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Halestorm are set to grace Australia with their presence for a second time in 2019, with their December headlining tour just around the corner to follow their appearance at Download 2019 earlier in the year!


So why exactly are they so enamored with the country? We had our own Dave "Higgo" Higgins chat with the band's bold frontwoman Lzzy Hale to find out, along with some great stories about her experience with music as a child. Read on for the interview:

H: Hi Lzzy, how are you?

L: I’m doing great Higgo, I was just saying I love your name, I think it’s great!

H: (laughs) well it’s short for Higgins - just a nickname...

L: Well I love it, mine’s short for Elizabeth, so...

H: who calls you Elizabeth, your parents?

L: My mother does, and then..(laughs) the guitar player from Tom Keifer’s band.

H: Right!

L: He calls me Elizabeth for some reason, and it’s just funny to me because he’s like the head tuner and tech of guitars for Guitar Centre over here, so, I’ll go into the shop and I’ll talk to him and the first thing he’ll say is “Elizabeth” and I won’t hear him (laughs) or ya know when I do hear him I think oh god am I in trouble? So yeah my mother still calls me Elizabeth, as mothers do, as I think is their right, they named me (laughs).

H: Well yeah you get the first name but also get from them, “I’m not angry, I’m just disapointed".

L: Oh I know, I HATE that, (laughs)... "JUST BE ANGRY! I WOULD RATHER YOU JUST BE ANGRY!" (laughs)

H: Yeah exactly! Hey, you are one of my favourite people to chat to because you’re always so down to earth, and such a nice person.

L: Aw, you're sweet.

H: I put out on Twitter last night that I would be speaking to you, and one of your fans, Taylee, said “LZZY s everything young women need in their lives, strong, driven, educated, compassionate and all round badass. I’d love to know who she looks up to and what drives her.”

L: That’s awesome!

H: I guess you must get that quite a bit though?

L: Well she should write a letter to my 13 year old self right now (laughs) to make my 13 year old self so proud of where and what I’ve become. No, that’s amazing - I think it’s awesome that whatever it is that I represent to people is something positive and just overwhelmingly such a fulfilling thing for me to be a part of.


But let me tell you something… I’m not… I’m not cool, ya know - I didn’t get into music because I was cool, I got into music because I WASN’T cool (laughs) so I gravitated towards that. But I dunno, I mean to me I have a great deal of respect for the things that you can put out in the world. I always said that if I ever got to the point where people are listening, for better of worse, people are listening to what I’m saying, ya gotta put that out there, you gotta put out the positivity ya know. 


I mean, it’s helpful for me too because even the insecurities I have now as a young adult, I get to share that will people through my music, and then I get this sense of community with a lot these people that follow me. It’s a pretty amazing thing to have happen in my life and develop into something special, ya know. 

H: Yeah, well given the massive amount of music you have released, and even the covers you’ve chosen to do, it does all speak about and to the people that might not be so sure of themselves, and it resonates, like even on your latest album, the very song Black Vultures, I mean you’ve just gotta listen to the lyrics of that, (paraphrasing) “you're down but not out kinda thing and you’ll always fight”. I think that’s a really important thing - especially for young girls to hear - so I get why your fans are so passionate. 

L: Oh thank you! You know it’s interesting too because it is therapy for me as well and I am able, and this is in no small part, ya know I always try to say thank you as often as I can to the people that care about what I do and to the people that follow us, and care enough to buy the tickets to come out and see us or buy these songs, because I’m able to turn something that was negative in me into something positive.


I’m able to write a letter of encouragement to myself saying 'look, this is kinda screwed up, but it’s ok, you’ve gotten through tougher things before’ and then you put it into a song and then you get to share that moment with so many people, and so many people that for whatever reason are looking up to you then. I think that’s such a cool back and forth to have. So the inspiration comes full circle I think.

H: You say when you were 13 and you weren’t cool and that’s why you started music with your brother, what were you guys listening to that sparked the interest in a particular style of music? 

L: A lot of it actually was my parents' music, we listened to a lot of music growing up. My parents were rock fans, their song is Panama by Van Halen…

H: Oh man!

L: Yeah, so if that gives you any indication of the kind of household I grew up in...like my dad owned spandex pants, they didn’t have a problem with my little brother growing his hair long, and when we started the band and my little brother wanted to build a rotating upside down drum kit like Tommy Lee, instead of my dad saying "that’s ridiculous", he figured it out.


We grew up on a 20-acre farm, so we took a tractor axle, some steel parts that we welded together, an old drum kit, four seat belts and velcro, and strapped my little brother into this thing, and it was all manual (laughing), AND WE FLIPPED HIM UPSIDE DOWN ON HIS DRUMKIT!


And if you ever wanna laugh at 3 in the morning, just google Halestorm 1999 and this will explain my family. My dad is playing bass at the time and my mom is the one operating the rotating upside down drum kit with my little brother in it, but you don’t wanna get my mom angry that day. 

H: That’s fantastic!

L: So anyway, I was listening to a lot of classic rock when I was growing up and my top ones were like what I actually now call the ABC’s of rock, because it was Alice Cooper, Black Sabbath, Cinderella and Dio, that’s what I listening to at like, eleven.  I found out shortly after that when I took my favourite Alice Cooper CD that I love to death to a slumber party - we had just moved into a new place, so the new girls had just invited me to this awesome slumber party and I thought "ok this is gonna be great!". I walk in and they’re like "I hope you brought your favourite CD’s, we’re gonna listen to music".


So there was like Backstreet Boys, TLC and all that stuff so we put in Alice Cooper, and you can imagine, they looked at me like I was from outer space. So that was that, and that introduced me to my ‘weird’ and ya know I’m definitely NOT like the other girls (laughs). But literally I still wear all those influences on my sleeve.


And then, my mom went off at my dad because I was listening to predominantly male vocalists, so my mom got me this great live record from Heart that was done in the 90’s The Road Home, and it blew my mind.. I was like "girls can sing like that? Are you kidding me??!"


To this day if you wanna know the origin of my 'chick voice' or the reason I wanted to sound the way I do now, that was that record. I listen to a lot of stuff now, but I can always go back to those records and find something new, ya know? 

H: Well you’ve got some great heritage there - Alice Cooper with his attitude, Dio with his voice and stories, Ann and Nancy Wilson with outstanding voices. Especially Ann - huge, what a stomping ground to learn your craft from, and thanks largely to your parents. How awesome are they. 

L: Oh yeah, they’re the best, thank you! 

H: Now, Halestorm was just here like 10 months ago, and then you announced another tour for this year and everyone was like "hang on a minute, is this real are the really coming back so quickly? ". But at the same time saying "YES, come back as often as you like!"

L: Well honestly that’s your fault! When we got home from that last tour, we’re like "how can we not wait a whole year to get back there", so we kinda put a fire under a few people saying "we have to go back, we HAVE to go back", because I tell ya what man, the Australian fans, they’re the best man. It’s the best in the world man and we always say if ‘rock show’ was a verb, ya know, ‘to rock show’ (laughs)... what it is to ‘rock show’, the Aussies know how to ‘rock show’. THEY KNOW. To me, it makes my heart happy especially now you know my obsession with some 70’s and 80’s rock music, (laughs) I love that ROCK 101 man, and I like to be around like minded people, so we’re stoked to be coming back so soon. 

H: Apart from the rock classes that we put on here, is there any specifically you’re looking forward to in Australia that you can only get or do here? 

L: Specifically and honestly it really is the shows that I look forward to, but I guess I’m also looking forward to hanging out with the locals - we kinda get lost a little when we’re over there, in a good way. We get out and about, go to a couple of pubs or whatever and kinda walk around town so I’m very much looking forward to that and hanging out with some locals Aussies and getting into some trouble! (laughs)

H: Now each time I talk to you I play you some Aussie music, specifically female fronted rock bands because we have some kick arse bands.

L: Hell yeah you do!

(I play her Lillye – 'Run')

L: That's so cool - they're called 'Lillye'?

H: Yeah.

L: Awesome… I’m gonna go listen to more of them when we get off here - thank you so much for sharing that with me! I love that when people play me music 'cause it’s tough to discover new music on the road, but when I’m at home - we were just talking about this - we have people over to do vinyl listening parties and someone always brings something obscure, and that’s how you find new strains of music, so this is great. I mean I would never have found them on my own, so I appreciate that, thank you. 

H: No worries, I have friends who send me new stuff all the time, and it’s kinda like the modern day tape trading, ya know how you’d make a mix tape and swap with your friends? 

L: Ohhhh yeeaaahhhh, DUDE, The MIX TAPES! Man, back when I was 19, no... it was before that, my guitar player and I first met, and we did the mix tape thing like ‘ok, this is what I like’ and he’s ‘hey this is what I like and what I’m listening to’ and we’re just starting to be friends, and we’re like ‘ok if we’re gonna hang out, this is the stuff we have to listen to’. And I mean, I miss that… so yeah you playing me music is kinda the equivalent of that, so it’s cool. 

H: The mix tape is like the pre-Tinder world of getting to know someone...you make them a tape, they make you a tape and you say ‘if you don’t listen to this, I don’t think we can be together’.

L: (laughing) Yeeeahhhhh... ‘sorry dude, we can’t do that, I don’t see a future, I’ve listened to your application you don’t like Black Sabbath, I just can’t do it’ (laughing)

H: It’s like your slumber party, you can’t hang out with those girls!

L: Oh yeah, like, the first ticket I ever bought for a concert was for Tool, and I took this boy, and we went out for dinner first, and he literally told me he hated The Beatles. 

H: Oh my god...

L: And then…. we got to the Tool concert, and ya know, I bought the tickets so they weren’t very good seats, but it’s still cool, it was like all these visuals, the music is pumpin, I’m standing up rocking out... but then I look over HE’S PASSED OUT ASLEEP!

H: OH NO

L: And so we didn’t see each other again! (laughs) THAT WAS IT! 

H: Well Lzzy, as always it’s an absolute please to chat with you and I hope we get to do it again when you’re out here in December, I know you’re keep killin' it, and we’ll see you later in the year. 

L: Awesome, thank you darling, talk soon. 

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