Halestorm: The Next Big Name in Rock

Let me introduce you to a band that many people probably never heard of even though they broke into the mainstream only two years ago! 

Halestorm is a four piece hard rock band from Red Lion, Pennsylvania.  The band is fronted by singer/guitarist/keyboardist Elizabeth “Lzzy” Hale whose brother Arejay is also a part of the band providing the drums, percussion, and backing vocals for the group while guitarist/backing vocalist Joe Hottinger and bass guitarist/backing vocalist Josh Smith round out Halestorm's roster.  What’s even more surprising than two sibilings being part of the same band is actually how long Halestorm has been around for.

Since they were little kids at ages ten and thirteen, both Arejay and Lzzy have been actively writing and performing original music since as long back as 1998!  In 2000, the teen siblings created the EP titled “Don’t Mess With The Time Man” and in Halestorm’s earliest form, their dad played on the bass before Joe Hottinger joined in 2004.  Josh Smith joined Halestorm as their lead guitarist in 2003. 

On June 28, 2005, Halestorm penned a record deal with Atlantic Records and released a live EP called “One and Done”.  Sadly, this EP is out of print meaning that you can’t buy it anymore. L  The EP featured an early live version of their song “It’s Not You,” which would be one of the band’s most notable songs!

Halestorm first broke into the mainstream with the release of their self-titled debut album in 2009.  The album “Halestorm” peaked at #40 on the Billboard 200 and produced two hit singles “I Get Off” and “It’s Not You”. 

Their very first single “I Get Off” received considerable play time and was the song’s music video was played on Fuse on multiple occasions!  The song even reached #17 on Billboard’s Rock List.  This video was my very first encounter with this hard rock band.  Check it out! J

Following the success of “I Get Off,” Halestorm released a music video for their second single “It’s Not You”.  The video much like the song itself stands alone from anything ever released in recent memory.

I mean seriously, when is the last time you ever saw a roller derby music video for a hard rock song?  And who would have ever thought that roller derby was so intense!  It also seems that Halestorm took cowbell obsessed fictional record producer Bruce Dickinson’s (Christopher Walken’s character on SNL) advice and added cowbell to the song!  In a word, AWESOME!

“It’s Not You” was the last Halestorm music video to be shown on Fuse or any other music video station (all TWO of them...).  From there, this band seemed to have disappeared as quickly as they appeared causing me to worry about them.  I decided to use this post to check out what was going on with Halestorm.

Good news!  Halestorm is still together and are hard at work making a new album.  Details about their sophomore effort are very slim, however that will change in due time.  The band stated in a recent interview that they will finish their next studio album after the Avalanche Tour wraps up in a few months.  I can't wait for their next album and I bet that after reading this post, you can't either! J 

Seether Announces New Album

Nearly four years after their last album “Finding Beauty In Negative Spaces”, the post-grunge/alternative metal band Seether has plans to release a brand new studio album next month.

The eleven track album is called “Holding Onto Strings Better Left to Fray” and is set to drop on Tuesday, May 17^th.

The South African band recorded “HOSBLTF” in Nashville, TN with producer Brendan O’Brien last year.  The unique album’s title is “actually a lyric from an important song on the album,” according to Seether drummer John Humphrey.

A single from the forthcoming album called “Country Song” was released this March 8^th, so far as audio only (no vid yet L) and was performed live on a March 28^th episode of the late night TBS talk show “Lopez Tonight”.

Seether front man Shaun Morgan explained that the track’s title “got its name from the swampy verse riff” featured in it and that the song’s background as him “dealing with growing up and having to make better life choices”. 

Here’s an audio only vid of Seether’s “Country Song” courtesy of YouTube.

I LOVE IT! J It’s so great to see that Seether still retains their trademark sound even in their new songs especially in a time where a band’s sound changes from one album to the next!  “Holding Onto Strings Better Left to Fray” sounds like a continuation of where 2007’s “Finding Beauty In Negative Spaces” left off and is sounding very promising!  I can’t wait for this album to drop; is it May 17^th yet? J 

Remade for Your Entertainment

It's as if we're all living in déjà vu!  Every year, a movie that we have already seen is either remade (“Dawn of the Dead”, “A Nightmare on Elm Street”; WHY?!?) or is resurrected (“Predators”, “Scream 4”).  The same can be said with music as well. 

It's no surprise that most of the bands that we all know and loved originally started out life as cover bands.  They gained popularity by playing songs that people were already familiar with and this was the main reason people attended their performances in the first place.  They didn’t want to hear any of their original work, they wanted to hear them play classics like “My Generation” or “Crazy Train”.

The same can be said now especially with already established bands.  Every once and a while, a band that people are already familiar with releases an updated version of a song people have heard of sometime during their life.  Most times, these new acts actually make the song better than the original performers did, but some people may feel otherwise.

So, today’s post is opened to your interpretation as I show you both the original and the cover version of the same few songs.

First up, “Careless Whisper” by George Michael.  (Not really considered “rock”, but whatever…)

Now, here is Seether, a post-grunge band’s take on the same song.  (Available on the Deluxe Edition of their 2007 album “Finding Beauty In Negative Spaces”).

Let’s take a listen to Tears For Fears’ “Shout”.

And compare it to the metal band Disturbed’s “Shout 2000”.

Here’s the Johnny Cash classic “Ring Of Fire”.

And here’s the punk band Social Distortion’s take on it.

Whenever it comes to remakes, in the case of movies I always prefer the original over ANY of the remakes (I’m looking at you Rob Zombie’s “Halloween”!).  However, with these and a few other covers, I prefer the remakes over the original songs.

My reason is because they all present a fresh and interesting take on songs we’ve already heard.  In the case of “Shout 2000” by Disturbed, I absolutely LOVE this song!  It is without a doubt the PERFECT fight song and should be used in a fight scene in any movie or TV show! J

Now, of course you don’t have to agree with me about any of this, so I now open the floor up to all of you.  Which do YOU prefer, the original versions of songs or covered versions of songs?

If you enjoyed this post, then please tune into my friend James’ radio show “J Bird Radio” on WICR every Monday from 4pm to 5pm and check out his “Originally Remade” segment which plays both the original and covered version of any given song! J    

Gorillaz’s New Album “The Fall” is Set to Drop Soon

The British alternative group Gorillaz are setting up to physically release their new album “The Fall”. 

The Grammy Award winning animated band previously released “The Fall” last Christmas as a free download on their website and was made exclusively available to fans in the band’s Sub-Division fan club.  “The Fall” came out the very same year that the Gorillaz had released their long anticipated third studio album “Plastic Beach”.

The story behind the creation of “The Fall” is both amazing and completely unusual.  The entire album was recorded on the group’s founder and front man Damon Albarn’s iPad as the band was embarking on the American leg of their Escape To Plastic Beach World Tour last October and was later mixed in England by Stephen Sedgwick.  A video for “Phoner to Arizona”, the very first single off of “The Fall” was posted on YouTube on December 22^nd.  Here’s the official music video for “Phoner To Arizona”; enjoy!

 

The fifteen track album is set for release this coming April 18^th and does not feature as many guest spots as the band’s previous albums.  There were additional guitars recorded by Mick Jones (of The Clash) on the “Hillbilly Man” track and additional bass was featured on “Aspen Forest” by Paul Simonon (also of The Clash).  Bobby Womack returns from “Plastic Beach” and co-wrote and sings on the track “Bobby In Phoenix”.

Gorillaz is composed of four real members and four fictional members.  The real Gorillaz are front man/founder/keyboardist/guitarist/bass guitarist/ & harmonic player Damon Albarn, co-founder/illustrator/visual FX creator Jamie Hewitt, keyboard player Mike Smith, and drummer/percussionist Cass Browne.  While these are the people who actually produce the band’s music, they are not as well known as their animated counterparts. 

Gorillaz’s fictional members are (from clockwise above) front man 2D, bass guitarist Murdoc Niccals, guitarist Noodle, and Russel Hobbs, their drummer and DJ.  They appear in most of the band’s videos.  Here’s a new video featuring most of them (that’s “Cyborg Noodle” in the back ground; not the real Noodle & Russel is also M.I.A. in this vid. L).  Despite that, it's still really funny, so check it out!