Halestorm

Halestorm began in Red Lion, Pennsylvania, where siblings Lzzy and Arejay Hale started writing and performing together in 1997, at thirteen and ten years old. Lzzy had learned piano as a small child and later moved to guitar; Arejay went from piano to drums, eventually building a rotating kit that flipped upside down mid-song. Their early shows were framed as Christian rock, encouraging teenage audiences to steer clear of drugs, sex and violence, with father Roger Hale playing bass alongside them.

Guitarist Joe Hottinger joined in 2003, and bassist Josh Smith replaced Roger Hale in 2004, completing the line-up that remains today. Halestorm signed to Atlantic Records in 2005 and issued a live EP, One and Done, the following year. Their self-titled debut album arrived in 2009, led by the single "I Get Off," establishing the band before a run of further EPs and albums.

Halestorm's sound is straightforward hard rock, threaded with metal and post-grunge inflections and built around Lzzy Hale's wide, powerful voice. Their biggest chart marker came from "Love Bites (So Do I)," off the second album The Strange Case Of..., which won the Grammy Award for Best Hard Rock/Metal Performance.

Further albums followed: Into the Wild Life reached number five on the Billboard 200, Vicious debuted at number eight for a second top-ten placement, and Back from the Dead kept the run going. Their sixth album, Everest, arrived in 2025.

Halestorm is known above all as a touring act, playing as many as 250 shows a year on bills with hard rock and metal artists before selling out its first headlining arena show in 2016. AllMusic has called the band a fixture of American rock radio.