#2020 interviews

Me: *Trying to comprehend the reality of those wonderful boys during their school years and using their father's music as a coping mechanism.*

Julian: (to Sean) Don't make me cry. Change of subject.

Swagger Magazine photo shoot

HALESTORM frontwoman Lzzy Hale spoke to "The MetalSucks Podcast" about the progress of the songwriting sessions for the band's follow-up to 2018's "Vicious" album. She said (hear audio below): "We started demoing for this record in the middle of our last record cycle, when we were still on tour. I was in our practice room every day on tour, with my amps and everything, I would just force myself to write something every day. So, when we finally got to the point where we were, like, 'Okay, let's see what we've got,' we all sit down and [go], 'That one beats that one.' It's very much like having this thousand-piece puzzle, and you dump it all out. And you're, like, 'Okay, I know it all goes together' [laughs], 'but I don't know what the picture it yet.'

"So we've been piecing stuff together," she continued. "We actually just — this week — ended up doing this socially distant version of getting into the studio with our producer. So we've actually begun recording. And so that's exciting. It was a much-needed change of routine. We're pulling in about 14-hour days. [Laughs] We go in and we're, like, 'All right. It's almost 11 o'clock. We probably should go home and get some sleep, so we can come and do it all over again.'

"So, yeah, it's exciting," Lzzy repeated. "We're working on a new record. I love this new material, and I'm super excited to get to the other side, whenever that may be."

This past September, Lzzy confirmed to U.K.'s Rock Sound that she has been using her coronavirus downtime to compose material for the new HALESTORM LP. "I've been writing, honestly, some of the best songs I've ever written, because I've just had the time, and there isn't any deadline and nobody's breathing down my neck, saying, 'Hey, where are those demos?'," she said.

"I haven't been home without a gig for this long in probably over 15 years, so that's a strange thing. I think in one way, I have the time, but in another way, I'm seeking that high out, I'm seeking that joy that I find from playing out live every night. I'm not writing for any other reason — I'm not writing for a deadline, I'm not writing for a record, even though technically I am; we are technically working on a new HALESTORM record. But I'm writing from such a position of joy right now, literally just getting excited about some small piece of music. And I'm taking more risks now, because I have the space and the time and I've settled into something. And I'm not even quite sure what that is, and I feel like it's gonna reveal itself maybe later, but right now, I'm in it, and it's exciting."

"Halestorm Reimagined", a collection of reworked HALESTORM original songs as well as a cover of "I Will Always Love You", the love ballad made famous by Whitney Houston and Dolly Parton, was made available in August.

Lzzy and her brother Arejay (drums) formed the band in 1998 while in middle school. Guitarist Joe Hottinger joined the group in 2003, followed by bassist Josh Smith in 2004.

In December 2018, HALESTORM was nominated for a "Best Rock Performance" Grammy Award for its song "Uncomfortable".

Armed with their eponymous fourth album, US prog metallers Oceans Of Slumber aren’t letting the chaos of 2020 stand in the way of their next phase. We asked you lot to send us your best (and weirdest) questions to grill vocalist Cammie Gilbert, and you did not disappoint — from potential cover songs to band disputes, world peace and… gardening, Cammie bravely takes on the ultimate Hammer challenge.

How awesome are your hobbies and inspirations? Metal food? Metal pets? Metal gardening? Metal knitting? @HellsHobbits (Twitter)

“I started gardening at the beginning of the pandemic and now I have a little garden graveyard for all the things that didn’t catch on. I’ve been really good at growing rosemary and aloe vera – it’s like an alcohol garden for garnishes for alcoholic drinks so we use rosemary for Moscow Mules. Next step: moonshine!

What are your favourite and least favourite things about Texas? Brad Millet (Facebook)

“My favourite thing is that it has many different climates and terrains – the desert, the swamp, the hill country, the coast. I’m not a super beach person but one of my favourite things is going to the coast in the fishing districts, which is a bit different from beach culture. My least favourite things are the searing heat and the Confederate people, although where we are in Houston is incredibly diverse. It’s a beautiful, big old state and I love the Southern hospitality, but you’ll melt walking to your car if you’re not careful.”

Is it hard when you’re in a couple in a band and you’ve just had a ‘domestic’ but then need to go to work? Oscar McMunn (Facebook)

“For us [Cammie and drummer Dobber Beverly are an item], this is easier than, for example, a more serious kind of job. It might be a little more difficult to work together but this is a creative realm, and such an expanding realm within a person’s internal psychology that it allows us to be interwoven tighter together. Without him being able to understand this part of me, things would be more difficult, but he understands something that’s hard to explain. I’ve been very upset with him onstage before, though; we’ve had huge blowouts at shows and I’ll turn to him at one point in the song and I’ll sing at him. We go through these motions on stage and it’s like we’re cascading and arguing and communicating. I can hear when he plays the drums differently, when he’ll play the snare super-hard or he’ll have this super-aggressive drum fill that isn’t normally there. It’s very nuanced and intimate between us, so a lot of times we have it all out onstage so we can communicate better after the show and apologise or reconcile. It’s intense and people have noted it, like, ‘When you turn and sing to him, that’s so dramatic!’ It can be tough spending that much time together, touring when you’re grumpy and crammed into a bus, you get kinda prickly but we always make up. We leave it all on the stage!”