Robyn Challands is doing her part to spread her love for hardcore music across Australia and beyond. The UK native is entrenched in the Aussie hardcore community, recently getting back from an extensive European trek working as a tour manager for Terminal Sleep.
Now that she's back home, Robyn can get back to her duties producing and hosting No Barriers, a hardcore punk radio show that airs Thursday night/Friday morning at 2am–6am AEST on 106.7fm (Melbourne) or pbsfm.org.au (on demand as well). With PBS' wide reach, there's no doubt the show has helped expose new listeners to hardcore through Robyn's eclectic playlists and insight.
When she's not on the air, Robyn fronts TIMEPEACE, a hardcore outfit that also features members of such bands as Hacker, Terminal Sleep, and Bright Sun. So yeah, homegirl is busy!
It was a pleasure getting to know Robyn for this No Echo interview.
Tell me about your entry and introduction to hardcore music. Was it a specific band/record that got you intrigued enough to start the journey, or did someone you know guide you through it early on?
It was actually my boyfriend at the time that put me onto hardcore music (as much as I hate to admit that!). This was around 2005, and a lot of my listening centered around metal/metalcore of that era (e.g. Bleeding Through, The Black Dahlia Murder, The Bled, Every Time I Die, Suicide Silence, etc.). I’d heard bands like Hatebreed, Terror, Converge.. but never really made the connection to a different genre until then.
When we started dating he was always playing bands like Down to Nothing, Internal Affairs, Modern Life Is War, Outbreak, Deal With It, and wearing much cooler merch than me (I still have the sickest Outbreak ‘We’re Fucked’ hoodie of his, [laughs] sorry!). It didn’t take long before I was completely obsessed, going to as many local shows as I could, travelling up and down the UK by any means possible or across to Europe for festivals.
Hardcore was music I could feel on a different level and while I can’t remember what my first show was, I remember just being instantly captivated by the energy of it. And over the last 20 years it’s never really stopped being a key part of my life.
READ MORE: Bo Lueders (Harm’s Way, HardLore podcast) Discusses His Journey in the Hardcore Community
What were some of the Australian bands that had an impact on you during that time?
I’m originally from the UK, so there were only a handful of Australian hardcore bands that came to our shores that I was aware of before I moved here: Carpathian, Miles Away, Break Even, 50 Lions, Parkway. The only band I saw live before I moved to Aus was Carpathian during their Nothing to Lose era (my favourite album of theirs) and early Isolation era.
It wasn’t until I moved to Melbourne about 12 years ago when I became more aware of (and subsequently, fully immersed in and obsessed with) the Australian hardcore scene – hearing more bands from that era and that iconic early '00s AU Hardcore sound that Carpathian captured so well. And then of course seeing it evolve into the thriving scene it is today.
That takes us to No Barriers. Did you reach out to PBSfm with a pitch, or is there another origin story there? For someone who hasn't heard it before, how would you describe it?
I thrive when I have a project (or 10) I can direct my creative energy into outside of the job that pays the bills. When I was at university, I used to produce and host a weekly hardcore radio show and have had starting something up again on the back of my mind for a while. I'd been looking somewhere to channel my love/passion for a genre I've been completely obsessed with for 20+ years, that had been reignited since moving to Aus and getting more involved in the local scene.
A friend put me on to the announcer training course PBSfm runs and I spent a few months dusting off the cobwebs training at PBS and filling in on other people's shows. It wasn’t long before regular time slot opened up in the programming and so did the opportunity to pitch No Barriers as a standalone show. Luckily, the pitch was successful and so here we are!
For those new to the show: No Barriers is a fortnightly, live radio show playing the very best in hardcore from across Australia and around the world. From the latest releases to genre-defining albums and deep cuts, spanning beatdown, Youth Crew, melodic hardcore, crossover, and everything in between.
It’s four hours of diving deep into hardcore’s ever evolving sound and interviewing the bands that make it. No Barriers is for everyone, whether you want to revisit old favourites or discover your next obsession, you're new to the scene or have been around the traps for a while.
Naturally, I place a keen focus on the Australian scene, but each show I’m also pulling in great music from all corners of the globe, no matter how big or small. Each show is pretty varied, but every now and then I will theme a show if the mood takes me (I recently just did a best of '80s-'00s which was the most fun four hours ever!) or hone in a particular sub-genre or region.
The show is live every Thursday night/Friday morning at 2am–6am AEST (which, for other timezones, is at a much more normal hour [laughs]) on 106.7fm (Melbourne) or pbsfm.org.au. Every show is also available to catch up on demand at www.pbsfm.org.au/program/no-barriers.
What else do you have cooking outside of the show?
I do vocals in TIMEPEACE with my dear friends Meg, Dustin, Allan, and Charlie. We started up late 2024 and have spent the first half of this year playing a tonne of very fun shows. It’s my first ever hardcore band (at the ripe old age of 30-something) and it’s been just the most fun ever.
Sonically, we take a lot of inspiration from late '80s/early '90s NYHC bands like Burn, Underdog, Undertow, Leeway. I also get a lot of vocal/lyrical inspiration from bands like Initiate, Pest Control, xnorightx, False Reality and Gravitate. We just recorded our EP so check us out on Instagram @timepeaceworld and keep your eyes peeled for that coming later this year!
As I said, I like to have 100 things on the go at one time, so currently cooking up a few more projects to keep me busy on top of that too.
What are some current Aussie bands people should be paying attention to right now?
[Laughs] Oh man, how much time do you have? Australian hardcore is sooo exciting right now. Some bands I’m loving at the minute, in no particular order:
Speed (of course). The Chain. Iron Mind. Homesick. Knuckledragger. Half Man. Terminal Sleep. Mud. Thantu Thika. Skurge. Skorn. Time Ends. Volatile Ways. Concrete Bomb. Horsepower. World of Joy. Extortion. Wetwork. Histamine. Primitive Blast. Gravitate. Goethe. Secret World. Forewarned. No Apologies. Feel the Pain. Dizdain. Best Believe. The Others. Culture Shock. Dance. Bozo. Twist of Fate. Blood On My Hands. Chrome Cage. Desire. Death Tax. Grave Risk. Identity Error. Gutta. Pleasers A.D. Tarnished. Blood Oath.
Also shout to Last Ride Records, Burning Hammer Records, Life.Lair.Regret. Records, B.I.G. Records and Kingpin Records too.
That is in no way a complete list (please forgive me any bands I’ve missed off!), but a great starting point for anyone wanting to check out more AUHC.
Thanks for the chat, Carlos!
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No Barriers: PBSfm program page | Instagram
TIMEPEACE: Instagram
Tagged: timepeace
