Follow Your Bliss

OLD FASHIONED

INGREDIENTS 2 dashes aromatic bitters ½ tsp sugar dissolved with water and bitters 1½ oz of bourbon 1 cherry 1 orange slice 1 lemon wedge

INSTRUCTIONS Fill glass with ice. Add cherry, orange slice, and lemon wedge. Pour in bourbon. Serve in a rocks glass over ice.

Vicious.

It’s the title of our new album. But what does it mean to be Vicious? Usually people equate the word with negativity…but I don’t see it that way …and I’d like to let you in a little deeper as to what the word Vicious means to me.

This album was therapy and in the end, my savior. It took pouring my heart onto paper and recording this album to remind myself again that I am stronger than my demons, unapologetic about my desires and I am unafraid to chase my dreams…I am Vicious.

Before the start of this record I was in a dark place. And this time, I wasn’t sure if I could fight my way out.

There’s this misconception that success and fame equal happiness. Followers do not equal friends, and just because you are living the Dream , it doesn’t mean that you never get sad or feel lost. I’m still the same dorky chick from Pennsylvania that has the same fears, the same battles, the same balancing act with my mental health and the same insecurities. I was reminded through making this album Vicious, just how precious my relationship with music is, and how much I use it to survive.

Before I take you deeper, I must reiterate that I am very thankful and happy in life. I’ve been very fortunate and have worked my ass off for 21 years to be where I’m at. I’m very proud to be me. But like anyone else. I’m still only human. I love, I laugh, I make mistakes, I am imperfect, I have moments of doubt, and I have moments of strength. I have to fight for me. And at the end of the day…I am the only who can truly do that.

This life that I am living, this rockstar thing. It’s so much more than a career choice. It is a primal fire within me. It started blazing when I was 13… and I’ve been feeding the flame ever since. Regardless of our success, I would still be doing the same thing I’m doing, just at the local bars and clubs in Pennsylvania. There’s was only ever One option…to Rock. And I am connected to every aspected of what it means to Rock. I write, I perform, I dress and carry myself the way I do because this music is such a huge part of me. It’s an extension of my personality and I would Not be Me without it. That being said, when things get messy, or dark, and the monster of this business rears it’s ugly head…I take it personally. This is not like a 9-5 job where you can walk away from a stressful day at work and shut it off when you get home on Friday. This job IS me and it is 24/7. If it spirals down a pitch black rabbit hole …I go with it.

Before the recording of this album Vicious, I did a lot of writing… a LOT of writing. All of the songs were catchy and shiny, with innuendos and clever twists of phrase. The math was correct and the collection probably would’ve made a fine album. But the problem was. I hated all of it. And I couldn’t figure out why. So I wrote More, and still…I was disheartened and uninspired. I started doubting myself, the flame I had been fanning for two decades was still there, in the glowing embers, but was very hard to see. My singing voice was suffering too, the stress was perched on my shoulders like a blood soaked Vulture, ready to feed on any insecurity. I doubted my ability to write a song I could enjoy, I doubted my ability to sing and stamina to keep this mission moving forward. I was losing my grip on the one thing I Need to survive in this world. So, I did what any insane woman would do with all the songs I wrote…I trashed ‘em. All of them.

What people don’t tell you about depression is that it’s not like this Big event happens and all of a sudden you are sad. It starts very small, picking at you piece by piece, compounding on itself, and by the time you realize what’s happening the beast has gotten so big that it’s unrecognizable… like a thick fog all around you until you can no longer see the way home.

I went into the studio, with practically nothing at our start date of pre-production. I sat with our producer, the legendary Nick Raskulinecz, explained… and apologized for my lack of preparation.

Nick, if you’ve never met him, is the most kind-hearted, Rock n Roll man I’ve ever met. He is connected to music in the same way I am. It is his oxygen. He was able to sum up my dilemma in a single conversation. Simple really, and just as difficult. He told me that if I was not excited about a song, that the fans would not be either. Because just as you are connected to the music, the fans are connected to you. So If I wanted to have a successful record…I am going to have to let go of all the things that are unimportant. I suddenly realized that in all those songs that I wrote and threw in the trash, weren’t Me. I was trying please everyone but myself. You could hear it in every demo. This one was to please radio success, this one was to please the record label, this one was something I thought the fans wanted to hear, this one was to try and mimic the success of Love Bites (so do I), or I Miss The Misery etc… I was not looking forward, I was looking back. I was letting the pressure of our success lead me, instead of trusting myself. Which ironically, the trust that I have in myself is the Reason I am here in the position I am today.

So Nick set us up in a room at his studio, with all of our equipment plugged in, “basement practice room style”. And the four of us started jamming. Nick was recording everything as we fleshed out ideas, and it slowly began to feel like we were teenagers again just experimenting together… connecting on that musical language that only the four of us have with each other. All of a sudden things started clicking. And that flame I talked about. The one that sparked when we were kids… grew. We were getting high off the excitement of creation again. And I started writing unapologetically about Everything I was feeling. Every day, we did the same thing. We’d walk into the studio and Nick would ask “ who’s got an idea? Who’s got a riff…and off we’d go! We wrote the majority of the album that way. And because we were recording Everything as we were writing all of the emotions were fresh and honest. We didn’t have time to second guess it, there was no room for doubt. We trusted our gut. At the end of the recording process I had reconnected with my bandmates with a renewed respect for what the four of us can accomplish together. We are four sides of a pyramid, and if one of those four sides, Josh, Arejay, Joe and I is missing, it’s not Halestorm. Being the same four members for over 15 years, and keeping that intangible voodoo that only happens with the four of us is our biggest accomplishment as a band.

And personally…I also found myself again through this album. I came out on the other side swinging. At the end of this process I was fiercely and unapologetically Me, once again confident that I still got this!!

I’ve seen a lot of you talking about how you can feel this renewed energy from us at our shows, that we are performing better than ever…that there is a Magic about what we’ve been doing lately. Well, This is why.

I truly hope you enjoy this album. And not just because it Rocks, but I hope that through my journey, my struggle, my ownership of everything I am and in the end…my survival. That you find your own flame within you.

I hand this album to you…these songs that were a piece of my heart…are now Your anthems. What Ive learned is that to truly own and Live this life, it takes so much more than just being strong and weathering the storm, you must face it with everything, you have to show your teeth, you have to be Vicious.

Love,

Lzzy Hale

couch surfing #82 #ak

Happy Halloween! (art by tumblr artist Pablo Mayer)

Did you know the festival of Samhain was first celebrated over 2,000 years ago in Ireland’s Ancient East?

In Celtic Ireland, the feast of Samhain (31st of October) represented the division of the year into the darker half (winter) from the lighter half (summer) — a time when the boundary between this world and the other was at its thinnest, spirits and demons easily able to pass between the two.

At Samhain, the Lord of the Underworld (Donn in Celtic mythology) was no longer under the control of the sun god and had the power to walk among us; with him walked all manner of demons, spirits, and dwellers of the underworld.