In scaling Everest, Halestorm took an entirely new approach.
For their latest album, named after Earth’s highest mountain, Lzzy Hale and company worked with producer Dave Cobb, who wanted the band to ditch any demos they’d worked on previously and come up with all of the songs together in the studio.
“What we decided to do was fly by the seat of our pants every single day, and really dig into how we were feeling and write a song every single day. And as we were writing it, record it in real time,” Hale tells ABC Audio. “So what you’re hearing on this album is us discovering the song and living in those feelings.”
Perhaps it was that process of living in those feelings that gives Everest a distinct theatrical vibe.
“Life is drama in itself,” Hale muses. “So in a way, when you’re deep-diving, whether you’re in the war inside of your own head, or whether you’re feeling the weight of the world and the state of humanity and all of that, you almost have to kind of create almost a stage for that.”
Everest also differs from past Halestorm records in its use of the piano, which provides a constant backbone to its sound instead of being reserved for one-off ballads.
“In my beginnings as a musician, I started out on piano and didn’t really start guitar until I was 16,” Hale says. “So in a lot of ways it kind of felt like this long road back to the beginning where it was just kind of this almost, like, comfort, kind of like a warm blanket.”
She continues, “You just sit down there every day and be like, ‘OK, what’s going to happen?'”
Everest is out now.
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