Legendary Krokus singer Marc Storace will be guest on BraveWords’ Streaming For Vengeance on Saturday, March 19th at 3:33 PM EST as he discusses his latest solo effort, Live And Let Live, that was released earlier this year. During our conversation we also dig deep into his history with the Swiss progressive rock band Tea and the storied career of Krokus. We finish off with an incredible metal moment as he literally sings the history of their classic ballad, “Screaming In The Night”! You can watch video footage below. Epic!
Here is an excerpt from the chat:
BraveWords: “Screaming In The Night” is Krokus' “Stairway To Heaven”, the incredible power ballad from one of the greatest albums released in the ‘80s, the unstoppable Headhunter. Tell us how it has aged over time, and how it was written. It is really one of the most famous songs from the heavy metal heyday in the ’80's and your voice carries us to new places.
Storace: “Thanks! Well, we were doing the pre-production, writing the songs for the Headhunter album. Before that we toured in support of One Vice At A Time. With the Headhunter album we wanted to go a little bit more metal, so we chose Tom Allom to produce because we had already established a good relationship with Judas Priest, as well as having done a couple of tours with them, giving us the red carpet and treating us really well. Our manager was based in Mountain Home, Arkansas (in the southern Ozark Mountains), close to Clinton's home and the White River. There was this guy called Bob Ketchum, an engineer and guitar player, who had this studio where we could record our demos, our ideas. And to jam, we had this big tin-roofed warehouse which got really hot since it was the middle of summer. We had these big propeller fans but they didn't help much, they only stopped more heat from coming in. We were in shorts and that was it; we were young and dangerous, careless, and didn't care about what we looked like, if we were sweating too much in there, we were just jamming out ideas. And then Mark Kohler had a quiet moment, and you just heard this (mimics opening notes of ‘Screaming In The Night’), and I was like, 'Where's that coming from? That's so nice.’ He played it again, then Jeff (Klaven) went to the drums - not Jeff, sorry, Steve, Steve Pace - we've had so many musicians over time I get confused. Sorry Steve! Steve is such a great drummer. So he went (mimics drum part of song), and then Fernando (Von Arb) started playing (mimics that part). You don't get the idea straight away, but more or less, then you keep working on it. And I'm going, 'Wow. This is going to be a great ballad, I've got to be careful now. I don't want to waste this shot.’ So I went out on this rock with a pen and paper, and a cold drink. I sat on this hot rock and I listened to them trying to form this idea, and to write kind of the skeleton of words which would go in there, and sing some type of a melody. And then it's like a game of ping pong, one idea turns on the other, and then next, and then you stop and say, 'Where are we going to go from here?' And if you listen carefully, you see that ‘Screaming In The Night’ is kind of a non-repetitive song, if you go deep. The vocals, okay, there's the refrain, the chorus which almost needs to be repetitive, it's what people remember first (sings 'Screaming in the night, fighting for my life, I'd die for you'), and there's this chugging (drum beat) and I thought, 'Wow. This is commercial, but not cheesy.’ Because you're always on the fine line when you're writing a ballad, you don't want to fall into the cheesy, that side of the wall. You want to stay in the middle and we kept chugging along and then I had these parts where the riff gets chunky, it's so rhythmic, and it's like driving on. I think that's the secret of ‘Screaming In The Night’, it goes in the heart yet it's no softie song. It takes a bit of power to sing it, and do all the small dives and everything, vocally. But I still love doing it today, and it's going to be on my set list when I come back to North America, for sure.
Marc Storace says he intends to tour North America in support of Live And Let Live this fall as COVID restrictions continue to lighten up.
Watch the excerpt below:
The entire video interview with Marc Storace will air on BraveWords’ Streaming For Vengeance on Saturday, March 19th at 3:33 PM EST.
You can watch/listen Streaming For Vengeance on the BraveWords Facebook page or the BraveWords YouTube channel. For more information about Streaming For Vengeance, visit this location.
