Halestorm is back with their new album Back From The Dead – and heavier than ever. The hard rock band's fifth studio album arrived this Friday, the 6th, and shows a more mature, organized, and much more explosive Halestorm, making a true manifesto about being, literally, "back from the dead" after two years of pandemic.
Lzzy Hale delivers the performance of her career with vocals and lyrics even fiercer than ever before, showcasing exceptional control and an overwhelming emotional outpouring. In several tracks, the singer presents a provocative perspective of herself, just as she did in the acclaimed Vicious (2018), but now Lzzy screams with the force of someone who has had to live alone with herself for two long years and emerged from the experience with heightened emotional intelligence and even more certain and confident of her place in the world.
Tracks like “Bombshell” and “Wicked Ways” celebrate the more disruptive and flawed sides of her personality, but with a self-aware perspective, while “Strange Girl” could easily have been part of her previous album, with Lzzy reaching out to other women like herself. “The world needs weird girls like me,” she sings after talking about the sideways glances and sharp opinions she’s received from others.
The sequence of songs, "The Steeple," "Terrible Things," and "My Redemption," navigates the troubled themes of seeking salvation in a Higher Power or a sacred community, culminating in the realization that salvation lies within each of us and that the support network we acquire throughout life is our true community – for Halestorm, that's their fans.
Listen to the new album Back From The Dead and check out our exclusive interview:
In an interview with Wikimetal , bassist Josh Smith recounts the creative process behind Back From The Dead , which began before the pandemic and has been a long journey since then. Check out the full interview:
Wikimetal: What was the process like for making this new album?
Josh Smith: It was a long journey, and not without delays, of course. Everyone in the world kind of stopped, and we had to stop too, just when we were warming up and getting ready to start again. I think that definitely changed the trajectory of the album we wanted to make. As difficult as it was to go through all of that, I think, in the end, the result was better than we could have hoped for.
WM: You guys were working on some songs before the pandemic. Did you keep any of that material?
JS: Yes, there's a song called "Bombshell" that was made pre-Covid. I think it's cool that this song closed the loop. I think, for us, there's always a song that helps define the album in the direction you're going, and we search for that until we find it. I think this was the song that helped us with that.
“Strange Girl” might not have happened if it weren’t for that song, so it completed the cycle. We had to re-record it several times until we got it right, and when we did, everything made sense. It helped the whole album; it’s the key piece of the album.
WM: Tell me more about the direction this album took. How would you say it differs from your previous albums?
JS: I think it's a pretty concentrated version of everything we've created before. I think it shows Lzzy – from a lyrical and mental point of view – in a phase of hyperfocus. And listening to the lyrics, listening to what she was singing about, the album started there and then went back the other way.
Normally, when we build a track, we start with the music and the drums and build that space for it. Actually, not “normally,” but that’s how we did a lot of the last album [ Vicious jamming sessions and then progressed into what they became.
This [album] was the complete opposite from beginning to end, which makes perfect sense in retrospect, but in a way that made our work much easier musically because we couldn't do anything other than serve the song and serve [Lzzy's] voice and the lyrics she was singing because it was very focused. The music is as hyper-focused as the lyrics and it's the sharpest collection of ideas we've ever released.
WM: How did this period of isolation affect you as a band? I imagine some things were difficult.
JS: Yes, they were. We were apart for longer than we ever had before, so each of us did a very personal, deep search to figure out how we were going to get through this. It was difficult and enjoyable and kind of all the emotions at once.
For me, I have two babies, so I got to be a full-time dad for two years, and that was really cool. But for Lzzy… For all of us, but specifically for her, the band is her . Not having that constant outlet meant she had to find new ways. She started an interview channel on YouTube and has a blog; she had to find new outlets to continue exploring and nurturing what we've worked so hard for over the last few years. A lot of that fell on her shoulders.
For all of us, not having that element of getting together to play or playing shows felt like a hole, an emptiness. Now that we finally have it back, we're grateful and we certainly didn't underestimate it.
WM: Did the time you spent with your children inspire you in any way in your work as a musician?
Yes! I'm not the main composer for Halestorm, I contribute as I can, but when I'm at home we like to make up songs. I come up with some rhymes to help remind my oldest son what he has to do after playing [laughs]. So we have rap and rhymes that we sing throughout the day to help us remember our chores and that makes it all the more fun.
It's been fun hanging up the rockstar hat and just being a dad, but it's also nice to put that hat back on every now and then.
WM: You have a comic book about to be released. What's it like having your own comic book?
JS: It's so cool! The art is beautiful and it's so much fun to see myself as a character. It's something much bigger than us now and it's surreal to be in a comic book.
WM: Do you think your children will like it? Will they see you as a superhero?
JS: Yeah, like, 'Look, Dad's in a comic book' [laughs]. I don't think about it much, but sometimes I show something to my oldest son and he gets that look of someone thinking, 'Wow, that's my dad.'
It's funny because to him I'm just his dad, so you can see the smoke coming out of his head as he tries to process it. 'Why is my dad in a comic book?' or 'Why is my dad on television?' or playing at some show. I remember having that same feeling seeing my dad be anything other than his dad role, you know? In any other real-world situation [laughs]. It's funny to experience that now.
WM: For my last question, I'd like to know what it's been like being back on tour and if you have any plans for South America or Brazil specifically..
JS: I'll answer your last question first. I can't wait to go back there. We'll have plans soon and I can't wait. You guys are the best fans in the world and even in the short time we spent there we made so many good memories and we're looking forward to coming back.
Regarding the tour, it's been a relief so far. Being able to play shows every night again is the best feeling in the world. Now everything is different, but we hope to be able to regain some sense of normalcy. We're being careful and always getting tested [for COVID], and there's a new logistics we need to deal with, but we're okay with that. We'll do whatever it takes, even if it means sticking a cotton swab up our noses every day, as long as we can keep playing.
Aside from that, the audiences have been incredible. We went all the way to the UK, we had the chance to travel internationally, which is huge. I didn't think we'd be able to do that so soon and for a while we had to cancel our plans for Europe, but we did make it to the UK. We were really anxious, thinking we wouldn't make it, so when it happened it was a huge relief and they're great fans too.
We're warming up to start a new tour in May in the United States, and it's great to be playing live again.
