...
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