DAVID DRAIMAN's Duet With LZZY HALE On DEVICE's LITA FORD Cover Available For Streaming

March 29, 2013

HALESTORM singer Lzzy Hale is one of many guests appearing on the self-titled debut album from DEVICE, the new industrial rock act led by DISTURBED frontman David Draiman. Hale, who duets with Draiman on a cover of the Ozzy Osbourne/Lita Ford song "Close My Eyes Forever", told Artisan News: "David Draiman has been such an amazing mentor over the years. I've always felt like a little sister in heavy metal to him. And we had talked about doing that song for years, and we just never had any time to do it. And so I kind of thought that he had forgotten all about it. And then I got a call one day and he was, like, 'I know you're on tour, but can we make this happen?' So I literally flew to New York and got into this tiny, little studio and we did it."

She added: "[David is] an amazing man. Talk about a hard-working band. DISTURBED has been around for so long and really got us into new metal."

DEVICE's version of "Close My Eyes Forever" can be streamed in the YouTube clip below.

Draiman stated about his collaboration with Hale on "Close My Eyes Forever": "It's a song I've wanted to cover for many years, and I'm glad we were able to do it with this project, because it definitely took on its own unique identity and its own unique reformation of the song. Having Lzzy Hale be the guest female vocalist on the track is about as true to form as it could have been. There's nobody better in the music field to be the modern day embodiment of Lita Ford. She has got riot girl in her and she is, in my opinion, one of the best voices, if not the best female voice, in modern rock. And I was very very honored to have her sing. I can only hope that Ozzy and Sharon are as happy with it and proud of it as I am. It's definitely part of an homage to the greatness of who I consider to be one of, if not the, most seminal frontmen of all time, the godfather of heavy metal, and a guy I look up to so much, and to a family that's done so much for me and for DISTURBED over the years. I can only hope that it makes them proud."

He added: "I actually gave [Lzzy] even more to sing than the original version. Initially in the original arrangement they each had their own specific choruses instead of trading off. I gave Lzzy a lot more because I love her voice. I think she's amazing and I just thought it would be a cooler dynamic for my version of the song to incorporate more of the female voice in this version of the cover. I'm really glad it ended up happening the way that it did with the DEVICE project as opposed to with DISTURBED, because it enabled me to go to that place with my voice that really wouldn't have been appropriate on a DISTURBED record.

"I loved doing it, it's that classical delivery and technique and that part of me that harkens back to the early cantorial days. I had tracked all of these songs completely beforehand and I had tracked Lzzy's parts ahead of the time and brought them with me to New York when I tracked her so I had given her a guide the whole way through the song. We did everything very efficiently, very effectively to the extent where one of her label guys came in to take a peek at what was going on and he said, 'Oh, man, you're a real taskmaster, you're making her go take after take.' I'm not pushing her beyond her limits — it's only because she knows where she needs to go and there's no experimentation, it's very easy.

"It was great and Lzzy did make a bunch of the parts her own, different emphasis and slight changes of cadence — and she's very talented. She's bulletproof. I've never seen her have a bad night."

In addition to Hale, the lineup of guests on the DEVICE disc includes AVENGED SEVENFOLD singer M. Shadows, SYSTEM OF A DOWN vocalist Serj Tankian, RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE guitarist Tom Morello, BLACK SABBATH bassist Geezer Butler and ex-DEEP PURPLE bassist/vocalist Glenn Hughes.

The set is due out on April 9, with a first single called "Vilify" arrived at radio stations last month.

Lenardo will not be part of the DEVICE touring band due to previous commitments.

Other members of the live lineup include EVANESCENCE drummer Will Hunt and DOPE guitarist Virus.

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