January 12, 2025– Demi Lovato is “a metalhead at heart”.

The 32-year-old singer – who started her career as a child star on ‘Barney and Friends’ before rising to fame on the Disney Channel – embraced a rock sound with her 2022 album ‘Holy Fvck’ and now guitarist Nina Strauss has described her as “the real deal”.

Nina – who took a break from Alice Cooper’s band to tour with the ‘Skin of My Teeth’ hitmaker – told Metal Hammer magazine: “It wasn’t as big a departure as I thought it would be.

“Demi made a really cool rock album, so they hired a rock band to do a rock show.

“Demi’s a metalhead at heart. I’d walk past her dressing room and she’d be listening to Megadeath. She turned me onto this great deathcore band called Bodysnatcher. She’s the real deal.”

Nina insisted that while rock and metal fans can complained about bands taking “a slight departure” from their usual sound, Demi’s fans embraced the idea.

She explained: “Her fans are so dedicated, they’ll follow her whatever she does.

“The thing about the rock and metal world – which I love and is my home – is that it’s a bunch of whiny, complainy babies.

“If a bad do a slight departure from what they’ve done before, the fanbase cries about it: ‘Everything they’re doing is terrible now!’

“Metallica are the biggest band in the world and people still s*** on their new stuff.”

The 38-year-old guitarist suggested the outlook comes from a “crazy” desire to “protect our scene” by stopping people from crossing into the genre.

She said: “I think a big part of that is because everybody feels like they have to protect our scene and keep it safe – no external people can get in, which I think is crazy.

“If a pop artist wants to make a rock album, great. If a rock artist wants to my an R’n’B album, great. Music is for everyone.”