European fans of Halestorm won’t have to wait long to see their favourite band performing live on stage once again. They are set to kick off their own headline tour in November, with one of the highlights being their performance at The Rock Circus in Den Bosch on the 4th, marking the debut of this winter festival. Zware Metalen had the opportunity to chat with Josh Smith, Halestorm’s bass player, discussing their upcoming tour with Black Veil Brides, the release of their own comic book and the progress of their next album recording.
Hi Josh! How are you? I saw that you guys finished your North American tour in August, and you’re starting your European tour in November. Do you have some time off in between?
We have some time off now, I’m actually leaving for a vacation tomorrow! But we just spent the last three weeks writing and recording new material. I feel like we’re always working, haha. Fortunately we love what we do so it’s no problem.
That’s really fast, as Back From the Dead only came out last year. Are we getting an entire new album, or just a couple new songs?
A whole new album! But for now I don’t think we will release any of the new songs just yet. To be honest, I will have to listen to the recordings another time, because it was such a short and intense period of recording and writing. But everytime I listen back I think: “okay wow, this is good stuff!”
Will the new music be comparible to what we heard on Back From the Dead?
No it will be nothing like it, in a good way. The last album was very straightforward, with lots of energy and very concise ideas. It is exactly the album we needed to make at the time. This album is more like a live show; we are showing up and chasing whatever gets us excited. From there, we hit record, and we are not using a metronome or tracks or anything; we are just playing it and figuring it out as we go.
Yes, I don’t think you will have to wait that long. We still have plenty of work to do, but I’d love to say we have the album out sometime next year. If not next year, it will be early 2025, but I hope next year because I am really excited about it.
I also saw that you released a cover of Terrible Things with Ashley McBryde. This was an unexpected collaboration, as she normally sings country music. How did this come about and can we expect more collaborations like this?
I hope to do more collaborations like that, because that was so cool. The song was already recorded and then we started thinking about having someone featured on one of the songs on the album. I don’t know how Ashley came to be in the mix, but I am really glad she did, because she is a badass and it was amazing. Her and Lzzy’s voice together sounded incredible. There are no more collaborations planned at the moment, we’re still fairly early in the ideas and sort of the theme for the next album, but I can definitely see it happen!
You already toured and worked together with a lot of bands. Are there any artists left that you would still like to work together with (e.g writing a song, touring together)?
There are plenty. Speaking of that, it’s crazy that this is the first time that we will tour with Black Veil Brides, they’re fantastic. As far as a collab, I feel like we always come back to the same ones. I would really like to do one with Corey Taylor. His voice is so powerful, i feel like his and Lzzy’s voice together would be fantastic.
Maybe you could do a live song together with Black Veil Brides on the upcoming tour?
That would definitely be possible, haha. I wouldn’t be surprised if that would happen. We already have plans for a collaboration tour in the US with another artist/band next year, but I can’t tell you anything else about that yet, haha.
You’re coming back to Europe in November, with one show being a festival in The Netherlands in winter, which is pretty unique. Are there any specific cities or venues that you’re looking forward to perform at?
That one, because it is very unique, but we always love playing in The Netherlands, the fans are always so wonderful. The summer festivals are very fun, so I am hoping that this event will be similar. We had planned our whole year around Europe, even within our setlist. With the liveshows in Europe earlier this year, we wanted to make something that would help us in this upcoming headline tour. So this European tour is something we’ve been building up to for quite some time now, and it’s really exciting that it’s finally here.
What can we expect from the setlist in the upcoming shows?
All I can say is that we worked really hard on making as many moments as possible within the set. We took old songs and rebooted them, so that they’re different. You’ll still be hearing I Get Off, the same song that we’ve been playing for fifteen years, but we changed it up and made it a little more special. We did this with a bunch of our songs. We try little solo sections and spots where we can just jam. Some nights we will probably fall on our face, and some nights it will be a big success, haha.
It was an idea that popped up. A couple of different graphic novelists started submitting ideas. The Winner Twins, who wrote it, came out with a really fantastic storyline and we just had to see it through. It turned out amazing, it is really cool. They created it in a way, where they took all of our songs, picked from the lyrics and titles and then wrote a storyline revolving around it. It was a very interesting approach. I’ve been in the band since 2004, and when something like this comes out, it’s funny because it makes it larger than life; this thing that we have created has become bigger than us. There’s a comic book version of me, haha!
Will the comic be incorporated in the tour somehow?
I can imagine it will find its way into what we’re doing. In some way i think it already has. Whether it’s artwork, merch, designs; the comic will definitely be in our world now.
Do you have a favourite song to play from the last album? Maybe because of the way that the crowd reacts to it, or because it has fun bits that keep it interesting to you?
I really like playing Back From the Dead, that one is always fun. Wicked Ways is also really fun to play. It’s still challenging, I do some background vocals on it while I’m playing. Typically I pick that sort of things up really fast, but that song took me some time to learn. It blows me away that Lzzy can do that song after song. I’ll only sing the first chorus, the second verse and the second chorus, but after that block of singing, I’m exhausted. And she just goes on, leaving me wondering how she just keeps going with so much energy, haha.
We’ve got so many things checked off our bucket list, but there’s always so many more. It would be amazing to play Red Rocks or Madison Square Garden. We’re gonna play Wembley, which is very exciting as well. It would also be really cool to continue playing in new countries; there are still so many interesting places we would like to get to. So ultimately, we just want to keep doing this, keep going, and keep making music, because we have such a good time and so much fun doing it.
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