Halestorm. Damn. It was a hot summer’s day in Milwaukee at Summerfest way back in July of ’05. The then-“kids” had a 4:00 PM slot on the Mountain Dew stage. They were traveling in a cramped RV with frontwoman Lzzy Hale and drummer Arejay Hale’s father driving; their mother, Beth, the tour manager.
This writer was on a tour of his own, covering music festivals for a major music outlet that was attempting to launch a music service to compete with iTunes. After confirming my interview time with the stage’s headliner that evening (Shinedown), the festival’s press liaison tracked me down and said that Halestorm had requested to be interviewed as well.
“Who?”
“Halestorm. A new band from Pennsylvania. Two of the members are siblings and their last name is Hale. That’s how they got the name!”
{Cackles} “How f*c%in lame is that, Man? I’ve got a busy schedule. Hard pass on that one.”
“But Joel, they have a female singer who is quite attractive and the same age as you.”
Nothing else needed to be said. I immediately found some pants and the only collared shirt I owned and took a cruise over to the stage on my pimped-out golf cart. I knocked on the door of the RV and introduced myself. Lzzy was indeed quite attractive and sweet as can be. Her brother looked like a more hardcore version of Taylor Hanson, and the band was rounded out by Joe and Josh, who very much looked like they were an up-and-coming rock band.
After a failed interview in their RV due to noise bleeding in from the band presently onstage, we exited the Summerfest grounds and found a grassy spot outside the gates.
This writer, green and immature, did a horrible job of interviewing these lads, and the video quality, which was imported as a .WMV file into Windows Moviemaker, is equally as bad. See the trainwreck, below:
Just as the band took the stage, this writer was backstage interviewing Shinedown. As Lzzy sang the opening notes to what would become their first single, “It’s Not You,” Shinedown frontman Brent Smith stopped mid-answer (I can’t even recall the question) and said, “Damn, I heard this chick can sing her ass off!” We all quickly agreed to head side stage to watch the set. It was nothing short of awesome. This writer stayed in touch with Halestorm for years, always hanging out on the RV each time they came through town. Eventually, the band became too big for hangouts with this writer. That’s OK, I was so proud of them. Now, the legendary Stone Temple Pilots are OPENING for them, and tix are $50 a pop. I knew that day in Milwaukee that these bands were destined for big things. I couldn’t have been more right!
Halestorm will release their fifth studio album, ‘Back From The Dead,’ on May 6, and the title track marked their sixth #1 on rock radio. Rolling Stone called ‘Vicious,’ the band’s last album, a “muscular, adventurous, and especially relevant rock record.” It earned the band their second Grammy nomination, for Best Hard Rock Performance for the song “Uncomfortable” and led Loudwire to name Halestorm “Rock Artist of the Decade” in 2019. Halestorm has earned a reputation as a powerful live music force, headlining sold-out shows and topping festival bills around the world, and sharing the stage with icons including Heaven & Hell, Alice Cooper, and Joan Jett.
Stone Temple Pilots’ debut album, ‘Core,’ released in 1992, was a major commercial success and STP went on to become one of the most commercially successful bands of the 1990s, selling more than 18 million albums in the United States and 40 million worldwide!
The band released four more studio albums: ‘Purple’ (1994), ‘Tiny Music… Songs from the Vatican Gift Shop’ (1996), ‘No. 4’ (1999), and ‘Shangri-La Dee Da’ (2001), before separating in 2003, after which the band members partook in various projects (most notably the late frontman Scott Weiland leading Velvet Revolver, which included members of Guns ‘N Roses, and Robert and Dean DeLeo joined forces with Filter frontman, Richard Patrickin Army of Anyone).
The band eventually reconvened in 2008 for a reunion tour, kicking off with a headlining spot in Columbus, OH’s now-defunct music festival, Rock on the Range. Continued substance abuse and behavioral problems led to Weiland’s eventual departure, and he was replaced by Linkin Park’s Chester Bennington (RIP). The band’s only material with Bennington was the EP ‘High Rise’ in 2013.
STP, nos fronted by Jeff Gutt, has released two albums with Gutt on vocals: its second self-titled album on March 16, 2018 and eighth studio album, ‘Perdida’ on February 7, 2020.
While initially rising to fame as part of the grunge movement of the early 1990s, further releases from the band expressed a variety of influences, including psychedelic rock, bossa nova, and classic rock. The band’s evolution throughout the 1990s and early 2000s involved periods of commercial highs and lows, brought about in part by Weiland’s well-publicized struggles with drug addiction.
TICKET INFO
All tickets are for general admission and priced at $49.50 (plus fees). Tix can be purchased in person at the KEMBA Live! box office or online via the link below:
