Radio Free Albemuth Trailer from Elizabeth Karr on Vimeo.

by Neil Miller, Jr.

I've become a huge fan of Halestorm over the last year, and their most recent album, The Strange Case Of..., is mostly responsible. Whereas the first album was packed full of attitude and, as frontwoman Lzzy Hale admits to, sexual innuendos, their latest album is a brutal, honest, and in-your-face record that holds nothing back. From the blistering opening riff of their Grammy-winning cut "Love Bites (And So Do I)" to the anthemic and memorable lyrics of "Here's to Us," The Strange Case Of... is easily the best mainstream hard rock record of the last ten years. I recently had the opportunity to catch up with the delightful Mz. Hale for the first of a two-part interview we're doing with her. Stay tuned for part two, which will turn up in the form of a feature right here on UR Chicago!

UR Chicago: You guys have come a long way since 2009 and have been touring nonstop since then. Have you had a chance yet to stop and soak up some of the success?

Lzzy Hale: This will be our tenth year as a foursome — as Joe, Arejay, Josh and I — but we’ve always been a very "stop and smell the roses" kind of band. It happens nearly every week, though, that there’s something that’s like, "Wow, can you believe we’re still doing this? This is crazy!" There’ve been so many milestones, and we really appreciate that we’re so incredibly lucky to still be here doing what we love with the people we love.

UR: A lot of mainstream rock press seems to gravitate towards dubbing you "sexy" or a "babe." Do you embrace titles like these, or would you rather steer away from things like that to place more emphasis on the music?

LH: Well, I’ve never shied away from the high heels and short skirts. In all honesty, I’ve embraced that over the last couple years. But you know that sex and rock 'n' roll have always gone hand-in-hand since the beginning of time. That doesn’t necessarily bug me, but the only rule that I really have is to make sure that I continue to practice and have something to back it up — my goal in life was never to be something that pretties up a band. It actually happens a lot with girl-fronted bands, which I’m seeing less of now. There have been a lot of girls who are on the road just really huffing it and working really hard, being great at what they do. But there were a few years where it was a little disheartening because you’d see a band with a sweet chick singer, and all they’re doing is dancing around and showing their ass. More power to ‘em, but it’s just not my bag. Like I said, I’ll do the fishnets and the short skirts all day long, as long as I feel like I’m personally doing a good job in the other areas… such as talent.

UR: One of my favorite photos of you is of your reaction to the Grammy nomination. How validating was it for you guys, after all of your hard work, to win such a prestigious award and over bands that influenced you?

LH: At first I thought it was just a cruel joke that my guitarist was trying to play on me while I’m about to settle down to do a ballad. We were in the middle of a show in Madison, Wisconsin and I was just kind of talking to the audience. I was about to play a piano song, so I was onstage by myself, and my guitar player got the text that was handed down from my tour manager, which was handed down from my manager — everyone was trying to get a hold of us because we were onstage and we don’t have our phones up there. So, the guys went offstage and got the news and came running up to me and I didn’t even know what to think. We don’t really pay attention to that stuff because why would we ever be on that list? That doesn’t happen to bands like us. So, there must’ve been about 45 seconds of pure shock on my face to the point where my brother thought somebody died because he didn’t get the news yet. The entire front row of the audience was like, "What, what happened?!" and I just turned to the audience and said, "We just got nominated for a Grammy," and then the place erupted. Now, the rest of the show was just pure mush; even in the serious songs I had this stupid smile on my face because it’s such an incredible honor, and that was enough for us. I know we won the Grammy, but the nomination was enough to just be recognized as a part of that club and the fact the Academy recognized the hard work that we put in. I’ve been in Halestorm for 16 years, so it’s such a crazy thing that you never think is ever going to happen to your band, and it’s something no one can take away from us. It was a huge moment.

Photo: Lzzy Hale reacts to news of Halestorm’s 2013 Grammy Nomination

UR: Do you have the Grammy with you on the road?

LH: We don’t have the Grammy yet. We did the Grammy thing, and then we went right out on the road.  They don’t give it to you that day. What we ended up holding for pictures was probably passed onto Taylor Swift for that night too. They have five or ten in rotation, and these cute little girls with polishing gloves are ready to make sure all your fingerprints are off of it, and then they hand it off to the next guy. They have to engrave it, send it to us in the mail, and we have to sign a contract that says we’re not gonna do anything stupid with it like sell it on eBay. So, we haven’t gotten it yet — they still have time to take it back!

UR: You recently said in one of your "Ask Lzzy" segments that it's become easier for you to write on the road. Since the last record came out, how many completed songs would you say you've worked on, and do you guys ever track/demo songs on the road during soundchecks and such?

LH: It’s definitely a little harder to finish up proper demos on the road unless you’re like Rihanna and have another tour bus that’s a studio bus, and then you can just pop ‘em out. Everything is kind of crudely recorded. I have some microphones set up, and we do stuff in Logic or Garage Band on the road… or sometimes it’s just literally pushing record on my phone. As far as demos, just from the (past) couple months I have about 25 ideas that are mostly finished and then more that are just kind of floating ideas — like a chorus here or a title there. I’ve gotten better over the years at saying, "I’m just gonna sit down and finish something today," whereas I think in the beginning, as the craziness started, the focus was more, "Okay, we’re doing the show and the live show," and now I’m more able to multitask because the touring has become normal in my life. All I can really tell you is that there definitely will be a third record; I just have no idea when. I’m just trying to prepare myself for when everyone calls me and says, "We need a new record out right now!"

UR: How are the songs sounding? Are they more in tune with the second record or more seething like the first record?

LH: I feel like it’s a natural progression from the last one we just did. The one great thing about what we’ve learned by putting out this last record — and me, just on a personal end — is putting more of myself into the songs. It’s more about honesty and the subjects that are close to me rather than the sexual innuendos, which are fun, by the way. I feel like on the first record I was kind of hiding behind the cleverness of a twist of phrase, hence "I get off on you getting off on me" or "Do my dirty work" and the innuendos were high. I feel like the songs I’m writing now are more personal and more about things that are closer to me. Really, the fans have more or less given me permission to do that. It’s kind of a freeing time. I feel like I’ve kind of reverted back to when I was 14 or 15-years-old when we first started the band. I wasn’t thinking about radio or a catchy song or is the label gonna like it or is this going to make it to number one or is this going to appeal to the masses — I wasn’t thinking about that at that age. And I went through a huge phase of really caring about that and now I’m, for lack of a better term, just kind of like, "Fuck it, I’m just gonna write to write" — so we’ll see!

UR: You and Arejay have been making music together forever. Do you guys ever butt heads about how a song should sound or how it’s written?

Lzzy: Yeah, of course! Sometimes what’ll happen is my little brother will ask, "Do I really want to know what the subject of this song is or where you got that idea?" to which I say, "No, no, you don’t little bro!" We’re siblings, so we do butt heads sometimes, but for the most part I’m really lucky since my brother and my bandmates kind of let me speak my mind and trust me, which I’m not sure why! But they do, and the only time that something comes up, for instance, is on the latest record there’s a song called “American Boys” and the guys are like, "Do we need backing vocals for this?" — little things like that. Or I remember back in the day when I pushed the guys with the "I get off on you getting off on me" and the "Do my dirty work" stuff, and my bass player was like, “I kind of need a shower after we record this song. I kind of feel a little dirty,” — to that I say (and I said), "Well it’s working!"

UR: Chicago is about to be on your warpath, and I have to know because obviously you guys have been here a lot — are there any spots you guys like to frequent, and what do you guys like most about playing here?

LH: I love the pizza; it’s awesome! I have family in Chicago, so my aunt and my cousins are from there. In fact, my aunt is actually coming to visit and I’m getting her backstage passes, so she’s all excited. It’s gonna be a really fun day; it’s always a fun time! The last time we played Chicago, we played in a torrential downpour — it was great for pictures. We ended up having to take all of our equipment to this flood rescue type place, and they pulled eight gallons of water out of our gear. It was crazy, but it was great actually! It was an experience that I don’t know if we’ll ever have again, so Chicago holds a very special place in our hearts!

Buy tickets to see Halestorm live at the Riviera Theatre on May 21st right here!

press photo of Mort Castle (left) and Sam Weller (right)

Sam Weller & Mort Castle | Shadow Show: All New Stories in Celebration of Ray Bradbury

by Pawl Schwartz

Rarely do I come across a short story collection that is explosively delicious from cover to cover, but sometimes, it happens, and it is always a surprising and harrowing experience. Shadow Show: All New Stories in Celebration of Ray Bradbury sets the bar for American magical realism and speculative fiction. It is packed with nostalgia, longing for lost people and times, and the desire to truly live forever through divinely wrought tales.

Shadow Show is a collection meant to celebrate Ray Bradbury, and at this task, it more than succeeds. It was put together by Sam Weller and Mort Castle, an unlikely tag-team that share a love of Bradbury, and SEVEN nominations for the Bram Stoker Award between them.

As part of Columbia’s Story Week, Mort and Sam will be hosting the event Ray Bradbury: A Tribute to a Visionary at the Harold Washington Library on Tuesday, March 19th at 2:00PM. The event features readings from locals Joe Meno and Audrey Niffinegger, both of whom have stories in the collection.

cover of Shadow Show (click the image to purchase the book through Amazon.com)

UR Chicago: When and why did you get the idea to make a collection in celebration of Ray Bradbury?

Mort Castle: In many ways we were following in the tradition of 'tribute' albums, books, etc. There have been such works in music celebrating the songs written by Pete Seeger, those that Ella Fitzgerald made her own, and even bluegrass renditions of the hits of the Moody Blues. In literature, we had such recent works as Chris Conlon's He is Legend, a Richard Matheson anthology, and a bit before that, Robert Bloch: Appreciations of the Master, edited by Richard Matheson and Ricia Mainhardt. And of course we had plenty of books for Edgar Allan Poe and H.P. Lovecraft — I'd been in a couple of those.

But it hit me, right around the end of June of 2009, that there'd not been such a book for Ray Bradbury. And who was more deserving? I said that to Sam. Sam said he agreed. He shared the idea with Ray Bradbury. Ray was flattered and pleased and very humble about it, and he told us he had to think about it. On July 9, he said he was good with it and we were underway.

From the first, we wanted to make this a unique approach to the 'tribute' compilation. There had been a book years back that used the 'shared world' approach, writers setting their stories in vistas first imagined by Bradbury. You know, kind of a 'The Veldt I' or 'Return of the Pedestrian.' That wasn't what we were after. We wanted our authors to have complete freedom to give us a story which in whatever way was influenced by the writing or ideas or person of Ray Douglas Bradbury.

UR: Why Ray Bradbury as opposed to any other literary type sci-fi/fantasy writer?

MC: He published in Weird Tales and The New Yorker. More than a few fantasy writers have influenced other fantasy writers and fantasy writing in general, and science-fiction writers like Stanley G. Weinbaum and Theodore Sturgeon have taken sci-fi to new areas and new standards — but Bradbury's influence is confined to... writing. And to the culture at large. He was viral when viral was still a descriptor for a disease.

UR: If we were to, as a culture, forget Ray Bradbury, what would we lose?

Sam Weller: We would lose one of the finest imaginations of the 20th Century. Six hundred published short stories, poems and essays. Plays. Screenplays. Television scripts. Architectural concepts and urban design. Then there are, of course, the books! We aren’t likely to lose the man. He already has a crater on the moon named for him, along with an area on Mars.

UR: Joe Meno and Audrey Niffenegger will be participating alongside yourselves in the event for this book at Story Week. What will this event entail?

SW: A great celebration of the man himself; brief readings of our own stories from Shadow Show; a discussion on his influence and career; and a spirit of love that he always shared with others.

UR: "You've got to jump off cliffs all the time and build your wings on the way down," said Bradbury. Do you think this is awesome or awful writing advice? Why?

SW/MC fused as one: This is of course Bradbury saying trust in the power of your imagination, your ability to problem solve if you do not overthink. But it doesn't include the many, many stories first written and the many stories studied before one is ready to jump off the cliff. It's like the poem about Ted Williams: “All you need is 10,000 rounds at bat and then you get up to the plate and forget everything you've ever learned.”

UR: Did Bradbury read all of the stories in this collection?

MC: Yes, although we have to qualify that with Sam having read some of them to him. We're so happy that was the case. Alice's story had him crying. He cried at Neil Gaiman’s. When he listened to Sam’s story, he said, “That is a Bradbury story!” He knew we wanted to thank him, honor him, and as it worked out, he knew just how we had done so.

UR: I love the Bradbury style “about” afterwards that each author wrote after their story. Did any writers have trouble writing one?

MC: There were a few authors who, let's say, "would have preferred not to," but did so, anyway, in the spirit of "All right, I'll do it as a favor."

UR: In a lot of these afterwords, we learn that these authors actually had touching correspondences with Bradbury when they were young writers. This, along with Bradbury's heartbreaking intro, “Second Homecoming,” really makes it feel like this is a kind of passing of the torch from Bradbury to a generation of writers that he has inspired.

SW: Indeed!

UR: What exactly was the torch Ray Bradbury carried, and what sort of task do these writers who have received it now have ahead of them?

SW: The torch flickered brightly with originality, poetry, philosophy, and a deep and abiding curiosity for what makes the human heart tick. Bradbury may have written often about far off places in time, about fantastic settings, about technology gone awry, but, in the end, his stories were always about human beings.

UR: Was this “passing on of the torch” exactly how you intended the book to feel, or did it just happen as the stories came together?

SW: It was very organic. We knew this would be a cool book based simply on the many people Ray influenced. We did not know that it would become this “Family Reunion” as he called it, and we certainly could not have expected his very sad passing just a month before the book was published. His departure, for me, was heartbreaking. I spent 12 years working with him. But this book was a nice send off.

UR: Looking at the book from this angle, why did you decide to include Harlan Ellison?

MC: Oh, man, because Harlan in so many ways, Harlan is Ray's younger brother. He's far more contentious than Ray ever was. And Ray had a genuinely spiritual side and spiritual is hardly how people think of Harlan — or how he thinks of himself.

But like Ray, Harlan has refused to let himself be bound by other peoples' perceptions of what his art — or what he — should be.

UR: Do you see Bradbury's influence gaining or waning in the literary world?

SW: It is unquestionably growing. He started out in pulp fiction magazines. He moved into the slick — The New Yorker, Harpers, Esquire, Playboy, etc. Then he moved into classroom curricula. Today he is canonized; included in anthologies alongside Melville, Baldwin, Cather, Morrison, Dickens, Steinbeck, Hemingway, Fitzgerald… His place in the pantheon of literature is only becoming more important.

UR: “It should be the function of every science fiction writer to offer hope. To name the problem and offer the solution,” said Bradbury. Do you agree?

MC: No, I don't agree, not literally, but I think this statement is reflective of what John Gardner later came to define as "moral fiction": that is, at its heart, the fiction that lasts, that stands as art, is life-affirming and not nihilistic nor cynical nor just "smart and clever."

UR: What was it like putting this book together? Was it a difficult process?

MC: It was... pretty great. It was great when we had yet to sell the anthology to a publisher to have Robert McCammon and Jay Bonansinga say, "Well, here you have a story; hope it helps sell the book." Those stories did. It was great to see the drafts of one of our writers "jes' keep coming," getting better each time, when draft one had been excellent.

And I've got to say, I had a lark working with Sam, one of those guys who's genuinely enthusiastic when he's enthusiastic — and isn't too cool to show it.

SW: Mort has been a dream partner to work with. He is a veteran and brought his knowledge and sensibilities to this project. We had a great time doing this book together. I think we have had an even better time promoting it. We spent five days on the road with Margaret Atwood. That was insane. Driving down the 405 freeway and talking books and movies and history and science and comic books and Bradbury with Margaret Atwood. Life is great and weird.

UR: If you could have made this into a multi-media project, would you have? Or is the literary element key with Bradbury?

SW: A documentary down the road would be fun, but Mort and I write stories and books and that was the natural extension. We are thrilled with the audio book of Shadow Show. It includes readings by F. Murray Abraham, Kate Mulgrew, George Takei, Neil Gaiman and many others.

UR: Were there any possible titles for the collection that didn’t quite make it?

MC: Oh, yeah, there were a lot of classy titles we had to ultimately leave behind. Go the Fuck to Mars was one, 50 Shades of Mars, Mars is Fucking Heaven, you know, subtle understated stuff.

SW: We were first going to call it Live Forever!, a famous reference to an encounter Ray Bradbury had with a carnival sideshow magician in 1932 named Mr. Electrico. He tapped Ray Bradbury on the nose with a sword that was charged with electricity and cried, “Live Forever!” Bradbury started writing two weeks later and never stopped. We liked the immortality metaphor that went with it. But, ultimately, Shadow Show had a broader, more atmospheric vibe that spoke to a wider audience.

UR: What advice would you give to someone who has skimmed the surface of Bradbury (read F451) but has not really delved into him?

MC: I wouldn't offer any advice. Instead, I'd say I envy you. You've got so much fine reading, memorable reading to look forward to.

UR: On Bradbury's headstone, the words “Author of Fahrenheit 451” are engraved. Most authors seem to try to shrug off their most popular work so as not to be pigeonholed, but Bradbury owned the hell out of his instead. Why?

SW: He always said that his books were all his children. He was very proud of Fahrenheit, and rightfully so. The e-book rights sold in the high seven figures just before he passed away. But more than that, the book celebrates books. That is the message here. Ray Bradbury loved books so much he took that love to the grave and continues to shout it out.

Get your copy of Shadow Show!

Learn more about Columbia's Story Week!

Follow Sam Weller (@Sam__Weller) and Mort Castle (@MortCastle) on Twitter!

SR: I've spent the last few years bouncing between the two cities fairly equally, living in Austin in the summer and Chicago in the winter for art school. I'll likely spend the majority of my time working in Chicago for the next couple years; however, Join The Studio's main branch is based in Austin and is the site of our biggest projects and partnerships, so I'll have ample reason to brave the 30-hour Megabus ride back down on a regular basis.

Honestly, I'm not quite sure what city's scene I dig more — they are on completely different levels. Chicago is a city replete with monied benefactors, influential and relevant galleries, and a not-small level of the sheen of pretension that comes along with that patronage. Austin is the kind of city where you might see a mud wrestling competition and a synth rock concert at the show opening. It's a city without a heavily fortified art scene, one where you can make strides fairly quickly if you're good.

I often equate things like this to a business model. Austin has low-entry barriers to many of the scenes and is therefore far less closed off to newcomers. They are only now beginning a period of rapid expansion and bubbling maturation that will eventually boil over and harden to form the unapproachable bastions of high-art cliques and impenetrability that Chicago has had for decades. If you're an emerging or non-professionally trained artist, it can be a relaxing, affordable place to get in on the ground floor of a scene that may well be a relevant player in the American art or music world down the road. Right now, however, it doesn't have nearly the resources, connections, or respect that Chicago has. The payoff in Chicago is far, far more lucrative.

I go to Chicago because I thrive in the frigid, abusive and abrasive struggle between the skyscrapers. I go to Austin to feel okay with spending my life working in places like Chicago and remember why I'm doing it in the first place.

'Just Any Feral Pinning' by Sam Rolfes

UR: What niche do your works fill in the contemporary art world?

SR: Most artists generally react as if you're flashing them a set of particularly gruesome genitalia when you ask them to pigeonhole their work into a distinct genre or niche, and I'm not really the one to say where I fit, in all honesty. Truthfully, I don't fit anywhere right now, other than maybe the super exclusive Post-Lowbrow-Glitchy-But-Not-That-Glitchy-Emerging-Painters clique that I just made up. We'll have to see where I am in 10-15 years to really see where I fit into the contemporary art dialogue; however, I can at least speak to my current overarching aesthetic and conceptual influences; my inspiration generally vacillates and vibrates between glitch/NA/new media, lowbrow and illustration, street-art/graff, design, and surrealist painting, but that doesn't necessarily say anything about how I fit within them.

Time will tell whether I contribute a genuinely relevant perspective in my genre-collaging or whether I'll just get distracted with chasing a laser that someone moves around the floor for a while.

'All Together Now' by Sam Rolfes

UR: Is there an artist whose acknowledgement of your work would mean the most to you?

SR: That would probably be a close, heartfelt tie between the designer and painter Michael Cina and an experimental tech artist like Daito Manabe. Also a hug from DJ Shadow would be nice. Just putting that out there.

UR: Does your music reflect in your artwork and vice versa?

SR: They certainly have a number of similar aesthetic elements in common: fairly sharp layering and collage, a focus on intermingling textures, and in particular an interest in the similarities between analog, tactile, or organic elements and their digital or electronic/synthetic counterparts. If I can wax poetic/pretentious for a sec: using a turntable, a sample-manipulating MAX/MSP patch, and a looping pedal I can fragment and collage sonic material in the same way that I reconstitute an angular design using a polygonal lasso tool and mouse or X-Acto knife. I can take organic/analog source material and shape it into a digital narrative with either form, and with both there's a dialogue between abstract expression and somewhat recognizable source material, a tug and pull between what is "real" and what is "simulated." At least that's what I'm going for.

Music has the distinct ability to please nearly everyone in the room by just dropping in a repetitive, heavy bass line for a bit though. Maybe I should start bringing subwoofers to my art shows…

'Mistook' by Sam Rolfes

UR: Your works are very expressive. How did you develop your techniques?

SR: They're not nearly expressive enough for me yet, but I'm working on it. My current arsenal of processes and techniques are a result of consciously working towards synthesizing the different methods of creation I've grown up practicing. I got to a point where I could paint, screen print, collage, digitally manipulate, graphically design, code, make music, and 3D model fairly well but often only one at a time... which seemed wrong to me. I'm constantly attempting to figure out a more expressive way to make things, so I felt that if I could somehow bend all of these skills to my will simultaneously then I would be able to develop a purer, less contrived form of expression that would be more representative of my personal sense of creation.

'Consul' by Sam Rolfes

UR: Many of your works are portraits. Are they based on existing people?

SR: I'd say much of my work is based on existing people in the same way that hot dogs are based on pigs; the source material is sent through a myriad of collaging, modulating processes and ends up enmeshed with a whole host of foreign elements, and is eventually formed into a particular shape or likeness that might be completely removed from the original source.

For years, many of my portraits were based on specific people only structurally; I would use the form of their face and body and the accompanying pigments in their skin as the source material for the foundation, which I would then modulate, contort and elaborate on, but I found that particularly formalist well of investigation to be only so deep and have moved onto more narrative pursuits. As I collage and fragment the bodily structures of my source subjects, I've begun thinking far more directly about cluster identities of individuals and the narratives that might be constructed from pulling their likenesses through my myriad of digital and traditional processes. Combination identities resulting from ruminations on group mentality and the digital worlds' stripping of coherent individuality.

'Yamakata' by Sam Rolfes

UR: If there was ever a movie made about your life, whom would you like to play your role?

SR: I was described as a "delicate Jack White" at a recent show of mine; perhaps Jack could trade off acting duties with a speed-babbling Quentin Tarantino and a comatose mole rat sporting a leather jacket to best approximate my likeness. Ed Harris did a pretty great job as Pollock; assuming he's still fairly cognizant of his surroundings by that time, maybe he'd be up for a job. Half of my life is spent sitting in a coffee shop all night writing e-mails, I can't imagine that'd be too hard to pull off.

'Cannot Sleep Or All Will Be Lost' by Sam Rolfes

UR: What do you hope to achieve as an artist?

SR: At the end of the day, all I want is to be to a few people what DJ Shadow, Shepard Fairey, and others were to me. I want to make influential, genuine work that doesn't rely on bullshit or car-salesman style antics to give value to a piece. There is enough derivative trash-art, background music, and hyper-ephemeral memes and fads out there, churned out by the endless torrent of carbon-copy art school graduates already, and I can only imagine it's going to get worse as time moves on and technological novelties upgrade quicker than we can become jaded with them.

If I'm going to spend my time doing something as ridiculous as putting pigment on a flat surface and maybe folding it a bit and then demanding a lot of money in return, it'd damn well better be furthering the progression rather than just adding to the pile.

Visit Sam Rolfes ONLINE:
Official Sam Rolfes Website
Official Join The Studio Website | Facebook