Nine months after we last spoke to Halestorm, Rob caught up with them back stage at the Taste Of Chaos tour in Birmingham for a good catch up.

We last caught up with you back in April when you supported Theory Of A Deadman, how have things been since then?
Busy, really busy, we did a big tour in the states, with AX7, Disturbed, Stone Sour, called the Uproar tour, and before that we did a few headline tours and now were here. We did some European tours, some Megadeth shows, our first overseas Headline show near Amsterdam. We love the crowds out here, there's such incredible passion, people are coming to the shows an remember who we were, were seeing people with Halestorm t shirts and CDS that they got back in April , its awesome, everyone's singing.

Your self titled début album has been out in the UK for quite a while now, have you had the same response in the UK as you had in America?
Yeah, I think a lot of the crowds over here are similar to the ones in the US, the reaction has been explosive, people have been so supportive for who we are and we being outsiders and being accepted as one of there own. We haven't toured here much unlike in the states, where we've done a lot over there bigger shows, had some luck in the charts with 2 top ten rock songs, it feels like were building something new here, over here were behind where we are in the US, because we've done more shows there, this is only our 2nd tour over here, and the download show helped a lot too. The response has been crazy. We've admired the scene over here and its nice to be accepted.

I understand back in October you took your first trip to Japan to participate in the 2010 Loud Park Festival, how was it to play in a whole new country and how did the Japanese fans take to you?
It was a whirl wind, we were over there for 4 days, 2 of those were spent flying, we got in the night before we played went strait to the venue, went over the production thing with the local guys, it was crazy the most controlled chaos we've seen, before we played it was all quite, it was dark when we came on, whoa there's 10000 people, they went nuts for the entire set, then when the lights went down, quiet! No one was talking no house music, nothing, we learned it when there are rules, say if you put a piece of tape down on the floor, and told them do not cross this tape, they wont cross that line, but were there are no rules its like Beatle mania , even for a band like us, they love there rock and roll, there were people waiting for us out side our hotel. We did a meet and greet out there, all very organised everyone came up and said hello, on the borders of where we were sitting, there were people who couldn't get in, so we decided to go over and say hello, oh that was a big no no, security came out, they wanted to grab Arejay touch his hair, everyone wanted to high five, it was very cool over there. We even did some Japanese karaoke and some Japanese food over there as well.

Many fucks were said in a short gap in between questions!

You have been touring all over Europe on the Taste Of Chaos Tour, how did your placement on the tour come about and how has it been so far?
On the last tour we had, we were with disturbed, we got to know there camp really well, that was one of the best tours we've been on, but I think this one far exceeds that, there's more intimacy between the bands, we got to know each other and got really close, were honoured to be on two tours in a row with disturbed, all the right people who supported us and wanted us to do well are the ones responsible for us being here. And to help us fulfil our dreams. John Reese is the one who has made it happen for us.

The tour has quite a diverse line up with Disturbed, Papa Roach and Buckcherry also being on the tour, how have you found these bands to tour with and are you fans of their music?
We've been treated really well, we've been treated like peers by the other bands, we've been taken some of there hang outs been told to hang out more with the bands by the bands.

I understand that work has started on your second album, how far have you got with the whole demo process? And when are you aiming to get the album released by?
Were in the writing stage at the moment, doing a bit on tour, a bit before on a break before this tour started, put out a few demos, were gonna kick it into high gear in the new year were really gonna go for it, get as many songs written as we can, move into pre production in January/February, start cranking out demos, sending them to out label, and hopefully get approval, you can think about it too much with the new record, over thinking is bad, we write to write, no ones heard anything at all yet, not even our label, there chomping at the bit!!

You played Download Festival this year, how was it for you? And are you hoping to return to the UK for festival appearances in 2011?
It was great, its too early to say, were just gonna turn up and play in the parking lot If needs be!

You seem to spend a lot of time on the road touring, what do you get up to between shows to keep you busy whilst on the road?
Here as opposed to the states, the uproar tour, it was 4-5 shows average a week with massive travel in between and a lot of the amphitheatres are out in the middle of no where, here its in the middle of civilisation. Over here there's driver restrictions so we've only been doing 3 shows a week, which is nice, we had a day off here yesterday, there's more downtime over here, so more dark beer! Its also eyeball cold out here!!

Christmas is fastly approaching, what is the typical Christmas for Halestorm? And will you be glad to be getting a short rest during the festive season?
We have a few days off, visit our family's, do some rehearsing for our holiday shows, we also have our band Christmas and a company Christmas party too. We got a breathalyser one year bad mistake, we ended up drinking more to try and top the higher numbers! One thing we try to do is book smaller shows to the people who've helped us out

You are playing a gig in Philadelphia on new year’s eve, how much are you looking forward to seeing the new year in at your own gig and do you have any special plans for the show?
We always try to do something fun, dress up, play some old stuff, do some weird covers. Some one always gets there ass grabbed in this one place,

What are your main plans for 2011?
A tour planned in the spring which we haven't announced yet, try out some new songs on that tour, then hit record after the tour finishes. Well be playing new songs to see what works and what doesn't, and get the songs tight.

MySpace seems to be a big tool in the music industry these days with artists communicating with their fans over it and some even ditching their own website and having just a MySpace site, what are your opinions on MySpace as a tool in the music industry?
Myspace is still the place to listen to new music and for bands to put out there music but facebook seems to be taking over, and twitter is a good way to communicate with the fans. We used twitter once to abuse each other, in fun of course, we were in a restaurant, and we were talking on twitter no one was talking, and every now and then someone would laugh, its good fun

Thanks for your time, do you have an message for your fans reading this?
Have a good time all the time keep rocking with us!! Thank you to the people over here for having us and accepting us, its been amazing, and a dream to be able to keep coming over here and playing, and we'll keep coming back if you'll have us, you fuel our life!! and happy holidays!

Interview By Robert Lawrence