Lzzy Hale admits industry wants her to drop Halestorm for a solo run

In her teens, singer/guitarist Lzzy Hale of Halestorm claims that several people in the music business encouraged her to leave her band and pursue a pop solo career. In an interview with Spotify’s Women Of Metal roundtable, which also included Courtney LaPlante of Spiritbox and Cristina Scabbia of Lacuna Coil, Hale said that she was being urged to break up with her bandmates and start over on her own as early as the band’s club days.

I fought very hard to not have a solo career, despite everyone wanting me to. I remember being 16 in the clubs and all these men were like, ‘Lose your brother, lose the band, lose your buddies – you should be in pop. Why are you into metal? Why are you into hard rock?’ Because this music spoke to us! Lzzy Hale

When I started with the band, it was the end of the 90s, so there were not so many metal bands with a female in the lineup. And I remember that, many times, I was going onstage and there was always that guy that would be like, ‘Hey, naked! Show us what you got!’ And it was always interesting to see the change along the set: that I could convince that person at least to shut up and witness that I was able to do my job.

Cristina Scabbia

“Back From The Dead”, Halestorm‘s most recent album, was published in 2022, and they are now working on a sequel. The band recorded with famed country producer Dave Cobb, according to Lzzy’s January interview with Metal Hammer. He doesn’t appear to be reducing the band’s intensity, either, as Lzzy likened one of their songs to Motörhead.

One time, I was jamming on my baritone guitar, just walking around the house, and Dave swoops in and goes, ‘We need something like that! Run to the studio, right now!’ And the track has made it onto the record – it sounds very Motörhead. Another song is crazy, crazy fast. The next morning, we showed it to Dave, and he said, ‘We have to put this on the album!