Interview
Interview
My Greatest Hits: Lzzy Hale of Halestorm
The Halestorm frontwoman picks her own career highlights, from the band’s family beginnings to Wembley, Download and playing with Ozzy
Long before Halestorm were finding their seats at award ceremonies and headlining arenas, Lzzy Hale and her brother Arejay were two misfit kids from rural Pennsylvania finding solace in music. Three decades on, what began as the sibling’s escape route from the cruel realities of growing up has spiralled into something much bigger than the pair ever could have envisioned.
From a passion-fuelled family operation to one of hard rock’s most enduring success stories, Halestorm have spent their entire career smashing expectations. Laser focused on forward motion, the four-piece’s towering riffs and full-throttle charisma has catapulted them to heights few other heavy bands have conquered, from becoming the first female-fronted band to win the Grammy for Best Hard Rock/Metal Performance to dominating some of the world’s most legendary stages.
Never content to stay in one lane, Lzzy Hale’s unapologetic presence has remained fixed at the band’s centre since the very beginning. One of rock’s most formidable frontwomen, her journey has been built on grit, guts, and sheer rock’n’roll belief, every moment fuelled by the same wide-eyed passion that first lit the spark all those years ago.
As Halestorm prepare to return to the UK for a monumental headline slot on Download Festival’s Opus Stage and a run of intimate acoustic shows, we sat down with Lzzy to revisit the moments that made her – from muddy times in Donington and taking life-changing advice from Ronnie James Dio to emotional full-circle triumphs at Wembley and stepping into a teenage fantasy by fronting Skid Row.
The early days of Halestorm
Photo By Raymond Boyd/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
“It all started with my brother and me. We grew up in central Pennsylvania, and there’s not much to do there at all. It’s all farmland, and we didn’t have a whole lot of close friends either. We would go to school, come home, and jam together. Between the two of us, we were teased mercilessly, so this was a way for us to come home and cry about it. We’d write songs about it, and so it started as this safe space for us to be unapologetically ourselves. No one was there telling us what to do, and it was the one spot in the world where we could just exist.
“When we started playing in front of people, it made sense for our dad to be on bass because he already played. It was this Partridge Family meets Spinal Tap kind of thing. I have such fond memories of those early years because everything was so exciting. It didn’t matter where we were playing, whether it was a biker bar or the bowling alley… It was a gig. From the beginning, I felt like we were doing something special. We ended up building this rotating upside-down drum kit for my brother out of a tractor axle and steel beams. We velcroed him to the kit and let him fly! It was because of those weird ideas that we ended up getting on the front page of the local paper. From there, we started getting some attention.
“It shifted from ‘maybe we’ve got something here’ to ‘let’s see how far we can take it’. We sat our dad down and we were like, ‘Dad, we’re gonna look for people our own age and get a band together’. He was very bummed, but I remember him asking, ‘I still get to come to the shows, right?’ Arejay and I were like, ‘Dad, we can’t drive… someone’s got to drive the van!’ So, our dad was a roadie for a long time, and now he’s just a proud dad. One of these days, I’ll drag him back up onstage and do something.
“That was such a freeing time, and I credit that time with helping me figure out who I was as a person, what my desires were, and what my dreams were. Arejay and I became like Pinky and the Brain, and we’re still like that to this day. I come up with these crazy ideas, and my brother is like, ‘I get to play drums, right? Cool, let’s go!’”
Meeting and becoming friends with Amy Lee
![Halestorm - Break In (feat. Amy Lee) [Official Video]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/OUuVReJSrc4/0.jpg)
“The first time we went out on tour together was in 2013. We knew of each other before that, but we had never met. On the first day, Amy [Lee, of Evanescence] came skipping into my dressing room. She started talking about a song on our latest record called ‘Break In’. She was asking why none of the boys did the harmonies with me, and I told her that I wasn’t going to make them sing that high. She asked if she could sing it with me, so we performed it together every night of that tour.
“Meeting Amy was this light bulb moment for me, because both of us were very used to hanging out with the guys. We’re surrounded by dudes and we’re fine with that, but with Amy there would be these moments where we could swap our war stories. It was like, ‘Oh wait, that happened to you as well?’, ‘That guy said what to you?!’ We felt that it was so important to make time for each other on those tours. As much as the guys in our bands are our allies, nobody knows what it’s like to walk in my shoes in the way that another woman does. It was so freeing.
“A couple of years ago, I remember standing side stage together watching the opening band. We were looking at the audience, and I turned to Amy and said, ‘What does it feel like to be one of those women that all of these little girls are looking up to?’ She elbowed me really hard and said, ‘Well, what does it feel like for you?’ We’ve decided that our responsibility as women in this business is to keep going, to keep existing, and to keep being seen. That’s how we hold the door open for all of the women that are coming in after us. We want them to look at us and say, ‘This is possible’.”
Supporting Heaven & Hell at Ronnie James Dio’s final show
“It was a fluke accident because we weren’t supposed to be on that run. Coheed and Cambria were on that tour, and they had dropped out of the last show. We got called up, and we were literally passing through. We were asked if we wanted to jump on the show and I was like, ‘I will crawl through broken glass to get there’.
“It was at the House of Blues in Atlantic City, and there are these balconies right on the side of the stage there. During the third song of the set, I looked to my left and there were Geezer [Butler] and Ronnie. I was so nervous, but they were incredibly sweet. After the show, Ronnie and everybody hung out with us until 3am. Afterwards, Ronnie walked us out to the parking lot. He walked us to our RV and told us that he’d come back after he’d signed some stuff and taken pictures with the fans who were waiting. We watched him sign everything for everybody, and then he came back onto our RV.
“I said something to the effect of, ‘Thank you for taking the time with us. We would understand if you just wanted to go to bed, you’ve earned that right.’ He turned to me and said, ‘Lzzy, this is a moment in time. You’re never going to remember all the people that you meet or all the places you play, but they are going to remember meeting you for the rest of their life’. At the time, I thought he was giving me advice for how to treat my own fans. I absolutely took that to heart, and I think about it every time that we’re hanging out with fans. After he passed though, I realised that he was making that moment for me as a fan of his. We lost him so soon after that, and I don’t always believe in fate, but there’s got to be something going on there.”
Becoming the first female-fronted band to win the Grammy for Best Hard Rock/Metal Performance
Photo by Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic
“When we heard that we were nominated, we were in Madison, Wisconsin doing a headline show. I had just sat down at the piano to do some ballads, and I was talking to the audience. Our guitar player, Joe [Hottinger], went over to the side stage and his guitar tech told him that he’d just got a text to say we were nominated for a Grammy. He didn’t believe it, so they looked it up whilst I was still yapping to the audience. Suddenly, Joe came running over and told me. There is a photograph of the face that I’m making as this news is being received, and the entire audience went silent because they didn’t know what was up. I turned to the audience, and I announced that we just got nominated for a Grammy and the roof blew off. It was like everybody’s home team had scored a touchdown.
“I called my manager up after the show and said, ‘Okay, so what does this mean?’ He told me that it meant we’d get to do the red carpet, we’d be invited to all these parties, and that we might actually win the damn thing. We were sitting on our bus when we looked at who we were up against. It was Lamb Of God, Iron Maiden, Marilyn Manson and Anthrax, so the guys and I were like, ‘We’re definitely not going to win, but it’s going to be so much fun anyway!’ We got invited to all these parties where the cool kids were hanging out. Katy Perry, Sting and Quincy Jones were all there, and then somehow, we were too.
“At the ceremony, I remember they opened up the envelope and the first thing they said was the title of the song, ‘Love Bites (So Do I)’. We were expecting them to lead with the band name, so we were waiting for a ‘H’ sound. If you watch the video, there’s this collective silence where we’re all just like, ‘Okay, it’s Lamb Of God… Wait, that’s our song!’. I was completely speechless, but my brother had written out a speech because he had been waiting for this moment his whole life. That was a special moment because it felt like we’d made the absolute impossible happen. It gave us this motivation to see what other impossible things we could make possible.”
Playing Download Festival over the years
“In the UK, festivals are almost a lifestyle. It’s so wonderful to see all of these people camped out for days, whether it’s raining or shining. We’ve had some sunny Downloads, and we’ve also had some complete mud fests. One of the funniest moments for me was during the second time that we were there. It was raining, and you couldn’t even walk around because you’d be stuck in six inches of mud. We took to the stage, and we had to swap out our shoes before we went on. By some point in the middle of our set, I couldn’t tell who anybody in the crowd was or what they looked like. It was just a field filled with mud people. You could see the steam rising from everybody, and it was just insane.
“I love playing Download though, because that’s our tribe of people. Every time we come back, we get reunited with all of these wonderful people that have been following us, and some of them we’re meeting for the first time having only talked online. I always get taken back to that full circle childhood moment. It took me a long time, but I finally found my people. They’re just like me, and they have this primal need to be there. It’s not just a gig for us. It’s everything with the fans, and then it’s everything backstage too. It’s like rock’n’roll summer camp. You get to hang out with all of your buddies who you never see unless you’re on tour with them. You get to swap stories, and everybody just picks up right where they left off. It’s beautiful, and it’s something that we look forward to every single time.”
Headlining Wembley Arena in 2023
“That show was the cherry on top of the cake we’ve been building forever. There’s a difference between believing that you’re capable of getting there, and then it actually being a reality. We were having those conversations all day, from the moment we got into the venue, all throughout stage setup and rehearsals. It’s an unbelievable feeling when you love what you do, and you know how hard you’ve fought to get here. It meant so much because I was on that stage surrounded by my buddies. The guys in my band know me better than anyone. They’ve seen me at my absolute highest and absolute lowest, so to get to celebrate with them was unreal.
“Knowing the history of that place, and knowing all of the people that had played on that stage before… It was crazy to realise that we’ve done something with our lives that has proven us worthy of being there. When we looked out into the audience, there were all of these groups of people that saw it as their own personal party, which was incredible. Everybody was dressed up in a different way, everybody was holding signs, and they all just wanted to be a part of it. What we felt throughout that night was that it wasn’t just about our band, it was a collective win for all of us. We could have never gotten there without the people that care so much about our silly little songs. It truly blows my mind.”
Playing shows with Skid Row
“I had known Rachel [Bolan, bassist] and Snake [Dave Sabo, guitarist] for the better part of a decade. They both used to hang out in Nashville quite a bit. We were at a mutual friend’s birthday party, and Rachel came up to me whilst I was eating cake.
“He asked me if I’d ever do a show with Skid Row, and I just presumed he meant Halestorm supporting them. He explained that he meant would I actually front Skid Row, because their singer was having some health problems and they had some shows to fill. I called up my team to make sure that the dates were clear, and I was in.
“It wasn’t until we announced it that I realised what it meant to my inner teenage self. I did feel the pressure of knowing that I had some big shoes to fill, so I was treating it like an Olympic sport. I was jumping up and down on my rebounder whilst trying to hit the high notes! When the shows came around though, I got to step into this character that I was always trying to imitate in front of the mirror when I was a kid.
“Afterwards, I got some amazing compliments from their die-hard fans. I remember this one woman who told me that the first time she saw them was right before Sebastian [Bach] joined. She said, ‘Don’t take this the wrong way, but when Sebastian joined, he brought this effeminate quality to the band. I know you’re a girl, but you’re bringing this masculine edge to it now’. I called my dad after the second show, and I said, ‘Dad, I figured it out. When I was younger, I wanted to be that dude dressed up like a girl on the TV. Now that’s me!’ Those guys raised me as the rocker that I am, and we got to have so much fun together. It was one of those bucket list moments that I didn’t even realise was possible.”
Performing at Back to The Beginning
“Thinking back on it now, it almost feels like a dream. The first riff I ever learned on guitar was ‘Heaven And Hell’ by Black Sabbath, and my name wouldn’t be spelled the way it is if it were not for Ozzy. In so many different ways, I would not be the person I am without those guys.
“We rolled up for rehearsals two days before the show, and the most amazing thing was the demeanour of everybody backstage. There were no egos involved. Everyone was like little kids, so incredibly excited and appreciative to be there to pay tribute. Everybody was goofing off and having fun, and we all couldn’t believe that we were even asked to be there.
“When the day of the show came, it was crazy to see people like Steven Tyler and bands like Mastodon standing there looking nervous. Everybody would come offstage like, ‘Was it good? I think I blacked out!’ It was incredible though, and after everything was announced, I was told that I was the only girl on the line-up. That was special because when we took to the stage, all of the women got up on people’s shoulders so that we could see them. I looked at the footage afterward, and it was unreal.”
What was it like to see Black Sabbath in action one last time?
“After our set we settled in, and the Osbournes gave us all this neat little platform in the middle of the crowd so we could see everything. We were surrounded by the crowd, and I don’t think we’ll ever experience anything like it again. It was the first time I’d ever been to a concert of that size where you could feel everybody vibrating in the same frequency. Everybody was locked in, and everyone was there for the right reasons.
“When Ozzy came out, he was so happy, but he was also so frustrated that he couldn’t get out of his chair. When he started singing ‘Mama, I’m Coming Home’, I couldn’t stop crying. I turned to my band, and they were all crying. I looked around, and everyone else was crying, too. We all understood the gravity of what it meant to see Sabbath reunite. How many of the bands who played at that show would not be here if they had not laid the foundations?”
Working on the band’s latest album, Everest
“With our latest album, we inadvertently proved to ourselves that there’s only ever been the illusion of rules. A lot of people want to say that there are, but it’s just a control thing. Really, anything goes. Whilst making the record, we also rediscovered the love and respect all four of us have for each other and what each of us brings to the table. We all have our own skills, but there’s something that none of us can pull off individually without the others.
“All of our hearts are in the right place, we all want the same goal, and so we’re able to throw the egos out the door. That mentality carried us through the record, and we were writing fresh ideas every single day. As things got rolling, we would just start recording and see what happened. We were making quick decisions and there was no time to overthink anything. That helped us to rekindle the basis of what we love to do in this band. We wanted to push the envelope as far as we possibly could, always chasing after what gets us excited.
“Ultimately, we’re not doing it for anybody but ourselves. That sounds selfish, but you can’t create authentically whilst thinking about if a song is going to make it on the radio or if the label will like it. When you create something super personal, it somehow ends up being more universal. You learn that there are so many other people that think like you. That’s been such an important part of this album for me.”
Header photo: Joseph Okpako/Getty Images
