#2022 interviews

[a-silent-symphony]

TUOMAS HOLOPAINEN + eyes closed 😌 Nightwish, 2022 interview, various performances

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SHARON DEN ADEL + "stupid" band name 😂 Sweden Rock Online interview 2022

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Halestorm’s Lzzy Hale: Hard Rock ‘Has Nothing to Do With What’s Between Anybody’s Legs’

The powerhouse vocalist on championing women-led rock bands and creating a 'sanctuary' in the hit song 'The Steeple'

WHEN LZZY HALE and her band, Halestorm, were first nominated for a Grammy in 2013 — earning a Best Hard Rock/Metal Performance nod for their song “Love Bites” — the power singer found herself the only woman in a category full of dudes. (They won.) Not much seemed to have changed by 2019, when Halestorm scored their second Grammy nomination, for Best Rock Performance.

Now, however, Hale is leading a charge for women in heavy music. The group’s latest headlining tour of the U.S. featured a lineup of female-fronted bands, all of them handpicked by Hale, and her signature Gibson Explorerbird guitar has found its way into the hands of aspiring rockers of all ages. “The people at Gibson keep telling me the demographic that buys the most electric guitars right now are female,” says Hale, 39. “The wave is coming, whether anybody likes it or not.”

On the strength of the group’s fifth album, Back From the Dead, and its string of hits like “The Steeple,” “Wicked Ways,” and the title track, Halestorm are well-positioned to score their latest nomination and prove once and for all that hard rock is genderless.

The album Back From the Dead sounds like it was made for the stage, which is ironic considering it was recorded during a time when live concerts were nearly extinct. We had no idea what the future held: “Is the record going to come out? Are the fans going to like it? Is the label going to like this song and think it’s a hit?” The silver lining of the future being unknown was we could be selfish and say that none of that matters right now. I feel like some of the heaviness of the record and the full-speed-ahead mentality came from that.

What we learned in that process is that’s the only way to do it, the right way and the most fulfilling way. This is a career now, and there’s a lot of people with their fingers in the pie and people talking in your ear and a lot of pressure outside of where you started. And I started in my parents’ living room, where you could do whatever you wanted.

“The Steeple” was a Number One rock song for Halestorm, and it just feels like a Grammy nominee. Why do you think it resonates with your fans? A lot of people talk about the safe space and the unity of a rock show and that feeling you get. We were trying to re-create that sanctuary. That magic resonates with people, and they may not even know how to describe it. But you saying the words that they feel is a call to arms, a display of community.

“It stopped raining in my head today” is the opening line because of a time when we were in Nashville and I had the post-tour blues. We had three weeks off, and I was bummed for no reason. [Halestorm guitarist Joe Hottinger] suggested, “Hey, let’s go see a show.” We did, and I could feel the cloud lifting. It’s hard to explain, but that’s what we were trying to celebrate with “The Steeple.”

When Halestorm were first nominated for a Grammy, in 2013, you were the only woman in the category. That’s true. And we were the new kids then, too. Not only was I the only female, but we were also the only new rock band. All these bands that were nominated with or against us were people we were influenced by. And that inspired us. We really had nothing prepared, because we were like, “Dude, we’re not going to win this.” It was a complete surprise when we did.

Then, there was this joke going around, because I know a bunch of the Megadeth guys and a couple of the other nominees, and they were all joking about how “Lzzy stole our Grammy.” I was in an interview with Eddie Trunk one time, on That Metal Show, and he had a couple of the losers of the Grammys as guests and he had me pop in [via video] just to make that comment. But if it wasn’t for those [bands], we probably wouldn’t have even written “Love Bites.”

You made it a mission to bring along only female-led bands, like the Warning, on Halestorm’s most recent tour. Why is that important to you? It’s such a beautiful place, to be in a position where you can pass the torch. It seems not that long ago I was on the other side of that coin, hungry and fighting to get attention. The point of bringing these young women up and giving them a platform is: I am truly inspired. Watching Dany, lead guitarist for the Warning every night, I’m hungry again because of her. It comes full circle. The genre has nothing to do with what’s between anybody’s legs, but it’s important for us to talk about it because these young women are going to be able to see themselves reflected in one of us.

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ARCH ENEMY's ALISSA WHITE-GLUZ Opens Up About Her Relationship With MISFITS' DOYLE WOLFGANG VON FRANKENSTEIN

During a recent appearance on the "In The Trenches With Ryan Roxie" podcast, ARCH ENEMY singer Alissa White-Gluz spoke about the challenges of maintaining a strong relationship with her longtime boyfriend, MISFITS guitarist Doyle Wolfgang Von Frankenstein, when both of them spend so much time on the road. The 37-year-old frontwoman said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "I wouldn't say I'm qualified to be a relationship coach by any means, but I think that a lot of it comes down to just having your goals aligned; the people in the relationship have to have their goals aligned. And we definitely do.

"I remember when I was a teenager and just starting to get into bands, you do that thing with your bros in the band, and you're, like, 'All right. Bands before everything — before girlfriends, before boyfriends, before school, before work. Bands before everything,'" she continued. "And I committed to that and I never broke away from it, essentially. I just said, 'Any opportunity that I can get with music, I have to take it a thousand percent,' and I'm still like that. And I also encourage Doyle to be like that, because I think that his band DOYLE is really good — really, really good. It's, like super-good music. And I'm saying that — of course I'm biased, but the thing is I heard his band when I met him, and I wasn't with him yet and I already liked it. So I thought it was a good band before I had a reason to think it was a good band. So I want his band to succeed. I want people to go to their shows. I want him to do well. I love when he plays MISFITS shows and it's a sold-out arena."

Alissa added: "So even though it's tough 'cause we don't see each other that much, I'm happy that he's getting to work and I'm happy that I get to work. And so it's not super easy, but it's worked for the past almost decade, so I guess it's fine. [Laughs]"

[shomagravity]

【Twitter Thread of Summary Notes from my translation of Uno Shoma's Interview with FujiTV On Demand.】 I have translated the full thing however I will not share that one because it is a paid content. Be aware that I'm only sharing some parts from the interview that I personally liked. This interview was filmed in 5th March '22

[fishfingersandscarves]

San Francisco, 1973

[kaitcake1289]

Who are you, Louis?

[birdmans]

The Cruel Prince — Holly Black

[gvnchyno2]

rooting for and against everyone in season two starts now ⏳

[a-silent-symphony]

Tuomas on writing the song ‘Noise’ (2022)

“I went there, into the deep pits of hell and that’s how the song was born.” 😈

[handsofdarkness]

WITHIN TEMPTATION's SHARON DEN ADEL: How 'Religious Parties Trying To Change Laws' Inspired Lyrics For 'Don't Pray For Me'

WITHIN TEMPTATION's Sharon Den Adel spoke to Rock Sound about the lyrical inspiration for the band's recent single "Don't Pray For Me". She said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "I wrote an essay a year back about, for International Women's Day, for one of the metal magazines here in the U.K. And they asked me, like, 'Okay, you can talk about anything.' So I just took a subject, and I chose abortion, actually. And I really dive into it, and it was more, like, 'Okay, how does it really go about in different countries?' And I saw laws changing in Poland, especially religious parties trying to change laws, so people can't have sex education in schools anymore, but also they can't have an abortion, even in the most worst cases. And it's changing all over the world, also in America. I felt a little bit I had just been watching 'The Handmaid's Tale'. [Laughs] So just thinking how there are a lot of similarities about a lot of things, and also a lot of differences, of course. But it just made me wanna write about religion in the first place, because of the fact that people are always telling other people how to live. And abortion is just one of those things. But it's a lot of things in a lot of countries that I go to, touring."

She continued: "I feel like a lot of kids have a really hard time growing up, trying to be who they wanna be. And I think it starts really before they're born, like what kind of circumstances do you get, the chances like anyone else you get, a loving family. Were you welcomed when you were born? Those kinds of things; it's very important. People telling you what to be and who to be and what to believe, it just puts a real stamp on your life, I think, and it can really take the air out of life also. The song is about, don't tell me what to believe, don't tell me what to do, let everybody be free. That would be nice for people in the end, especially kids when they're growing up and you give them the space to think for themselves."

When "Don't Pray For Me" was first released in July, Sharon stated about the track: "'Don't Pray For Me' strives against forcing beliefs and fears onto others and bears witness to being acceptive of everyone's own journey. It is an anthem about coming to terms with the fact that beliefs can be fluid, multiple or, frankly, different. The song is about allowing people to pursue their own destiny."

[x--daughters-of-darkness--x]

Evanescence’s Amy Lee on dealing with childhood grief: “When you’re hurting, you grab on to anything that helps”

Amy Lee talks rising above tragedy, why money should never dictate art and Evanescence’s unexpected longevity

Amy Lee is a 21st-century metal icon. Blessed with true talent and a genuinely unique, sincere perspective, the young girl who started Evanescence back in 1995 and found fame with 2003’s mega-hit Bring Me To Life has turned her band into superstars. Talking to Hammer over Zoom, she’s as warm and friendly a personality as you’d wish to encounter, and it’s not long before we realise that her list of achievements is so vast – taking in No.1s, collaborations and orchestral work – it’s near-impossible to squeeze everything she’s learned into a single hour.

BEING PART OF A BAND IS A BEAUTIFUL THING

“There’s a lot of new fire now we’ve found Emma [Anzai, bassist]. It’s like it was the universe telling us what Evanescence should be. I’ve found as I’ve gotten older to let the universe do that; you have to let go of your own plans. It certainly gives you a new energy when you’re in this new, positive space. We really have something special, we feel like brothers and sisters, and we have good memories of all of our bandmembers.”

YOU CAN’T CHANGE PEOPLE’S IDEAS OF WHO YOU ARE

“I don’t get frustrated by negative representations of me, because they’re just that – perceptions. One of the things that I’ve got better at doing over the years is tuning out people’s misperceptions. People don’t know all the details of how things work and what we’ve been through, so I can’t get angry if they have a certain idea of me because they just don’t know. I’ve been fighting for this band since I was a teenager, and I couldn’t do it on my own, but I am the leader and the people that I work with love that I’m a leader. And I love their input. Mutual respect between bandmembers is crucial.”

NOTHING COMPARES TO PLAYING LIVE

“We’ve been back since November of last year, and after not having live music for a while, being able to share that release, that beautiful thing that we all share when there are thousands of people in a room, that is such a release for my heart. It wouldn’t be if I was just singing into the dark, so I’m grateful for what I do on a level that I couldn’t have been when we were first out.”

NEVER LET MONEY DICTATE YOUR ART

“You can’t measure success in numbers and money. I really believe that if you’re speaking from the heart and you put your whole heart into it, it’s going to connect to people. The problem is people try and make money and try and survive, but it traps you. Commerce is the enemy of art, and in this day and age I feel like everybody is trying to sell me something, and I hate it, it makes me not believe.”

I’VE SURPASSED MY OWN WILDEST EXPECTATIONS

“When I was a kid, I never could have seen this band going this far, and my dreams were huge! When I think about being 40 and seeing what we have become… I could never have seen that. I could only see my ideas and my musical vision; I didn’t see where that could have taken me. But you have to embrace life and the beautiful madness of creation.”

BRING ME TO LIFE IS MUCH BIGGER THAN JUST ME

“Bring Me To Life is such a timeless part of my life. When I look back and think about the creation of the song, I thought it was great… but I didn’t think it was any better than any of the other songs on the album. I guess that’s why people can’t replicate a hit, it’s not a mathematical formula! That song just connected with people. It was just this veiled confession of feeling in love with my now husband when we weren’t even together. It was a time I felt seen by somebody, when I’d never felt like I’d been seen by anybody. Twenty years later, there are people who have connected with that song in a similar way, and we are all part of that journey together now.”

SONGS CAN BE ABOUT WHATEVER YOU WANT THEM TO BE

“People think they know what Call Me When You’re Sober is about… I do generally write about the people around me, but I also write [so] different situations in my life can be applied [to songs later]. As it has been through the years, when I sing it now, I’m not thinking about a boyfriend from 15 years ago… I’m thinking about now. And that’s got to be true of music in general.”

LEARN FROM THE BEST

“I recently did a song with Dave Stewart from Eurythmics. We did a cover of [The Everly Brothers’] Love Hurts. Something cool I learnt from Dave was that he comes from an era where you really have to make choices. I came through being really inspired by that 90s wall of guitars, like Smashing Pumpkins; we throw so many combinations and tracks at the wall until we find something cool. Dave would see that he needed a guitar and quickly find that knack of finding that sound – three guitar tracks, one take of two of them, and three takes of the third one, and it was done! You can stack and stack and stack, but then you start to lose the unique quality that is just that one thing. If you make the choice, you hear it.”

BROADEN YOUR HORIZONS AS FAR AND WIDE AS YOU CAN

“I really love contrast. I think that you can hear that in our music. So with a lot of the artists that I love, in the same vein as us, it’s hard to find someone I want to collaborate with. It’s when you find the biggest differences that you find the new colour. What that would be next, I don’t know; I have an open mind. My true favourite thing that came out of the pandemic was this comic called Bo Burnham. He’s a genius! Evanescence and comedy… it doesn’t seem like it would work, but it might work for Amy Lee! How cool for him to be so real on such a profound level. If he wasn’t, it wouldn’t be so funny.”

I’D DO ANYTHING TO WORK WITH TIM BURTON

“I love Tim Burton, but I’ve never been able to meet him. I got to meet Danny Elfman – he had me come over to his house. As a musician I’m a fan of both of them. I wanted to learn more about Danny’s process! I would love to meet Tim Burton, but there would have to be a reason, there would need to be the right project, the right film. That would be a moment where you could just print up the tombstone. It’s his contrast; everything is like a cartoon, the colours are like a dream of life, like a painting that’s come to life. But, in addition, there is this part that is grief, or pain, or something really messed up that seems to come from a child’s perspective. Which, having been through grief as a child, I really relate to.”

CHANNEL YOUR GRIEF INTO SOMETHING POSITIVE…

“When you’re hurting, you grab on to anything that helps. That’s why addiction is so high in people who are grieving. Music has been that addiction for me, a positive addiction, when you feel something so strong that it has to come out of your body. Sing it, paint it, express it. Art for me is always the way to get those things out, I don’t feel the same just talking about it.”

… AND ALLOW YOURSELF TO FEEL

“My sister died when I was six, and it was just me and my parents again, and in that moment, I went into a mode of wanting to protect my parents’ hearts. I didn’t allow myself a lot of outward grief, I didn’t want to add to their pain. So, my inner voice – the time I spent with myself and the things that I would create – became this very dear friend to me. It was only years later that I realised I could take those things and turn them into something healing.”

THERE’S NOTHING LIKE BEING PART OF AN ORCHESTRA

“I love working with all different musicians and artists, the classical world works in so many different ways. It’s strict; they’re on a schedule and if you go over, it’s over. It’s terrifying, but exciting! You’re working with these high-level musicians who have done their work, they can read music, and it just feels like a tightrope – at any moment it could come crashing down. You’re not tied down to a click track, you’re working to the movements of the conductor’s baton. The energy created by the focus makes it so gratifying when the sound comes out. So many pieces, so many people, all creating one tiny fraction, making something so much bigger than myself… it’s really special.”

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