In January, Halestorm vocalist Lzzy Hale and Chris Daughtry recently joined forces on a brilliant cover of Journey's Separate Ways (World's Apart)

To celebrate the release of the collaborative effort, the two hard rock vocal powerhouses spoke to Heavy Consequence and spent quite a bit of time geeking out over one another's vocal prowess. As transcribed by Heavy Consequence, Hale kicks off the great love-in, stating “The only thing that I’ve ever been nerdy about in life is vocals, and Chris is just as nerdy." "Since the first song I ever heard him sing on the radio, he’s got an incredible voice, to the point that it’s different when somebody cares about their voice.” 

Daughtry returns favour, praising Hale's formidable voice. "I remember [producer] Howard Benson telling me, ‘You’ve got to hear this girl,'” Daughtry said. “You hear people say stuff like that all the time, and I remember hearing [early Halestorm single] ‘I Get Off,’ and I was like, ‘Holy shit!’ And he was like, ‘No. You don’t understand. She’s that loud in the vocal booth, outside the vocal both! She cuts through the walls with her voice.’ And we got to witness that when we toured together. I didn’t realize at the time what great a guitar player she was, as well.”

Watch the full video chat below. 

Speaking about the unexpected but inspired collaborative cover, at the time of release, Chris Daughtry revealed to Variety that he was inspired to record the cover by a love of Stranger Things, the finale of which features a brilliant drop of the Journey anthem. 

“It was such an incredible episode — the way it was so cinematic, I remember the song coming on and, and the way they had chopped it up with the scenes, it was so vibey. I was like, ‘this is it.'”

He goes on to explain to Variety how Lzzy Hale ended up on the track, "Lzzy and I had been talking for years about working on a song together, whether it be an original or a cover. " "We’ve done stuff live before, but never recorded anything. I texted her about doing ‘Separate Ways’ and she was, like, ‘That’s my go-to karaoke song! I’m all in.”

The result is a fitting tribute to a vocal deity, Steve Perry, by two of modern rock's biggest voices. 

Lzzy Hale's peformance on the track should come as no surprise to Maniacs readers, with the Grammy award-winning hard rockers Halestorm having released a Deluxe Edition of their massive 2022 release Back From The Dead recently.

Available for streaming, digital purchase and physical sales, Back From The Dead (Deluxe) features seven new songs not included on the original album Produced by Nick Raskulinecz (Foo Fighters, Mastodon, Alice in Chains) with co-production by Scott Stevens (, Daughtry, New Years Day), Back From The Dead was released in May and saw the beloved band expand on their sound while maintaining the edge that has always seen them sit atop the pile of modern hard rock acts. 



Frontwoman and icon of modern rock, Lzzy Hale spoke to Maniacs earlier this year. 

Maniacs has a long and storied history with the band, which we extended even further in our latest feature interview with Lzzy Hale which you can watch below. 

During the wide-ranging interview, the ever personable Lzzy gives us insight into the mental space that conjured the collection of resilient hard rock anthems that make up Back From The Dead. 

"Personally, I mean, if I can get you know, personal with you and you know, I promise I won't get too too deep down the rabbit hole but I was going through somewhat of an identity crisis. I got reacquainted with panic attacks that I hadn't had since I was in high school. Um, you know, definitely bouts of depression and and you know, anxiety which which always looms its head but you always have these other things in your life that distract you from it. So all of my other tools, you know, and, and weapons in my arsenal, were no longer really at my disposal to do that. So I really had to kind of deal with a lot of things that maybe I hadn't dealt with or maybe I've never dealt with"  

Back From The Dead: Deluxe Edition Tracklist

1. Back From The Dead

2. Wicked Ways

3. Strange Girl

4. Brightside

5. The Steeple

6. Terrible Things

7. My Redemption

8. Bombshell

9.I Come First

10. Psycho Crazy

11. Raise Your Horns

12. Mine

13.F*ck Yea

14. Legendary

15. Wannabe

16. You Only Die Once

17. Alien

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Listen to Back From The Dead (Deluxe)