HALESTORM Singer OK With 'Short Skirts And High Heels'

According to The Pulse Of Radio, singer and guitarist Lzzy Hale of the Grammy-winning hard rock band HALESTORM spoke with Playboy.com about using her sex appeal to sell the band and the focus on image in the music industry. Hale remarked, "I don't mind dressing up and doing the short skirt and high heels thing . . . the only stipulation that I have about this is that you have to make sure you have something to back it up. You can't totally ride on the fact that I'm going to show my legs and people are going to show attention. If they can get past the legs, make sure you can actually sing and be good at your instruments."

Hale added, "Sex and rock 'n' roll have been going together hand-in-hand since the beginning of time. You can't get away from it."

The vocalist told The Pulse Of Radio that she believes it can be too easy sometimes for female musicians to rely solely on their looks. "Actually, I've been encouraging a lot of people to challenge us, and make sure that when you're reading these articles or you're seeing us in magazines or something, that you go and you check us out live, or you go and you sample a CD, something like that," she said. "If people start doing that and don't just look at us because we're a quote-unquote pretty face, or scantily clad — I think if more people were looking beyond that, it would make us step up a little bit."

Hale also said that she's pleased to see the percentage of females in HALESTORM's audience growing, explaining, "I see all of these girls who are not there because their boyfriends dragged them along, you know? They're very empowered, a little crazy like me, and it's wonderful to be in a room like that because when we first started out there weren't a whole lot of girls at the rock shows unless you count the girlfriends of somebody in the band."

HALESTORM won the Grammy Award for "Best Hard Rock/Metal Performance" on Sunday night (February 10) for the song "Love Bites (So Do I)", beating out veteran acts like IRON MAIDEN and MARILYN MANSON.

The group continues to hit the trail in support of its second album, last year's "The Strange Case Of..." They'll join headliners BULLET FOR MY VALENTINE on this year's edition of the "HardDrive Live" tour, which kicks off on April 12 in Denver and runs through late May.