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Damien Storm
first got interested in music at the age of thirteen, when he started
playing the guitar. What got him started was seeing Ace Frehley of KISS
with his cherry sunburst Les Paul, that to this day Ace still plays. Damien
was fascinated with Ace. He even talked his parents into getting him that
same guitar as Ace, down to the same color. To this day, Damien still
plays Gibson Les Paul's, exclusively. He uses several Les Paul Customs,
but does use his original cherry sunburst deluxe for a few tracks.
It all started when Damien began taking lessons at a local music store.
It was in some small crowded back room with store clerks coming in and
out. After this, he took some lessons in his last couple of years from
his high school music teacher. As the years passed, he kept learning and
tried to play in a couple different bands, but things would never work
out. After being frustrated with playing music, he gave it up and went
to college, studying in the business field. After not touching a guitar
for four years or so, he finally pulled it out from under the bed where
it had been hibernating for years. He began playing some old favorites
such as various Alice Cooper, vintage KISS, and Black Sabbath songs. The
next day he found himself playing it again. About a week or so later,
he wrote a little riff and this got him back in the mood to start playing
again. He began looking in music stores and finally bought a cassette
format four track recorder. At last that riff had a home and finally turned
into an actual song. Damien came up with a concept of creating a solo
act and decided to center all his songs around horror concepts. He calls
his songs horror anthems. This was achieved with the use of sound effects
such as howling wind, footsteps, screams, ghosts speaking, creaking doors,
a baby transforming into a monster, wolves, and whatever else he could
conjure up.
Damien's influences include - KISS, Alice Cooper, Black Sabbath, Ted Nugent, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Cheap Trick, and horror movies. Damien's favorite horror movies are the old black and white classics that Universal Studios put out in the 1930's,as well as the Halloween series. A current musical influence, which should be named, is King Diamond. Even though he is influenced by the above acts, his music sounds nothing like any of these. In 1990, Damien recorded an experimental recording entitled "House Atop The Hill." This enabled him to get a feel for the recording aspect of music, and was done with the same exact four track cassette recorder that was mentioned above. "House Atop the Hill" consisted of nine songs. Damien did the four original tracks on these songs on a four track recorder, and then took that to a bigger studio where he added numerous tracks. The sound effects first originated on this project. Because the guitars and vocals were done first and the drums after that, will explain why this project had such a loose yet original feel. After that Damien moved on to another project called "Ghost Town," a thirteen song release that came out in late1993.It has the same type of concepts with horror themes, but more organized. The songs also has more fullness to them. This project took a lot longer to put together. It had a lot of extra tracks, and would turn out to be the first full CD that Damien completed. Also, this was the start of the concept recording by Damien Storm. Every song would be linked together, and the overall CD would have one consistent theme throughout. It is here where Damien would introduce a character named "Jonny Stane," who would be a sort of victim that would have to deal with the horror of Damien Storm. In 2000, Damien closed another musical chapter with his concept recording entitled "Horror on St. Lime's Hill." This is a continuation of "Ghost Town," and contains 12 horror anthems. In this CD, you can hear anything from zombies to midget dwellers, and Frankenstein to dragons. The sound is heavier and tighter, yet still has a variety of sound effects. In this recording, he incorporated several eerie sounds at various parts of the songs. You can hear a laboratory experiment, chamber torture, zombie walking through water, a vampire, and much more. With the new heavier sound, he also came up with a new look. This consists of scary masks, make up, and outrageous costumes. Damien finally did his first live show on December 19th, 2000. Damien performs with a background CD, and sings and plays over that. Truly, this would be the only way he could stick with the total solo project that he first started out with. In early 2001, the video projects started. Damien started compiling ideas for a DVD release. He would now be able to put his music to video. The first video was for "Entity in the Forest," and when finished, came out like an old black and white horror movie. At last the viewer could see Damien Storm in motion, along with Jonny Stane and other creepy entities. The next in line was "Dr Vulcan's Laboratory Experiment." In this video, the viewer would see the dysfunctional nature of Dr. Vulcan, and what he does on a daily basis. The following year in 2002,Damien did another video for "Raven in the Courtyard." This was the third video done from the "Horror on St. Lime's Hill" CD. At this same time, he filmed some additional footage for the DVD which would connect all three videos together and form a sort of mini movie. In early 2003, Damien released an EP entitled "Entities." This EP combines songs from both "Ghost Town," and "Horror on St. Lime's Hill." It also contains one cut, from the upcoming DVD release, entitled "The Witch Talks to Boy." This is part of the musical score for the upcoming DVD. In the same year, Damien was asked to include "Zekey Zombie" for a horror movie entitled "Graveyard" starring Canadian heavy metal legend THOR. In 2004 Damien would work again with THOR providing him with material for "The Intercessor". At the present moment in time, Damien is putting the finishing touches
on his DVD, planning live shows with THOR,
and working on a new CD entitled "The Haunted Manor". He also
has plans to release a CD with various rare songs,and live material. |