HALESTORM is one of the hardest working bands out there. 2018 saw the release of the album ‘Vicious’, followed by an extensive touring schedule and now the Pennsylvania rock act have set an August 14 release date for “Halestorm Reimagined”, a collection of reworked original songs as well as a cover of the love ballad “I Will Always Love You”, made famous by Whitney Houston and Dolly Parton. The six-track EP also has a special appearance by the one and only Amy Lee from EVANESCENCE on the reimagined version of the HALESTORM song “Break In”. The new version of the track, which originally appeared on HALESTORM’s second album, 2012’s “The Strange Case Of…” , was recorded last October at a Nashville studio with producer Nick Raskulinecz (DEFTONES, RUSH, FOO FIGHTERS) who has previously worked with both bands.
“Halestorm Reimagined” track listing:
01. I Get Off
02. Miss The Misery
03. I Am The Fire
04. Break In (featuring Amy Lee)
05. I Will Always Love You
06. Mz. Hyde
Lzzy and Amy performed a quarantine rendition of “Break In” this past May on Hale’s Internet show “Raise Your Horns With Lzzy Hale”.
Speaking about the collaboration, Lzzy told Amy: “What I love about dueting on that song with you is that it started out as as love song that I wrote for my significant other” — referring to HALESTORM guitarist Joe Hottinger — “but when we sing it together, it’s this act of unity, especially with the two of us being women and being women musicians. It’s like we have each other’s backs. And the lyrics mean something completely different when I sing it [with you].”
Regarding the way the new version of “Break In” was recorded, Lzzy said: “We did it performance-style, literally next to each other in the same room — from beginning of song to end of song, singing with each other.
“I’ve never done anything like that, but especially with a female singer of your prowess.”
Amy added: “Nick always gets the challenge and gets the most out of me… So he made us stand there in the room and sing it live together a bunch of times. What that really means is that editing, you couldn’t use when you did something cool but I messed up; it would have to be that we both nailed it for it to make the cut. So to do it in that way was really challenging and it was really cool and it fits the song so well.
“I remember you saying, and we both were saying, when we were listening back, it’s really weird, at times — I know my part, but you can’t pick out whose voice that is in that one particular moment, ’cause we started matching each other, ’cause it was on the spot. It’s really cool how that happens.
“It feels like a match. It doesn’t feel like any one person is pulling the other person along a little bit or leading the train. It really felt like an evenly matched dance.”
Lzzy and Amy originally performed “Break In” together in 2012 during the “Carnival Of Madness” tour, which was headlined by EVANESCENCE and featured HALESTORM in the support slot.
In the meantime, HALESTORM has been doing what a ton of other rock and metal acts have been doing in their COVID-19 down time, which is writing and demoing material for yet another full-length album.
