[MUSIC INTERVIEW] HALESTORM – 2023 Australian Tour Interview
Halestorm has grown from a childhood dream of siblings Lzzy and Arejay Hale into one of the most celebrated rock bands of the last two decades.
Called a “muscular, adventurous, and especially relevant rock record” by Rolling Stone, their Vicious album earned the band their second Grammy nomination and led one magazine to name Halestorm “Rock Artist of the Decade” in 2019. In Australia Vicious was Halestorm’s highest charting album to date landing at #16 on the ARIA chart.
Fronted by the incomparable Lzzy Hale with drummer Arejay Hale, guitarist Joe Hottinger and bass player Josh Smith 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. Now Halestorm are bringing their energetic live show to Australia and I had the chance to sit down and talk to a very excited Arejay about what Australian fans can expect.
“I AM OVER THE MOON ABOUT IT!’ yells a very excited Arejay the very moment I mention the Australian tour. “I love Australia so much. Australia has always been the country where I have thought hey you know what if it doesn’t work out in America I could live down there with no worries. I would eat so well!”
“I love the weather and I love the food,” he says as we begin to talk more about life in Australia. “I love being so close to the ocean and I love the culture and the people. I feel like I fit into the Australian culture, like I feel like I have a very community-based mindset. I feel like I am a very empathetic person and I just love people and I have always felt that Canadians and Australian are very similar because you are just nice people. You are just good, wholesome nice people and I just love being down there. I really try to get into a bad mood when I am in Australia and I find you just can’t do it…it’s impossible.”
As Arejay and I chat more and more about Australian culture I go back to the point that he made about Australian food and I ask whether or not he has had an opportunity to discover some of our great restaurants. “Oh yeah,” he answers. “I love that you can stumble into any restaurant and find amazing, delicious food that is also very, very healthy.”
“I try to be very healthy when I am on tour because my job is so physically demanding,” he says continuing. “Drumming can be really rough and hard on my body and it can also be rough and hard on my mentally so it is nice that in Australia it is so easy to find a really kick-ass gym to do a work out in and then I love to go for a job around the town and then I can stumble into a restaurant and get a kick-ass coffee and some really good food. I feel like the proof is in the eggs, like if I order something with eggs in Australia every eggs has this dark, rich yolk and then when I come back to the US even if I buy the really expensive free-range eggs it is a light yellow colour so whatever y’all are doing down there keep doing it because it is working!”
Soon our discussion turns back to music and Arejay begins to tell me how excited the band are about not only coming to Australian but being able to perform on stage here as well. “I am so excited that we are able to bring Theory Of A Deadman with us,” he says. “Theory have been friends with us for so long and they were a really big help when we first started out. They really helped us with our career and I am really pleased that we can now help them build an even bigger following in Australia. We just want to do whatever we can to help out our brothers, we’ve also been like that with them… it’s a mateship!”
“I am also excited about being able to play in front of Australian crowds again,” he continues. “Y’all so nice and awesome to hang with you all. It’s sad that we can’t do Meet and Greets at the moment but we don’t want to have to cancel shows and I can still go outside and chat to the locals so that is good. It is just going to be one big party and I am so excited about everything about it.”
Halestorm kicks off their Australian tour with Theory on Feb 2nd.
