03.30.2011 - Interview with Arejay Hale of Halestorm
Miranda: I’m sitting with Arejay Hale of Halestorm, so even though you are only five days into the tour, how’s it been so far
Arejey: So far, it’s been really laid back, as far as on my end it’s been pretty easy going, no complaints, it’s our first time touring with Skillet, and those guys are very sweet guys, very nice guys. We’ve toured with Theory of a Deadman and Stone Sour, we know them pretty good. And the new guys on the bill are Art of Dying, and they are great.
Miranda: So you’re meeting all kinds of other bands, and getting acquainted with them as well as the ones you already know.
Arejay: So far everybody’s really getting along, which is a rarity on tour, and a very nice one when it all works out like that
Miranda: Well note mentioning any band names, or any names, have there been tours where you have tension?
Arejay: Oh yeah, (laughs) we have dealt with our fair share of bands with bigger egos and they don’t really get along, a lot of the smaller up and coming bands think they deserve more and they don’t put in the effort for it. We’re always the kind of band that feels like you should put in the effort for what you love and that’s the best way to get any kind of benefit from what you are doing
Miranda: So you really don’t need to step on people to get anywhere
Arejay: My father, at a very young age, gave me some words of wisdom a long time ago, he said “son the toes that you step on, on the way up are connected to the ass that you’ll be kissing on the way down” so we always try to remind ourselves that even the smaller people that work underneath you are just as important as the big guys, so we try to respect everybody as much as we can.
Miranda: There’s always somebody putting that drum kit together for you, so if you aren’t nice to them it might fall apart in the middle of the set
Arejay: I know, right (laughs). We’ve been blessed, a lot of the bands that have opened up for us are really cool, really humble, and we always try to put out a good vibe and we feel that always helps us get a good vibe back
Miranda: Since you’ve been touring, about two years ago you had just put out an album, and you were doing festivals and that took you overseas right?
Arejay: Last year was our very first time ever going overseas, we went there three times. The first time we were actually living in a little box truck that was converted, it was nice it had a couple of bunks in it, the gear was stowed, we were on a tour with Theory of a Deadman. I think it was one of our first tours with those guys. It was a fun tour because it was all clubs and we really got to soak up a lot of the cities cultures, a lot of the local flavors, after that we came back and did Download Festival, a lot of the other big festivals in Europe, that was a lot of fun, a lot of the fans were really nutty. We opened for Rage against the Machine and it was an 80,000 person moshpit it was pretty amazing. And the third time we went over there we went over with Disturbed, Papa Roach, and Buck Cherry, and that was probably our best tour over there yet. It was all arenas, and we got to meet a lot of different people. As a band we love different cultures, we love exploring and meeting people from different cultures and completely different backgrounds, it’s really cool to see how many rock fans there are out there, so yeah Europe was fun.
Miranda: Yeah you see how different crowds react to you, and you taste different kinds of food
Arejay: Yeah, the coffee is great over there, and the beer (laughs)
Miranda: Did you have to learn a different language or did you have translators
Arejay: Actually we went to Japan and we had an interpreter with us, that was a great experience because the people over there are so nice and sweet, they’re just a great culture in themselves, very respectful very friendly. So he helped us out learning a couple phrases to kind of help us get through a meet and greet or on stage. He taught us how to say hello, and how are you, and are you enjoying the show, are you having fun, make some noise, and like it’s so good to be here and then during the signing we learned what’s your name, my name is, please come and see us again. And in Europe its different because a lot of the people already speak very good English and it made me think of our culture in the states, I wish he had the same kind of thing where we would learn different languages in school. So over there a lot of the fans helped us out learning different things out of respect and as a thank you for welcoming us into their continent, into their whole new world it thought it would be nice to learn a couple of phrases in German and Swedish, Norwegian, the easiest was the UK because you just speak English there (laughs) it was super cool. They appreciated it so much even though we botched the language, we tried to speak it as well as we can, but we just aren’t used to it. Even if we say something like “thank you much very” (laughs) they forgive us, and they are very nice about it.
Miranda: How long have you been playing the drums
Arejay: I’ve been playing the drums since I was about 3, Lzzy and I started getting into music at the same time, I was 3 and she was 5 when she started playing the piano and singing and I started drumming and singing and writing. We were pretty much just jamming and making noise together. I think it was around 8 and she was like 11 when we started writing together and wrote our very first song. We played at this county fair we were at this talent contest. We won third place to this dancing cowgirl. (laughs) we placed, alright, and that fancy cowgirl wherever she is, she’s going down she took our trophy.
Miranda: Lets go back to the county fair and see what happens now
Arejay: I know right (laughs). After that first show we were just kind of hooked on it and we looked at each other and were like do you want to do this for real, and form a band. And our parents were like “thank you, yes” because my parents are like rock n roll parents, they were raised on Ppinal Tap, my dad played bass, and my mom was more on the business side, she started managing bands back in the day. The two of them started booking us in the local areas and we started playing shows and more and more shows Lzzy and I kept on writing. We pretty much just never stopped; we were the kids that never grew out of it.
Miranda: I see you changed your hair color, which has to do with the next question; a lot of people seem to associate your stage energy with a certain child iconic character (Arejay laughs). Did Animal, from the Muppets, play any role in you wanting to play the drums?
Arejay: You know what, Lzzy and I grew up on the Muppet show. Animal was my favorite character even before I saw him playing the drums on the Muppet show. The first time I saw that I was like oh my god that’s so perfect you know, and yeah that was a part of my upbringing, as a drummer I want to bring a lot of energy to the show. It wasn’t just that though, I was raised on Keith Moon from the Who, and john Bonham from Led Zeppelin, and Ginger Baker from Cream all of the old greats that actually not only formed the sound of their band, they were pretty much irreplaceable. Even though Led Zeppelin got back with Jason Bonham, even with how amazing of a drummer Jason is, it didn’t sound the same. And that’s just how much influence his sound was on that band. I’ve just always strived for that and at the same time I wanted to bring a lot of energy to the band, and yeah Animal from the Muppets is pretty much my favorite showman. The reason for the hair color is that me and the guitar player’s hair is the same color, and people at the merch table would always come up to him and they would say “hey you did a great job on the drums” and I felt bad for him and it would drive him crazy. And it was a combination of a bunch of different things one was to keep confusion at bay because me and him, we practically look like brothers and the animal thing, and at the same time I was just kinda sick of the hair color. I had never dyed my hair color before.
Miranda: Describe to us a day in life with Arejey
Arejay: Oh boy, it keeps changing. Originally, the day was wake up set up everything, try to steal water and try to find water and beer to steal from catering, and then set up the gear in front of three other bands crammed to the front of the stage. Ever since then it’s gotten a lot more laid back. Now we’ve got a full on crew, a guitar tech, a drum tech, and a sound guy to set up the stage, so really there’s a lot of down time. It really helped us out a lot because now we can write a lot more on the road. We have a recording rig, an in box pro-tools rig and a guitar. I’ll usually just sit on the bus or the dressing room and come up with song ideas and write as much as I can. We always try to stay proactive, a lot of bands find it really hard to write on the road and it really is, you just have to find time for it and get into the creative mind set. A lot of bands will tour for two years but then they have to take 4 or 5 months off to write a record, so what we try to do is while we are on tour is to try to write as much as we can to try to get as many ideas out. Its great having the recording gear with us, so we can take those scattered ideas and on our down time try to put them together and try to form complete songs. The process is slow because there is a lot to do on tour, we do a lot of meet and greets, and press, and then the show that’s a lot of fun, that’s pretty much our play time. When it comes down to brass tacks when we are all in the dressing run, as a band we try to get together with the recording rig and come up with song ideas and stay creative.
Miranda: So you try to get a head start so you don’t have to take those 4 or 5 months off
Arejay: Right, so on tour we can pretty much write the record, go into the studio record the record and get back out on tour. We’re the kind of band that doesn’t like to sit at home. We don’t like sitting still. We get ansie to get back on the road. Our favorite thing to do is to tour, and meet people every day and do meet and greets and signings, that’s a lot of fun for us. It’s weird because a lot of bands consider that work, because it’s our play time.
Miranda: This is a job you love to do
Arejay: It’s the best job in the world, we love it more than anything else.
Miranda: It beats delivering pizza and working at the grocery store
Arejay: Absolutely, but even if you’re gonna do that at least be passionate about it. If you want to deliver pizzas, then go for it. I have a lot of respect for those people
Miranda: How hard is it to coordinate your drum line that you feature in your performances.
Arejay: We’re experimenting with a lot of different things on this tour, we aren’t doing the same drum line on this tour we have a bunch of new songs and a bunch of different features for the show. A bunch of different energy spots that we coordinate into the set. As far as getting the drum line together it really isn’t that hard. Me and our Bass Player, Josh and Guitar Player Joe were all in the drum line in high school so we pretty much taught Lzzy how to play and got the drums out and we were just trying out something different. We worked it up in like two days, got some stuff together and by the fifth show it was pretty tight. At this point we don’t really even have to think about it, we just go out and do it.
Miranda: You have a new EP out, with six songs.
Arejay: Yeah, a new cover EP. We do Skid Row, Lady Gaga, Temple of the Dog, Guns n Roses, Heart, and the Beatles. Basically the idea to do the cover EP idea was just a fun thing for us to do. We booked a studio for a week and went in and did it ourselves. And we just took a bunch of songs. Starting out, we used to always play a bunch of songs on our set lists, but we always wanted to make them sound like our own. So it was a great way to go into the studio and have fun with the recording process. We took some songs that we were influenced by and also some songs that I’ve always wanted Lzzy to sing. And some other songs that a bunch of fans suggested to us. Like “we’d love to hear you do this, or we’d love to hear you do a Lady Gaga song”. We just went into there and rocked up a Lady Gaga song and we just had fun with it.
Miranda: Did you all pick out the songs, or did each one pick a song?
Arejay: It was really just a mutual thing, especially Lzzy and I. We were raised on a lot of the same things, a lot of really good bands in the 70’s and 80s. We grew up listening to the Beatles and Skid Row and Joe and Josh brought in a lot of the 90s scene, they liked the grunge thing. When we hooked up with those guys I started getting into that too. We threw in Temple of the Dog, I’ve always loved Chris Corenell’s Voice and Eddie Vedder’s voice. And I’ve always wanted to hear Lzzy sing them. The cool thing is that Lzzy’s range can hit both of those singers, and she can pull them both off pretty well. So that was a fun one, I just wanted to hear her sing Eddie Vedder and Chris Cornell. We all put in a lot of our influence and what we loved to play. Some of it was some of our label’s and management’s suggestion and a lot of it was fun suggestions. A lot of our fan base are hard rock fans. But some of them really have an appreciate for pop music and you know as an artist it’s important to have an appreciate for all different kinds of music, so I am personally a big fan of pop music. I like Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars is great. I love Eminem.
Miranda: There’s a lot of good stuff, you might not like the album, but there’s a few songs off of each album.
Arejay: Yeah, I feel like a lot of pop music is moving in a more creative way. They have more leeway to be more creative, a lot of hip-hop and pop music. And I felt like for a long time a lot of rock music was getting very generic so that was also some of the reason we wanted to get creative with pop music. I think that a lot bands like Slipknot and Avenged Sevenfold, and even Skillet and Stone Sour are opening up a lot of doors for bands that play heavy music so that they can get into main stream. I would like to see rock music get as big as it once was. I feel like there’s still a lot of rock fans out there.
Miranda: There’s still a lot out there. By doing covered of like Lady Gaga you’re reaching the Lady Gaga fans and saying “hey listen to it this way” and see what you think.
Arejay: Right, I was reading in rolling Stone there was a great quote Gerard Way of My Chemical Romance, I love My Chemical Romance, I don’t know how well their last record was, but I thought it was a great record and he said he kind of referred to it as a “if you can’t beat ‘em join ‘em” and referred to pop music as kind of the “enemy” in a playful way. It’s just a different genre of music, and its very big. He said the best way to beat it is to incorporate a lot of the good pop elements into a hard rock sound. So we kinda took that into consideration and were like you know let’s make this Lady Gaga Song which is great in itself, what would it sound like if it were written or worked up by a rock band. And it just worked out really good. It still sounded really good if you put heavy guitar and heavy drums on it. So we had a lot of fun with that, and that definitely did open up a lot of doors. A lot of pop fans that loved that song and heard ours and were like “wow that’s a whole new energy to this song that I love”.
Miranda: Are you guys working on a full length album
Arejay: We actually are right now, we just recorded two songs and we’re going to release them as singles.
Miranda: When can we expect the new album?
Arejay: Umm, there’s never a disclosed date, and it’s never final until its final, but last I heard and I hope it’s accurate, is that it’ll be out maybe around the fall. Later this year. It all depends, because we’re on tour but in pre-production at the same time, which is another reason we have our recording rigs with us. So we can finish writing songs for the record while we are out on tour, which I feel is more creative because we are out on tour. When you are sitting at home you get stuck in a creative rut. Well I could work on songs or I could go on Netflix and watch this, I could watch Sparta or Spartacus. I haven’t watched it yet but everyone in the band is hooked up Spartacus and Dexter. But its great out here, we get our play time, to break up the creative thing. Currently we are writing and recording demos for the new record. As soon as we are done with this tour we’re going to go up to LA and finish writing and record the record. We were actually here in Nashville not too long ago with a couple of friends of ours, James Michael sings in Six A.M. and he’s got a nice studio. We got to write with him, and this other guy Blair Daily, who wrote a lot of Rascal Flats hits. It was fun to write with them, and if you get stuck on an idea you can bring it to them and they can help push it out of you.
Miranda: You have tomorrow off, and then your next tour date is April 1st, April fool’s day. What kind of pranks do you have planned for that?
Arejay: Yeah, I don’t know if you know this or not, but April 1st is also my birthday.
Miranda: Well happy birthday
Arejay: Thank you, so we’re gonna be doing some pranks. I’m definitely going to be doing one on my crew (laughs). I’m pretty much a huge joker. I’ve got a lot of stuff planned, and after that and everything is said and done we’re gonna get pretty lit up. We’re gonna start doing shots and its gonna get ugly.
Miranda: So how old will you be?
Arejay: 24, I’ll be 24, I’m an old man (laughs) or at least I feel old, I feel 10 years older than I am.
Miranda: At least you’re sisters still older than you
Arejay: Yeah, but she’ll always look younger than me, which isn’t fair.
Miranda: Do you have any message for your fans?
Arejay: Follow me on twitter, twitter.com/arejayhale (http://twitter.com/#!/ArejayHale) it s my name. I don’t have nearly enough followers. Me and my sister are always having this competition, and I’m always going to lose because I’m not the lead singer, and I’m not the girl. So she always gets a lot more followers. I just have to say thank everyone in the world that is listening to Halestorm. We never thought we would go international or actually have people respond as well as people have. We’ve always been passionate about it, but we’re a little crazy. It’s really reassuring seeing other people feel the same way we do. We just have to thank everybody for all of the support. Stick around, because we aren’t going anywhere.