Inside Halestorm’s Risky Recording Process for New Album Everest

Summary

• Halestorm throws out the rulebook for Everest, recording live as they write, skipping demos entirely under Dave Cobb’s no-plan approach.
• The band calls Everest their most personal and honest album yet, blending melancholy, anger, and love lost into an unsupervised creative storm.
• Will Everest stand as the ultimate Halestorm record? The band says it’s their favorite ever, caring little if anyone else agrees.

Halestorm walked into Everest with a backpack full of unfinished songs. Turns out, producer Dave Cobb didn’t want any of it. “We’re not doing demos. I hate demos,” he told them. Instead, he suggested a gamble: write and record on the spot. Frontwoman Lzzy Hale recalled the chaos. “We’d start, like, ‘Who’s got a line?’ ‘I have this that I thought of yesterday.’ ‘Cool. That’ll work. Let’s go.’”

This wasn’t a carefully laid plan. The band captured first takes, often without click tracks or guides. “We would be recording while we were writing it, and then we would get done and move on to the next day,” Lzzy explained. The sessions were unscripted, raw, and occasionally unhinged, by design.

The Sound Of Freedom

After two decades under Atlantic Records, Everest marks unfamiliar creative territory. No label executive breathing down their necks. No deadlines. No filter. Lzzy summed it up bluntly: “It is the first time in the 20 years we’ve been on Atlantic that we have not felt lorded over.”

The band set up shop in Savannah, Georgia, locking themselves in a house near a river. Days started late and ran into the early morning, often annoying their sleep-deprived engineer. “We were unsupervised in the best way,” Lzzy said. “It was all about, who are we now? Who were we then? This is our story.”

Emotionally Reckless

Everest is not trying to be neat or tidy. Lzzy described it as a “rollercoaster of epic musical detours, great songwriting and completely unhinged twists and turns.” The record pulls from every corner of Halestorm’s emotional spectrum, “melancholy, frustration, anger, and the vast purgatory of love and love lost.”

More importantly, the band chased only what excited them. “If it wasn’t a ‘hell yeah,’ it was a ‘hell no,’” Lzzy emphasized. “There’s nothing on this album that anybody forced us to do.”

A Return Without Repeating

Bassist Josh Smith reportedly described the process as “a long road to the beginning.” Lzzy expanded on that feeling: “It really feels like we’re back in our parents’ basement again and we’re hustling and we’re trying to figure out how to write songs on the radio. But we have all this knowledge now.”

Instead of following their old playbook, Halestorm let the songs dictate the direction. “The music was telling us what to do and not us trying to like shoehorn anything in.”

Beyond Pep Talks

Unlike previous albums filled with self-affirmation anthems, Everest takes a more personal turn. “It’s not just me giving myself a pep talk, like ‘I’m the fire’, ‘I’m back from the dead,’” Lzzy admitted. “It’s like I’m dealing with a lot of my reality and a lot of the reality of the world in my own way.”

The band didn’t set out to please anyone but themselves. “It’s to the point where I don’t even really care if anybody likes it because all four of us are like, ‘This is our favorite album we’ve ever done.’”

A Brutal Climb

Lzzy sees Everest as the band’s summit moment. “This album is us, louder and bolder, and more brutally honest than ever, standing tall in the face of the storm,” she declared. The album’s title track, filled with explosive visuals and intense performances, reflects that high-stakes energy.

The lead single, “Darkness Always Wins,” already made its mark on radio, climbing into the Active Rock top 20. Rolling Stone praised its “catchy, brooding, and dramatic” vibe, while Revolver highlighted its “metal-chunked bridge” and “rippin’ rock guitar solo.”

Packed Schedule

Halestorm isn’t slowing down after Everest.

They’re touring Europe alongside Iron Maiden, playing Black Sabbath’s final show on July 5, and jumping on a North American tour with Volbeat.

Then, they’ll launch their own “nEVEREST” tour with Lindsey Stirling and Apocalyptica.

Grab Your Tickets Here.

The Tracklist

For those keeping score, Everest includes:

1. Fallen Star
2. Everest
3. Shiver
4. Like A Woman Can
5. Rain Your Blood On Me
6. Darkness Always Wins
7. Gather The Lambs
8. WATCH OUT!
9. Broken Doll
10. K-I-L-L-I-N-G
11. I Gave You Everything
12. How Will You Remember Me?

Veteran Credentials

Halestorm, led by Lzzy alongside Arejay Hale (drums), Joe Hottinger (guitar), and Josh Smith (bass), has stacked up platinum and gold records, sold-out headlining shows, and shared stages with icons like Heaven & Hell, Alice Cooper, Joan Jett, and Judas Priest.

Lzzy also became Gibson’s first female brand ambassador and hosted A Year In Music on AXS TV.

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