Halestorm’s Lzzy Hale opens up about breaking up with alcohol: “I was looking for an escape in all the wrong places”

Halestorm frontwoman Lzzy Hale has opened up about her decision to stop drinking.

Talking exclusively in the new issue of Metal Hammer, the singer/guitarist, who co-founded her hard rock band with drummer brother Arejay in 1997, says that she saw her alcohol use transforming her into a person she did not want to become.

“I was looking for an escape in all the wrong places,” she tells us. “I saw myself in a way that I never wanted to be. I almost saw my nemesis in myself, a woman I did not want to become.

“I think that if I had gone any further… I don’t know what would have happened with my relationship with my bandmates, my relationship with myself. That was the peak of it all.”

Lzzy, 41, quit alcohol in December 2023, shortly after Halestorm returned home to the United States from a European tour. The vocalist revealed on the Harder To Breathe podcast this April that she broke up with the bottle after her partner, Halestorm guitarist Joe Hottinger, returned home one day to find her drunk and crying, having downed a bottle of Jägermeister she’d found in the basement.

Following her decision to stop drinking, Lzzy began working through feelings of depression that she had been feeling for some time, which she talks about with Hammer.

“I felt so guilty about it,” she explains. “I mean, I’m living this unfathomable dream that I would have never even thought would have been possible when we first started the band. It was this battle in my head: ‘Why are you so depressed? Why are you frustrated? Why are you angry? This life is great! You could be working in an office somewhere!’”

Halestorm released their brand-new album, Everest, last Friday (August 8). The lyrics on the album, which were written in the recording studio during sessions overseen by producer Dave Cobb (Brandi Carlile, Chris Stapleton, etc.), frankly discuss Lzzy’s experiences of depression, as well as toxic relationships and her fears about how she’ll be remembered after she dies.

Lzzy spoke about her candid lyricism in a recent interview with Guitar.com. “I was tired of what I had created in the past – this pedestal, the idea of me – and ready to say things the way that I actually feel them,” she said. “I don’t have to have all the answers and everything doesn’t always have to be okay.

“I feel like, in past years, especially after fame happened and all of a sudden you’re a role model, I needed to be a beacon of hope for everybody. I wrote all these songs that said, ‘It’s gonna be okay,’ but that’s not reality. We don’t know whether everything is going to be okay.”

Lzzy is the cover star on the new issue of Hammer, and she’s interviewed about Everest, her experiences of drinking and depression, touring with Iron Maiden, and much more. You can order the issue now and get it delivered directly to your doorstep.