HALESTORM's JOE HOTTINGER On Not Using Backing Tracks During Live Shows: 'To Me, Rock And Roll Is Supposed To Be A Little Dangerous'

In an interview with Andy Guitar conducted at last weekend's Download festival in the United Kingdom, HALESTORM guitarist Joe Hottinger weighed in on bands who rely heavily on pre-recorded tracks during their live performances. He said  (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "To me, a live show is an interpretation of your record. And it doesn't need to sound [exactly like the album]... If you wanna listen to the studio recording, listen to the studio recording. To me, rock and roll is supposed to be a little dangerous. Like, are we gonna fuck up tonight? Who knows what the song's gonna be like? What does it sound like when the four of us are making as much noise as we can?"

He continued: "Whatever — if people do their tracks and stuff, I don't give a fuck. That's how they choose to run their business, and we just like to have fun. I don't think it would be fun to have like a 'clink, clink, clink, clink' [in my in-ear monitors on stage]. How do you tap into the flow when there's a cowbell banging inside of your head? Things should go wrong. It's a rock show. There should be fuck-ups every [show]... We fuck up every show. It's awesome."

Joe's comments come four months after HALESTORM drummer Arejay Hale expressed a similar sentiment, telling Chile's PowerOfMetal.cl: "The challenging thing about HALESTORM is that we don't play to a click, we don't have any backing tracks. It's as raw as it gets. So to compete with these other bands that have these fail-safes — having a playback rig filling up the sound, and we have to do it ourselves with our hands and with our voices, it is a bit more challenging. It requires a lot more training, it requires a lot more practice and listening, and, for me, a lot more focus on my playing, my velocities, my consistency, my tempos, my singing — everything all at once. There's nothing easy about it, but I love a good challenge."

Arejay then clarified: "Let me just say that I'm not against bands that use playback. I have another project called KEMIKALFIRE. We use playback. I think it's fine if you wanna do that. I'm not anti-tracks. If you wanna express your art in that way, then that's great. But with HALESTORM, we're so technologically illiterate [laughs] that everything would go wrong every night. So the best approach for us is just to keep it as raw as possible, which is really good. It's the most effective, I think, for us, personally. But it does make it challenging, but also a fun challenge."

Arejay previously spoke about HALESTORM's insistence on performing completely live — without the aid of backing tracks — during a June 2024 interview with May The Rock Be With You, HALESTORM. He said at the time: "We've always kind of prided ourselves by being one of the few bands that doesn't use any backtracks or any type of sound enhancement. We always felt it was more important for us to get the playing right within the four of us and to get the sound right with our playing. And that's always been a really — it's an uphill battle, but it's worth it, 'cause live, we don't even play to a click track, and without a click track, we're able to adjust the tempos and let the songs breathe and kind of react to the energy of the crowd. But it's also harder for me because I have to really focus on not playing too fast or too slow. So, I think that's always just kind of been a unique thing about us, is that we just don't want to [use tracks]. And also we're not very technologically savvy, so we know that if we start running backtracks and stuff like that, sure enough, something will go wrong. So that's kind of always been one of our main objectives, is just wanting to be as raw as possible."

Back in June 2020, Arejay's sister, HALESTORM frontwoman Lzzy Hale, told "Offstage With DWP" about why she and her bandmates choose to play live: "We do it more selfishly, not necessarily as a statement. But it has kind of become this interesting statement. We're very proud of that. But also, just again selfishly, I don't think I'd enjoy myself. I've guested with people — I've dueted with people and got up onstage where they have those things and I can hear it in my in-ear monitors — and some of it is, like, 'Chorus in one, two, three, four…' I'm, like, 'Oh my gosh! This would drive me nuts.' And also, I would rather have us sound imperfect than have somebody figure out that I'm miming, or a shaker goes awry — 'Where's the tambourine coming from?'

"I'm not a fan of when I find out my favorite bands do that," she continued. "And, like I said, I'm not knocking anybody who does it — you do you. But for us, that's just not our M.O. And there's nothing more fun that going out on stage and knowing that you're responsible for either we're gonna be tight, we're gonna be loose, something's gonna go wrong, we're gonna have to pull the train back onto the tracks, but that's cause we're listening to each other.

"And also, if we weren't actually playing, we would just get worse as musicians," she added. "We've been to shows where somebody's computer went down — the tracks are no longer there — and then they don't play anymore. And we're, like, 'Can't you just plug the instruments in?' I honestly think you would get so used to kind of like doing a music video and just miming along that maybe you can't [play live] anymore. So we've become better musicians because we challenge ourselves in that way."

HALESTORM's sixth full-length studio album, "Everest", came out last August via Atlantic Records. HALESTORM worked with producer Dave Cobb, after making three records with Nick Raskulinecz.