Marc Storace

Marc Storace (Sto-rah-che) is a Maltese born rock vocalist. His career in music started in the 1960s, but he is most noted for his position as frontman, lead singer and songwriter of Swiss hard rock band Krokus from 1980. Before joining Krokus he sang with the Swiss progressive rockers TEA following smaller bands - including one he had formed himself in London. He has since also undertaken a solo project, duets and an acoustical project. He also had some close encounters with the classical world and has worked with numerous other rock acts as both a writer and a singer.

Marc has a high pitched raunchy voice, making him a very distinct vocalist, and has been compared to AC/DC's former lead singer Bon Scott or Led Zeppelin's Robert Plant in terms of vocal style, sharing many of their vocal qualities. Since he began singing professionally in the 1970s, his style and voice have remained largely the same, with a noticeable increase of character, through maturity and years of live and studio experience.

Marc has recently played a major role in the Swiss-German films Anuk and Handyman, in which he acted as well as writing and performing songs for the film's soundtracks.

Early life

Born as one of six children to Anthony Storace and Edna Crockford on the Mediterranean island of Malta, Marc taught himself to sing at a fairly early age. His life in music began at the age of fourteen (1965) when he made his first live performances with two local bands: Stonehenge Union (who covered the likes of The Beatles, The Rolling Stones , The Troggs and The Kinks) and: The Boys (who covered some of the same songs, as well as chart material and more vocally challenging current songs e.g. Aquarius from the Musical "HAIR"). In the late 1960s, The Boys (still with Marc as lead vocalist) changed their name to Cinnamon Hades, and, whilst retaining The Beatles Abbey Road Medley changed to cover hard rock acts such as Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Jimi Hendrix Black Sabbath or The Who.

Wanting to make a career out of singing, Marc moved to London, England, in 1970.

Further on in his career, after joining Krokus, many people who heard Marc sing thought that he sounded like Bon Scott of AC/DC. He did not take this as a compliment at the time,^[1] saying that, with all respect to Bon, he had his own singing identity. In fact, Marc was later indirectly approached (by the Boss of "Light & Sound" - Birmingham, a production company used by both bands at the time) to audition for the frontman job with AC/DC after Bon's tragic death, but Krokus was enjoying a very fast increase in success whilst at that point in time AC/DC was not that huge...not yet...and Marc declined the offer/suggestion.

Early career

At the end of 1971, Marc joined Swiss progressive hard rock band TEA. With them, he toured Europe with big acts such as Queen and Nazareth, and released three studio albums: Sprouts, The Ship and Tax Exiles. All were produced by Dieter Dierks, at that time the man behind the Scorpions. For a while, TEA became Switzerland's international rock Flagship, performing as far as Hamburg, London, Wales or Glasgow.

In 1976, TEA performed their last tour, taking Krokus on-the-road as supporting act. Those backstage encounters with the Krokus bandmembers sowed the seeds to what followed later on. Meanwhile he returned to London and formed the band Eazy Money. Their song "Telephone Man" was included on a Metal-Music-Compilation album called Metal for Muthas Vol.2. In 1979, he received a call from Krokus founder Chris Von Rohr, who told him they were looking for a new singer and invited Marc for a "weekend jam" in Switzerland. One exciting long weekend session later, Marc, Chris, Tommy, Fern and Freddie were convinced that a collaboration was definitely worth a good try!

Krokus

1980-88

In 1980, Marc recorded and released his first album with Krokus, Metal Rendez-vous. It became Krokus's first big International hit album, the first to make the Gold & Platinum Status(today 4 x Platinum). With Marc on board, Krokus's success increased dramatically, and from then until 1988 they toured extensively, mostly in the United States and Canada, with tours lasting up to around nine months at a time, as well as releasing a further six studio albums (Hardware, One Vice at a Time, Headhunter, The Blitz, Change of Address and Heart Attack) and one live album (Alive and Screamin'). This intense long period of constant writing, recording and touring pushed the band close to a burn-out, and they went their ways in the summer of 1988.

1994-2016

In 1994, Marc encouraged fellow ex-Krokus member Fernando Von Arb to re-form the band, and so a reunion tour commenced. It went very well, and in 1995, Krokus released another studio album, To Rock or Not to Be. Musically, this album took the band back to 1988. It went Gold and once again they were touring with Marc as their frontman. The year 2002 saw Krokus, with an altered line-up to that of the 1988 hiatus and 1994 return (basically the DC World AC/DC Tribute line-up plus Fernando & Marc) releasing "Rock The Block". This was followed by one of their most daring Tours of Europe so far, playing Swedenrock Festival and, on the personal invitation of the late great Claude Nobs (Smoke On The Water:) the prestigious "Montreux Jazz Festival"too! A DVD of that Montreux Gig was included with their following release, a Double-Album "Fire & Gasoline" containing magnificent "LIVE" Recordings from many Gigs off their "Rock The Block" Tour.

A long awaited comeback in the USA first happened in September 2005...with Mandy Meyer on board, replacing Fernando Von Arb (the latter having undergone surgery to his hand) on lead guitar! It was a very intense US Club-Tour in which the band played 22 Gigs in 30 days! Quite an inspiring achievement for the new Line-Up before diving into their next song-writing phase for the follow-up album "Hellraiser"! The Hellraiser-Formation proved to be the most active and widely toured in Europe so far.

2007 saw the core of the old Metal-Rendezvous album formation (minus lead guitarist Thomas Kiefer, who had died) back together for an incredibly well received Swiss-Best-Hits TV Show. This rekindled the band`s 80`s spirit and was followed by a huge comeback of the originals. Since then they produced 2 more successful studio-albums: "Hoodoo" and, after another line-up change,"Dirty Dynamite", for which Marc`s vocals were recorded at Abbey Road studios, London. Krokus`s last release to date was their 3rd. "Live" album called "Longstick Goes Boom", recorded in the famous Swiss live-venue "The Kofmehl", in the band`s hometown of Solothurn, Switzerland.

In 2015 Krokus literally "embarked" on a promo-tour for their new "Live" Album playing the Monsters Of Rock Cruise in the Caribbean and then continued with some long anticipated USA Dates. They ended their Longstick Goes Boom Tour with 2 shows at the "Whiskey A Go Go" in Los Angeles. In 2016, he was considered as a candidate to replace Brian Johnson as lead vocalist of AC/DC.

Marc has been Krokus' vocalist/frontman since October 1979, and has sung on all but 5 of the band`s Studio-Album-Collection.

Other projects

Solo project

In spring 1989, Marc returned to Switzerland and wrote songs for his first solo project, The Blue Album. It contains a rare collection of soul influenced rock songs, and was released in 1991 by EurostarGermany. It was re-released in 1998 by BMG Records, Switzerland under the name Vergeat-Storace. Vic Vergeat, of Toad and Gotthard fame, was guitar-player, co-songwriter and co-producer for the project.

Various guest vocal projects

Shortly after AC/DC vocalist Bon Scott's death in 1980, Marc was indirectly asked to audition for the vacancy in the band, but things were going extremely well for Krokus at the time.^[2][3] He also claimed that, besides his feelings of loyalty to his mates, he felt his band was going to continue to get bigger.

In 1993, Marc joined up as guest with the Swiss rock band China. A live album of their one and only tour with Marc in 1993 was eventually released on CD as "Live!" in 2000 (the live radio broadcast of the event was also released on the label Phonag Records). Shortly after Marc left the band, they split up due to the fact (according to Marc) that their use of a different vocalist for each of their albums meant that they could not establish a solid identity in the music world.^[4] A "Best of China" album was recently released by Universal Records in Switzerland.

With China's guitarists Freddie Lawrence and Claudio Matteo, Marc formed Acoustical Mountain that same year. This trio, performing without drums, played rock 'n' roll classics around Switzerland but never released any albums of their own, making them a "live-only" project. They split and then reformed in 1995, this time with China's bassist Brian Kofmehl replacing Freddie, who moved on to join Swiss melodic-rockers Gotthard. Marc and Claudio Matteo still perform at the occasional "Private-Event" as Acoustical Mountain, sometimes with Charly Preissel as 2nd guitarist.

In 1994, during a break in his Krokus Reunion duties, Marc joined Manfred Ehlert's Amen to release an album in the same year.Glenn Hughes sang some tracks too. Marc's second album with Amen was calledAguilar, released in 1996. This time Marc sang all bar one track which again featured Glenn Hughes.

In 2003, during another break from Krokus commitments, Marc wrote and recorded with Los Angeles based metal rockers Warrior. This adventure resulted in the one-off album The Wars of Gods and Men. He greatly enjoyed his Los Angeles stay which enabled him to combine some filming for a planned Krokus movie, and briefly catch up with old Stateside friends. This was his first collaboration with an American Band period. Working with Guitarist and founding member Joe Floyd was a unique experience. Marc explored some new and sometimes shadier dimensions of his vocal versatility. That unique Warrior album was released in the USA and Switzerland in 2004.

November 2004 saw German producer Michael Voss invite Marc to sing on the new album of the band Biss, titled Face-off, which was released in 2005. It was a melodic rock album and Marc said the songs were "refreshing".^[5] *Face-Off* was released in May 2005.

The following year, 2006, saw yet another release by BISS featuring Marc on the album X-Tension, and again he contributed to the songwriting.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>A load More To Read on Marc`s Official Facebook Page - Biography : www.facebook.com/marcstorace <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

As from February 2016, Storace starred as "Luke" in the rock-opera production "Test" (premiered on 20 February 2016)^[6]

Anuk

In 2006, Marc took part in the Swiss-German Film Anuk, playing the role of Geisterzunge, a tribal medicine-man / shaman. Produced by Luke Gasser (who also plays the lead role), the film tells the story of a Bronze Age tribe trying to save itself from eradication by ruthless maurauding horsemen. The story takes place on the panoramic Swiss Alps. Marc co-wrote the soundtrack with Gasser and sings on the song "On My Own" together with Gasser and Doro Pesch. His Shaman-Chanting can be heard throughout the movie.^[7]

Discography

Krokus

Others

External links

• Official website
• Krokus homepage

References

Swiss Rock Musicians