Halestorm: a Kick in the Teeth and a Kiss in the Face

By Jeannette Madden
Staff Writer

Halestorm, who opens the UPROAR festival on the Rockstar Main Stage, has moved up in the world since playing The Aquarium this past March. I originally talked to super cool chick and co-founding member Lzzy Hale in February as she was on her way to Portland, Oregon. I caught up with Lzzy and the rest of the Halestorm gang again in August and learned how things had changed for Halestorm since February and their thoughts about what makes Halestorm so darn good.

Halestorm’s self-titled album was released in April 2009. I was curious about what the band calls their music since there are so many genres floating around and some bands tend to got downright nasty if their music is ‘misidentified’. Thankfully, Halestorm is much more laid-back.

“It’s evolved over the years.” Lzzy said. “That’s part of the beauty of songwriting is that you can pretty much go anywhere and depending on where you’re at in your life and what you’re interested in that kind of seeps through into your songs. Right now I’d have to say it’s a kick in the teeth and a kiss in the face type thing. This whole record I had a lot of fun walking that line and making sure that it has some balls to it but there was still an empowerment thing and still keeping the feminine side of myself.”

Halestorm has a reputation for writing their music as if they were performing it live. Lzzy explained it like this: “We’ve been primarily a live band for years now and always that was kind of what we did. In the beginning we didn’t have much money to actually go into the studio and be studio musicians. We more or less bounced every idea off of a live audience so I think that’s a huge part of our sound and it’s still something that even though we made a record and we’re definitely thinking about what we can do in the studio versus the live stuff, but that never really goes away. Definitely our fans and our live show are a huge part of what we’re thinking about when we write.”

And what is their writing process? “Oh man, there’s so many ways to skin that cat!” She said. “For years we’ve kind of gone with one formula. I start the song, I birth it, so to speak, and the guys help me raise it. I’ll come up with a basic structure of a song and do what I do to it. There’ll be a riff and there’ll be melody and lyrics and I bring it to the guys and they add their two cents and we build it up from there.”

“As of recently, since we’ve had some experience in the studio, we’re currently experimenting with all different ways to write. One of the most extreme ways that we’re doing right now is that Arejay [Hale, Lzzy’s brother and Halestorm’s drummer] he’s very good at arrangement. He understands how to put together a song so he’s been sending me tracks that are just drums but they’re structured as a song. As an experiment for myself I decided that I wasn’t going to add guitar to those tracks. I was just going to see where the melody took it. And then, Joe [Hottinger] our guitar player, he’s been writing riffs. We’re kind of collecting all of our different parts and doing whatever we can and then we bring it together when we have time off.”

Halestorm’s debut album was produced by Howard Benson (Creed, Daughtry, Flyleaf). Said Lzzy, the relationship was a good one for the band. “We met with him [Benson] a couple of times. We went out to California in 2007 and we spent around nineteen months there, which was definitely worth it. We were working from an arsenal of about 428 songs that we had written previous to that and we were writing new songs, we were doing some co-writes with some of our idols and got to jam with them. It was a really great experience. I met Alice Cooper randomly at a record store…it was a great nineteen months as that is the epicenter of all things art.”

In February, I asked Lzzy how it felt to front a rock band. “Truth be told, it’s hard for anybody to be in a band.” She answered. “You have to have a work ethic, you have to be a little bit of a politician, but that’s with any gender and genre. In order to make it as a band you have to work hard. Any tour we’ve been on I’ve been the only girl on the bill so even if somebody misses the band name or nobody knows who we are it’s like ‘Oh it’s the chick band!’”

“A lot of our attention comes from the fact that I’m a girl. When you front a band, you play a guitar, if anything I’m really glad I’m not a guy [laughs]. There would be so much more competition and also it’s kind of neat because we’re few and far between, us girls in rock, but we’re out there and right now, this year it feels like I’m being inducted into an exclusive club of the handful of every generation that makes it out there. It’s extremely humbling and quite an honor.”

Now, in August, Lzzy continued by saying “You get kids coming up saying ‘I just started guitar’ or ‘I’m in a band with my siblings’ and its really neat because I don’t think any of us set out to be an example or role model for anybody. All of a sudden, it’s just kind of happening and it’s crazy to be a band that can do that.”

Halestorm is playing Japan in October and has more overseas dates scheduled, which is new for the band. “This is our last U.S. tour this year. 2010 has just been a lot of momentum and hopefully it carries into 2011. The touring has been nonstop and we love it.” They said. “We did a couple of headlining tours, which then we got to see which crowd came out just to see us. We’re finding out we have the craziest crowds ever.” Lzzy said. “They’re not satisfied unless they are completely exhausted by the end of the show…it’s very cool and awesome and not something we expected at all. “

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What: Uproar Festival
Where: FargoDome
When: Sun, Oct 3, 3:30pm
Info: 701.241.9100