When you have a relationship with music, and it's that deeply a part of your life, it's so much more than a career choice for me. It's an extension of who I am.
— Lzzy Hale
I've been talking a lot about how music chooses you because you can pinpoint when you had the epiphany that, 'Wow, I really want to do this.' But there's no real rhyme or reason about choosing to be in this industry. It's one of those things where there is no real guarantee; there is no real rulebook to follow.
I think there's this primal need to go to a show when you're a rock fan. And it's about that camaraderie and about that intangible feeling that we all get.
I didn't know that women go through a vocal change, which is called 'thickening'. Basically, it's like when your body gets ready for childbirth, and so it just grows in a weird way. When I figured that out, I was frustrated with it.
I go back to the rock n' roll black leather jacket, red lips, smoky eyes. I like my high heels, maybe some leather pants or ripped jeans, things that have never really gone out of style. Again, it's very reflective of who I am as a bandmate in our band.
Deep down inside, I'm a cheeseball and still listen to Bryan Adams and all that stuff.
My first Gibson was a '91 Les Paul Custom tobacco burst. I still have it - it's still amazing-sounding - but it took me a long time of saving up to get that guy!
There's always a spot, any time we make a new record, where I literally go back to Judas Priest and Motorhead because you have to. You have to go back and understand where this all started for you and keep reminding yourself of that.
It doesn't matter how you're dressed onstage or what you say in your songs: that doesn't give anybody the right to invade your personal space.
As musicians, we are quite literally singing for our supper. Don't get me wrong, I love touring, but the reality is that our idols from the '70s and '80s never toured this hard. They'd do a record, have one big world tour, maybe two, then break to do another record.
In my efforts to better my stamina and career, I find myself becoming more monk-like. And I'm not talking about the 'holy, praying, create awesome Trappist beer'-type monk. I'm talking about the 'go to bed early, no drinking, no talking, and no having any fun'-type monk.
I am holding on to every shred of femininity that I can with heels and dresses.
What I love about Zeppelin is that you can listen to their entire catalog and kind of see where they were at in the moment.
The good thing about most of the girls that I've met on the road is that, regardless of whether they're cute or not, man - they can bring it onstage, which is inspiring not just for young girls and young people in general but for myself because then it makes me want to step it up.
I grew up with my dad's music, so my introduction to rock was Alice Cooper and Cinderella and Dio and Black Sabbath, so I was listening to a lot of dude bands - Guns N' Roses and Metallica, all that stuff.
It keeps my feet on the ground just making sure that I'm always trying to learn something new or trying to be a real guitar player.
I wore Chuck Taylors for a couple shows, and the second show I wore the Chuck Taylors, that was the one and only time I fell onstage. I haven't really bit it onstage in high heels yet. It will happen. It's not about if, it's about when.
Even now - I'm 35 - I've been in a relationship for 15 years with a guy, and we have two full incomes and no kids, and it's hilarious. We're children, perpetually, because of this rock and roll thing. But it's still so fulfilling.
It's not like I have this philosophical answer as to why I love rock.
I think that's one of the beautiful things about this genre is that everyone who's in it isn't in it to make a million bucks and be popular, because that's not always our M.O. Really, I think the last time that rock was truly in the mainstream was probably a point in time in the '90s when there was a lot of alternative that was on the pop charts.
I actually ended up going through a vocal change. It started about two years ago, and it's only been recently that I found my balance again. Vocally, I couldn't figure out what was going on. My lows were getting lower, and my highs were getting higher; everything felt weird.
I made a lot of not-so-fashionable choices in my life. I see all of those photos that are on the Internet forever.
I go to a lot of metal shows when we're home. I don't know why, but it takes me back to when I was 17 and going to the local metal shows in Pennsylvania. I go right back to that mentality.
Over the years, it's funny: my guys will tell you and anyone that I have a problem not giving 100 percent. Because there are some nights where I probably shouldn't actually say everything or do everything I think I should do.
My musical tastes - I'm always searching for new things. I know a lot of people say they listen to everything, but I kind of do.
A lot of girls come to our shows, and a lot of them are freaking adorable and want to learn how to play guitar.
Here's the breakdown: alcohol dehydrates you and stimulates acid reflux. Then, when you sing on dry, irritated vocal folds, your folds swell. When your folds swell, they cause hoarseness, which makes you feel like you have to push harder to get a sound out.
I have always been 'small town.' I was born outside of Philadelphia, so we lived on a 20-acre farm and then spent two years in a log cabin on the Appalachian Trail. We lived outside of York in Red Lion, which is an amazing town. It's perpetually 1982 in that town.
I have learned that you can't be high-maintenance on the road. I've groomed myself to not be high-maintenance. You have to maintain and be a girl and not become a dude.
Once I started to make the transition to guitar - because I was playing keyboards when we started the band - I was trying to figure out riffs I could play without really having a lot of knowledge. And my dad ended up showing me Black Sabbath's 'Heaven and Hell,' because he knew I loved Dio.
I think that's a big part of what I love about the boys in the band, too, and what I find attractive in men in general is, really, the ability to not take everything so seriously because it is rock n' roll after all; it's a freakin' circus. We're not accountants here.
As far as people, I've always loved Tony Iommi's sound, just the grittiness that was in that era of metal where it wasn't too fuzzy, and you could still hear the guitar and the fingers, but it still had this chunky, meat-and-potatoes sound to it.
I ended up starting guitar because I didn't want to just be the lead singer.
I think it's less stressful to just make decisions as you go, because plans never work out, but you never run out of dreams. You have an eternal bucket list where you keep crossing things off, and keep adding things to the bottom.
For me, this band and the music that I write and this touring thing that I do and playing in front of people, singing, and making a lot of noise on guitar - all that was more important than a lot of other things.
It's funny: I've seen a lot of the rock attitude come into play in the rap world, where it's like they're angry, or there's this defiance going on, and there's a lot of danger, and it's actually really encouraging; they're opening the door for us to kind of move on in again.
Not to get mushy, but I realized after talking to my parents what absolute guts they must have had to let their teenage daughter be in a rock band, play in bars, do all of that.
I keep telling everybody that touring has now become my normal life and that normal life is like a very odd vacation.
I don't think I'll ever do a record that's just the same song over and over again because I'd like to think about it like it's an album and a snapshot of everything that makes you who you are and where you're at at that time in your life.
I love using lots of different pedals in the studio because you have the time to experiment with sounds. But when you're singing, fronting a rock band, and playing, you don't really want to have to think about a lot of that stuff.
I'm so honored that there are people, peers, that I'm inspired by and looked up to for years and actually want me to do my thing with them. It's quite the honor, and it's been wonderful to see everybody's fan base kind of melting together.
You're so used to being on the road and having a schedule that the insanity seeps in when you're sitting at home and there's nothing going on that day.
I remember one tour with two male-fronted bands, and they had a fight over who could use the bathroom first. Then they just ended up having a beef with each other for the entire rest of the tour.
One of the things that helps my vocal health immensely out on the road is stopping all my eating/drinking at least four hours before I go to bed. I actually set a timer after my last meal so I can't cheat. This is to prevent acid reflux when I lay down in my bunk at night.
I like to sew, and I am into bending metal and making industrial jewelry. I sew a lot of my own clothes and customize stuff.
I dare anybody to display a more amazing body of work than Tom Petty.
Cinderella obviously got caught up in the hair metal scene, but they were such a blues band. And such a good live band.
You can pick out the scariest dude on the tour and, guaranteed, he's probably a smush - I just find that so incredibly attractive.
I'm always trying to evolve my sound. I love the simplicity of my setup. I play Gibson guitars and Marshall amps. So it's kind of like the standard rock sound.
I can count on less than five fingers the things I can do well, so I'm just going to stick to those. It's crazy; it's literally all I've ever wanted to do in life is sing and play and get out there and rock.
