HALESTORM's LZZY HALE: 'If It Wasn't For METALLICA, I Wouldn't Have Been Introduced To MOTÖRHEAD'

HALESTORM singer Lzzy Hale recently spoke to Music Radar about the songwriting process for the band's third album, tentatively due in late 2014 or early 2015. "It's exciting but it's such a mindfuck," she said. "We've just started to crack the code of what songs we want on the record.

"We're finishing that up after [the recent European] tour, then we'll finish the record, release it and do it all over again.

"It's a little stressful because we're under pressure to do something halfway decent and better than the last one. I'm just excited to get it out there and show people some new songs."

She added: "You write like 60 songs and most of that will be thrown away because you're chasing after the new thing that gets you excited.

"In the first batch of songs, we had this epic metal song, one song sounded like Tom Petty and then we had five piano ballads. Out of all of that, there were maybe three songs that we thought were cool and were the next direction we should go in, so we threw the rest away.

"You want some songs that will work on the radio, you want songs that are fun, you want some that maybe won't work on radio but are fun to play live and are the glue that holds the record together."

Regarding how the songs come together, Lzzy said: "There are many ways to skin that cat. If there is a piano in the room, I will probably go to that, because I don't have room for a keyboard with me backstage on tour. Lately I've been starting with lyrics first, oddly.

"I like to look back on the people who influenced my influences, and a lot of that is old-school blues and those players were incredible with barely any gear at all. Doing that gives you a different perspective.

"If it wasn't for METALLICA, I wouldn't have been introduced to MOTÖRHEAD.

"The other day I was thinking, 'OK, if Lemmy was a girl and played guitar, what would he do?' I wrote a couple of riffs with that in mind."

As previously reported, HALESTORM debuted two new songs at two separate shows recently. The first tune, "Heartbreaker", was performed on March 28 at the Cannery Ballroom in Nashville, Tennessee, while the second track, "Mayhem", made its debut in early April in England.

Asked if "Mayhem" is a good indicator of what HALESTORM fans can expect to hear on the band's next album, singer Lzzy Hale said: "Definitely. Especially since that one was the one that we felt like it needed a little bit of work, and we weren't really considering it one of our best songs. So we wanted to see how we could develop it on tour, and I think that the crowd has really gotten us excited about it now. So it might actually have a shot at being on the record."

Added drummer Arejay Hale: "It definitely will help the writing process for the rest of the songs. Now we have an idea of, kind of, how the crowd reacts to certain things. So it kind ofgives you a good guideline, I guess."

The group began writing its third album in January, after completing more than 20 months of touring behind 2012's "The Strange Case Of…"

Lzzy Hale told The Pulse Of Radio one thing the band might do differently this time. "We're probably gonna record it in Nashville instead of L.A. this time," she said. "It's a quieter vibe and a little less distractions. I think we can kind of lock ourselves into a studio [laughs] and become intimate with our inner crazy [laughs] and hopefully not kill each other in the process. [laughs]"

HALESTORM last year issued its second covers EP, "ReAniMate 2.0", which featured renditions of songs from JUDAS PRIEST, AC/DC, PAT BENATAR, MARILYN MANSON, DAFT PUNK and FLEETWOOD MAC.