Marc Storace

Marc Storace (born October 7, 1951 in Sliema , Malta ) is a Maltese rock singer and songwriter. His musician career began in the 1960s. Before he became the front man and songwriter of the Swiss hard rock band Krokus in 1980 , he sang with the Swiss progressive rockers TEA and other bands in his native Malta. He was also a solo artist, in duets, is active in acoustic projects and as a guest singer in many bands and large projects. He also composed film music for various Swiss-German films.

Life

youth

Marc Storace was born on October 7, 1951 to Anthony Storace and Edna Crockford in Sliema on the Mediterranean island of Malta . He had his first live appearances at the age of 14 with two local bands, the Stonehenge Union and The Boys . In the late 1960s, The Boys changed their name to Cinnamon Hades and covered hard rock acts such as Led Zeppelin , Jimi Hendrix and The Who . In 1970 Storace moved to London in hopes of a career as a singer.

Career

At the end of 1971 Storace joined the Swiss hard rock band TEA. With TEA he made major European tours, including with Queen and Nazareth. TEA released three albums: TEA , The Ship and Tax Exile . All of them were produced by Dieter Dierks in his studio near Cologne, who was also working for the Scorpions at the time . For a while, TEA became known as the Swiss rock flagship in Hamburg, London and Glasgow . Storace returned to England and formed a band called Eazy Money. Her song "Telephone Man" was included on a compilation called Metal for Muthas Vol . Shortly afterwards, in 1979, the band Krokus got in touch with him because they were looking for a new singer and invited him to a weekend jam in Switzerland . After this meeting he was accepted as a singer in the band Krokus. In 1980 Storace made his Krokus debut on the album Metal Rendez-Vous.

1980-1988

In 1980 Marc Storace recorded his first album, Metal Rendez-Vous , with Krokus and Ariola-Switzerland released it. It was Krokus' first big hit and the album made it onto 4 × platinum records. In the following months Storace's singing was often compared to Bon Scott ( AC / DC ) and even confused because of his ability to control the high octaves with a bluesy / soulful feeling . In fact, after Scott's tragic death in February 1980, he was discussed as his successor, but decided to remain loyal to Krokus. From 1980 to 1988, Krokus toured extensively throughout the United States and Canada . The tours lasted up to nine months and another six studio albums were created at the same time (including Hardware , One Vice at a Time , Headhunter , The Blitz ). This intensive period with a lot of travel, recordings, excesses and line-up changes hit the band hard, which is why a creeping decline began at the end of 1985. Storace left the Heart Attack tour and the band in 1988 (together with Fernando von Arb ) after a failed reunion with Chris von Rohr .

1994 until today

In 1994, Marc reconciled with ex-Krokus lead guitarist Fernando von Arb and they re-founded Krokus. A "reunion tour" followed. Because of their success, they released another studio album, To Rock or Not to Be , in 1995. Although this album wasn't as successful as its predecessor, it brought the band back together. Then the European tour began again with Storace as the front man. Then in 1996 he left Krokus again for six years.

He only returned to the line-up in 2002 and after the release of the 14th studio album Rock The Block in 2003, Krokus started a European tour again. They released the disc on the US market in spring 2004 and finally made their tour comeback in the US in September 2005 .

The following USA club tour with 22 dates welded the band together with ex-Krokus member Mandy Meyer. Mandy was on the hardware world tour in 1982 . He replaced Tommy Kiefer ( Metal Rendez-Vous ) on lead guitar. Fernando Von Arb left Krokus for health reasons.

In July 2007 rumors of a new merger and the final reconciliation between Krokus and Chris von Rohr emerged. In November 2007, an original line-up from Krokus with Chris von Rohr, Fernando von Arb, Freddy Steady and Marc Storace appeared on the Mik in the TV show The Biggest Swiss Hits on Swiss TV . In February 2008, Krokus definitely announced his reunion in this original formation together with guitarist Mark Kohler (already in the line-up 1982–1988, 1994–1996, 2008). Kenny Aronoff and Kosta Zafirou replaced Freddy Steady on drums for the albums Hoodoo and Dirty Dynamite . Founding member and bassist Chris Von Rohr produced both. The band brought in Dennis Ward as an engineer. Dennis produced the Hellraiser album back in 2006 . In 2013, drummer Flavio Mezzodi joined Dirty Dynamite .

Projects

In the spring of 1989 Marc Storace returned to Switzerland and wrote songs for his first solo project, The Blue Album . It was influenced by pop and rock music and was released in 1991 by the short-lived record company Eurostar . It was re-released in 1998 under the name Vergeat-Storace (Vic Vergeat was Marc Storace's guitarist). In 2008 he worked on the album Here We Are by Mad Max for the 25th anniversary of the band. In 2020 he took part in the first season of Sing my Song - The Swiss Exchange Concert .

Albums

crocus

title	year
Metal Rendez-Vous	1980
hardware	1981
One Vice at a Time	1982
Headhunters	1983
The Blitz	1984
Change of Address	1986
Alive and Screamin '	1987
Heart attack	1988
To rock or not to be	1995
Rock the block	2003
Fire and Gasoline (Spontaneously Combustible) - Live!	2004
Hellraiser	2006
Hoodoo	2010
Dirty Dynamite	2013
Big rocks	2017

More albums

Musician / band	album	year
TEA	TEA	1974
TEA	The Ship	1975
TEA	Tax Exile	1976
Marc Storace	Blue (re-released in 1998 as Vergeat / Storace titled When a Man ... )	1991
Manfred Ehlert's amen	Manfred Ehlert's amen	1994
Manfred Ehlert's amen	Aguilar	1996
Marc Storace and China	Alive	2000
D / C World	D / C World	2000
Warrior	The Wars of Gods and Men	2004
bite	Face-off	2005
bite	X-tension	2006

Smaller side projects

Musician / band	album	year
Ain't Dead Yet	Read Your Mind (as background singer)	1995
Raphael Haslinger and Marc Storace	One World (single)	2001
Marc Storace and Raphael Haslinger	Di Schönscht Schwiizer Duet ("Love Me as I Am")	2005
Mad Max	Here We Are ("High on Wheels")	2008

Web links

• Marc Storace's website
• Interview with Marc Storace ( Memento from May 14, 2005 in the Internet Archive )