It seems the creative wheels for Halestorm are already spinning towards a new studio album, which will become the follow up to 2022's Back From The Dead. In a recent interview with Jorge Botas of Portugal's Metal Global, bassist Josh Smith revealed that the band has already recorded 10-12 songs with producer Dave Cobb, and that they're "undeniably Halestorm." Smith also praised Cobb's unique recording process, which involves capturing the band's live energy without the use of a click track.
"We went down to Dave's place and all lived together for three weeks, which is — we live together on tour all the time, yeah, but to be in a creative space, it was incredible. And the music that came out is undeniably Halestorm. There's going to be a lot of fan favorites." Josh revealed.
"What we're doing and how he wants to work, how he's capturing us is what we do on stage," Smith added. "For instance, we're not using a click track; there's no time keep. It's us doing it, and so there's a lot of movement to the music… It's so human."
"I think naturally when you're even talking, just from building tension to releasing it and how that happens, and sometimes from a verse maybe is building and the tempo feels like it's building, and then the chorus — well, at least on stage — naturally probably bumps up a few BPM [beats per minute] or slows down, depending," Smith said. "And even our transitions or Arejay's fills will push or pull. It's very human." Smith added.
At that point the interviewer chimed in and said that "always fun to work with new people and create new ideas when someone has a different view from the one you normally have." Smith couldn't agree more: "Yeah, for sure. I mean, that's what you hope for in working with a producer."
"It's this person you really have to vibe with that fits into this, in this case our little world. And that chemistry between a band is so unique to every group. And so for someone to fit in, that's a special trait to have. It's essentially bringing in a fifth member of the band that can extract the uniqueness of that band. It's big shoes to fill for a producer. And thankfully we've been lucky with it, with Nick Raskulinecz and Jay Joyce, and Howard Benson was great. But, yeah, starting with someone new and also someone who has had a very different approach from the previous one, it's really exciting. And he really is bringing out the best of us. So, yeah, it's really exciting to find someone who is so good at their craft… And he just wants to catch what everyone is excited about — lightning in a bottle. And we've been doing that. And we've caught a lot. I can't wait to go back. It's really fun. I can't wait to get back to writing new music."
There is no timetable yet on when new Halestorm music will arrive, but Smith said that the band has already worked on "10 or 12" songs: "And we'll probably do that again when we get a chance next year, and see where we are. But it's really exciting. It's always so exciting to create new stuff and then show it to people and get judged."
