Halestorm's frontwoman Lzzy Hale recently revealed some details about the band's progress on their highly anticipated follow-up to the 2022 hit album Back From The Dead. In an exclusive interview with the Everblack podcast during Knotfest Australia in Brisbane, Lzzy confirmed they're wrapping up songwriting for the record (possibly to be done before their rumored tour with Evanescence).
"We're finishing up writing a new album. And we're gonna get back in April to finish it up. We'll be there in a few weeks, and, yeah, we'll see what happens. And then we'll be back here in Australia before you know it with some new music."
In true Halestorm fashion, the band hasn't settled on an album title yet. It seems they wait until the very last minute for this crucial decision, letting the music itself dictate the name, according to Hale's answer.
"Oh, we don't know that yet. As is tradition in Halestorm, we always have the best ideas right when we start, and then we totally trash it, and it's, like, very last minute, 'What are we calling the record?' Last minute, that's what we do. So, yeah, we don't know. We're gonna let it tell us what it is. It's not up to us; it's the music."
Delving into the creative process further, guitarist Joe Hottinger shared insights into the band's songwriting philosophy in a conversation with Monica Strut of Knotfest Australia: "Our goal as a band is may the best song win. So riffs are great and all, but at the day, it comes down to the song. Is it a good song or not? And not only is it, like, good, but it's gotta be great. We have, like, stupid standards. And so really anything goes. If it's a riff and it starts there, a riff and a melody, cool. Lzzy writes constantly, so she's always got songs that we're putting together."
"We haven't been in a studio since — I mean, recording for a record — since September. We've been busy. We've been traveling a bit. But we've been writing since then. And while we were at the last one, we just kind of rolled in and wrote a song in the morning and recorded it that night, and it was kind of everything fresh. We started out with a few riffs, but, really, the idea was more about being in that moment. I was talking with Lzzy about it while we were in there, and it was, like 'Yeah, it's kind of like we came into the studio with nothing but 20 years of being a band together, " he added.
Hottinger also described their past recording sessions as intense and spontaneous, with riffs and melodies taking shape and being recorded, all within the same day.
"We know how to play — we're all players, we can play, we can write. So, like, 'It's a good idea. Cool. Yeah, let's do that. All right, let's record it. Here we go.' And I don't even remember what I played. I haven't listened to those songs in a while. And I vaguely remember any of them because it gets so intense. I think we did, like, 13 of them. Day after day after day after day after day, to the point where you're just, like, 'I don't know anything anymore.'"
