5 days ago
Star country producer Dave Cobb teams up with Nashville hard-rock band Halestorm
Dave Cobb is best known as the award-winning producer of country and Americana artists like John Prine, Jason Isbell and Chris Stapleton.
For his latest collaboration, Cobb partnered with the rock band Halestorm, whose members live in Nashville.
The intrigue: Although Cobb operates and frequently produces music at historic RCA Studio A on Music Row, for the Halestorm project he invited the band to record at a house in Savannah, Georgia.
Halestorm didn't come up through the Nashville rock scene, but lead singer Lzzy Hale and other band members have lived here for over a decade. Halestorm melds metal and radio-friendly hard rock for a sound that's made the band a commercial success.
For their latest record, they were intrigued by the idea of working with Cobb. In an interview with the Gibson Gazette, Joe Hottinger said the band wanted to "switch things up" and "get uncomfortable." They met Cobb backstage at a Stevie Nicks show and then reached out to him.
The band's typical process was to bring about 60 song ideas into a new album project, and then pare it down to about 15 tracks.
Yes, but: After the band congregated in Savannah, he told them he "didn't want to start on anything you did yesterday."
"So what we ended up doing was writing the song and recording it in real time as we were writing it, so there was no choice but to go with your gut and trust yourself — it was absolutely terrifying!" Hale told the Gibson Gazette. "But it was a great way to knock us out of ever getting too used to something or too comfortable."
Catch up quick: Cobb broke through a decade ago as Nashville's hottest producer, racking up Grammy Awards and working with a group of artists who pushed the boundaries of country music. His production on records by Isbell, Stapleton and Sturgill Simpson won Cobb acclaim.
Flashback: Although country music has become a centerpiece of Cobb's work, his early career focused on rock.
