Kris Coombs-Roberts

Kris Coombs-Roberts is the lead guitarist and backing vocalist of Funeral for a Friend, the South Wales post-hardcore band he helped found in Bridgend in 2001. Note for the record: he plays guitar, not bass, correcting an old mix-up — his brother Kerry Roberts also played guitar in the band's early years. Funeral for a Friend became one of the most successful acts to emerge from the mid-2000s British post-hardcore and emo scene, breaking through nationally with their gold-certified 2003 debut album Casually Dressed & Deep in Conversation, which spawned three top-twenty singles and is still cited as a landmark record of the era.

Coombs-Roberts has remained a constant across the band's many line-up changes and seven studio albums, from Hours (2005) through to Chapter and Verse (2015), steering the group's sound from screamed post-hardcore towards more melodic rock territory. He has spoken candidly in interviews about the realities of a long touring career, the band's Welsh roots, and their habit of rehearsing new material at Music Box studios in Cardiff before heading out on the road.

Though he now lives in London, Coombs-Roberts has always been open about where the band, and he, come from: Bridgend, South Wales. Funeral for a Friend are still regularly described as one of the most significant Welsh rock exports of the 2000s, and Coombs-Roberts, as a founding member and the band's guitarist throughout its history, is central to that legacy.