Travis Roberts New Release & Tour
May 31 - December 11
Travis Roberts has signed to New West Records and will release his debut album, Rebel Rose, on August 1, 2025. The 10-song set was produced by Dalton Domino, PH Naffah (The Refreshments), and Jeff Lusby-Breault (Mercy Fall).
Roberts and his longtime band, The Willing Few, tackled the majority of the album live in the studio, bottling the fierce energy of their live set into taut, electrifying takes. Roberts comes out swinging on his blistering debut, with Rebel Rose blurring the lines between roots, punk, folk, and power pop, fusing earnest country storytelling with rowdy rock and roll energy. The writing is raw and visceral, built on gritty portraits of working-class underdogs trying to get by, and the performances are nothing short of explosive, propelled by infectious hooks and searing guitars. Rebel Rose is an exhilarating collection that defies easy categorization, an alternately bruising and triumphant reflection on growing up, getting clean, and giving it your all from an artist who’s taken more than his fair share of hits.
Rolling Stone premiered the anthemic first single and lead off track, “Bellmarie,” saying “Travis Roberts is emphasizing the ‘alt’ in alt-country. On his debut album, Rebel Rose…the Amarillo, Texas, songwriter channels the punk sounds of Jimmy Eat World, the power-pop of Gin Blossoms, and the grit of the album that changed his life, Steve Earle’s Copperhead Road.” Roberts says, “’Bellmarie’ is a song about an old coworker and a dear friend of mine. She’s super into all the ‘stars determine your fate,’ and I could never really get into that. When she started dating this dude and found out his ‘birth sign,’ things didn’t end out too well. I guess she’s happy now. I don’t know.” He adds, “My musical influences have changed a bit since we first cut this thing, but there are some that have stuck around that bleed all over the record. I dig a lot of roots rock and nostalgic Americana stuff like Bruce Springsteen (God, I love the telecaster), The Byrds, Bob Dylan, and the Dead, but I’ve never been able to kill the emo kid in me that listened to Dropkick Murphys, Jimmy Eat World, The Wonder Years, and The Front Bottoms either. Mix those together and add a bit of West Texas trauma, and you get my record.”
At 24, the Amarillo, TX-based songwriter has already battled addiction, buried friends, and been so broke he couldn’t put a roof over his head. He even joined an underground fight club just to pay for studio time. “Whoever won the fights took home the lion’s share of the money,” he explains, “but even if you lost, you made something. I lost a lot, but I got what I needed out of it.”
Born into a military family stationed in South Korea, Roberts moved frequently as a child before eventually landing in Amarillo, TX. On Sundays, he sang hymns in church, and the rest of the week, he listened to George Strait, Waylon Jennings, and whatever country music he could find on the radio. When his parents split up, he learned to play guitar and had his first brushes with punk, which utterly captivated him. “After that, I remember visiting my mom and she had a copy of Steve Earle’s Copperhead Road in the car,” Roberts recalls. “I couldn’t believe it. It was the perfect blend of everything I loved, and suddenly I realized there were other people out there who cared about the same things I cared about.”
Roberts began running into more and more trouble. He started drinking and using drugs, his grades started to deteriorate, and soon his personal life was spiraling out of control. He drifted in and out of twelve step programs. “My family saw that I was going off the rails and they finally had to have an intervention,” he explains. “I went to a treatment center in Houston, and that’s where I started to get my feet underneath me a little bit.” He had been writing songs and performing regularly in local bars up to that point, which made breaking the link between music and alcohol more difficult—and more rewarding—than he’d ever expected. “I didn’t know how to be a musician without getting loaded,” he reflects. “They had a guitar in the treatment center, though, and when I started picking it up, that’s when I really learned how to write the kind of songs I’d always wanted to write.”
Newly sober without a cent to his name, Roberts moved in with his grandmother, who gave him a place to stay while he picked up the pieces of his life. He took work painting houses and restoring old furniture until he could afford a place of his own. It was about this time that he began fighting on the side in order to earn enough money to record his songs, which had caught the attention of fellow Texas artist Dalton Domino, who stepped in to help mentor him and brought Roberts to the attention of New West Records.
“Everybody thinks they want to be a badass,” he muses, “but it takes clarity to know that the badass thing is showing up to your 9 to 5 without having to put on cheap body spray to mask the smell of the night before. Badass is being there for your kids. Badass is hugging your dad. It’s not saying, ‘Fuck everything.’ It’s saying, ‘Fuck the things that don’t matter,’ and then standing up for the things that do.”
Every fighter knows, it doesn’t matter how many times you get knocked down. All that matters is how many times you get back up.
Travis Roberts’ Rebel Rose will be available across digital retailers, compact disc, and red “rose” color vinyl. Rebel Rose is available for pre-order NOW via NEW WEST RECORDS.
Rebel Rose Track Listing:
1. Bellmarie
2. Ink Ain’t Dry
3. Kudzu
4. Rebel Rose
5. Arapahoe
6. Minefields
7. Hereford Blues
8. I’ve Got Reasons
9. All My Friends
10. Fake Magnolias
Travis Roberts Live:
May 31 – Amarillo, TX – Golden Light Cantina (Acoustic w/ Aiden Logsdon & Tristan Graves)
June 27 – Lubbock, TX – Cottonfest(Cooks Garage)
July 4 – Turkey, TX – Hotel Turkey
July 5 – Amarillo, TX – Goldenlight Cantina
July 18 – New Braunfels, TX – Cowboys & Cadillacs
July 19 – San Marcos, TX – Cheatham Street Warehouse
August 1 – Nashville, TX – Chiefs on Broadway
August 29 – Abilene, TX – The Big Country Beer Garden
August 30 – Brownwood, TX – Pioneer Taphouse
December 11 – Lubbock, TX – Bluelight live