Metal Hammer
Who is she?!
Metal Hammer is a monthly heavy metal music magazine, published in the UK by Future. It was established in 1983 and has become “the world's biggest alternative music media brand.”
How it started
After writing several articles for Harpy Magazine, I decided I was ready to take the plunge and pitch a dream publication, so I scoured Louder Sound’s website, found the contact for Metal Hammer and cold-pitched my article idea. The commissioning editor had obviously gone through my online portfolio to check me out before replying. Though she was intrigued by my idea, she’d seen an article on ‘female-fronted metal’ I’d written for Harpy and wanted her own version.
And so, I wrote my very first paid music journalism piece after sending only one pitch email. And it was the start of a beautiful relationship.
How it went
Shortly after my first article went live, the pandemic hit, and Metal Hammer was publishing at a higher rate than before. I began pitching more regularly to help fill out their high-churn content calendar. Something they clearly appreciated — the online editorial team began relying on me for ad hoc support, assigning me interviews and even asking me to help with content for their sister publication, Classic Rock.
In 2022, I was drafted to join the permanent editorial team on an article covering the 50 greatest horror films of all time, for which I also submitted recommendations.
This led the director of Deathgasm, Jason Lei Howden, to link the article on Twitter with a screenshot of my entry, thanking Metal Hammer but insisting that his film wasn’t ‘the best of anything.’ He was wrong, of course — in 2025, he released the long-awaited sequel, funded by fans (including me) via Kickstarter.
In 2022, I was asked to cover the release of the new Hellraiser remake for Metal Hammer’s print magazine. The brief was a feature article on the history of the original 1987 film and its relationship with metal music culture (spoilers: it goes deep!), including interviews with Pinhead actor Doug Bradley and Cradle of Filth’s frontman, Dani Filth.
And honestly? As a metal and horror fan, this remains one of the crowning achievements of my entire career. Over the course of my time with them, I wrote 21 articles total across the Future portfolio.
How we got there
The process of working with the team at Metal Hammer was fairly hands-off — they rely on their journalists to be autonomous professionals so they can keep up with their demanding publication timelines.
Pitched articles needed to be attention-grabbing, shareable, and play into metal music culture (which is why there are so many horror articles!). Headline style conventions should be polarising, click-baity, use direct quotations, or feature numbered lists — opinionated takes were also good. Anything to get people clicking, reading, and commenting!
Deep dives were meticulously researched, with evidence (’receipts’, if you will), and no room for interpretation or slander. They also didn’t like clichés or overused idioms in their articles, and I regularly used storytelling as my go-to method.
For interview assignments, I’d be given the relevant contact details and trusted to reach out, then arrange and conduct the interviews myself. As a representative of the Future publishing family, there was no room for fangirling or dropped balls — I was trusted to conduct myself like a pro.
After writing for Metal Hammer, I joined the editorial team at Witchology Magazine as music editor and, once that went on hiatus, I started my own occult music and arts publication, earwyrm zine.