Halestorm burst out of the pandemic last May with the wonderful ‘Back from the Dead’ an album with all the crunching power you might expect and with a wonderful mellower side to it too. Dealing with themes like mental health it’s a powerful record and one that threatens to become my favourite so far. We caught up with Lzzy and Joe on the eve of the much anticipated tour of Australia and New Zealand with Theory of a Deadman just a couple of weeks away!
This is the first of our ‘two ways’ interviews so enjoy the read and in a couple of days you can enjoy the video version. Let us know which you prefer!
Mark: Hey great to see you both. How are you guys?
Lzzy: Good, good thank you so much for having us man
Mark: Hey no worries, welcome to the Rockpit we’ve been following your career pretty much since the start so it’s always wonderful to have you over in our backyard. Back in the early days I used to have to travel to the U.S. to see you now at least you are coming over to see us!
Joe: Yeah we’re finally making it back Down Under!
Mark: It’s a fantastic new album to come back with, in fact it could even be my favourite
Joe: Oh thank you.
Lzzy: Thank you so much, I appreciate that man, it was a beast to make! Then you know the fact it’s doing so well and there are so many people like you that love it um it’s just so wonderful, cause you never know it could have gone either way!
Mark: Yeah I mean you started it pre-covid and I’m guessing that that experience sort of coloured it especially with regards the lyrics. There is a sort of strong theme of mental health in there, but it’s a positive message and I think that makes the album itself a lot stronger, it really does. I think it must have helped people.
Lzzy: I hope so. I mean we hear so many amazing stories from these kids that have listened to the album and have taken a lot of these songs as their mission statements and their theme songs and it’s just a beautiful thing to be part that. This album would definitely have been a very different album if the pandemic hadn’t reared its ugly head but that’s the silver lining of it, is that we had to take this impossible situation and how we were feeling during it and put it somewhere. And the wonderful and beautiful thing I realized after we released this album is that I’m not alone in those feelings and so I guess that’s the cool thing about music is that when you are writing your truth you don’t always see that there are other people that are feeling like you and that are going through the same things. A lot of times it feels very solitary and very lonely in those thoughts and so the inspiration kind of came full circle because once I started hearing all of these stories about, you know, some of our fans and their journey’s through it and how these songs really just lined up with that it made me feel so much better about everything that I was going through.
Mark: Yeah I know what you mean, it was a horrible time particularly for people in the industry. I know a lot of my friends over here are relying on that, the production side of things for an income, and when that’s taken away from you it really, really changes things up. For me the journey through the album was all the more powerful because of that, and to end with that wonderful ‘Raise your Horns’ just sort of brought it all together.
Lzzy: Oh thank you so much, yeah that was a funny tune because I remember talking to you (Lzzy motions to Joe) and it was like we were sitting out on the porch and it was like “Man you know what would be really funny? To have a song called raise your horns, but let’s not have any guitars, no drums, no bombastic anything, and have it really truly be about what that phrase means you.” And I ended up doing a little bit of research on that and apparently ‘Raise your Horns’ in a few different ways means to exalt oneself and so I really wanted it to be about that and end our very angsty record with a little bit of hope.
Mark: Yeah, well you certainly did that it’s the perfect ending.
Joe: One of the things about ‘Raise your Horns’ is there was a review or two that came out of the record and you read about this “bombastic and huge giant rocking song raise your horns” that closed the album, and I’m like, “Yeah, you didn’t even listen to it!”
(Mark, Lzzy and Joe laugh)
Joe: Awesome!
Lzzy: there are some people who will review our record without listening to it and I thought that was hilarious!
Mark: Wow, I’d never get away with that! Thats incredible! It’s also interesting that two of the songs people have connected with most that I have spoken to are the slower ones – ‘Raise Your Horns’ and ‘Terrible Things’ is the other track there that people in my circle seem to love.
Lzzy: Oh that’s awesome, I’m so glad. That one you know you’re grappling with still trying to have hope in humanity when you are seeing all of this strangeness and this hate for hates sake, and I love it. Maybe I am selfish as a vocalist because I feel like if I am going to be screaming my head off in one song I have to kind of show this ‘other side’ too, cause I want people to realise I’m not just that. But there is room for that in rock n roll and sometimes you have to show a little bit of heart and you know really try to put those messages out there. It’s become kind of a mission statement for us because we have so many people that we are so incredibly grateful for that follow us and actually listen to what we have to say so you know if you can make somebody think about something in a different way through music then we’ve done our job.
Mark: Yeah I mean it is a very positive album I mean I got the themes of redemption and even rediscovery because I guess for a lot of people on a number of different levels that’s what the pandemic did for us. I mean I was sat locked away in a room listening to old records and that was my rediscovery but I know it went a lot deeper for a lot of other people out there as well.
Lzzy: Especially for musicians, I mean when this is your life – I have been in this band since I was thirteen so it has literally become so much more than just trying to pursue it as career and all that- it becomes your identity. So for me I was in something that probably resembled a homeless person, that was like what I was wearing every day. You’re like looking at yourself in the mirror and I was thinking “I am no longer like Lzzy Hale who gets on stage and rocks
out, now I’m just Elizabeth Hale; and who is that person? I don’t even know you anymore! You know so we went through somewhat of an identity crisis through that, but man it’s all back now and it’s been a long time coming! We’re coming over to Australia so woo! we made it guys! We’re here and we’re back.
Mark: I have to ask then what was it like when you finally got back on the road?
Lzzy: Intense (laughs)
Joe: Yeah the shows have been really intense and also, you know, it’s been very different because for a good part of it, for a full year, we followed really strict you know covid protocols. You were going to all these towns where you have friends and you can’t see them, they’re out in the crowd and you’re like “Hey sorry”, you know you got to keep the wheels rolling on this thing. We’ve done pretty good we haven’t had any like big Covid cancellations on our end and whatever, we’re pretty much over it at this point.
Mark: I mean that is the difficult thing isn’t it, it’s the logistics of it all, I mean even now there are shows cancelled because one member of a band comes down with Covid. It’s still challenging, I mean I know things are obviously a lot more relaxed now but it’s still an ‘interesting time’ to live through, I guess.
Joe: Yeah its wild.
Mark: The thing I most love about Halestorm is when people say things like ‘rock is dead’ or ‘rocks on the way out’ and I just go “No there’s Halestorm, so it can’t possibly be true.” There are a lot of great new bands out there as well – do you feel any sort of pressure to be role models or to lead the way carry the torch because in my opinion you are doing a fantastic job doing that!
Lzzy: Well thank you, I appreciate that, I think that the big thing is that we are just ourselves. You know I didn’t get into this genre of music because it was cool, I mean for heaven’s sake, I was listening to Alice Cooper and Dio when I was in 6th grade you know! And I’m trying to convince all my friends, who at the time, you know, this is like the 90’s and they were into like the ‘Backstreet boys’ and ‘TLC’ and all of that! And I’m like “Here but listen to this, you’ll
love it to death and they’re like “Why do you love that?” So you know I didn’t get in this to be cool so if I never got to be cool or sit at the cool kid’s table! Thats fine with me! And speaking of which, I had this exact discussion with Alice Cooper about that, and he’s like “Rock is exactly where it needs to be – in the sewer! That’s where we belong in the gutter, and every now and then we pop our heads up!” And that’s what it’s like – every now and then something happens with a band where all of a sudden it’s on! You know they get in the pop charts or something and it’s like, but you know it’s always got to be down and dirty and you do it because you love it and if we didn’t love it we wouldn’t do it.
Mark: Yeah Alice is a very wise man and very generous with his time, when we first met he offered to take me to play golf which if you knew how badly I played golf you’d realise what a sacrifice that would have been for him!
Lzzy: He was trying to teach me to no avail, I am terrible you know – I hit that golf ball like it a hockey puck and you can’t do that!
Mark: He took his band out with him last time he was over here and we had to source golf clubs for the Ryan so it was quite fun!
Mark: So let me ask you a few big questions – this is one question I love asking people because the answers are so varied. When did you both know that music was definitely the thing for you, that it was going to be your life? Was there a defining moment?
Lzzy: Yeah
Mark: for a lot of people there is that one second that they just know.
Joe: Yeah I remember. I remember sitting in the car in like seventh grade and the rock radio station was on on my way home from school and there was a Nirvana song and a Pearl Jam song that was being played. You know at the time and I was just like ‘I don’t know why but I need to play guitar now. And you just know! I just knew – now it’s guitar time, here we go!
Lzzy: Yep, it is now guitar time!
Joe: And things haven’t changed!
Lzzy: No not at all! It was similar for me. My Dad’s a bass player and I’d been taking piano lessons since I was five and so there was always music around but you know I was never thinking about it like “This needs to be my thing” it was just always around and then my little bro and I – we ended up writing a song together and there was a talent show that was happening at the Schuylkill County Fair in central Pennsylvania – you know just in a field. It was a stage in like this little amphitheater. And we were driving in the family van and we’re gonna go to this talent show because we thought it’d be fun and little bro Arejay, my drummer he keeps bugging me and he’s like “We need to have a band name” and I’m like “Buddy were not a band, we’re just going up there to do it for fun.” and he’s like “No we can’t just go up there as Lzzy and Arejay Hale!” And I’m like “Alright, fine! What do you want to name the band?” And so we tossed a few ideas together and he’s like “What about Halestorm?” and I’m like “That will work for today, sure we’ll do it.” And we get up on stage and we play this like 5 minute song with a drum solo in the middle of it. I’m doing this Moog synthesizer thing, and we ended up getting the third place trophy!
Joe: And you still have it, it’s over there by the Grammy!
Lzzy Yeah, I stuck it right next to the Grammy because we found it! But I remember after that performance, because we had never really played for strangers before it was always just for family members and whatever, after that Arejay and I were both like vibrating, like literally just physically shaking, like OMG this is great! Where do we do this again? So were at the kitchen table that night and I’m telling my parents “OK I have this plan you know – we have to figure out how to do this ! I want to do this for the rest of my life, and you know little bro with the mouth full of mashed potatoes is like “Well I still get to be your drummer right?” and I’m like “Yeah buddy, we’re a band.” And then we just started playing everywhere and anywhere – we were quite obsessed to the point where you’d meet someone in the grocery store and be like “Oh so yeah I’m in a band called Halestorm” and you know were working on our autographs and stuff! We’re still doing it to this day! Gotta work on that autograph!
Mark: Yeah you gotta get that really fast one that looks cool! That’s not easy to do.
Lzzy: Yeah it’s definitely evolved over the years.
Mark: So now the big question is “If you could’ve been a fly on the wall for the creation of any great album any point in the history of rock n roll, what are you gonna want to be there for – to actually see he magic being made in the studio?”
Lzzy: Hmmm for me I think if would have been… there’s so many of them!
Joe: Geoff Buckley – Grace.
Lzzy: Yeah.
Joe: For sure.
Lzzy: Geoff Buckley Grace or Tom Petty Wildflowers.
Joe: Yeah.
Lzzy: Or Heaven And Hell by Black Sabbath cause that was also with Dio and I’d love to see how all of that was put together.
Joe: Any of those for me!
Lzzy: Yeah.
Mark: All great records and some of my personal favourites there as well. I love listening to stories about people who have recorded with Dio because I get to slowly piece it together until I’ll know exactly how he worked it out. I know he used to like doing crossword puzzles while people were playing him things and when he looked up from the crossword puzzle – that’s when you knew you had something good!
Lzzy: Thats awesome, that’s a great way to do things – if something actually pulls you out of your distraction it’s probably great, yeah that’s awesome!
Mark: I always thought that was a great story. And we always close with a really easy question, “What is the meaning of life?”
Lzzy: To be happy
Joe: Yeah I finding happiness and boobs! Just kidding!
Lzzy: (Laughs) You gotta throw that one in! Get outta here! Nobody could argue with that! You know it’s so interesting cause I feel like we’re always chasing our happiness and trying to be as kind as you can be to everybody you know, so do what you love.
Mark: Yeah exactly, sometimes it is as simple as that. I’ve been asking that one for 14 years and one day there will be a book and I can now conirm that ‘Boobs’ will be in there now.
Joe: Alright!
Lzzy: Boobs, Joe Hottinger!
Intro for the Radio…
Mark: You get to New Zealand on my Birthday which is great, I wish I could come over and see you over there! You land in Brisbane and play on the 2nd of February so it is not long now!
Lzzy: Thats awesome, well happy early Birthday!
Mark: Thank you, have a safe trip and it’s been wonderful to talk to you both this morning!
Joe: That’s great, thank you.
Lzzy: Oh thank you so much darlin’ really appreciate it
Mark: Take care guy’s it was lovely to speak to you both and now I can tell everyone that Lzzy Hale called me ‘darlin’!
Joe: You too (laughs) Bye, bye!
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