By Tom Lanham photo by Jimmy Fontaine

t ’ s a question without an answer , a paradox rooted in an ancient Chinese fable about a vendor selling both a shield that was impervious to attack and a corresponding shield that could never be pierced . What happened when you employed them against each other ? No mere mortal could ever conjecture , leading to the latter-day rephrasing of What would occur if an irresistible force ever collided with an immovable object ? Lzzy Hale — the veritable force to be reckoned with that powers the megawatt outfit called Halestorm — thinks she might have stumbled across an answer to the age-old conundrum because that ’ s exactly how she felt when all her usually nonstop kinetic energy ground to an unexpected halt when Covid shut her down in March of 2020 , it was deadening to the Nth degree . Of course , we all experienced similar depressing constrictions during the lockdown . But for this combustible bundle of non-stop activity — who was working on a flurry of diverse passion projects at the time — the circumstances hit especially hard . This was something entirely new , the coronavirus , an immovable , immutable object that couldn ’ t be rationalized , reasoned with , or slipped past in an elusive way . It was how Holmes viewed his foe , Moriarty , in their plunge to deliberate death , and how Heath Ledger ’ s Joker character saw his arch-nemesis Batman in Christopher Nolan ’ s The Dark Knight reboot — as two forces locked in an inexorable battle , a problem only solved by mutually-assured self-destruction .

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And the pandemic , sighs Hale , finally back in full fighting spirit again , was a worthy opponent . And for a while there , it almost won . And the knock-down-drag-out is duly documented in Back From the Dead , Halestorm ’ s aptly-dubbed new magnum opus .

Just to speak to this Grammy-winning gogetter in casual conversation is to get caught in her effervescent slipstream , the wake of her whirring inner-motivational turbines . Even when discussing the past two oppressive years , she talks excitedly , rapidly , in a flurry of quotable thoughts that communicate nothing but optimistic energy — irresistible to a fault . Almost as if they never went down at all . First of all , Hale admits to not only staring hypnotized into the abyss , frozen but to a fondness for the famous Nietzsche corollary that The abyss stares also . “ Oh , my God — that is one of my favorite quotes !” she exults . “ And it ’ s sooo creepy — I ’ m like , ‘ Stop looking at me !’ It ’ s so crazy . So I know that I wasn ’ t the only one going through this , but it ’ s interesting because when , all of a sudden , your mission or your identity — your armor , so to speak — is no longer there ?” She pauses , allowing the gravity of the concept to wriggle in and settle . “ I mean , just talking about the band , I ’ ve been in this band since I was 13 , and it goes beyond , way beyond … this is my life ’ s work , my purpose , and it ’ s part of my identity . So when all of that is stolen from you , you are looking at yourself in a completely different light .”

Initially , the Nashville-based artist felt no fear when the lockdown boom was lowered . “ When the whole world shut down , we all thought , ‘ Oh , this is gonna last a month — it ’ ll be fun ! We get a vacation !’” she recalls . “ And then when everything started getting dark , and there was no foreseeable future , nothing to be had , the only weapon in your arsenal is to fucking write through it . So this particular album for me was kind of the journey of doing that , although I didn ’ t realize what I was going to be facing through a lot of that .” Conclusions to which she quickly arrived ? Ever since she and her guitarist brother Arejay started Halestorm as teenagers , she explains , she had always had something going on , always had something scheduled to look forward to , be it touring , recording , or even designing her own bustling lines of jewelry and clothing . And to dial that dance card back down to zero overnight ? It was a shock to the system , to say the least . “ This was the longest I ’ ve ever gone without a show ,” Hale harrumphs good-naturedly . “ Because even when I was 13 , 14 years old , we had a bowling alley gig twice a month , you know ? And I would have taken that gladly . So you ’ re kind of displaced , a little bit , and what ended up happening to me , personally , was , there were a lot of things that I had to face that maybe I hadn ’ t faced since I was a teenager . So I got reacquainted with some panic attacks that I hadn ’ t had since high school , and there was a lot of anxiety . And I did go through some depression , where I wasn ’ t necessarily sure what I even wanted to

Never Give In

do about it .” Reluctantly , she woke each dismal day and forced herself to commit her feelings to journals , then poetry and songs . She calls this the silver lining to those ominous horizon-obliterating storm clouds .

“ And you couldn ’ t help but feel the weight of the world on your shoulders ,” Hale adds . “ And you ’ re observing everything and all of the anger that goes with it , and all of the sadness that goes with it . And through all of it , you ’ re just trying to maintain your faith in humanity , which is very difficult these days . Just looking at it that way , you ’ re internalizing a lot of things , and you don ’ t really have any other outlet to put that out there , and you no longer have that reminder of you being your best self .” She used to look to her fellow band members for that daily reassurance , and she saw the larger-than-life coliseum-rocking avatar she became onstage as that apotheosis . In 2020 , ’ 21 ? No longer . All the guard rails keeping her on track had been broken , all the guidelines severed . “ And I hadn ’ t really been faced with looking at myself in the mirror , in a different way , and realizing that I still have some serious issues that I ’ ve got to deal with . I was able to get to a dark place that I hadn ’ t seen in a while because I ’ ve always had this — this band and my guys . Because when all the distractions disappeared , I was kind of left with that — I wasn ’ t Lzzy Hale onstage anymore ; I was Elizabeth Hale , just sitting through lockdown on the couch . And I hadn ’ t seen her in a long time .”

“ The unexamined life is not worth living ,” Socrates was once supposed to have said . continues on page 22