L
zzy Hale, motor-mouthed
lead singer of the
Pennsylvanian hard rockers,
sets the scene for an all-female-
fronted four-date UK arena tour
alongside fellow US bands In This
Moment and New Years Day.This summer Halestorm became
the f irst female-fronted group
ever to headline the second stage
at Download.
We didn’t know that fact until it
was over, when Andy Copping
[organiser] told us. What an
honour. It blew us away.Was it your idea for this tour
with In This Moment and New
Ye a r s D a y?
Yeah. All three bands have known
one another for years, and we
managed to co-ordinate our
schedules for one tour [in the
States]. It was such a beautiful thing
and went so well that we did it twice
more. And when the possibility
of taking it overseas came up,
everybody was psyched to make
that happen.What should people expect of
the show?
I’m super-excited that we’rebringing our entire US production
for the first time, but also the other
two bands are awesome. Ash
Costello of New Years Day and
I have become best friends; she’s
very confident on stage and she
has an amazing look. Meanwhile,
Maria Brink [of In This Moment]
is like Lady Gaga crossed with
Marilyn Manson. That’s why the
tour is so amazing – all three bands
are so diverse.The world of cinema has had its
#MeToo moment. Do you think
it’s only a matter of time beforethe same thing happens with
rock music?
Honesty, I’m not sure. And I don’t
think we necessarily need one,
because we’ve been fighting that
fight for a number of years before
the Hollywood thing came along.
As women we are in a constant state
of proving ourselves, in oppositionof men that try to change us or
sexually harass us.Has it ever happened to you?
Yeah, but I didn’t realise till
afterwards. I usually brush it off or
deal with it head-on. I’ve had my
own #MeToo movement for years.
But I have noticed a definite shift
in the behaviour of males within
my circle.Halestorm’s rise has been slow
but very steady. Was there
a memorable instance where
you were able to turn around to
a naysayer and say: “I told you so- you were wrong”?
Oh, there have been a lot of those.
One particular teacher gave me
a rock’n’roll intervention when
I was at high school. In retrospect
I suppose they were trying to do
the best for me, but they told me
to my face: ‘You’ll be disappointed
when it doesn’t work out.” Those
people pop up now and again.
The great thing is when you know
that they know and you just don’t
need to say anything. I just smile
at them. DL
The tour begins in Glasgow on
November 24.Halestorm
It’s women calling the shots when three bands board the tour bus.
“All three bands
are so diverse.
That’s why the
tour is amazing.”
LZZ
Y:^ K
EVI
N^ N
IXO
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W
ith the NWOBHM band
releasing their twelfth studio
album, Ritual, we talk to their
guitarist and co-founder Robb Weir.Does it feel slightly weird talking about
the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal
forty years after the term was coined?
I suppose so, but as a genre it has always
been around and never went away. It gets
buried a little as a new kid on the block
comes around but music is a huge wheel and
in time everything comes back round again.Why does it remain popular?
Probably because most of the bands
it applies to still make new music and,
although few of them really change their
style down the years, that helps to keep
things fresh.Ritual is the second album made with the
same line-up. That’s pretty rare for the
Tygers, maybe not since Spellbound and
Crazy Nights back in the early eighties?
It doesn’t happen very often, but that’s
something journalists seem to get hung
up on. It [having a shifting line-up] hasn’t
harmed Whitesnake, has it? But we are
very, very proud of Ritual, and the press for
it so far has been incredible – I don’t think
we’ve dropped below nine-out-of-tens for it.Despite the album’s beefiness it includes
some very commercial tracks, such
as Destiny and Rescue Me. Is that an
element of the band’s sound that perhaps
gets overlooked?
Maybe it does. But going back to Spellbound,
it featured a couple of tracks that were
almost heavy metal pop music. I don’t think
we’ve gone too far down that route in the
past, but a song like Damn You! is very old-
fashioned, traditional Tygers. With us, put
the needle in the groove and you’ll always
get a wide range of that stuff.You’ve referred to guitarist Michael
McCrystal as the band’s “John Sykes-plus”.
Away from the Tygers, Michael works
with Marco Mendoza. Has it been tough
hanging on to such a hot commodity?
Not really. Mick is great for the band as
a writer and a player, and is extremely happy
to be where he is. For me it’s been a pleasure
watching him flourish and develop as an
artist over the past five years. DLAs well as playing their own dates, the
Tygers appear at the Nordic Noise Festival
in Newcastle on November 23.The enduring rockers’ dates
include Nordic Noise Festival.Tygers Of Pan Tang
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