Halestorm

Led by Lzzy Hale, the charismatic vocalist and guitarist, Halestorm emerged as a Pennsylvania quartet blending post-grunge and metal elements. Their aggressive yet hook-laden style quickly established them among the leading hard rock acts of the early 21st century, becoming a staple on American rock radio while maintaining an intense touring pace of several hundred concerts annually alongside nearly every major U.S. hard rock band of the period. The group earned a 2013 Grammy for Best Hard Rock/Metal Performance with the track “Love Bites (So Do I)” from their second studio album, The Strange Case Of.... Later releases such as Into the Wild Life (2015), Vicious (2018), and Back from the Dead (2022) demonstrated equal strength in both muscular hard rock tracks and piano-led power ballads, while incorporating influences from dance music and pop-country.

The band’s foundation traces to late 1997 when siblings Elizabeth and Arejay Hale assembled the project near York, Pennsylvania, with Arejay handling drums and Elizabeth covering vocals and keyboards. To broaden their sonic palette, the pair recruited their father, Roger, on bass. After their debut professional performance in 1998 at Hershey’s Blue Mountain Coffee House, Halestorm cycled through several guitarists and issued the 1999 EP (Don't Mess with The) Time Man. Eventually the lineup stabilized around Elizabeth—now performing as Lzzy—on vocals and guitar, Josh Smith on bass, Arejay on drums, and Joe Hottinger on guitar. Producer David Ivory and Atlantic Records both took notice, resulting in the 2006 live EP One and Done, recorded at a Philadelphia show and marking the band’s major-label introduction. Their first full-length studio album, the self-titled Halestorm, arrived in 2009 amid a demanding schedule that often exceeded 250 performances yearly.

Halestorm documented a 2010 Philadelphia concert with the live release Live in Philly 2010, then delivered the 2011 covers EP Reanimate featuring reinterpretations of material by Heart, Guns N' Roses, and Lady Gaga. Their 2012 sophomore album The Strange Case Of... yielded the Grammy-winning single “Love Bites (So Do I).” The follow-up covers collection Reanimate 2.0 appeared in 2013, this time addressing songs from Fleetwood Mac, Daft Punk, and Marilyn Manson. Produced by Jay Joyce, the third studio album Into the Wild Life surfaced in April 2015 after the lead single “Apocalyptic,” followed in 2016 by the live EP Into the Wild Live: Chicago and in early 2017 by Reanimate 3.0, which tackled tracks originally by Whitesnake, Metallica, and Soundgarden. The fourth studio effort, Vicious, arrived in July 2018 and earned a Grammy nomination for Best Rock Performance for the single “Uncomfortable.” In 2020 the six-song EP Reimagined presented acoustic renditions of five catalog favorites alongside a cover of “I Will Always Love You.”

The band’s fifth studio album, Back from the Dead, emerged in 2022 under the production of Nick Raskulinecz with Scott Stevens serving as co-producer. The 11-track set featured “The Steeple” and “Back from the Dead,” the latter becoming Halestorm’s sixth number-one single on the Active Rock charts. A deluxe edition containing seven additional tracks was issued that December.