Halestorm's Lzzy Hale reflects on Nashville's rock scene ahead of August concert

When 11-year-old Elizabeth Hale got invited to a slumber party, she rolled up with her Alice Cooper "Love It to Death" and Ronnie James Dio "Holy Diver" CDs. This was in 1996 when everyone else was listening to Mariah Carey and boy bands.

"Those girls looked at me like I was an alien from outer space," Hale remembers.

But instead of conforming, "Lzzy," decided to embrace the alien, and she hasn't looked back since.

Now the vocalist and guitar player for rock band Halestorm is widely recognized as a top rock vocalist and guitar player who is Gibson Guitars' first female brand ambassador.

"I can track a lot of my mission statement for my song fodder and what I write about to understanding that you're weird and then deciding to own it," Hale told The Tennessean at a recent Gibson Guitar event, where she unveiled her fourth signature guitar, the Kramer Voyager. "My interest in rock music and my love of those voices and the attitude that came with that genre of music became a badge of honor to me instead of me being like, 'They're never going to understand me.'"

At 13, Hale and her then 10-year-old brother, Arejay, entered a talent show at the Schuylkill County Fair in Pennsylvania. It was on the way to that talent show that the siblings came up with the band name Halestorm. Since then, the band, which has consisted of the Hale siblings, Joe Hottinger (guitar) and Josh Smith (bass) since 2003, has released five albums, penned a book, won a Grammy and played to a sold-out Wembley Arena in the U.K.

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The Partridge Family meets 'Spinal Tap'

Prior to the current lineup, in the early days of the band, the Hale siblings enlisted their dad to play bass. Lzzy Hale said that her dad always wanted to be Paul McCartney.

"We were like the Partridge Family meets 'Spinal Tap,'" Hale said. "My dad was elated because, in an endearing way, he was kind of living vicariously through me."

She said his being able to perform with the band was great, for a time. Then inevitably, when she turned 15, she had to break the news that they were going to try to find band members their own age.

"Poor Dad was bummed," she said. "He's like, 'Well, do I still get to come to the gigs?' I'm like, 'Well, yeah. We can't drive, so someone's gonna have to drive us.' So he got demoted to driver and ran our sound and stuff for a while."

But the Hale siblings remained bandmates.

"You know, nobody murdered anybody, we don't hate each other, so it's a beautiful thing."

Halestorm moves to Nashville. Fans think they're going country.

The band ended up relocating to Nashville in 2013 for several reasons. The first being the band member's parents (who were all friends) decided to move to Florida. The second being their gear was already being stored in Nashville, so it just made sense.

"There was no way we were moving to Florida," Hale remembers. "Nothing against Florida, but it just wasn't our scene, and we want to go places where there is a music scene and there's a community."

She said the convenience factor of being close to all the band's gear and guitars started to make sense. She said the band just "up and left" Pennsylvania and bought a place sight unseen.

"We got there and we fell in love with it immediately. We found that there is such a rock and metal community here and they embraced us with open arms, so we decided to stay."

But when word got out the band was moving to Nashville the initial reaction was the stereotypical one: "Oh, you're gonna be country now? Are you pivoting?"

"That was the conversation, to which we all replied 'No, we just want to go somewhere where we're challenged and we can be around like-minded people.' We almost immediately stumbled into this beautiful rock and metal community. In the great words of Alice Cooper when we were having this conversation years ago, he's like, 'Rock is exactly where it needs to be. It's in the sewers, it's in the gutters, it's in places that you're not,' and that's exactly what it is here in Nashville."

Ashley McBryde sings some 'Terrible Things'

Hale remembers wanting to release the ballad "Terrible Things," off the 2022 album "Back from the Dead." She loved the song and had been talking with bandmates about making it into a duet. While most anyone in the rock world would have happily joined Hale on the song, she took it a step further and asked, "What if it was specifically something outside our lane?"

Hale thought of Ashley McBryde, who she says is absolutely a rocker at heart and is someone she has always admired. The band sent out their ask and waited for a response.

"We were like, 'OK, well let's just see if she says yes.' And she said ... yeah right away. Yes, she comes from country, but she can definitely lean rock. And I love her voice so much, so it was very surprising for us. What she did to that rendition of 'Terrible Things' was so beautiful, because she didn't just sing the part, she made all of the inflections her own."

Rock Artist of the Decade still at it nearly 30 years in

As the band looks back over decades of writing, touring, recording and growing as a band while writing and recording their latest album here in Nashville, they leave a trail of accolades. A Grammy, a novel, being named Loudwire's Rock Artist of the Decade, six No. 1 songs on rock radio and more than a billion streams online.

We asked Hale which of those she's most proud of. Her answer might surprise you.

While she pauses to reflect on the Grammy, which she calls a "huge mile marker" and the band's entire trophy case of wins, she looks at the bigger picture.

"Sometimes it's those little things like, 'Can you believe we're still friends? Can you believe that we're still doing this? Can you still believe that we're still hungry for this? Look at all the things that we've done together despite all of us coming from humble beginnings, not having any idea what we were doing, not having any connections in the business and just winning one fan over at a time. We just headlined Wembley for heaven's sake. Can you believe it? Can you believe we're still doing this? This is crazy. It's still crazy to us."

Nashville Rocks is a new series by music writer Melonee Hurt that explores all of the people making rock music out of Nashville. We’ll share can’t-miss stories and go behind the scenes with the artists, writers, producers and players keeping rock alive from Nashville. Tune down, turn it up and dig in.

If you go:

What: Halestorm with I Prevail, Hollywood Undead and Fit for a King

When: Sunday, Aug. 4

Where: FirstBank Amphitheater

Tickets: firstbankamphitheater.com

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Halestorm's Lzzy Hale on Nashville's rock and metal community