Halestorm appear on the cover of the brand new issue of Metal Hammer ahead of their hugely anticipated sixth album, Everest. We asked guitarist Joe Hottinger to give us a track-by-track breakdown album the record, and he obliged.
Fallen Star
“Remember [2000s Canadian metallers] Priestess? Their first album starts with a riff that just goes on [I Am The Night, Colour Me Black]. I always thought that was brilliant – so I wrote this music with that in mind! I just want the riff to feel like it’s too long, you know? Just keep rocking!”
Everest
“Why do people climb Everest? There’s no reward at the top! It’s like, ‘Why do we keep pushing as a band? We’re not anywhere near the top of this rock’n’roll mountain, but we’re still fighting. We still love it. So you just don’t stop, you keep going, you keep pushing.”
Shiver
“This song’s beautiful. Lzzy [Hale, singer] wrote it about being tough to love. It’s tough to love someone sometimes. It was more of a mellow ballad, like a few of them; they start with just a piano or an acoustic guitar, and then we take it, like, ‘Alright, now let’s make this sound like our band.’”
Like A Woman Can
“This is one of my favourite songs on the record. We have been showing it to friends, and people are hearing it, and it gets such a different reaction from everybody. It’s almost like an Amy Winehouse kind of feel. But hard rock!”
Rain Your Blood On Me
“This is fun! We recorded it without a click, which you can hear. It’s just elastic and goes all over the place. I love the different feels. When the Maiden tour came, we were like, ‘This song is perfect!’ We got to play this on the tour!’ It sounded great.”
Darkness Always Win
“Lzzy and I were sitting on our porch. We were talking about how we were sick of writing all these songs of, ‘Here’s an answer for your problem!’, you know? Like, sometimes, shit just doesn’t work out! And there is no way out but through.”
Gather The Lambs
“We went to this cool cemetery in Savannah, and there was something on one of those old graves – ‘I gathered the lamb’, some Bible quote or something. ‘That’d be a weird title!’ We just went with it and we knocked it out.”
Watch Out!
“Do you remember Jock Jams, those CDs? It was a compilation series in America in the 90s. I had this idea, ‘We really need to make a hard rock jock jam!’ That, ‘Watch out, that bitch is out for blood!’ was an outro, and we’re like, ‘No! That’s the chorus! Move that over here!’ It became the theme of the song.”
Broken Doll
“Dave’s [Cobb, producer] house in Savannah, where we recorded, is by the inner coastal waterway. There’s a dock, and we were just sitting out there looking at the water, playing through chords: ‘OK, who’s got an idea?’ We just start playing things and singing. It happened naturally. We dug into our 90s vibes on it.”
K-I-L-L-I-N-G
“We’re looking at the collection, and we’re like, ‘Alright, now we need some high-energy shit, what are we gonna do?’ This is a no-brainer – just rhythm section insanity, and it’s just fun. It’s got the manic energy that balances the record.”
I Gave You Everything
“This was the last song that we did. We plugged everything in and knocked this out in a few hours. It made the record because, I think, it’s great! I love when that shit comes together: ‘Bam! Here’s one!’”
How Will You Remember Me?
“It’s like a funeral song. It was just a piano ballad thing, but Dave held us accountable to the rock, like, ‘No! Come on, let’s make it rock!’ It’s a beautiful power ballad. It’s a good thing to think about, getting existential.”
The brand new issue of Metal Hammer featuring Halestorm on the cover is out now. Order it online and have it delivered to you door.
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