Nashville’s Halestorm on getting ‘uncomfortable,’ and honoring Ozzy

Halestorm worked with new producer and new process on ‘Everest’
Band threw album listening party at Nashville’s Gibson Garage
Recording process made the band ‘sufficiently uncomfortable,’ but the result is ‘magic.’

Halestorm has had a busy summer.

The Nashville-based rock band released their new album, Everest, hosted a listening party at the Gibson Garage, and embarked on a world tour. But not before performing Back to the Beginning, a tribute to Black Sabbath held in England in July — just weeks before Sabbath’s frontman, Ozzy Osbourne, passed away from cardiac arrest after a long battle with Parkinson’s disease.

The experience, according to Halestorm’s front woman Lzzy Hale, was “a complete love-fest.”

“Everyone was there for the same reason,” Hale told The Tennessean days after the performance. “You’re walking amongst rock gods. It’s Steven Tyler, and it’s Tom Morello and all of these people, but no head was higher than Black Sabbath. We all felt like little kids. When Ozzy took the stage and he started clapping and you look around and see everyone clapping. Then everyone starts crying. It was emotional.”

What to know about Halestorm’s new direction

Hale said as the band started working on material for a new album, she realized so many songs that were moving her emotionally were all connected to one name.

“ We listen to all types of music and every single time there was a song on the radio that made me cry, it ended up being Dave Cobb producing it,” she said. “Brandi Carlile, Rival Sons, Chris Stapleton, Sturgill Simpson. All these records had this guy’s name on them.”

But working with Cobb, a Grammy Award-winning country and Americana producer, is a dynamic shift from Grammy Award-winning rock producer Nick Raskulinecz, (Foo Fighters, Rush, Deftones, Alice in Chains) who produced several of Halestorm’s previous records.

“ We’ve done the last few records and EPs with Nick Raskulinecz, who we love,” guitarist Joe Hottinger said. “He’s like our brother from another mother. But we just had to get uncomfortable. We had to make ourselves try something new and see what happens.”

And uncomfortable they were, because not only was Cobb an entirely different producer, he brought an entirely different method to the process of recording.

The band arrived at Cobb’s studio in Savannah, Ga., with songs they’d written.

“He said, ‘No, we’re starting from scratch. We’re not worried about what you did yesterday. We’re not going to be worried about what you do tomorrow. We’re living in the now. We’re writing a song, and as we’re writing it, we’re recording it. That’s how I do things.'” Hale remembers. “We were sufficiently uncomfortable for sure.”

Urgency to ‘catch the magic’ was a good thing

Despite being uncomfortable initially with the process, Hale said the intensity and pressure to write songs on the spot was ultimately a good thing.

”We ended up writing ‘Darkness Always Wins’ over those three days,” Hale said. “It was intense, but we really loved it because we didn’t have time to second guess something. We didn’t say, ‘Are the fans going to like this? Is the label going to like this?’ We were just like, ‘Do we like it?'”

Hottinger added there wasn’t time to worry about where mics were placed and other technical recording specifics that can become a buzz kill for creativity.

“We couldn’t bottle it fast enough,” he said of the creativity once it started flowing. “As soon as we had an idea, we were like ‘we have to record this right now.’ We had this urgency to catch the magic. It was actually a blessing to work under pressure because you don’t have time to second guess everything to death.”

‘Everest’ is very raw in ‘the best way’

The result is something the band is very proud of because of its organic nature that reminded the band the way they started recording back in the day.

“ It’s very raw in the best way,” Hale said. “It reminds me of like before we had the proper equipment, this is how we would do it in our parents’ basement. You know, it’s like, okay, let’s, let’s write songs. Let’s record it on a four-track or whatever we had at the time.”

She added this record allowed each member of the band’s personalities to shine for the first time in a couple of records.

“I’m actually hearing the individual four pillars that make us who we are.”

‘How do you know this song?’ Fans sourced lyrics before their release

Halestorm started their tour in Europe in May of 2025, which ended with the Black Sabbath show in July. The band had a few days at home in Nashville before heading back out for the U.S. leg of the tour that runs through the end of 2025.

“The response to the new music has been amazing,” Hale said. “ The songs weren’t even out yet (during the early part of the tour) and the crowds have been nitpicking through YouTube videos to learn the lyrics. A few times I would look into the crowd and be like, ‘How do you know this song?'”

Lzzy Hale says ‘thank you’ to Halestorm fans

Hale realizes there are legions of fans who have stayed with the band through various creative iterations. For her, this album is a ‘big thank you’ to everyone who has followed the band and ridden those waves with them.

“Every single album is a snapshot of where we’re at in our lives,” she said. “For better or worse, that’s what it is because we’re constantly evolving. We live a very fast life. I’m not the same person that I was three months ago, let alone in 2012. So a big ‘thank you’ to everybody that’s just been there ready to receive it. I hope that everybody finds their own story in this album. I know the personal story from me, and I know there’s going to be a lot of people that see their own lives reflected in it.”

Melonee Hurt covers music and music business at The Tennessean, part of the USA TODAY NETWORK — Tennessee. Reach Melonee at [email protected] or on Instagram at @MelHurtWrites.