Halestorm learned that they’d been nominated for a Grammy Award midway through one of their concerts.
In 2012, the Pennsylvania hard rock band’s single Love Bites (So Do I) was put forward for Best Hard Rock/Metal Performance at the 55th Annual Grammys ceremony, competing against Lamb Of God’s Ghost Walking, Anthrax’s I’m Alive, Marilyn Manson’s No Reflection, Megadeth’s Whose Life (Is It Anyways?) and a live version of Blood Brothers by Iron Maiden.
Talking in a new video interview with Metal Hammer, singer/guitarist Lzzy Hale and guitarist Joe Hottinger remember what it was like getting the news while putting on a performance, saying they weren’t aware that the Recording Academy even knew who they were.
“My guitar tech told me when I went [backstage] and Lzzy was starting a piano segment, just her,” Hottinger recalls. “I ran onstage and told her.”
Hale adds: “I guess I had this look of shock on my face. The whole audience got quiet: ‘What happened? Did somebody die?! What happened?!’ I turned to the audience like, ‘We just got nominated for a Grammy,’ and the reaction was insane. They blew the roof off.”
The duo say that they never thought they were going to win the award, given the prestige of the talent that they were up against.
Hale continues: “We had a very adult conversation about it: ‘Guys, let’s not get our hopes up.’ Everyone who was nominated in the category were our idols and had been around for a long time. We were kind of like, ‘We’re just happy to be nominated, hanging out here.’ [We were] the awkward kids in the corner while Katy Perry and Quincy Jones were hanging out.”
Despite their pessimism, Halestorm ended up winning the Grammy, claiming their first major music award in the process. Hale recalls the shock that her and her bandmates felt when their song’s name was read out at the ceremony.
“They get to our category and they open up the envelope, and we’re listening for Halestorm or a H sound,” she says. “They go, ‘The Grammy goes to Love Bites (So Do I),’ so [we think], ‘Oh, it’s Lamb Of God, not us.’ There’s this pause and then we’re like, ‘Wait! That is us!’ For the first time in my life, I went blank with everything I wanted to say.”
The Loves Bites trophy is the only Grammy in Halestorm’s cabinet, but the band were nominated for Best Rock Performance in 2019 for the song Uncomfortable. They put out their latest album, Everest, in August and recently wrapped up a European headline tour promoting the release.
Halestorm will play on the Shiprocked cruise from Miami in January and headline a show at Thunder Valley Casino Resort in Lincoln, Nebraska in February. They’ll hit the festival circuit in April, starting with Monsters Of Rock in São Paulo, Brazil and Sonic Temple in Columbus, Ohio. In June, they’ll play at Download festival in the UK.
Watch Hammer’s full video interview with Hale and Hottinger below:
