HALESTORM drummer Arejay Hale spoke to Lou Brutus of HardDrive Radio about the band's musical approach on the upcoming follow-up to 2018's "Vicious" album, tentatively due in early 2022 via Atlantic. "At this point, we're just, well, we could either try to create as much open, breathable space so when we play these songs in arenas, they can sound really big, or we can try to do almost the opposite, but tastefully," he said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET). "Like, let's try to bring out more personality, let's try to be even more ourselves in the sense of bringing more energy to the songs. 'Cause like it or not, we play without a click track live, so the songs are gonna be a little bit faster, we're gonna throw more notes in here and there, we're gonna get excited and do something crazy. "I feel like with every record we do, we have that much more experience and we get even closer and closer to matching our live energy, which has been consistently our M.O. when it comes to going in the studio," he continued. "So that's where we're at once again. We're, like, 'Let's try and amp it up even more.' And not playing a show for a year and a half definitely brought out a lot more aggression, I think, in us. "We said, 'Working on this record throughout the entire pandemic, it's either gonna be the best record we put our or it's gonna be the most insane record we put out, and everyone's either gonna love it or hate it,'" Arejay added. "I hope that they love it. I love it. It gets me excited. I feel like with these new songs, there's an energy and excitement there that has been lacking in the last couple of records." As for a possible release date for the new HALESTORM album, Arejay said: "I'd like to know that too. [Laughs] I honestly don't know. I hope by next year. [Laughs] I'm hoping by hopefully early next year. Don't quote me on that; I don't know that for sure. But we are planning on tracking [some more] in October. 'Cause we have a short run in September, and then, I think for most of October, we're gonna be tracking in the studio. And then we have the EVANESCENCE tour in November, which I'm so excited about 'cause I love those guys." Last month, HALESTORM released a new single called "Back From The Dead". The video for the track, directed by Dustin Haney (Noah Cyrus, Luke Combs) and produced by Revolution Pictures, features frontwoman Lzzy Hale and the rest of the band in a morgue and cemetery somewhere between life and death. HALESTORM's new music is once again being produced by Nick Raskulinecz, who first helmed the band's 2017 effort "ReAniMate 3.0: The CoVeRs eP" and was previously described by Hale as the group's "fifth member." HALESTORM's latest EP release was last year's "Halestorm Reimagined", a collection of the band's reworked original songs as well as a cover of "I Will Always Love You", the love ballad made famous by Whitney Houston and Dolly Parton. Lzzy and her brother Arejay formed the band in 1998 while in middle school. Guitarist Joe Hottinger joined the group in 2003, followed by bassist Josh Smith in 2004. In December 2018, HALESTORM was nominated for a "Best Rock Performance" Grammy Award for its song "Uncomfortable". Six years earlier, the band won its first Grammy in the category of "Best Hard Rock/ Metal Performance" for "Love Bites (So Do I)".
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