Halestorm’s track by track guide to new album Back From The Dead

(Image credit: Press)

Halestorm are the cover stars of the new brand new issue of Metal Hammer ahead of their brand new album Back From The Dead. We grabbed guitarist Joe Hottinger for an exclusive track by track run down of the album.

Back From The Dead

Joe: “We had it mixed and mastered. Then I played it on my phone, and it got to the solo, and I was like, ‘Fuck! I fucked up.’ Lzzy’s ripping on there, we got to the solo and it… just… happened. The next day I was like, ‘I’m going to redo that solo,’ and so that’s the one you hear. It’s much better.”

Wicked Ways

Joe: “I love the aggression on this, it’s nonstop and Lzzy does something she’s never done before; that bridge, that triplet scream – almost like a decade-old angry emo moment, like, ‘I GOT MY WI-CK-ED WAYS.’ There’s so many great screams on it.”

Strange Girl

Joe: “One of the things we’ve been working on for years is trying to write music and songs that will reverberate in an arena properly. Big rock’n’roll. It’s one of my favourite songs on there. I can’t wait to play it live.”

Brightside

Joe: “I love Brightside, it’s so sarcastic. It’s such a good moment when she says… ‘But nobody likes you!’ It’s a character and a perspective Lzzy doesn’t discuss much.”

The Steeple

Joe: “It’s right-up-the-middle rock’n’roll and it’s great. Lzzy is just ripping. It’s about the live show. We’ve played it live in the UK and it was so much fun.”

Terrible Things

Joe: “I think she did such a good job discussing a heavy subject without being preachy. We all do terrible things; it’s not picking any sides, it’s just saying, ‘Good Lord, have some empathy.’ It was the first time I finger-picked on acoustic through a whole song. We had this basic song with some acoustics and Lzzy’s vocal and the strings just bloom. It became cinematic; it gives me chills thinking about it.”

My Redemption

Joe: “This is a beautiful song. Lzzy just ripping throughout, and I love that. It’s just a ripper, it doesn’t stop the whole time.”

Bombshell

Joe: “We’re writing with hugeness in mind. It’s kind of experimental in its weirdness and arrangement cos it stays in F the whole time and there’s an allusion to a chord change in the chorus. Then when it finally changes on the last chorus, it’s this big release.”

I Come First

Joe: “Lzzy wrote it and the rest of us were like, ‘That’s pretty on the nose.’ It was a bit of a discussion for a few weeks until she went back and rewrote some of the verses, and turned it from another Halestorm sex song to something with substance.”

Psycho Crazy

Joe: “It’s that other side of Lzzy Hale – Mz. Hyde. The screams in it are like, get out! We must have put together 30 to 50 sequences of these songs, and a moment I love is Psycho Crazy into Raise Your Horns. They belong together.”

Raise Your Horns

Joe: “The first time I heard Raise Your Horns, I cried. There’s no other place you could put it on the record. It’s gotta sit with you. There’s got to be some silence after that to digest for a bit.”

Halestorm are on the cover of the brand new Metal Hammer, out now

Metal Hammer 361 — (Image credit: Future)

Halestorm in Metal Hammer — (Image credit: Future (Photos: John McMurtrie))

Danniii Leivers writes for Classic Rock, Metal Hammer, Prog, The Guardian, NME, Alternative Press, Rock Sound, The Line Of Best Fit and more. She loves the 90s, and is happy where the sea is bluest.