When Halestorm came to Oslo as headliners at Sentrum Scene, we caught up with Lzzy Hale backstage for a chat about their upcoming Wembley show, how their recent album has been received live, being Gibson’s first female ambassador and how Lzzy would like to bring P!nk to the dark side …
Text and photography: Anne-Marie Forker
We have seen a huge audience growth for you in Norway recently, Rockefeller, the main stage at Tons of Rock and now headlining Sentrum Scene – and you are also enjoying that growth elsewhere – you play at the iconic Wembley in the UK next month. Are you planning anything special for that show?
We are! We are pulling out all the stops and have a lot of unique ideas to make the show special. Selling out Wembley is a definite right of passage with our journey and it’s a fantastic milestone on this long highway we’ve been on. We are grateful for it and want to make it special for everyone. There are fans on this tour that are following us to over 17 shows, including Wembley. So you want to make that even more special as they have already seen so many versions of your show.
When did you start to notice that kind of growth? Was it sudden?
There are some things that we don’t realise. There’s a certain stature or respect that we have in the business that I don’t think we realised we had until recently. 90 per cent of the way that we are, we are still hungry and excited. So we always have this attitude that there’s something worth fighting for. We’ve never made it. We’re not done yet. There’s no real one spot where we realised we have made it, it’s more like a progression. “Can you believe that we are still doing this? It’s so amazing!” We’re just stopping to smell the roses along the way.
Of the new songs, I have a fondness for “Wicked Ways”, probably because I was raised as a catholic in Ireland! Great video …
It was funny because the priest, who was an actor, in that video was so incredibly quiet and sweet. He had me take a picture of him in his collar, because he was also raised catholic but got out of the church so he wanted to send a picture to his Mom!
[laughs] “You haven’t totally lost me!”
[laughs] “Look what I did, Mom!”
What’s it been like playing the new songs live and seeing the fan reactions?
It’s been all over the place. Everyone has their own favourite. There’s always some surprises with each record because the more we do the more we think we know what people want to hear. But that’s never the case. All we know is what gets us excited. Usually it’s the same ones that get other people excited but everyone has a different favourite from this record. There are people talking about “I Come First”, “Psycho” or “Wicked Ways” and a lot of people have been talking about “The Steeple” as well. “Back from the Dead” always does really well as it’s the title track and the debut.
You opened your special electric set at Shepherd’s Bush with “Back from the Dead”. That was very powerful, particularly during the pandemic.
That was a wild time, the first time we were back in Europe. I still feel that from the audience. I think that with all of these shows everyone is just so happy to be there. They are happy to have an outlet. They are participating in the show like it’s the last show they are ever going to be at, which is beautiful, as we are kind of doing the same thing. We’re all the same.
When you are writing do you ever imagine the crowd reaction to certain parts of the song?
Sometimes. We are obsessed with making moments on stage. Whether that is something that is built into the song already, or after the fact, or we’ll do something uniquely live for that version. We love doing that. Something we have talked about for years is the ‘wooo’ you get from an audience. That’s like currency. So how many ‘woos’ or screams can you get in a couple of songs? The clincher is that you can have one moment, and then you have another moment, and as soon as you get to that third or fourth moment you have completely won somebody over that maybe wasn’t necessarily trying to like you. I think we get addicted to that.
You have 5 albums now. How hard is it to narrow that down to a setlist for a gig? I’ve noticed that you like to mix it up a little.
We do. It’s becoming much more difficult. When we saw you in Shepherd’s Bush we were doing an “Evening with” tour because we wanted to have the freedom and space to do everything that we want to do. If we do everything we want to, we would be here for four hours, which isn’t always conducive to the way people want to spend their evening! So we switch it up every night and we’re switching it up again tonight from last night because a bunch of those people are coming again tonight. We’ve been getting some requests and we’re thinking ‘Yeah! Let’s go ahead’. They deserve it. I have so much respect for the fandomonium that we have over here where they know every detail. They almost know me more than I know myself! “That one time when you did this or said that in an interview” and I’m like: “I said that?!” They are so wonderful coming to all these different shows. That’s a lot of travel when you don’t do this for a living.
You released a Deluxe Edition of «Back From The Dead”, which included seven previously unreleased B-sides. Did you do much to them before releasing them?
Fix them? Absolutely not! We just left them how they were. We thought about it, but there’s something about the honesty. It was very touch and go when we first got in the studio. We were all masked up for the entirety of it. Then we go home or come in separately. Finally, when it got to the point when we were in a room together and doing demos we were just having fun. A lot of those songs are unfinished and a lot of them are weird with strange arrangements and strange subjects. We had no idea if we were ever going to get out there again, so let’s just have fun. A lot of that was weird experiments and I feel like it was fun for us to show that to the fans. It’s funny because we still get requests for “Mine” and “Alien”. Some of the superfans would like us to throw one in, so we might.
Cool. “Mine” has a 1980s vibe going on…
Definitely! That was a fun one because it wasn’t really meant for anything. I basically just wanted to write a song that was like Pat Benatar and Billy Idol having a lovechild. That was so much fun. Josh did a great job on the synth parts.
You have an absolutely incredible voice. Is it something you have to work hard at maintaining and looking after, or something you hardly have to think about?
Thank you! It’s a little of both. In order to maintain, you can’t think about it too much. I think that once you start forcing things….I have a bit of a chest cold at the moment – it’s not you guys, it’s every time we go to Sweden and then everyone has a chest cold! And then we go to Norway and I always have a thing going on. Thank goodness I’m not an opera singer, I’m just a rock singer! If I’m a little more Janis Joplin today than I am Pat Benatar, it’s okay. I spent many years training and practicing and getting to know my body and muscle memory, my limitations and risk taking abilities. There are days when I am able to wake up and know where I’m at without having to go through a big process as I know my own body now. You have to trust yourself as you go out there in front of people and say to yourself “Okay, I’ve done everything I possibly can to make sure I am 110% today”. And now I have to trust it. It’s like jumping out of an aeroplane and hoping that the parachute opens, and that’s exciting.
Which vocalists did you look up to when you were starting out, and which vocalists do you admire now?
I was into a lot of Dude Rock when I was a kid, like Ronnie James Dio and Glenn Hughes, from the 70s and 80s, and Tom Kiefer from Cinderella. There was Heart, Pat Benatar. Even though I was a teenager in the 90s I was obsessed with 80s singers. Steve Perry. I started out trying to imitate that. Then Jeff Buckley from the 90s. Now, two of my favourite vocalists on earth are Chris Stapleton and Brandi Carlisle. Neither of them are in the rock world, but every time they open their mouths I cry. I don’t know why but it effects me in a beautiful way. Putting that out there! If either Chris Stapleton and Brandi Carlisle want to do a duet, I’m waiting!
That was actually a question I had planned to ask! Is there anyone out there you haven’t collaborated with yet that you would like to?
[Laughs] There’s so many. I’m so lucky to have sung with some of my idols. Chris Stapleton and Brandi Carlisle. I’d love to bring P!nk to the dark side! She already has one foot in, but we need to pull her in to the deep end. I get excited if it’s a little outside our genre. I’ve done weird EDM things, and pop crazy, rap, country things. It doesn’t matter what you’re in to – everyone wants to be rockstars. “I’m so glad that you’re here as I get to wear a leather jacket today!” It’s a lot of fun to represent yourself in a different way.
You collaborated with Sophie Lloyd on her single, «Imposter Syndrome». How did that come about?
I’ve admired her for years and have been following her online. I’ve actually stolen some of her techniques as she put up a tutorial and I learned from her. She is so delightful. When she approached me with this idea about her album, and said she wanted me to help her write the title track. She had a lot of trust in me and said “Do whatever you want with it”. I was very grateful for and nervous about that. It took me about three days to finish. I sent it in. It was so beautiful because she would send me personal letters and notes, so I could piece together her story. As I was putting the lyrics and melody together I realised that it wasn’t just for her, but for me too, because I also suffered from Imposter Syndrome. So it was beautiful for us to help each other through the magic of making music. When we were making the video I was saying to her «Isn’t this nuts?! You sent me this thing and within 3 days it exists and it’s here!”. And then you get this feedback from people who have it tattoed on their arm. It comes full circle because you are writing about Imposter Syndrome but getting the feedback that it is well deserved that you are here.
You mentioned Dude Rock, but a lot of young girls are going to see you and Sophie together…
I know, right?! The possibilities are endless. We were talking a lot about that. If we can pull it off, so can anyone. Nothing is impossible.
You are the first female Gibson ambassador. What do you like about the “Explorerbird”?
It’s stunning and the brightest colour of red on earth. It’s an amazing tool. The idea behind putting a Firebird headstock on an Explorer body was something that I wanted to experiment for a while. It helps with the guitar staying in tune because of the elongated neck for using that type of headstock, so it’s a little meatier. I used that particular guitar for “Back From the Dead” and “Steeple”, because we do it in a Drop C tuning. It just makes me feel cool. You walk out with something like that on stage that you can see from the nosebleed section. It’s awesome. You play differently if you feel cool. I’m wielding my weapon. This is my Kingdom, damn it!
Although you’re still young, you have been in Halestorm for over 25 years. When you started out, did you ever imagine selling out Wembley?
You’re very sweet! Hell, no. I would joke about it with my brother. Do you think we’ll ever get to Europe, win a Grammy, get to Wembley? There’s a difference between believing you are capable of these great things, but then there’s reality, and that doesn’t always happen. We know so many amazing rock bands that never even make it to their first record or played on the radio, or experience Europe. It’s not lost on us that we are very lucky. We have also worked very hard. It’s amazing to stand on stage, even tonight, I am in Oslo, Norway. I am a dork from a 20-acre farm in Pennsylvania. When Arejay and I first started we had no idea how to play our instruments or how to write a song. The fact that we pulled it off and are still doing it is just amazing to me. So no, I would have never guessed. We still like each other which is really crazy! One of our bigger accomplishments.
What comes next for Halestorm? Has any of the next album been written yet?
I’m always writing, and have a box of puzzle pieces. I’ve dumped all the pieces out on the floor and am trying to figure out what the picture is. We have a lot of songs that we’ve finished that have the potential to be released at any point in time. We are trying to figure out what we do next. Do we want to release a new song, or be old school and do a whole album? There are so many different outlets right now. Definitely new music. We are ending this album cycle with Wembley. We’re here, guys, and we did it, and now on to the next thing. It’s very exciting. We’re ready for the next adventure.
