Everest

Climbing Mount Everest isn’t for everyone. It’s one of the most challenging and expensive endeavors in the world. Which is exactly why the Grammy-winning rock band Halestorm decided to call their sixth album *Everest*. “We’ve been the same four members for 22 years,” vocalist and guitarist Lzzy Hale tells Apple Music. “We met when we were teenagers, and we’ve been on this climb up our proverbial mountain ever since. It’s like climbing Mount Everest: Why do you do it? For us, there might not even be a peak. But we enjoy the climb and the conquering of each step.” For *Everest*, Hale and her bandmates—guitarist Joe Hottinger, bassist Josh Smith, and drummer Arejay Hale (Lzzy’s little brother)—traveled to Savannah, Georgia, to record with producer Dave Cobb, best-known for his work with country musicians Chris Stapleton, Sturgill Simpson, and John Prine. “We did it in pieces over probably a year and a half or two years,” she says. “After writing the song ‘Everest,’ we realized that this album is about our personal mountain, our personal journey.” From rockers and ballads to ragers and back again, Hale took us on a track-by-track stroll up *Everest*. **“Fallen Star”** “This song was born from a riff that Joe was messing around with that we were calling ‘Reverse Jaws’ because it was kind of an inversion of the *Jaws* theme. Lyrically, the notion of the fallen star is about our relationship with our fans. It’s kind of a somber love ballad about missing them while we’re off the road, when you feel this tug toward this relationship. I never imagined we’d have so many amazing fans who tell us how this music has helped them.” **“Everest”** “This is our proverbial climb. This is the struggle. My brother and I have been doing Halestorm since I was 13 and he was 10. The 28th anniversary of the band is August 9 \[2025\], the day after the album is released. We started likening this band to people who climb Mount Everest, which is an equally crazy thing to do. There’s bodies along the way. You could die doing it. It’s the same with rock ’n’ roll—not many people make it through in one piece. Keeping your sanity, keeping away from things that could harm you or the band or your relationships, leaving a normal life behind to pursue this—it’s a crazy concept.” **“Shiver”** “I started out writing this song from the perspective of the guys in my band, trying to love me through all of my moods and my craziness. You realize there are times when you’re hard to love. And I’m so grateful for the boys in my band and the people around me that still believe in me through all of that. But once we finished the song, I realized it has kind of a double meaning. I love the life that I’ve chosen with every inch of my being. I’ve taken it so far that even if I wanted to give it up, I can’t.” **“Like a Woman Can”** “This song was inspired by an interview with Meryl Streep that I saw. She was talking mainly about being in the acting business, but she said this amazing thing: ‘For hundreds of years, women have learned the language of men. We know how to dress, we know how to act, we know how to make you love us. But for the longest time, many men have not tried to learn the language of women.’ So, this song is not a Mars vs. Venus song; it’s more asking Mars to try to understand us better. As a proud bisexual woman, that aspect comes into play, too. But it’s not an ultimatum. It’s just saying, ‘Why can’t you understand me in the same way a woman can?’” **“Rain Your Blood on Me”** “I’ve written anthems for the ladies before. That’s definitely part of my MO for almost every record, but this is our rager. It’s a song about being a woman in this business, and being a woman in general, and what it takes to let yourself be known and be seen. When we started playing in the bars, we’d be carrying equipment in, and people assumed I was the merch girl. And then, when we were shopping for labels, they would say, ‘Women in rock aren’t really a thing right now. And there’s already Amy Lee, so we’ve got one.’ So, you have to grab onto this defiance, this kind of fuck-you attitude and be like, ‘I’m going to do it anyway.’ It’s also maybe a little bit of a euphemism for period blood.” **“Darkness Always Wins”** “This was the first song we wrote for the album. Right before we got on a plane to go meet our producer, Dave Cobb, for the first time, Joe and I were sitting out on our porch, and we were just frustrated with the way the world is right now. No matter how hard you try to be a good human and put good things out there, it seems like evil always prevails and the good ones always go first. Joe said, ‘Why does the darkness always win, man?’ And I was like, ‘Write that down.’ Usually, when we write about something dark, I feel this internal responsibility to have a little light at the end of the tunnel. But the truth is, we don’t know if there will be a happy ending. All I know is that we have to get up and keep trying.” **“Gather the Lambs”** “We had a bed of music for this, and it was a little apocalyptic. But we were kind of stuck lyrically. Dave Cobb, in his infinite wisdom, said, ‘Let’s go on a field trip.’ We went to this old cemetery in Savannah, which is spooky in itself with all the Spanish moss. Dave suggested we look at some gravestones for inspiration, so the first verse of this song is almost directly from a gravestone we saw. The first line was, “Gather up the lamb of God, he’ll be here soon.’ The idea for the song became, ‘At the end of the world, who do you want to be with when it all goes down?’ For us, it’s each other. We know each other more than our own families do at this point. We’re like war buddies. Nobody will ever understand me like these guys do.” **“WATCH OUT!”** “This is such an angsty tune. It’s part pep talk for myself when I’m feeling like, ‘Can I actually do this? Can I get through whatever I’m going through?’ With every tour we do, I feel like I’m not the same person walking back in my door as I was when I walked out. It’s like you’re always putting on some new armor, but you want to show the world what you’ve got. It’s also kind of a warning. There have always been certain people in my life trying to make me into something that I’m not. So, I’m saying, ‘You never saw this coming. You have nothing to do with this.’” **“Broken Doll”** “The house studio we recorded at is right next to a river. Every now and again, we’d go out with acoustic guitars to see what magic we could capture. I had this title rolling around for a couple of days, and it ended up being almost a throwback ’90s thing. I got to kind of capture a little Courtney Love in this. But the subject matter is about getting older in this business and understanding that I’m not the new kid on the block anymore. Everything in this industry is changing, but I’m not going away. You’re going to be hearing a lot more from me.” **“K-I-L-L-I-N-G”** “This is a very ADHD type of song that was born in the studio from our rhythm section. Our guitar player was visiting his mom, who lived not too far away, and I heard the other guys jamming in the main room. I started putting a bunch of words together, just gibberish at first, but it ended up being a song about depression, and the confusion and loneliness that goes on with that. You see everyone around you as having their act together, but you see yourself as broken pieces. You’re trying to reignite yourself.” **“I Gave You Everything”** “This song is dedicated to some people in the business that I had trusted but ended up not having my best interests at heart. The blessing and the curse of me is that I will trust anyone until you give me a reason not to. Thankfully, I have some guys in my band that are the opposite, and they’ve always been protective of me with that. But I’ve been burned before, and when that happens, when that trust is broken, you feel like you’re kind of falling apart and have to put yourself back together and have the bravery to say, ‘I can’t allow you to be a part of this anymore.’ So, this was that song for me. It was very cathartic to talk about it.” **“How Will You Remember Me?”** “I’ve always wanted to write my own funeral song. With everything I’ve done in my life, if it was to all end tomorrow, what did I leave behind? My bandmates and I would also joke about, ‘Do you get to see stats?’ Like, after you die, do you get to see how many times you almost died, but didn’t? How many times did I almost fall through a grate on the side of the street? It started out as that kind of goofy conversation, but the real question is: How will you remember me? Ultimately, the only thing that matters is that you’re remembered, and that you left this world a little better than when you came into it.”

Skin-shedding U.S. rock heroes Halestorm up the ante, the ambition and the volume on challenging, do-or-die sixth album.

It would not be hyperbole to say that Lzzy Hale of HALESTORM is the Joan Jett of her generation. As with Jett, Hale has really led the pack when it comes to female guitarists in the 2000s. Of course, there are many more women in rock and metal now than there were during Jett's era, but Hale has stoo...

Ed Walton reviews the new album by hard rockers Halestorm! Read his review of 'Everest' here on Distorted Sound!