“I did it all to break every single preconceived notion that you have”
From “Uncomfortable” by Halestorm
Sometimes it feels like the world just sucks.
This was the predominant thought I had when Lzzy Hale talked with me on the Hardcore Humanism Podcast about the bias and stereotypes she faced as a female musician. The message she was receiving was “women can’t rock.” But Hale, of course, is a walking example of how wrong this stereotype is. And as the lead singer, songwriter and founding member of Grammy Award winning hard rock band Halestorm, Hale is now the umpteenth woman to prove once and for all – again – that the bias against women in rock music is absurd.
For crying out loud, how many people have to go through this type of nonsense? Can we just agree that we would all be better off if all people were encouraged to find their unique passion and purpose in life and pursue it to the fullest extent? But instead, we still have our baseless biases and judgments that are weaponized to keep people down – disconnected from who they are and the life they want. And this happens across so many different areas whereby people are judged and discriminated against because of sex, race and religion, among other things. What’s the point? It just leads to tremendous individual suffering and limits us as a society as we lose the unique contributions of individuals based on some random bias.
But my discontent slowly subsided as I listened to how Hale confronted discrimination. Specifically, she took every bias, laughed at it, and turned it around against those who would choose to embrace stereotypes. And in doing so she has built a culture around the band that favors empowering uniqueness and individuality.
Hale recalled recognizing at an early age that she would have to confront and fight stereotypes against women. “Since I was 13, you go through these stages of both empowerment and then feeling like you’re out of control,” Hale told me. “You’re being marginalized … being put into a certain box that you that you don’t necessarily belong in.”
The way that Hale would fight against being put in a box was by what she described as “flipping the script.” I suspect that if we were translating this concept into martial arts terms, it would mean using your opponent’s weight against them. In Hale’s case, she used the bias that women can’t rock against those who believed it, making for a more confrontational experience in her music and live performances.
“We started the band, I start playing guitar, we’re playing bars. And without fail, I’d walk into the venue and somebody would be like, ‘Oh, my girlfriend never, you know, carries my guitars into the venue – that’s really nice.’ You know, like, literally, almost every time to the point that I’m like, seriously?” Hale recalled. “So what I ended up doing instead of just, I guess moping about it or continuing to kind of be perturbed about it, I’m like, well, nobody’s expecting me to be in the band. I get that. Cool. So, I started – this went on for years – I would start the set in the back of the venue, in the crowd, like not on stage. So, I would have like the band kind of start or I would just kind of start acapella. … Okay, if no one’s going to expect me to be in the band. I’m going to use that as an element of surprise. And it gave me so much in those moments when you knew that you could put some people off guard and be like, ‘No, I’m actually – not only am I in the band, but I’m a powerhouse to be reckoned with.”
To Hale, this ethos made perfect sense and was in the spirit of rock and roll music. The purpose of rock is to give voice to the voiceless – to provide a home for the people who feel marginalized in some way. And if someone is treating you like there is a part of you that is flawed or less than? Embrace that unique quality and use it as a source of empowerment.
“The beauty of music and specifically rock music is that it has always stood up for the downtrodden and always stood up for the freaks, the people that don’t necessarily have a place at the cool kids table,” she explained. “Being proud of your flaws — your so-called flaws — being proud that you don’t necessarily fit in – that’s easier said than done. But the beauty about music is that I’m able to turn these real-life experiences and these stories that I hear from our fans into something that they can take as theirs and say, ‘This is my anthem. This is my new tattoo.’ The wonderful thing about this universal language of music is that it has the power to change your perspective on things and has the power to change your life.”
One of the keys to Hale’s process is that she is mindful of her “core.” This refers not only to the central motivation guiding Hale’s professional journey, but also her commitment to working hard to achieve it. As an example, Hale reflected on how for a couple of years before Halestorm was ultimately signed to Atlantic Records, they toured independently for up to 250 shows per year. “You just have to say, ‘Well, what is your core? What makes you happy?’ You have to really break it down to ‘Why are you doing this?’ Are you doing this to get a record label? No….To impress the local cub dudes? No. You’re doing this for you.” she said. “So you have to almost create, carve your own path and follow your own compass.”
Halestorm’s fans appear to have connected to this empowerment. According to Hale, this has created a culture within their fan base that specifically supports people who seem to be struggling in some fashion. “But I feel like I told myself, I’m going to put out as much of that empowerment, as much of that positivity out into the world…,” she said. “Our fan base is amazing. And they’re amazing to each other. It’s something they kind of started doing all on their own many years ago, was just kind of creating this community where if somebody is having a bad day, all of a sudden, all of these people get on and be like, ‘Hey, you got this? Do you need to call me? Hey, DM me, I’ll give you my number.’ And it’s so beautiful to be a part of that.”
Hale has experienced her fans support firsthand. She described an episode where her fans discovered that she was struggling and reached out to help. “I woke up to, I guess it was my Twitter feed just kind of blew up. And I like it seems like our entire fan base was like, ‘You know what, you always do this stuff for us, we just want to let you know that if you need us at any point, we’re here,’” Hale described. “…And I thought that was really touching because it’s so much more than just me being a rocker in a band and them following my music. It’s like it just goes so much deeper than that. It’s like we have an actual relationship. So, it’s a beautiful thing.”
Hale is continuing to push forward with her “flip the script” ethos in television. Hale is appearing as a judge on Hit Parader’s new music competition show No Cover, where unknown bands compete for a record deal at Sumerian Records among other prizes. And Hale is hosting the 2021 She Rocks Awards that celebrates women’s contribution to the music industry. Hale is pleased with the progress that she is seeing in the bias against women in music.
“I do see a lot of things evolving – like just in the past 10 years. I mean, I used to be the only girl fronted band at a festival, the only one… But now that’s just not the case. There’s so many women, not just in rock, but all over the board that, you know, obviously have proven themselves. And, there’s less of a stigma now than there used to be,” Hale said. “There are still a lot of people that will be holding on to that for quite some time, even after we all evolve without them … It’s unfortunate that you have to go through those stages and have to kind of find ways around it or ways to survive it. But at the same time, looking back on it, I think that a lot of those moments really did help shape who I am right now … I feel good about myself. I feel good about the risks that I’ve been taking.
“And I just want to pass that around.”
Photo credit: Jimmy Fontaine
