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