AREJAY HALE Says 'Back From The Dead' Is HALESTORM Album With 'The Most Live Energy'

In a new interview with MetalTalk's Dany Jones, HALESTORM drummer Arejay Hale was asked how he feels about some fans calling the band's latest album, "Back From The Dead", HALESTORM's heaviest effort to date. He responded (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "I can see that being the case. In my experience, it was the first time that I had been in a studio where a producer wanted me to play more and play more aggressively. I feel like live we can kind of get away with messing around and kind of making up things off the top of our head and going a little bit extra crazy to bring that live energy, but on record I feel like our main objective was to keep everything very simple, have a lot of space, leave a lot of room. And that kind of makes sense; you want it to just be very simple and very basic. But our producers, both Scott Stevens and Nick Raskulinecz, they felt it was important for us to kind of bring a little bit more of that live energy to the recording. They felt that if we had just released another album like our previous records, with that same mentality where we were just trying to keep everything very open and spaced and simple, then it would get stale; it would kind of sound boring to our fans who had been waiting for this record, waiting through a whole pandemic. So I think it was a combination of the two of them really having a good, close ear to the ground and a good knowledge of what more modern rock fans wanna listen to."

He continued: "I feel like the resurgence of punk music, the resurgence of emo, punk music in pop culture has kind of driven the masses towards wanting to hear more energy, wanting to hear more unique, fun, instrumental moments and crazy drumming and crazy guitar playing and crazy singing and that kind of stuff. That was one of the main goals, was to try to bring more of that to the recording. And then, on the other side, you also have the four of us, who had been locked up in our homes for a year and a half, that just kind of inevitably seeped through us as we were playing; we were just going a little bit extra, hitting the drums a little bit harder, playing everything a little bit faster and just going a little bit extra crazy. So I can see why people think that this is our heaviest record. I like to consider it probably the record in our discography so far that has the most energy, the most live energy, I think."

On December 9, HALESTORM released a deluxe edition of "Back From The Dead". "Back From The Dead: Deluxe Edition" includes seven previously unreleased B-sides, including "Mine", a 1980s-inspired rocker. "Back From The Dead: Deluxe Edition" is available digitally, on CD, and cassette tape, marking the first time that the album has been offered in those physical formats.

Arejay and his sister Lzzy (vocals, guitar) formed HALESTORM in 1998 while in middle school. Guitarist Joe Hottinger joined the group in 2003, followed by bassist Josh Smith in 2004.

In December 2018, HALESTORM was nominated for a "Best Rock Performance" Grammy Award for its song "Uncomfortable". Six years earlier, the band won its first Grammy in the category of "Best Hard Rock/ Metal Performance" for "Love Bites (So Do I)".