Lzzy Hale Says It's 'Humbling' to Be a Rock Music Role Model for Girls

Much like country music, the rock charts are currently ruled by men, with a handful of women [...]

By Hannah Barnes

Much like country music, the rock charts are currently ruled by men, with a handful of women present in a genre that has long favored male voices. One of those women is Lzzy Hale, who fronts rock band Halestorm along with her brother, Arejay Hale, and bandmates Joe Hottinger and Josh Smith.

As one of the most prominent women in the genre, Lzzy is often looked at as a role model for girls and other women, something she described as a "fantastic" feeling, explaining that when she was starting out as a musician, there weren't many female artists in her own generation to look up to when it came to rock 'n roll.

"It's one of those things where I had to reach back to my parents' generation for my North Star, my beacon of hope," she said at the annual Grammy nominees parties in Nashville last week. "'Oh! She did that, so I so totally can.'"

"To hear people say that, and to be that for people and have them to tell that to you is fantastic," Lzzy continued. "It's humbling, but it's also like, we're all in this together. And if through the example of me just like, 'Hey, I'm here standing my ground' can help somebody be like, 'Oh, she did that! That means I totally can.'"

Halestorm is nominated for a Grammy this year for Best Rock Performance for "Uncomfortable" from their most recent album, Vicious. In 2013, the group won Best Hard Rock/Metal Performance for "Love Bites (So Do I)" from their album The Strange Case of..., and Lzzy shared that the win gave many of her fans even more confidence in their own dreams.

"One of the coolest things that happened the last time we got a Grammy was all of these girls would say, 'I didn't think it was possible, because I had never really seen that with a hard rock girl, but now I know it is and now that's one of my goals,'" she said. "That's amazing to me."

Along with being a role model for women, Lzzy has also spoken out about the importance of mental health awareness, recently bringing her fans together for her #RaiseYourHorns campaign in which she urged them to share their own stories to let others know that they aren't alone.

"Like I said before, we're all in this together," Lzzy explained of the decision to be vocal on the subject. "It's nerve wracking sometimes to think, 'Oh, everyone's listening to everything you say for better or worse,' because I'm not a doctor, I'm not a therapist, nothing. Again, to put out that positivity. If people are listening, put that out there. It's great to have those conversations with people and then see how music can kind of heal that and work through that."

Photo Credit: Getty / Scott Legato

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