Dirty work paying off for Halestorm

April 27, 2010

Halestorm has come a long way since Live-Metal.net began covering the band in early 2006. Extensive touring (with Shinedown more often than not) helped the group build a following across the nation with only a five-song live EP available for purchase. A long writing process preceded the 2009 release of their self-titled debut album, which spawned the seductive hit single “I Get Off.” About a week after returning home from their first European tour (with Theory of a Deadman), Halestorm hit the road again, this time on their first official headlining run. At the tour’s first stop, Jaxx in Springfield, Va., Live-Metal.net’s Greg Maki caught up with the band’s dynamic frontwoman, Lzzy Hale, to discuss touring, being named one of the “hottest chicks in metal,” the early outlook for album number two and more.

Live-Metal.net: Just earlier this month you got back from Europe.

Lzzy Hale: Yeah, just about a week ago, actually.

It was your first time over there?

First European tour, yeah.

How did it go?

Oh, it was freakin’ awesome. It’s great to experience a different type of culture out there, see how rock ‘n’ roll is received. It’s funny—it’s similar and it’s different at the same time. People still have a definite passion for music and you see everybody showing up early just to see. Journalists, like yourself, are still passionate about what they do.

Actually, funny story: Our drummer, Arejay [Hale], decided he was gonna take it upon himself to learn how to say hello and good night. We all tried to do it; our accents are awful. But this one particular night we were in Austria and he was saying good night, which is like “gut nacht” or something. And he was saying it in a German accent because we were just in Germany. Everyone kind of looks at him funny, and so he’s like, “Yeah, it’s probably just because of my accent. Maybe I’m saying ‘good night’ funny.” At the end of the night, he’s talking to this couple and he says good night to them, and they’re like, “Oh” and just looked at him funny. He’s like, “So is that how you say good night?” And they’re like, “No, no, no, you’re saying ‘good naked.’” [laughs] He’s like, “Oh, well that’s why everyone has been looking at me so funny.” He had been saying this to everybody going out the door all night.

It was just a cool experience. We met a lot of great, great people. We feel very privileged to have gone over there with buddies in Theory of a Deadman—just known them for years, great band to tour with, they’re so laid back. It is good being back. The first thing I noticed, though—after a month, you’re always looking at the in and out doors, where it says “push” or “pull,” but you never really know what you’re gonna do. Obviously, people know if you’re out of town if you can’t read the sign. [laughs] So first thing I noticed pulling into a Sheetz or something—“Oh, look it says ‘push.’ I can read this!”

Did you get a chance to go out and see some of the places where you were playing?

Oh yeah, we tried to do a lot of sightseeing, just because we didn’t want to spend our days off in a bar somewhere. We wanted to actually see stuff. In Cologne [Germany], we saw the huge cathedral there. We actually did the 111-some steps to get the top of it—very sore the next day. Anything we could do, we went out and did. Definitely sampled a lot of the food and the beer, of course. [laughs] Which was just an experience all in itself.

The last time I talked to you was a few weeks before the album came out, so kind of take me back in time to the day it came out. Did you guys do anything special?

What we wanted to do was, we wanted to, that day, videotape ourselves actually buying our own CD just because we thought it’d be silly. It was in Traverse City. So that was record release day, and we couldn’t find it anywhere. We went to the Best Buy, we went to the local shop—we can’t find our CD anywhere. We went to the venue and they had delivered a bunch of them there. [Bassist] Josh [Smith]’s dad had sent a bottle of champagne and glasses to celebrate. It was kind of a surreal experience there, where I think that within the next week after we started going into all these places and seeing them on the shelves, people coming up to us in line with them—actually, it’s funny, the first couple people that came up to us to get them autographed, we took them away from them and were like looking at it, like, “Oh look, that’s a good picture!” It was great. It was cheesy, but we’re extremely thrilled with it. Had no idea that the record was gonna be received so well. It could’ve gone either way, with all the innuendos. Especially leading off with a song like “I Get Off,” you’re either gonna love it or you’re gonna hate it. And so far, so good.

We just have the craziest fans in the world. They’re not satisfied unless they’re exhausted after a show. You really start figuring out what exactly your crowd is made up of, versus someone else’s crowd and winning them over as your own. That’s kind of what I’m excited about doing now. Now, a little more than a year later, we’re doing our first official headlining tour.

This is the first show.

This is the first show, yeah. Hopefully there’s people in there. [laughs]

Yeah, there are. Do you already know the bands that are coming out with you?

Yeah. We did kind of a co-headlining thing with Burn Halo a couple months ago. Actually, we haven’t seen them since last June or something. Time flies, but it’s cool to see those guys again. We played with Janus at a Milwaukee festival, Summerfest. So we got to meet them for like 30 seconds before they went on. It’ll be cool to actually get to know them and hang out a little bit.

This is your first official headlining tour, but you’ve played other headlining shows before.

	Lzzy Hale

Oh yeah. We’ve done it sporadically. This is the first one where it’s all our own. It’s gonna be chaotic and it’s not gonna be organized. [laughs] We’re doing the best we can. In the same aspect that I love going out onstage being the first band to take a bullet and to a crowd that probably has no idea who you are and winning them over—that’s very exciting for me—it’s also equally exciting when you walk out onstage and you realize that the entire crowd is there for you. There’s this thing in the back of your head: “Oh wait, Shinedown isn’t going on after us. Neither is Papa Roach. We’re the ending band. Oh my god.” So it’s really neat. And like I said, there’s so many fans and so many people that have kind of enabled us now to do this. The first couple headlining shows were kind of a fluke accident, where somebody on the tour cancelled and, of course, we’re like, “Well, we’ll do it.” [laughs] “We don’t know how many people are gonna come, but we’ll do it.” The fact that those were actually successful, we’re able to come into these places and say, “OK, I think there’ll be some people in here for us.” [laughs]

The whole band has always kept in touch with the fans through the website, MySpace, Twitter. How important is that to you?

It’s extremely important. It’s not entirely easy. For the most part, our fans understand that, too, that we’re not available 24/7. We try to be, and sometimes you’ll get a Tweet from me at like—I feel silly saying Tweet—but like 4 in the morning because something just happened with Arejay—he’s stuck in an elevator somewhere and I need to Tweet about it. But it’s neat. It’s a great tool. I get to have this much more personal relationship with everybody that’s following us besides the people that are just coming to see the show. You’ll see ‘em at a show, you know their Twitter name and you know their handle on MySpace, and you get to talk about their family. We’re extremely open with any question you wanna ask, just ask us and we’ll give you the best answer we can. We do a lot of that and then sometimes we give away tickets—first person to come at us with the answer for silly trivia.

I just started doing this thing, like my picks around the world. I’ve been doing this for a year, where I’ll leave a pick in like a shoe in Walmart or something, just to see if anyone finds it and looks it up. And that happened once, where this guy was buying tennis shoes and he bought the shoes, didn’t feel it when he was trying them on, but then he went home and he saw the pick, had no idea who we were, looked us up and was like, “Did you leave a pick in a shoe in a Tennessee Walmart?” “Yes, I did.” So I decided, since now we have the technology, Twitter, I can actually put a little bit of a picture as to where it is, kind of put the little GPS pin down and say first come, first served. It’s kind of neat. You can just have fun with everybody. It’s important. I think it’s a huge part of the atmosphere that goes on between the fans and us onstage.

I saw where you did the karaoke contest for “I Get Off.” Have you had anyone actually come up onstage with you?

Not yet. We’re waiting to do that for a specific show for the girl.

Oh, so you’ve had a winner?

Yeah, we’ve had a winner. But it’s so funny. There have been so, so many talented people. Not that we doubted any of you, but when you say karaoke—for heaven’s sake, the actual word means out of tune. So we were kind of expecting a lot of it to be a joke, which was part of the fun. But man, it was really hard. I think we’re gonna do a guitar one next, just because we have a lot of young fans that are very, very talented. And then maybe at the end we’ll get ‘em all together—“Here, start a band.” [laughs] I don’t know.

A year after the album came out, you’ve sold 100,000 copies, hit singles—what has been the biggest change in your life because of this?

Well, let’s see. Recently, we were kind of gathering at my parents’ house in York , Pennsylvania, and we decided to get out the wiffle ball set, just to play in the backyard. All of a sudden, these kids started, just in the driveway, like gathering. Then three turns into like 15 and 15 into 20, and there’s all these kids with all their bikes just watching. And we’re like, “Oh, OK, maybe they’re just bored and they want to watch a game.” And this one kid is like, “Are you Halestorm?” He’s like this 8-year-old kid. “Are you Halestorm?” And we’re like, “Yeah, we are, dude.” And he’s like, “Are you famous? Tell me the truth.” And I’m like, “Well, you know who we are, obviously.” But we ended up signing stuff for these kids in my parents’ backyard, and that’s never happened to us before. So that was kind of an interesting thing.

For the most part, we’ve been living two feet from each other forever, so we don’t necessarily change. I think a lot of people around us do. We’re trying to step it up. Just with all the experiences over the past year, it feels like it’s been longer than a year—even though it went by so fast, if that makes sense. It makes you grow, forces you to grow. I think we’re becoming better musicians because we’re starting to listen a little more [laughs]—finally, right? Maybe we should practice a little bit. [laughs]

It’s interesting. You get into these certain situations where maybe you meet some of your idols and you still have that mentality of like, “Wow, this is so cool. You know who I am?” We ran into Vinne Paul; he has four of our CDs. That’s what he told me, anyway. We ran into him, he was like, “Hey, you guys are Halestorm!” He’s like, “Do! My! Dirty work!” He starts singing, and that’s not even a single, so I’m like, “Wow, you have our record?” He’s like, “I got four of ‘em! One at my summer house, one in my limo. I don’t like carrying around CDs, so I gotta have four of everything.” But it’s like that kind of situation, where like, wow, that’s really cool. Apparently we’re making a splash.

Have you had any experiences where you’ve met someone in a band and you’ve been really star struck?

The one time I was really like—‘cause for the most part, it’s OK—but we got to on a freakin’ fluke accident, we got to open up for Heaven and Hell, with Dio and Black Sabbath. This is not only my parents’ idols, but these were people that I grew up listening to because of my parents. Just a huge Dio fan and always wanted to meet them and everything. So we played the show and we hadn’t really seen anybody yet. We’re like, “Oh, we probably won’t get to meet them.” And then, after the show, the tour manager comes up to us and says, “The guys want to meet you in this back room. We’ll show you where it is.” They have a team of people that are just making sure everybody’s where they’re supposed to be. Tony Iommi comes up and he gives me a pass, like one of their passes, the all-access Heaven and Hell tour passes. I’m like, “Oh my god!” He’s so nice, he’s this gentleman. He’s like, [in British accent] “It was a really great show. Fantastic voice.” I’m like, “Oh my god! Did you just say to me? That’s so awesome.” And then Ronnie James Dio ended up signing it for me and he’s going around hugging everybody. I had brought my dad to that show because it’s a big deal for him, too, and they were talking for a while. I’m just standing there like I can’t believe that this is actually happening. It’s cool to have that feeling and also just to have that opportunity.

I saw you guys cover “Rainbow in the Dark,” I think.

Oh yeah. We’ve done a couple things like that. We’ve botched up a couple covers in the past. [laughs]

What was the experience like of being on the cover of Revolver and nominated in their Golden God Awards?

It was cool, man. It’s extremely humbling. First of all, I really love Revolver magazine and been reading it for years. So when I found out they wanted me to be on the cover, I’m like, “Really? ‘Cause Cristina Scabbia is way hotter. You really should have her on the cover.” They loved the single and they wanted me, and then Grace Perry from Landmine Marathon got to share the cover. That was a great photo shoot, too. The photographer was kind of a pyromaniac. We set the guitar on fire, we played in the trash, we set trash on fire, we were playing with hairspray and matches. We had to go to a remote location, so we all got in his truck and there’s hairspray bottles everywhere and lighters—I’m just like, “Wow, dude. Wow.”

But anyway, it was just really cool. What exposure for my band, you know? I get asked a lot: “So the hottest chick in metal. Are you bothered by that?” No. It’s actually really cool. The whole sex and rock ‘n’ roll thing kind of goes hand in hand. I’ve never been one to shy away from wearing a short skirt or tight leather pants for a photo shoot. It’s fine. It’s good to dress up.

You’ve been out on tour for a little over a year now and I saw dates through the end of next month. How much longer are you gonna go on this album?

Oh god, we’re gonna squeeze the life out of this record. We have this whole summer. We’re planning on releasing at least two more singles, if not more. The thing is about this record, too, as far as politically and with our team, everybody has their own favorites. So every time we go, “OK, time for the next single,” everyone’s like, “What about this song? What about this song? This song’s great!” It’s a good problem to have, but at the same time, I’m just glad I like all of ‘em. You guys duke it out. But yeah, just gonna see what happens next. We’ve already begun writing for the next record. I’m excited to see how this next one develops.

Is it too early to say if you’re gonna bring in anyone else to write with like you did on this one?

I don’t know. I’m definitely not opposed to it. I think instead of writing with everybody and their mother, I might choose a few I really like.

Yeah, you’re probably in a better position to do that now.

Yeah, definitely better position and also your first experience actually doing something like that—we had been writing by ourselves for years and you start writing the same song over and over again because you’re just kind of in your little box. The best thing I could’ve ever done as a songwriter is going out and meeting all these people that have hit songs on the radio and that do this every day, that write for soundtracks, that are in some of my favorite bands, and see what they do and learn tricks from them and see a song develop with somebody there to bounce ideas off of—it’s really helpful. Some of the songs that I’ve been writing recently, if I can say so, are better than this record because of that experience. So it’s exciting to see what’s gonna happen next.

I think that’s all of your time that I’ll take up. Is there anything you’d like to add, say to the fans or anything?

Dude, just thank you so much for keeping us alive. The whole reason that we’re still out on the road, we’re still putting one foot in front of the other, is because of all you guys. So thank you so much.

www.halestormrocks.com
www.myspace.com/halestorm