July 23, 2018
The new album from Grammy Award winners Halestorm is set to release on July 27, 2018 and the momentum is a full on Tsunami. Vicious is a twelve track album that resulted from self-doubt, depression, a full album re-write, hard work, dedication and a renewed fire from the band.
It is as much an empowering and an unapologetic album as it is a rock album. With singles ‘Uncomfortable’ and ‘Do Not Disturb’ you get the energy this band is known for. But there is another side to this album. There are some deep and personal songs on the album such as ‘The Silence’. You feel the raw emotion in singer Lzzy Hale’s voice but also the sensitive side. There is no better example of both sides of her voice than the song ‘Heart Of Novocaine’. When listening to Heart, I felt there was sort of an emotional break in her voice nearly halfway through this powerful but vulnerable track. I asked her about that emotion, and her approach to laying down vocals for that song, as well as her vocals in general on this album.
Lzzy tells me, “I know we’ve talked about our producer (Nick Raskulinecz) a lot but he was a huge part in that as well. He was paying a lot of attention to, especially vocally, how I approached songs. Especially the mental state, regardless of when we were recording it, whether that means it was ten in the morning or midnight. Just paying attention to how I approached it and my emotional state of the song. That particular take on Heart Of Novocaine that we kept was more or less the scratch vocal. That’s (scratch vocal) basically when we have something down instrumentally and I will kind of sing it through just as a reference for all of us and the guys, so we know what part of the song we are at.”
Lzzy continues, “That song was fresh and when we recorded that song, it was the day after I wound up writing it on the piano at home. I showed it to the guys the next morning and we recorded it that day. When I sang it for that scratch track, the emotions were really fresh. So when we went back to re-sing it that night, Nick turned to me and said ‘You’re trying to be a singer now.’ And I was like what are you talking about, I am a singer. (Lzzy laughs). And he says, ‘no, no, no, you’re approaching the song like a singer. You’re not approaching it like the person that wrote the song.’ That was the first time a producer actually paid attention to that with me.” You can hear the admiration in Lzzy’s voice as she continues to explain.
“There is a small, I guess, thing with me that when I’m performing it like a performer, like a singer, a lot of times you can hear that through the take – ‘Okay, I’m trying to sing now and I’m going to be on key and perfect or whatever.’ So we ended up using that first take that I did because he just loved the emotion.. and, as you said, that kind of emotional break in the vocal. I ended up turning to him and said ‘well you know that’s not perfect.’ And he says, ‘It’s rock and roll. It’s not supposed to be perfect and in this take I know you were actually meaning it.’ So as we went further along and me trying to be a singer, it lost that “magic”. Like I said, it’s a huge testament to him really paying attention and keeping those standards really high on this record.”
The producer has many roles in the production of an album but the mental side just may be one of the most critical roles a producer can play. Getting the most out of a band is hard to quantify but Nick Raskulinecz seems to have done just that. Sonically, it’s the fullest sounding record the band has released. The guitar tones are fat and the drums are powerful but not overbearing. And of course the vocals. They are raw but not uncontrolled. This album feels like the total package. I asked Lzzy and guitarist Joe Hottinger to give us two or three songs that were their “I can’t wait for people to hear this” type songs.
Lzzy says “I can’t wait for people to hear Killing Ourselves To Live because this is probably the fastest Joe’s fingers have moved on a solo on the record. (Lzzy laughs). In the opposite sense, The Silence because it’s one of the more personal ones. What do you think (Joe)?”
“I think people are going to dig Skulls. I think it’s got some great rock moments in it. Yeah! I’ll pick those three for now!” says Joe.
So now we know what’s inside. But the first thing you are going to see when you get this new record is the album cover. When I first saw the album artwork I thought to myself that this literally could be taken a few different ways by people. I asked both Lzzy and Joe if there was any backstory or inspiration for the cover art.
Joe explains, “The concept for that album cover, we sort of found that in the bottom of a bottle in this bar in Nashville. Lzzy and I were kind of discussing it, having a few beers and I don’t know, it just started coming together. We were like, ‘what if there was this girl’ ..and you want it to be sexy but not obvious sexy, but with all these hands and the big idea was to create more questions than answers with an image, ya know?”
Lzzy adds, “And also we didn’t want to have another record where it was just the four of us on stage or against a background.”
Joe agrees and goes on to explain “We wanted to create some sort of imagery that maybe spoke to somebody. Is it a woman, like struggling through the gauntlet of the industry or is it a woman enjoying all these hands on her? Or is it commentary on current events? There’s no answer. It’s an image to create questions.”
“The great thing we’ve seen thus far is that everybody has their own interpretation as to what it means to them, which I think is great. That was the overall goal. It’s for it to not just be something that was ours, but something for everybody else to kind of hold onto”, explains Lzzy.
I think that is exactly what Halestorm has accomplished here. An album they created that is worthy to be pushed out into the world for everybody to hold onto. Well hold on tight, because it’s going to be a wild ride and thankfully there appears to be no end in sight.
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The band has also announce that the third leg of their tour featuring all female fronted rock bands:
HALESTORM + IN THIS MOMENT
TOUR 2018
NEW YEARS DAY TO SUPPORT ON ALL DATES
RUN KICKS OFF NOVEMBER 16 AND RUNS FOR ONE MONTH
TICKETS ON-SALE THIS FRIDAY, JULY 27TH, THE RELEASE DAY OF HALESTORM’S VICIOUS
All dates with Special Guests New Years Day unless noted.
November 16th– December 16thnewly announced
JULY
27 Kansas City, MO Silverstein Eye Centers Arena
28 Dubuque, IA Dubuque County Fair (Halestorm only)
29 Toledo, OH Centennial Terrace
31 Baltimore, MD UMBC Event Center
AUGUST
2 Uncasville, CT Mohegan Sun Arena
3 Albany, NY Capital Center
4 Portland, ME Maine State Pier
6 Asbury Park, NJ Stone Pony Summer Stage
7 Columbus, OH Express Live!
9 Moorehead, MN Bluestem Amphitheater (w/ Joan Jett) (Halestorm only)
10 Council Bluffs, IA Stir Cove
11 Springfield, IL Illinois State Fair (Halestorm only)
14 Missoula, MT Big Sky Brewing Company
16 Spokane, WA Star Theater at Spokane Arena
17 Seattle, WA WAMU
18 Eugene, OR Cuthbert Amphitheater
20 Central Point, OR Bi-Mart Amphitheater
21 Reno, NV Grand Sierra Resort
23 San Francisco, CA The Warfield
24 Valley Center, CA Harrah’s Resort SoCal Events Center
25 Las Vegas, NV Fremont Street (Halestorm only)
SEPTEMBER
1 Milwaukee, WI Veteran’s Park (Halestorm only)
NOVEMBER
16 Norfolk, VA Constant Convocation Center
17 Camden, NJ BB&T Pavilion
20 Evansville, IN Old National Events Plaza
21 Ft. Wayne, IN Allen County ExpoCenter
23 Syracuse, NY Nicholas J. Pirro Convention Center
24 New York, NY Hammerstein Ballroom
26 Cleveland, OH Masonic Auditorium
DECEMBER
1 Broomfield, CO 1stBank Center
2 Park City, KS Hartman Arena
4 Springfield, MO Shrine Mosque
5 Lexington, KY Rupp Arena
7 Hammond, IN Horseshoe Casino
8 Minneapolis, MN The Armory
11 San Antonio, TX Aztec Theater
12 Dallas, TX South Side Ballroom
14 Orlando, FL Amway Arena
16 St. Petersburg, FL MahaffeyTheater
– Tommy Marz
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