A few weeks ago, the RockUrLife team met up with Lzzy Hale and Joe Hottinger from Halestorm. They told us a bit more about “Vicious”, their 4th album, which is coming out on July 27tt, but also about solo projects, their struggles and their complicity.
Hi there! Firsteval welcome here! It’s been such a while since the last time you were here. Is there a place that you always come or a thing that you always do when you’re here?
Lzzy Hale (vocals): Now, I would say this hotel because this place is awesome.
Joe Hottinger (guitar): What we always do? We always find ourselves in different adventures everytime we are here. We never really have time to do a lot of things. We arrive late, we have diner and wake up early the next day and we start doing something else. But we try to drink good wine!
Lzzy: It’s always our mission to eat good food and drink good wine, and between we have a lot of responsibilities. That’s what we did.
OK, let’s talk about “Vicious“. The song was one of the last one you wrote. Why did you choose to call your album after that song?
Lzzy: Mainly because we like this word, we find it funny.
Joe: When we started writing the song, we said: “it could be the name of our album”. We were considering of another name but we were not 100% sure. And then we finally chose “Vicious” when we wrote the song.
Lzzy : So we had like one more kind of day writting and hanging out in LA and we were like: “let’s just make another song” so I came with the line: “what doesn’t kill me makes me vicious” and it just kind of immediately summarized the record for me. Because the record is like a journey, both is overcoming obstacles but also complety owning yourself and just being OK with all of the things that makes you you. Sex, the way you look or who you are and all of that and because a part of the song “Vicious” says the Nietzche quote: “What doesn’t kill you make you stronger” and for us, especially for woman and for me in particularly it’s so much more than being strong and taking it. Because you can take a lot but you have to overcome these things and you have to overcome those obstacles and whatever standing in your way and come out swinging and be fierce about it. So that’s what the song is being about and the whole record is kind of like that so that’s why it’s called “Vicious”.
When you started to write this album, you were feeling pretty down. Was there a moment when you felt like you couldn’t make the album or just wanted to give up?
Lzzy: It was just a moment of confusion because there is an internal drive in me to continue with this band but how to do that and whether or not I should? And then also do I deserve to be here? Have I lost it? Is it now just something I do? Like where is the passion? Where Is the excitement?
Joe: Do we know how to make the record that we want to make but we don’t know how?
Lzzy: So that was the question and with this band this about me more than anybody probably but this is so much more than a career, it’s an extension of me. So when it’s not working or I feel confused it’s not just: “oh whatever I’m confused about the band” it’s like then I’m confused about myself. And then I question all of that and you can go down some very dark alleyways and this record was this kind of therapy for me to get out of that and overcome that. And that’s why a lot of the songs are about that, because I was going through at the time. It’s probably one of the first records where I was writing about something in the moment that I was going through it. Because a lot of times I write from retrospect like: “oh that happens” and I’ll write about it later and then eventually it will be on the record. And we were recording while we were writing so it’s very kind of genuine I should say.
You’ve always showed the strong Lzzy and now we know that you also can be weak. Was it a choice to show this part of you to your fans?
Lzzy: Absolutely because that comes with just being a girl too. We are all of those things. It’s not fair to yourself or to other people to pretend to be just one of those all the time. We have our ups and our down moments and if anything by showing some fear or weaknesses that is a form of strength and is a form of guts. It takes balls to tell somebody that “no I don’t know what I’m doing”. So for me, I felt like the fans deserve that and to see me like that because it something that has been a long conversation with everybody online like: “Do you ever go through this?”. And I’m like: “Yes, absolutely”. “Why? You seem like an amazingly strong person” and in my best moments I am but like everybody you go through different things. So it was really fun to finally let to show people that.
Can you tell us a secret about this album?
Lzzy: Do we have any secrets?
We’re sure you do.
Lzzy: Tell them about the scissors.
Joe: Oh yeah! There’s scissors on the record.
Lzzy: We use scissors as an instrument like the sound of the old scissors. (laughs)
Who plays the scissors ?
Joe: (laughs) Nick, our producer (ed. Raskulinecz). If you listen you can find it. You gotta find it. It’s pretty obvious.
Lzzy: Yeah now that they know it’s pretty obvious.
So Nick is going to tour with you and play the scissors now.
Lzzy: (laughs) I was thinking about that. I was thinking if we perform it live, should we use scissors. We should make Arejay (battery) with the scissors. That would be fun. (laughs) Yeah we will do it!
OK let’s talk about “Uncomfortable”. It’s hard to say it when you’re French.
Lzzy: (laughs) It’s hard to say it in English too!
What makes you uncomfortable?
Lzzy: Right now when people talk about politics.
Joe: Yeah fuck politics.
Lzzy:Fuck that shit. (laughs) Seriously.
Joe: Give them a new hobby.
Lzzy: Just everybody be a good human and seriously just stop.
Joe: It’s not a sport. It’s a bunch of greedy old men. Go fuck themselves!
And what about you Joe?
Joe: What does make me uncomfortable?
Lzzy: Oh! Nail injuries!
Joe: Barf!
Lzzy: See? Here we go!
Joe: Me and the guys were playing flip flap at this festival this other week and the team scored so we huged and his foot ripped my toe nail and I was like: “Aaaah” and I kept saying afterwards: “Huh gross”.
So for “Into The Wild Life”, the key word was “Unapologetic”. For “Vicious”, we assume that it’s “uncomfortable”, are we right?
Lzzy & Joe: Sure!
Joe: I like that!
So it’s like you claim to be you, to be different somehow like: “We don’t care about what you think, we are who we are”. Is it true?
Lzzy: It’s very true! You hit right on the nail! (laughs)
But do you care about what people think about your music?
Joe: Maybe a little but not really.
Lzzy: Not the point that our lifes will be destroyed if everybody hated the record.
Joe: Also if it’s an intelligent music conversation and somebody has some criticisms and makes a good point or whatever it is what it is now, that’s how we recorded and how we made it. I know we did the best we could.
Lzzy: And what else you can do? And honestly not everybody has to like us. It’s so funny like any obstacles or things that get us upset or whatever that happens in our life usually ends up that it’s us that put these obstacles in it. We’re critical of ourselves but we don’t care of anybody’s judgement. And I think that just comes from that we grow up on stage and every nights there’s a bunch of people like: “are you gonna be good tonight?” (laughs) That doesn’t really bother us but it’s more trying to be our best selves. And we made the record that we really loved. Hopefully everybody likes it. It’s always nice though.
Joe: It’s always better than: “It sucks! Fuck you!”. Then I don’t give a fuck. Like if you can’t figure out how to do intelligently criticisms then your opinion really doesn’t matter.
So do you often read feedback from fans and journalists?
Lzzy: Oh yeah!
Joe: Sometimes yeah..
Lzzy: My favorite is Blabbermouth because it’s always creative. One of my favorite criticism was I think a compliment actually on something I was doing and I quote: “I would pee in her butt so hard that it would come out of her mouth and nose like an Italian fountain”. (laughs) And I thought he must really like me to want to do that! (laughs) And how does it even happen?
Joe: He must love toilets too!
Lzzy : Yeah probably! They’re really creative on there!
A lot of band members like guitarists or bass players play in 2 or even more bands. So Joe, have you ever thought of playing in another band beside Halestorm?
Joe: Do you mean the Joe Hottinger’s project? I’m just kidding!
Lzzy: When Joe and I were writing, we pretended to be in another band just to give another different perspective.
Joe: Yeah. I don’t know man , no I’ve not really thought about this. We barely have time to keep the things done! I think last week was the first time we have 3 days off in like 9 months so it’s just too intense. Rough schedule! I wouldn’t have time for another band. Can you imagine starting another band? It’s like raising a child. It takes so much time and money. So that seems insane to me. But if I had a bunch of extra time, I would totally and keep playing music.
Lzzy: I was telling the guys: “When whatever anybody needs a break I’d go and do a solo record and you continue whatever you want”. Because I can’t stop.
Joe: May I be in your solo band?
Lzzy: Do you want to be in my solo band? Here we go, we start the band! Do we have to call it the Lzzy Hale solo thing? Or we come with a different name?
Joe: Yeah!
Lzzy, you recently said: “I have literally a hundred of songs in my bank but they’re not for Halestorm”. So when you write a song how do you end up thinking: “No it’s not for Halestorm”?
Lzzy: Sometimes it’s really obvious like it’s just not what I want to represent with Halestorm maybe because it’s a little bit cheesier or just a lot of ballads. Like for instance there’s this song on this record called “Do Not Disturb” which I wrote as not for Halestorm. I ended up writing like 15 songs they were kinda synthpop songs because I wanted to see what I could do with all those keyboards and cheesy sound and then I showed to the guys like: “Hey look what I did”. And they really liked it and we could made that Halestorm songs. I was like: “Really? Seriously?” and we did. But yeah I don’t know I write because I like writing even if it’s not for anybody and I like writing in different styles, in different genres too like pop songs or country songs, these little punky songs. I tried to reinvente the birthday song, just a new way to sing “Happy Birthday” and I made it into this punk song like if Katy Perry was in a punk band. That kind of thing! I know it’s like a weird experience. Sometimes I brought up new ideas for Halestorm and they were: “What the fuck is that?”. It’s difficult to figure out that because I’ve been asking myself for years: “If you do a solo record do you break away from rock?” Because I don’t really want to do that. I would rather still represent rock. But how do I represent rock in my own corner of Halestorm? Maybe I will figure out maybe I won’t!
Joe: Yeah.
Lzzy: Either way you can be my roadie too!
Joe, what’s the best thing about working with Lzzy and Lzzy, what is the best thing about working with Joe?
Joe: When she leaves the room. I’m just kidding. (laughs) She’s so good lyrically. It makes writing songs so much easier when I’m just focus on the music and she does the lyrical stuff. To collaborate with her is everything.
Lzzy: Thank you!
Joe: And then when she leaves the room.
Lzzy: My favorite thing about working with Joe and this stand back to the very first time we met and we started hanging out together when I was 19, is that I’ve never really hung out with anybody that have the same obsession almost to an annoying way for music. We’re making plans and try to see them through how do you piece the puzzle together. When I met Joe we were still up till 5am just talking about how we can make this gig like: “How do we get that? How do figure out to never have a normal job?”. That was a big discussion! And this has never changed! All the things we have accomplished, we are extremely grateful. And to have a partner with the same passion. It’s an amazing thing!
As our website is called “RockUrLife”, so what rocks your life?
Joe: Pizzas! (laughs)
Lzzy: (laughs) It does! I love pizza! That something that always like “wow”. Seriously what rocks my life is being able to travel overseas and play shows with the people that I love because this is something that I never thought it would truly be possible. We’ve been in 3 different countries in 4 days and if you had told my 14 old self, I would have never believed that.
Joe: And I think good music and rock rocks my life. There’s nothing like when you hear new music and it totally blows you away. I love that shit.
Website: halestormrocks.com
