Halsey used to book hardcore and metal gigs before fame

Halsey has revealed that she used to book hardcore and metal gigs as a teen before becoming famous herself – find out more below.

In a newly surfaced TikTok video filmed during a meet-and-greet in early 2024 to promote her About-Face beauty brand, a fan asked Halsey about her past taste in music, namely the hardcore genre.

Halsey replied “I super fuck with hardcore,” before going on to explain that she used to book gigs at 16-years-old in New Jersey: “I used to promote hardcore shows in Jersey before I started making music. I did a lot of hardcore, but also like, some of the more commercial hardcore.”

She continued: “The biggest show I ever booked – I was 16 – August Burns Red and The Devil Wears Prada. Like I said, a little more commercial. My senior yearbook quote was a Defeater lyric. You guessed right, I was for sure a hardcore kid.”

Towards the end of the video, right before Halsey parts ways with the fan, she thanks him for “asking that question”. She added: “No one ever guesses it, but I love to talk about it.”

@upgradelyric09

Replying to @yung_bruh02 Halsey kicks ass. Personal clip from when I met her

♬ original sound – Christian Leyva

While Halsey mostly makes pop music, she’s also veered into the pop-punk space throughout her career, and has collaborated with the likes of Bring Me The Horizon and Nine Inch Nails‘ Trent Reznor.

Her latest album ‘The Great Impersonator’ also includes a pop-punk cut ‘Lonely Is The Muse’. The album and the song have since ended up on NME‘s 50 best albums of 2024 and 50 best songs of 2024 respectively.

In a glowing five-star review of ‘The Great Impersonator’, Kristen S. Hé wrote for NME: “Looking back through her recent catalogue, ‘Manic’ is more stylistically diverse, ‘If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power’ more musically ambitious, but ‘The Great Impersonator’ is Halsey’s most honest album – that is if you choose to believe her.”

In other Halsey-related news, the singer-songwriter – who has recently ventured into acting, having appeared in MaXXXine, is set to make their screenwriting debut with dark comedy TV series Bloodlust for Amazon Prime Video. She will serve as the creator, writer, and executive producer of Bloodlust but will not star in the show.