Lzzy Hale and Joe Hottinger talk us through the making of their sixth long player, produced by the award-winning Dave Cobb
August 8 sees Halestorm release their sixth album, Everest, via Atlantic Records, following a special album release event and Q&A on August 1 at the Gibson Garage Nashville. Fresh from recent tour dates with heavy metal legends Iron Maiden, Halestorm lead guitarist Joe Hottinger and frontwoman and Gibson Brand Ambassador Lzzy Hale sat down with the Gibson Gazette to discuss all things Everest, including how multiple GRAMMY® Award-winning producer Dave Cobb pushed them out of their comfort zone and into a much more spontaneous way of working.
How did you end up working with Dave Cobb this time around, and what did he bring to the table?
Joe Hottinger: “We’d just put out the last record, Back from the Dead. We made that record with Nick Raskulinecz. He’s like a brother from another mother, we love him to death, but we were like, ‘We’ve gotta switch things up, we have to get uncomfortable.’ Dave has made so many amazing records, and he was always on our list.
“We’d met him backstage at a Stevie Nicks concert, we’d said ‘Hi’ and seen him around town, so we just told our A&R guy, ‘Hey, can you reach out to Dave Cobb and see if he’s got any time?’ We were in no rush; we were just putting feelers out. He got back to us immediately and was like, ‘Yes! I have ideas! I want to make a record!’ So, not long after that, at the beginning of 2023, we went down to Savannah, Georgia, for like three days, to see how we worked, put a song together, and see what happens. That first song was ‘Darkness Always Wins,’ which was the first single.”
Lzzy Hale: “It was interesting, because every single album that we’ve done has been relatively the same game plan; you write like 60 songs, you narrow it down to 20, which becomes 15, then you do a bunch of demos and you go in and you knock it out. And so we rolled in with Dave Cobb, with our bag of tricks and a bunch of half-written songs and riffs and everything, and he was like, ‘Oh no! I don’t do demos, I don’t wanna start on anything you did yesterday, I don’t want to worry about what anyone’s gonna think in the future, I just want to live in the moment.’
“So what we ended up doing was writing the song and recording it in real time as we were writing it, so there was no choice but to go with your gut and trust yourself—it was absolutely terrifying! But it was a great way to knock us out of ever getting too used to something or too comfortable.”
JH: “We were saying, you go in with the shirt on your back and like, 20-something years of experience of doing this shit!”
Isn’t it difficult if you already have a bunch of songs that you imagine are going to be on the next record?
LH: “At first it was like, ‘Oh no, are we now unprepared?’ But in so many ways it was just freeing, because then we weren’t going to be already bored with something we had been listening to for the past couple of months or something. You don’t have to be so precious about things you’ve created.”
JH: “You kinda learn that you are prepared. We’re prepared. Let’s go and make a record right now. We could do it. You just do what you do and it happens.”
That sounds pretty liberating and confidence-inspiring.
JH: “It was so inspiring that Lzzy and I bought a recording console.”
LH: “We ended up making our entire house into a studio!”
JH: “We’re looking forward to getting home after all this touring and digging in… and not making demos! Write a song, that’s the master. Next!”
Were there any other pearls of wisdom that you took away from working with Dave?
LH: “Quick decision-making. If you linger too much, you start thinking about whether anyone is actually going to like this, if it’s as good as what we’ve done before, is this something that we should be doing? As soon as you start doing the what-ifs, you’re probably lost. You have to almost have this desert island mentality, where it’s like, ‘If we were the last band on earth and we were on a desert island, would we still be doing this record?’ Yes. Would you still love that riff? Yes. Would you still love that line? Absolutely.”
When it came to guitars, did you lean on some of Dave’s instruments, or did you use your typical setups?
LH: “We did all sorts of things. There was a lot of knee-jerk reaction—go there, go there!”
JH: “He had one of those aged Greenys sitting around that I used a bunch. I have one of the Korina Flying Vs™, and he was like, ‘That’s your best-sounding guitar, can I buy that from you?’ No! But the first big session, I brought down like 30 or 40 guitars and ended up just sticking with the Korina…”
LH: “I used my baritone Explorer a couple of times—I think because of Dave being there, it was always whatever was serving the song. So it wasn’t like, ‘Here’s the one I always use!’ But I did use the Explorerbird on one or two, and a Korina Explorer™—that was a go-to. It has such an individual sound. I ended up giving Dave Cobb one of my Kramers—he’s such an eighties metal nerd, we would talk about that a lot!”
JH: “I actually used this guitar for a lot of solos that had a Sustainiac® in it. I had Cody at Gibson Custom take one of my Les Paul™ Axcess models, and he just gouged a hole in the back and threw a Sustainiac in there for me. So I’m using that on tour now, it’s awesome.”
LH: “There were a lot of sessions at like, 4:00 am—we had a Prophet synth and this old upright piano, drum kit in the other room; everything was kind of ready to go. We drove the engineer nuts because they just wanted to sleep after working all day, and we were still up making jams and noise!”
There’s a lot to be said for catching lightning in a bottle and capturing an idea at the moment of its inception…
JH: “I’m obsessed with the idea of that—that’s why we bought a studio!”
LH: “I remember we would get frustrated in the studio before when making records, it was like, man, we’ve already done three or four versions of one song, and we’re already over it. Because we’re professionals, we always capture the excitement of it, but then it always ends up being more exciting live because of the audience being the special sauce in that.”
JH: “It was funny, learning all these songs to do live. Live shows for us are an interpretation of the recording; we don’t use computers, but I couldn’t remember how to play anything because it was all like one take, that sounded great, let’s move on and do something else! So now it’s like, what did I play? How did I do that? What was I thinking?”
What amplifiers were you using during the sessions?
JH: “It’s funny, we were talking about this. Live, we’re just a live rock band. We don’t have a click track, we don’t have anything. We just plug in and whatever happens is what happens.”
LH: “Live tube amps—I have a JCM800 and he’s got Plexis.”
JH: “We’re really loud onstage. With Plexis, the only way they sound good is if they’re f**king cranked. We have Tonehenge right now, out on tour, with like 60 Marshall cabs! And I can’t speak for Dave Cobb, but I have a feeling that he wanted to do the record with us because he hadn’t done anything like our band, and I think he likes to keep doing different things. But what’s funny is, he’s got all the great vintage gear you could ever want in the world, and we didn’t use any of it!
“I brought all my old amps and he was like, ‘I’ve heard it before, no!’ But that’s why we went with Dave, to be uncomfortable. And he was like, ‘I’m going to use a Kemper,’ and I was like, ‘What?!’ But we used a Kemper for a lot of it. We got some great sounds. I’ve used one to make demos for years. Nick Raskulinecz and I had made sounds from my old amps in the past; we found some online—there were some good sounds. And we were running it through vintage Neve® preamps and an old compressor, plugged into the old Neve board; it sounded good, I can’t complain.”
LH: “That was the spirit of it—he was like, ‘No, I know what you do, but let’s pivot for a second.”
Do you think Dave learned anything from working with you?
JH: “Probably; I couldn’t tell you what. He probably learned that we’re numbskulls!”
LH: “We all reverted back to our 19-year-old selves!”
JH: “It was amazing. We all live in Nashville, Dave has RCA Studio A in Nashville, which is one of the greatest studios in the world, and we were like, sweet, we’re gonna make our record there. And he’s like, ‘No, it’s gonna be in Savannah, I’ve got this house on the Intracoastal, you guys live upstairs, and I’ll show up at 1:00 pm every day and start recording.’
“We got down there and realised that the four of us, without having any management or anyone around, hadn’t hung out together in a long time. And we were like, ‘This is awesome!’ We also really love each other and really like hanging out, and it really solidified some of that, just having fun listening and playing music together. It’s beautiful down there—it’s on the water and there’s a little boathouse with a dock, and when we were writing sometimes we’d just go sit on the dock with acoustics. It was such a good vibe.”
LH: “You rediscover this trust in each other, and digging into that deep stuff like, ‘Why are we doing this together? Why has it worked out?’ We’ve been the same four members for over 22 years now, and it’s incredible and a feat in itself. But you start understanding why, and these guys know me better than my own family does. It’s like having old war buddies. Nobody will know what you have gone through together but each other.
“Having that trust that everyone is in it for the right reasons and everyone’s going for it—from my standpoint, I saw my guys shine on this album in a way that I don’t think they felt either were able to, or they were too distracted to, before. I think this situation was needed for us. It’s almost like this long road back to the beginning, but we’re starting this new chapter together.”
JH: “Like starting over with 20-something years of experience!”
Pre-save Everest by Halestorm, check out the Kramer Lzzy Hale Voyager, and hear more from Lzzy and Joe on Gibson TV.
