HALESTORM's LZZY, JOE Recall 'Tough' Recording Process For 'Into The Wild Life' Album

Stephen Wayne of iRockRadio.com recently conducted an interview with Lzzy Hale and Joe Hottinger of HALESTORM. You can now watch the chat below.

Joe spoke about the making of HALESTORM's third album, 2015's "Into The Wild Life", explaining that the band was "really nitpicky" during the production process. "Especially with guitar-solo things, Jay [Joyce], our producer, kind of kicked my ass, which is really cool — which I wanted him to, 'cause I was sitting there… I didn't go in with many written solos," he said. "A lot of times, on the last records, I'd spend a few days really working stuff out, and [this time] I kind of went in and started winging it. And he was, like, 'That's not good enough. C'mon, dude!' And he was just kicking my butt. It was fun. It was good."

Added Lzzy: "[Jay] was doing that to everybody. I think in order to do this record the way that we had said we wanted to, he really held us to it. He was, like, 'No. We're gonna get the best performance. We're gonna do it front to back as a performance.' So we recorded all of this basically live in a circle in one room facing each other, which we had never done before in the studio. Usually it's kind of, like, my brother will go in and do drums for two days and then we do the bass and then I do my guitar parts and [Joe] does his and then I go sing, and then there's the record. And this time we were all really doing it together and kind of reconnected with this musical language that we have with each other. But it's tough; it's hard to do it that way. I don't know… I'm just glad it worked out. [Laughs]"

HALESTORM's first two albums, 2009's "Halestorm" and 2012's "The Strange Case Of…" were both officially certified gold in March by the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) for sales of more than 500,000 copies. The certifications came after RIAA started including on-demand audio and video streams and a track sale equivalent in gold and platinum album award.

"Into The Wild Life" debuted at No. 5 on the Billboard 200 album chart, selling 56,000 copies in its first week of release — more than double the first-week haul of their second CD — but has not reached gold yet.