Halestorm plays Wembley Arena on 9 December 2023, and Lzzy Hale told MetalTalk that “London’s getting extra.” She says that that band are planning something very special. “We want it to be a celebration,” she said. In Part Two of this interview, we explore the legacy of Lzzy Hale and Halestorm in more depth.
Lzzy Hale has been screaming her heart out on stages around the world for decades now. Asked how she has managed to protect her amazing voice for so long, she told MetalTalk’s Ian Sutherland that she works hard. “I have trained hard over the years to be able to do this,” Lzzy says.
“It was not even necessarily really a choice for me because I love to tour so much, and I love performing live. It’s the worst feeling in the world when you can’t do that. It’s like this part of you is missing, and it’s this hole that can’t be filled with anything else. I think that subconsciously, I’ve had to train myself in a certain way. I have to listen to my body, and I have more or less adapted to that type of lifestyle.”
“I feel like I have a better or larger range now midway through a tour than I would with three days off not singing,” Lzzy says. “In the beginning, I was doing a set warm-up every single night for about 20 minutes to just keep everything moving, and I did a cool down afterwards. I still do some of that to some degree every day because every day is different.
“But now it’s beautiful because I’ve gotten to know my body very well. I can now wake up in the morning, and just from listening to either my speaking voice or checking my voice throughout the day, I know what areas to either work on or just leave alone.
“There’s some days that I wake up, and I’m like cool. That’s there. I don’t really need to do anything to it. Rest assured, even the guttural stuff that I’m doing on stage doesn’t hurt. I’m doing it in a safe way. If anything, it’s more about letting it go than it is about making an effort to kind of push it through, if that makes any sense. I’m trusting my instincts at this point in time in my career, and I know how to troubleshoot my way around certain things and to remain consistent. But as with anything, it’s time and practice.”
Reminiscing about earlier tours where Halestorm’s show started with a capella vocals from off stage, Lzzy Hale reveals, “We’ve actually started to bring that particular trick back on this last run. So, I’ll be doing that a couple of times on this tour. The guys definitely like it when I do that.
“They’re like, you can go out there, and you start. They throw me to the wolves a little bit. It’s still exciting for me to do that because one of the most nerve-wracking things that I can do is start offstage or just start a cappella where you’re just naked to the world. There are no amps to hide behind. The band isn’t loud, so you can’t hide behind that either. It’s just you, so you’re either hitting it or not. I’m very grateful that I’m still able to do it and that I still enjoy doing that.”
Halestorm and Lzzy, in particular, are heavily influenced by rock stars of the ’70s and ’80s, but as a modern rock star, you could say it’s about sex, social media and rock ‘n’ roll.
Asked about her social media presence, Lzzy admits, “I’m not necessarily trying to be anything, but I’m a terrible liar. I remember thinking about that at the beginning when social media started being the way it is and the thing to do. At first, I’m like, how do people see me? And then I thought, screw that, I don’t know how people see me.
“I have no control over that, and I also have no ability to hide behind some type of veil or put myself up on any type of pedestal. What I can do is be myself, and what I can do is be honest with people. It’s way easier. So I just started doing that, and for me, it was almost out of a selfish attempt to get to know our fans better.”
“When I started doing the #AskLzzyAnything on Twitter [now X], it was because it was fun. You get to be asked different things that maybe you wouldn’t be asked in an interview and also just have conversations with people. It was a way to add something, I guess, another human element in the idea that is kind of the opposite of that.
“Whereas people hide behind screens and keyboards and avatars and emojis and all of that, this was a way to break through that and say let’s just actually just talk about that. Do you wanna talk about your favourite toppings on a pizza? Let’s go. Do you wanna talk about how hard it is to tell your parents what you really like or what you wanna do with your life or how hard it is to break away from somebody who’s being abusive? Sure, we can talk about that too. There’s not much I won’t talk about.
“That being said, there are obviously things that I keep for myself because you have to. That makes sense. But you can give most of yourself away, and it’s kind of beautiful because you get to have a moment with someone. A lot of times, you can’t help but be inspired by somebody else’s story. So that works its way into some of your music, and so it’s kind of just like a circular way of existing. It’s just about connection at that point.”
Talking of writing music, a follow-up to their last album, Back From The Dead, is in its early stages. “I’m a serial eavesdropper,” Lzzy Hale says, “so I’ve been doing that a lot any time that we go out. I’ll just sit there and listen. Sometimes, you will hear some great one-liners from people just having conversations or talking about their day or what is important to them.
“I write all the time, but I have been collecting some pieces and recording for some new material. So yeah, keep your eyes out for next year. We might have something to show you.”
The remaining few tickets for Wembley are available from here.
