Interview by Kris Peters
Halestorm took the world by storm towards the end of 2022 with the release of their fifth studio album, Back From The Dead.
A rock album in every sense of the word, Back From The Dead drew a fresh generation of fans to Halestorm's side with its harder edge and attitude-stained delivery. That album saw Halestorm tour relentlessly, hitting Australia in early 2023 before dominating their home and surrounding countries.
Such is their popularity Down Under that Halestorm have been invited back as part of Knotfest 2024, with guitarist Joe Hottinger joining HEAVY to talk about a massive last 18 months. We ask first if he is packed and ready to go, or if he is more of a last-minute type of traveller.
"I'm usually a last-minute guy," he laughed, "but I have gotten 90% of my pack together. I have some things I'm struggling with. I've got the clothes all together, but I'm a photographer too, so it's like 'what camera do I bring'? I don't wanna bring another suitcase, so I'm trying to shove in as much shit as I can without overdoing it, and I'm struggling in that department right now (laughs). I don't know what lenses to bring… I'm struggling."
Halestorm were here last just over 12 months ago, so we ask Joe what has changed with the band in that time.
"Man, I feel like we're… I feel like we're a new band," he measured. "We did those shows last January and after that we went and did some US military base things and got home from that whole run of touring and kind of like, had a powwow. Like, what are we doing? We re-thought our whole purpose, like went through a playlist of the music we were listening to when the four of us first started playing together back in 2003, 2004. We were listening to that and looking at old set lists from back 20 years ago and asked why was it that people started coming out to our shows? Why did we get signed? Trying to get back into this headspace, and I think we did. We spent two or three months before the June European festival run - that was our next real tour - and we were working on new music, but we also spent the majority of the time restructuring our live set and our goals. I say this word way too much, but it really came down to moments. That's why we love what we do. That's why we love what we do. That's why we love music. You sit there and create these moments together, and it makes the crowd go 'woo'. That's the currency is the woo. We just kinda rewrote how we looked at some songs, kind of wove some together, and were trying to be more dynamic. We don't use computers or click tracks or anything, so it's just the four of us making noise up there, and what you hear is what you get. Mistakes and all."
In the full interview Joe talks more about how Halestorm have worked on their live set, returning for Knotfest and what fans can expect, the Australian bands on the line-up, what sorts of things crowds can do to Halestorm put on the best show possible, his personal preference between festivals and headlining shows, their headline shows with Skindred, Back From The Dead and how it was received, how much of that album is still in the set list, changing things up live, new music and more.
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