Storm Large Fans

The Portland singer is the show's first non-winner to sign on for Supernova appearances
BY ERIC BARTELS
The Portland Tribune Sep 8, 2006
Courtesy of portlandtribune.com

Two days after being eliminated from the reality talent show “Rock Star: Supernova,” Portland singer Storm Large has learned she has a job after all.

Large was invited to join the Supernova tour for five weeks, starting January 16 in Florida. “I’m the first rocker to sign on,” she said.

She and other former contestants will take turns fronting the house band from the CBS-TV show. On Wednesday night, a lead singer will be chosen for the band Supernova, which includes former members of the bands Mötley Crüe, Guns N’ Roses and Metallica.

A publicist at CBS said it is not yet known which of the other non-winners will earn an invitation or what the band will be called. The tour also includes The Panic Channel, a group led by the show’s host, former Jane’s Addiction guitarist Dave Navarro.

The five-week stint will include a date at the Rose Garden in Portland, Feb. 18.

The talented rocker sounded well-rested in a Friday morning phone call, despite a continuing whirlwind of publicity obligations. She taped an episode of “The Ellen Degeneres Show” Thursday that is set to air on Monday, according to the the network. The Portland lounge star thinks the show went well.

“I was so exhausted and whipsawed, I can’t believe I was there,” she said.

The network is busy shopping Large and expects she will make more appearances. “There’s a lot of interest in Stormy,” said Mary Beth O’Toole, publicist for the show.

Large said both the stars and producers of “Rock Star: Supernova” have indicated their support for whatever she decides to undertake, including an album project.

“The guys in Supernova raised their hand, Dave Navarro raised his hand,” she said, “It’s gonna be a great record.”

Her original song, “Ladylike,” which she performed on the show Tuesday night, has opened some eyes.
“‘Ladylike’ is a smash. People are going crazy about that song,” Large says. “That gives me quite a bit of leverage. I’m basically having a lot of lunches. I’m gonna have to talk with some of the executives from the show.

“I’ve got a whole bunch of my own songs – I’ve been underground forever. They’re gonna want to hear the other songs that I have. I know I have more hits. They need to know I have more.”

Bring it on

Empowered by her 12-week run on “Rock Star: Supernova,” Large says she is not ruling anything out, including TV and films. “I’m totally open to that,” she says. “I’d love to get a theatrical agent. I’m working on all kinds of angles.

“At this particular moment, I have my hands on the reins, I got through this incredible maelstrom. Now I’m at a place where there are many doors in front of me. I am also free to pursue something bigger and better for myself.”

The 37-year-old Storm and the Balls frontwoman says her loyalties remain with her Portland band, which includes love interest Davey Loprinzi, who goes by Davey Nipples as a musician.

“My highest aspiration is to get my own music out there, have my Balls come and play and tour the world,” she says.

Large says she sensed her run on the show would end Wednesday night despite a commanding performance that aired the night before. She cranked out a rousing cover of David Bowie’s “Suffragette City” with Navarro behind her, then delighted the crowd with her original, “Ladylike.”

“I felt like I was going to walk off the show,” she said. “I was really, really calm. It was bittersweet, but mostly sweet.

“Those legendary musicians gave me so much respect. I am incredibly grateful. It was really exhausting, but so fantastic.”

Who will triumph on “Rock Star: Supernova?”

“Lukas,” she says, seemingly confident in her choice. “He’s got an androgyny that I love. I think he’ll be fantastic.”

By D.K. Holm
Courtesy of quickstopentertainment.com
 
So Storm is gone. 

And it’s kind of a relief. For one thing, watching the show is no longer necessary. It makes for two and a half less hours of TV to watch next week. And second, careful scrutiny of the program made it clear that Storm has been yearning to get off it for weeks. No longer will she have to tout the sponsors in her spontaneous “reality” dialogue or act “surprised” if Dave wants to back her up on a song.

Except that apparently one never truly “leaves” this show. A member of the show’s rejects will be voted by the viewer to return for the finale; and there will be a Rock Star tour with House Band.

Like many other followers of Rock Star, I’m fairly confident that Toby is going to “win.” The Australian lad has been something of a dark horse, who didn’t really emerge as a front runner until the field was greatly reduced. Also, I think that Storm made it her project to groom him to win, giving Toby secret counseling and stage tips. His act is much more lively now, mimicking Storm’s brazen audience participation. Also, Toby’s original song was better than any of the Super Nova originals. They’ll need that.

It must have been a great disappointment to Mark Burnett that most of the rock star aspirants got along so well. The only one who really fell for the “reality” TV manipulation was Dilana, who still thought it was a contest as late as three weeks ago, and not an audition show. But the producers didn’t understand that either. People don’t tune in to see the “reality” drama. They’re tuning in for performances by a group of highly if unevenly talented professionals. Variety shows were common during the early years of television but today they have to be sneaked on in the guise of a competition or audition, and it’s clear now that if the show is highly focused, as in this case, on rock and roll, or what passes for rock and roll, it will drawn intense attention from a deep segment of the much coveted young audience.

In the local media here there was a Storm Watch on the local CBS news affiliate, there were nightly broadcasts of the show episodes in Dante’s, the club where Storm and the Balls played every week, and numerous interviews in the Storm-whoring local press. Presumably she will return to Portland, but why bother? She’s too big for the town now, which she is not really “from” anyway (she’s only lived here for four or five years). After all, Storm emerged as the real star of  Rock Star, and her fame, a long time coming, could go in many different directions right now, toward more TV, or movies, a record deal, whatever she wants, even writing a book, at least right now, while she’s hot. I wonder if Warren Beatty has called her yet, the ultimate sign that a female personality has arrived.

Speaking of which, recall Beatty’s comments about Madonna’s life on screen in the rockumentary  Truth or Dare? Storm  is the new Madonna, perfectly comfortable in front of the camera as it records her life. She’s the harbinger of a new age, the post-television child, grown to womanhood as an “object” who has seized back “the gaze” that the ladies in the quarterlies talk about and owns it.

by Jenn Brasler -- 09/08/2006
Courtesy of foxesonidol.com

Despite her best efforts and positive fan response, Storm was unable to hold on until the final four. Obviously her fans still love her - her website has received so much traffic that it crashed! Read on to find out who Storm thinks will win, how she avoided the drama in the house, and the story behind her name.

FoxesOnIdol: Hey, how are you?

Storm: Good. How are you?

FOI: I’m good. We’re not supposed to be talking right now. You were supposed to win.

Storm: I’m sorry, baby. I did win, you know?

FOI: Yeah, you did. You definitely did. Were you surprised to be eliminated?

Storm: No. I felt like it was coming for me. And you know what? I couldn’t have asked for a sweeter exit. They were so nice. It was just beautiful. It was a big freaking love fest, for heaven’s sakes.

FOI: You probably get asked this question a lot, but I just have to ask you the background behind your name.
Storm: It’s the most boring story ever, just so you know. My brothers got family names. I have two big brothers, and when they came along, they got, you know, the grandfather and the uncle, you know, heritage-type WASP-y names. And then my mother was told she wasn’t going to be able to have any more children, and she really, really wanted a daughter. And then they got pregnant, here I am, and she wanted to name me something special and different. And so she had a good friend who lived up the street named Stormy. She thought it was the coolest name ever and so she gave it to me, not considering my last name and the years and years of ridicule that would fill me with hate and rage and ultimately channel it into a life of being an artist.

FOI: It worked out for the best, though.

Storm: It worked out for the best, but it’s taken me nearly 40 years.

FOI: Can you tell us some of the background of “What the What is Ladylike,” like when you wrote it and what inspired it?

Storm: I’d had the lyrics in my head for a long time. Sometimes songwriters just have lyrics with no music; either you write them or you keep repeating them in your head. They just kind of haunt you - or maybe it’s just the voices in my head that are telling me to burn things more often. But sometimes they come up with really good music, too, the voices. But the lyrics were going on and I got a good riff, and so then it came out.
And the lyrics were there because my mom wasn’t really around growing up. She was mentally ill and in the hospital most of my life. I was raised by men, two big brothers and a big Marine father. And so I grew up kind of tough and I grew up kind of fast, but I’m still, you know, very womanly. And I’ve had people call me masculine or manly as if it’s derogatory or anti-female. And in my opinion, whether you sit down to pee or you can write your name in the snow, it shouldn’t describe who you are in terms of your characters. And people saying, “You’re not a lady” is kind of saying, “Well, you’re not being feminine and quiet; therefore, you’re not really a very good person. You’re not a good woman.” Which is utter crap. It’s kind of like a man who cries is not a man, thus taking male attributes and female attributes, and when they’re applied to one another, they become derogatory. And that’s just a bunch of crap. So that’s been sort of the story of my life, being big and strong and having that getting me through the trials and tribulations of being big and strong.

FOI: Do you think that the whole situation with Dilana got blown out of proportion?

Storm: Yeah, I do, actually. I think Dilana is a beautiful human being, and I love her and I support her. She isn’t a backstabbing person. What she is is a spontaneous and impulsive person, and that’s what makes her so entertaining to watch. She’s also very competitive as an athlete, and that can be misconstrued as calculating, maybe, or aggressive. And I would love to take any one person’s life, put it on camera for a month, and then take one little wedge of it and air it around the world. And in this short attention span society, you’re judged on the last thing that you say or that you see. And to judge somebody’s character based on a handful of sound bites - granted, they weren’t positive, they weren’t the best things, and she acknowledged that she made a terrible mistake. But to color her entire personality and character based on that I think is ludicrous. She’s a wonderful human being and I love her.

FOI: You mostly seemed to avoid the drama in the house. How did you manage to do that?

Storm: I’d go to bed. (laughs)

FOI: Did you find it distracting at all, especially considering that you had to live with your competitors?
Storm: Yeah, it got distracting. It got tiring. But, you know, it’s a high-pressure situation and we all deal with it differently. I would go to bed or I would go to the gym or I would work on songs and play my guitar or my bass. There were ways to get away. You’d have to deal with it sometimes, and when you did, you did. I grew up with a mentally ill mother, and if you think that’s dramatic, I’ve really been in a nuthouse before and that’s nothing.
FOI: Which of your performances was your favorite?

Storm: My favorite performance was performing “Ladylike” for the world.

FOI: Do you regret anything about your experience?

Storm: I have no regrets of anything.

FOI: Are you rooting for anyone in particular to win?

Storm: I’m rooting for them all to win. In terms of who I think will be the singer of Supernova, it would have to be Mr. Lukas Rossi. But I think every single one of us is coming out of this situation bigger, stronger, and better than we came into it.

FOI: Do you think that Supernova believes a woman can front them?

Storm: I think they do, and I think they really did have a lot of faith in a lot of the women that were here. But in terms of public opinion, I think it could be that a woman fronting Supernova would not be a member of their band; it would be more like a woman fronting Supernova, because no matter how good you are, no matter how tough or strong you are, no matter how much they love you, there’s going to be that gender difference. And they’re looking for that fourth member. Not that Debbie Harry was a fourth member or not part of the band, or Chrissy Hynde is not part of a band, but there’s a definite standoutness. Otherwise there would be no term “chick singer,” you know what I mean? Front person, front woman. I myself consider myself a front man, but by virtue of me being a woman, I would stand apart from the rest of the guys, and I think they’re looking for a fourth member. But they were totally open to having a woman front them.

FOI: What are your plans now?

Storm: I’m going to record a record and tour the world. And I’m going to fake my own death and buy an island.

FOI: Awesome. Is there anything else you want to say to your fans and to our readers?

Storm: Tell them thank you, thank you, thank you, and copy it and paste it, like, 9,000 times. I felt the love and I felt the support, and it got me through this crazy time, and I’ll never be able to thank everyone individually enough. And you guys will all see me out there very soon, I promise.

FOI: Well, thank you, too. I hope to hear more from you in the future.

Storm: You will, I promise!

Courtesy of localcut.wweek.com

Storm Large is in the seventh inning stretch.

One of the last seven contestants remaining on Rockstar: Supernova it will be just a matter of weeks, and maybe even days, before we find out if Portland’s most notorious rock-chick/lounge-core singer ends up fronting a rock band that will include Motley Crue’s Tommy Lee, and some other rock dinosaurs, or if she’ll be heading home, back to P-town, to a response that might rival the Blazermania that swept the city way back in 1977.

For now though, the 37-year-old buxom blonde is sitting poolside, in Los Angeles, at the mansion where the “rockstars” are sequestered when they’re not performing at a downtown L.A. club in front of a world-wide television audience. It’s Monday, the day after she taped this week’s installment of her reality show. And she’s taking calls from the press, including me. Here’s our conversation.
Storm Large: What a nice surprise! I was drinking tea by the pool with Mary Beth, the publicist, and I get a—

Queer Window: Can I cry now? I’m so happy to talk to you.

Oh, don’t cry, honey! It’s awesome. I’m doing good. I get spanked now and then. But you know me—I fucking love spankings.

I know you love spankings…so let’s get to spanking you with some questions. You’re probably the biggest blonde competitor to come out of Portland since Tonya Harding. How does that make you feel?

Swollen and ugly? No, I feel great. I’m proud to represent PDX.

On Sunday, Pope Benedict said, “too much work can be bad for you even if you are the Pope.” I was wondering “all work and no play makes Storm….”

Ridiculously horny.

Once this show is over I’m sure you’ll be offered a chance to pose nude in Playboy. Will you do it?

I don’t know. I don’t think so. It’s good publicity, but I’d rather be interviewed by Playboy. And have them review my record. The album artwork would, of course, have scantily clad pictures of me.

There are plenty of scantily clad pictures of you out in the public already. As you said to Tommy Lee, all you have to do is Google your name.

Well, yeah. I have no problem with nudity or nude pictures. I never have. I grew up long and lean and somewhat better looking than I was when I started in entertainment. But when I became chubby, dirty and fucking grunged-out I still played shows topless. I still feel like that dirty, kind of chubby guy that I picture myself as when I started playing music, only I’m a little bit thinner with breast implants. It’s a different deal for me now. I have to be careful with my sexual appearance.

Isn’t that fucked up, though?

Yes, it is. It’s a double standard, and it’s messed up, but it is what it is, and I get it. I don’t like having to guard myself in that way, but the one thing I do have is my mind. I never make apologies for the person I am. I’m willing to accept my weaknesses and work on them—publicly, obviously. If people think I’m on the show because I’m all “tits and ass,” all they have to do is listen to me for five minutes. If they don’t get it, they can go back to their fucking trailer.

How much you have to tone down the Storm that Portland knows for your television audience?

I don’t. There’s a lot of editing that goes on—have you been to a taping yet, Byron?

I have not.

There’s a lot of editing that goes on. The (producers of Rockstar) need to make a story. The story they have decided to project is where you see me falling. I’m always representing myself. And I’m always being myself. But I’ve been really struggling with one—actually there are two things. Physically, I struggle with how they’re trying to style and dress me. I’m more comfortable playing rock music wearing Chuck Taylor’s and tight pants and a little dress. I like to rock out and sweat and be disgusting.

Like you were at the beginning of the season,

Right. They are trying, to quote a stylist, ‘to get me to lose my dick.”

Wow.

I was like, ‘you can have my dick, but you can’t take my balls.”

Wow. That probably came from a gay guy, right?

Yes. I love him.

Gays are the only ones who get away with saying that.

Exactly. I’ll pick something out, and he’ll be like, ‘Storm, are you sure you sure you don’t have a dick?’ And, I was like, ‘I totally have a dick, and it’s huge!’ He loves me, but he just wants me to look good on TV. And that’s fine. But this week, I hit the wall. After (Sunday nights) taping I said, ‘I’m not wearing these shoes again. And I’m not wearing this thing again. When I play my show, I’m going to dress like I would dress if were I in my rock band. And it isn’t like this.’

You’ve had to change to conform to the standards of these American Idol stylists, right? Are you ready to throw a mini-revolt?

No. Style and fashion has always been my Achilles heel. I was a fat girl. I was very uncomfortable with my body most of my life. I was picked on. I had no boobs. And I was really big. I didn’t have a mom, so I didn’t have anyone telling me how to dress. I wore my brother’s clothes—my father’s clothes. Fashion is just something that gives me a rash. When I have to go out and shop for clothes, in equestrian terms, I refuse the jump. The (stylists) get me in the middle of a store, and I’ll just put my hooves in the dirt and freeze. But I’m getting better.

So what about your tits and ass?

They want me to show more of my body. They’re like, ‘look, you have a beautiful body, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with you showing some of it,’ and I go ‘No, I’m not going out like that. No. I am a fucking singer. I don’t want to go out like that.’ Tommy Lee keeps saying, ‘I want to see you naked.’ That’s Tommy. He says that to everybody. He even says that to the boys. (But) he’s a sweetheart. The biggest emphasis I’ve gotten out of this whole thing is to be yourself. I’ve just got to put my foot down and say, ‘I’m wearing my Chucks, my jeans, and a tight wife-beater.’ And, goodnight Francine, that’s what I’m doing.

You look skinny. Really, like, oh, my gawd.

Just for the record no one has told me, “Yeah, Storm, you really need to lose some. You should work out more.” Living here, because it’s so hot, I drink water and work out a lot. But I don’t work out as much as I used to. I’m much less muscular than I was when I left Portland. I’m probably around 148 right now, and I’m normally a healthy 155.

The Mansion seems to be kind of a prison. Do you ever get to break out from it, or are you on constant lockdown?

We’re on constant lockdown, unless we’re taken out on press outings, private parties and events where we need to be seen by the public, and not necessarily red-carpet events. They want us to go out and represent Rockstar and Mark Burnett (the show’s head honcho who’s also the mastermind behind Survivor). We’re not allowed to leave, mingle, or be free. We really are locked up. I’m only allowed two 15-minute personal phone calls a week. That’s been the hardest thing about being separated from you’re family.

The media seems to have been pretty intrusive about your life. How does it feel to have the media talk about your sex life?

Are you talking about Lee Williams? [In the Aug. 20 Sunday Oregonian, Williams not only reported about Storm’s “conjugal” visit from her boyfriend and Balls band-mate, Davey Nipples, but he also “announced” their engagement]. My boyfriend is pretty upset about that.

It was weird, to tell you the truth.

I love Lee. He’s a sweetheart, but I’m pretty upset. Davey had asked my father for permission to marry me. I thought that was very sweet and was foolishly talking to Lee as a friend. Thinking back I should have told him it was off the record, but I said, “Yeah, I’m totally gonna marry him, I love him.” The Oregonian printed it, even though Davey had not yet talked to his mother or father, his uncle, his sister about it. He was getting angry phone calls from his family all weekend. They’re reading the paper, of course, because they’re so excited for me. And they’re like, ‘how could you do this? All of Oregon knows, and you didn’t tell us.’ I thought it was inappropriate, but Lee is so excitable.

If you’re the mom of this group, as other reports have said, what is the most parental thing you’ve had to do, and to whom, and why?

The very first week my roommate, Jenny, had food poisoning and she was deathly ill. It was our first song selection and the first time we were going to make an impression on the world. I spent the whole time running back and forth making sure she was all right. We didn’t know each other. I didn’t know anybody. And for all I knew people were going to be aggressive… but everybody was cool and supportive. The other time—and I won’t name names—was when we were out on a press junket. One of the contestants was completely shit-faced. I had to keep an eye on her and keep her from shooting herself in the foot with her comments. I had to sort of watch and take care of her.

Tell me what it’s like to stand in front of three guys and the world and be judged every week.

It’s pretty much one of my biggest fears. You know me, I get up and I rule. That’s my life. But this is like, I’m going to get up and rule, and they might not think so. This is a very specific thing that they’re asking me to do, and I may not be exactly what they want. Whereas, in my normal life, I am what everyone wants.

Was the stage-dive your idea or not?

It was my idea. It was a bummer really. Because—it’s cheesy—they said, ‘we heard about your idea, and you need to tell us if you’re doing it.’ The most un-punk-rock-like thing is to say, ‘Yes, I’m gonna plan it, it’s gonna look like this.’ I said, ‘I don’t’ know. Just be prepared. And have some big guys in the front. That’s all.’ I said, ‘if I do it, I’ll do it, and that’s it.”

Who has the most to lose by not winning this thing?

The most to lose? I think Lukas or Dilana.

Dilana’s an interesting character because I feel like she copies you. That’s just my impression, but she watches you, and then—I feel like she steals your stuff. But, still, you seem to be really close to her on the show.

Yeah, we’re friends.

Why do you think Lukas and Dilana would have the most to lose by not winning this show?

I think because they have the most invested in winning. Lukas is a brilliant songwriter and an incredible singer. I know he can kick ass doing whatever—but I don’t think he’s got a band right now, and I don’t think he needs one. He got a real bad rap at the beginning of the show, but he is so sweet, and incredibly funny. I don’t know if you get to see how funny he is.

We pretty much get to see him as the asshole.

I know they probably spin it like that, but he is a fantastic human being and I will always love him. And I can’t wait to buy his records if he’s not in Supernova.

I have this theory. Actually it’s a picture tacked up in my office cubicle. In it you’re in a hot tub surrounded by all the other contestants. Everyone on your left side is still on the show. But there is only person on the right side of you that hasn’t been kicked off. And that’s Magni. So the next person to get booted should be him. That’s my theory. Do you have any theories on how this thing works?

I don’t know how it works. I think it’s a brilliant way to establish a rock band, because it’s the biggest three-month-long test market you’ve ever seen. They’re throwing people out there to see how the world responds to them. Who’s going to be embraced as the lead singer of a band nobody has ever heard of—full of rock stars? I think they’re throwing us against the wall to see how we stick. And I think people have been sticking, and now they’re starting to slide off. Not because they aren’t good enough, not because they aren’t good-looking enough, but just because the world has not embraced them the way they have a handful of others.

Is this a good test-market for Storm and her fame? Because your fame is in Portland. You’re not “rock star famous” in the rest of the world. Are you getting a better idea of what you want from your life out of this experience?

Absolutely, if I don’t win this—I mean, obviously if I win this I’m going to be very busy with Supernova—but if I don’t win this, it’s very clear to me what I want to do and in what time frame I want to do it. Television fame, especially reality TV, is very flash-in-the-pan, “where-are-they-now type” fame. But it’s still some very wide publicity for me that I can definitely use to my advantage. Whether people love me or hate me, they probably know my name in corners of the world where I haven’t even been yet. And so if I don’t win, I’ve got to hit the ground running and put out my independent record. I have great songs that have been sitting here for a long time. I want to record it, release it. And maybe do some films—if I can get a film agent. I’ve got to strike while the iron’s hot. I’m giving myself one week to recuperate, to rest, to relax, and then, BAM!, I’m in the studio, or meetings, or whatever.

Has this changed your work ethic?

Definitely, it’s given me a whole new perspective on time-frames, deadlines, how to work under extreme pressure and extreme time limitations. It’s a really good brain exercise and a really good nerve exercise. It’s not like you’re in a control group and they say, ‘this is your task, this is the amount of time, and we’re going to get it all done and we’re going to get results in two hours.’ It’s that, and by the way, the world will be watching.

What to you say to your fans back in Portland who miss you so fucking much and want you to come home as soon as possible?

I miss them just as much if not more so—How’s Dante’s by the way? They get to see me all the time, and even though they can’t reach out and talk to me, and I’m not playing the songs that they would want me to be singing, I miss them. But hey at least get to see me. Well, the LumberJax (a Portland lacrosse team) were at the taping last night.

That’s great!

So you’ll see me sporting a LumberJax T-shirt.

Any other surprises for this week’s show?

No, not that I know of. We’ll see.

It was so hard to listen to what they said to you after “I Will Survive.” I’m not worried about you surviving. I think you’re going to do a fucking great job. I just want you to do what you want to do.

That’s basically what I’ve been doing. The one thing I haven’t done is really stand up for myself. I always take care of everyone else first. And that’s a good thing in life. In music and in business it’s not such a great thing. But that’s who I am. If being compassionate is going to screw me up in business, so be it. You can still be compassionate, and still stand strong for what you believe and what you want. And that’s going to be my toughest lesson in this whole experience. Hopefully I’ll get a chance to fight and learn how to stand my ground and get what I want without it being to the detriment of anything else.

Tuesday, August 29, 2006
LEE WILLIAMS
Courtesy of oregonlive.com

With two weeks left until one rocker on CBS' "Rock Star" reality series goes Supernova, there's no doubt who Portlanders think should win:

"Storm all the way! She has got what it takes!" Michelle Peay exclaims after watching Portlander Storm Large's intense delivery of Aerosmith's "Cryin' " on the big screen at Dante's last Tuesday night.

Part of that enthusiasm surely is hometown boosterism, but the rest is all Storm herself. The 6-foot-tall singer doled out Aerosmith's 1990s power ballad without having to resort to running around the stage, as singer Ryan Star did, or remove any clothing, a la Australian Toby Rand, who went shirtless during his performance last week. She earned solid, if not glowing, praise from the judges and cruised into the next round.

Six performers are left, vying to front the band Supernova, which includes Motley Cre drummer Tommy Lee. On Wednesday, Sept. 13, one performer from the original 15 competitors culled from around the world will be chosen to record an album and tour with the band.

On a call from the "Rock Star" mansion, where the performers are living during the show, Storm commends her competitors' showmanship. But as for what she calls "the pre-rehab Aerosmith rock ballad," she says, "I just didn't feel like I needed to camp it up or run around. The song is dramatic enough."

On the show's Wednesday night elimination episode, drama took center stage, and her name was Dilana.

South African rocker Dilana Robichaux, who has been garnering praise from the judges and votes from the viewers each week, was shown in a string of segments snapping at the media during interviews and sniping at Star for his performance. Suddenly the show had morphed from a prime-time rock 'n' roll contest into a daytime soap.

"It was out-of-the-world bizarre," Storm says. "I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy. I don't know where it came from. She had a bad day with the press, and it was shown to the world."
The reverberations of the episode were felt around the mansion. "It was an awful day . . . and Dilana and I are keeping our space," Storm says.

Storm again avoided the bottom three -- the three performers earning the least amount of viewers' votes. Wednesday night, Texan Patrice Pike was ousted after performing an original song the previous night. The song did not impress viewers watching worldwide, and down at Dante's her efforts received boos.

"It was absolutely sauteed in wrong sauce," Peay says of the song Pike wrote and fought the other performers for the chance to sing.

With the pressure on, Storm says good vibes from Portland are helping out. Last week, a T-shirt for the Portland LumberJax lacrosse team was given to her; she wore it during her time sitting in the "rock pod," before donning a daring black corset for her performance.

The show's producers have allowed Storm two brief, nonovernight visits from her boyfriend, Davey Nipples, bass player for her band the Balls. But that will be all the, um, motivation Nipples is allowed to provide until the end of the show's run, Storm says.

Last week, the dates were announced for Supernova's tour. The band (with or without Storm fronting) will hit Memorial Coliseum on Friday, Feb. 16 .

The tour of arena-size venues would mark the biggest gigs in Storm's career, if she wins. As for the idea of playing the Coliseum, filled with her Portland fans:

"Oh, my God. It would be off the . . . chain! I don't know if I'd be able to sing, seriously. I'd be floating in the air."

‘Supernova’ is a super nail-biter for Storm’s main squeeze
BY ERIC BARTELS
The Portland Tribune Aug 28, 2006
Credit to portlandtribune.com

He goes by Davey Nipples when he’s a rock musician, and he often is that.

But lately, the music world is having a profound effect on the rest of Davey Loprinzi’s life as well.
It would be one thing if Loprinzi were merely the bass player in the local band Storm and the Balls, whose lead singer, Storm Large, currently is in Hollywood battling on national TV for a job with a new rock supergroup.

But Loprinzi and Large also are romantically involved, which adds layers of complexity to questions about where life will take the singer who may or may not front Supernova, a band made up of former members of Mötley Crüe, Guns N’ Roses and Metallica.

“It’s kinda hard,” says Loprinzi, who recently visited Large in the Los Angeles mansion where she’s been sequestered for more than two months. “It has definitely caused some rifts, but it has also strengthened our bonds. We both realize we’re in it through thick and thin.

“We’re all just blowing around in the wind. We haven’t really had the chance to discuss the future of anything.”

Storm’s squeeze, who played in Sweaty Nipples and Everclear before becoming one of the Balls four years ago, works full time for a manufacturer of industrial components and shares responsibilities for his 9-year-old son, Case, with his ex-wife. (“Storm’s pretty much stepmom,” he says.)

But in recent weeks, he’s managed to join wildly enthusiastic crowds of “Rock Star: Supernova” watchers at the downtown nightclub Dante’s, where Storm and the Balls have long offered their unique and often salty mashups of pop and metal on a weekly basis.

“It’s enjoyable,” says Loprinzi, who sat with a large group that included Balls pianist James Beaton last week. “It’s an experience that doesn’t come along very often.”

What’ll it be?

The show’s popularity extends far beyond the throngs at Dante’s. Last Wednesday’s episode, which saw Large emerge as one of six remaining contestants, captured the 18-49 demographic in its time slot, winning the ratings race and 6.4 million viewers for CBS.

If Loprinzi has any inside information on possible outcomes, he’s not revealing it. Will Storm win? Will she get a record deal even if she doesn’t? And would that keep her from returning to Portland?
“Who’s to say if anything will come of anything?” he says. “You just don’t know.”

He agrees with the notion that his girlfriend may not get the Supernova job because other contestants, while less talented, may be a better fit stylistically with rockers Tommy Lee, Gilby Clarke and Jason Newsted.

“I do think it is possible that she could do it,” he says. “She has the talent. She has the professionalism. That doesn’t necessarily mean it’s going to work. I don’t know Jason, Tommy and Gilby well enough to know what they require.”

Hit big time and come home

Loprinzi, 39, says Storm and the Balls agreed long ago that whatever was best for any individual member of the band would gain the support of the group, even if it included breaking away.
The band had made up its collective mind to start writing and performing more original songs before “Supernova” intervened, he says. “This thing has happened right in the middle of that.
“Obviously, we all want to work together,” he says. But if a major-label deal comes up (for Large) that would take precedence.”

It’s not hard to imagine that Loprinzi is rooting for the same outcome many local fans are envisioning: a stirring race to the finish that leaves Large honored, enriched and back in Portland.
“We have a very, very rabid fan base,” Loprinzi says. “The support from them is just incredible. A lot of them have the same sentiment: We want Storm back.

“I wouldn’t mind having her back, but I’m also 110 percent behind her.”

Excitement has been building on the set of "Rock Star" in Los Angeles, where Portland's Storm Large is threatening to become a Supernova
Sunday, August 20, 2006
LEE WILLIAMS
Courtesy of oregonlive.com

LOS ANGELES -- Walking down Melrose Avenue in simple denim jeans and red undershirt, Storm Large looks like a supermodel. Six feet tall. Thin, yet lush figure. Blond tresses.

It's hard to believe the 37-year-old Portland singer is instead a finalist on the hardscrabble CBS reality series "Rock Star: Supernova."

The last of 15 original contestants, after a Sept. 13 finale, will be the lead singer in a hard-rock band formed by Motley Cre drummer Tommy Lee, Metallica bass player Jason Newsted and guitarist Gilby Clarke of Guns N' Roses. The three rockers also judge the contest.

The trio, with their new lead singer, will be called Supernova. The group will record an album, then embark on a world tour with an inaugural performance on New Year's Eve in Las Vegas.

Competitors came from Iceland, Australia and South Africa. Since the competition started June 25, Storm has made the final seven, spilling her into the 15 minutes of national fame that a reality show can bring.

Yet she is no stranger to a wide cross-section of Portlanders; her fans range from barely drinking age to some born in the 1940s. They've seen her bawdy torch band, Storm and the Balls, at Wilf's at Union Station, the Aladdin in Southeast Portland and Dante's, the free-for-all downtown nightclub.

Shopping last weekend in the bright sun of Southern California, two things are clear about Storm. The blond tresses are new, thanks to Hollywood-style highlights from makeup experts. And a life confined to the mansion where the competitors live (except for these fashion excursions) and rehearsals, performances and obligatory parties have dropped 15 pounds from her frame.

"It's OK, it's just my TV weight," she says in the boutique where she is joined by Supernova stylist Miles Siggins.

With the competition getting fierce, Storm is looking for any advantage. On this trip, it's trousers, a T-shirt, a jacket -- a look -- for the song she's going to sing for this week's competition. "It is crunch time," she says.

During the competition, the contestants are allowed no incoming phone calls, very limited calls out (to radio and print media) and no Internet access. They receive mail from a few friends and family members pre-approved by the show.

So in addition to stylist Siggins (who has chosen the clothes for "American Idol" the past four seasons), her entourage includes handler Felipe Castillo, who is paid by the show to make sure Storm doesn't borrow a cell phone or flip through a magazine or newspaper while she's out.
If Storm does reach for a magazine?

"We take it away," says Castillo.

Storm is outfitting a song that she got stuck with earlier in the week -- Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive." "Disco drag queen karaoke," Storm terms it. It's a risky song, especially since all songs this week are acoustic.

Her quest for the right look takes her to an unmarked door of a small shop on the corner of Melrose called Lords. The boutique is filled with pants, jackets made of wool and a surprising range of reptilian leather. The shop specializes in "rock couture," custom-fitted clothes usually for male rock stars like Dave Navarro and Prince.

"I'm learning fashion," she says. "I'm just used to buying a shirt, ripping it up and boom -- there's fashion.

Her idea today? "The girl in a man's suit." It's inspired in part by Madonna, Michelle Pfeiffer and Tommy Lee, who said he wanted to see her dressed as a boy. Storm tells her stylists she wants to "do it up right," adding a cigar and fake sideburns, to the duds. She also wants to go without anything underneath the jacket, but the show's staff worries about a wardrobe malfunction, a la Janet Jackson. Miles recommends something underneath.

"What's it called, Miles?" she asks. "Decollete? Underwear for your (breasts)."

Farther down Melrose, at a shop called Agent Provocateur, Storm finds what she'll be wearing underneath the jacket -- a $500, two-piece pink and black silk set.

"Five-hundred bucks for underwear," she says. "I've never, ever, ever, ever, ever spent anything like that much for underwear."

Though expensive, she finds the shop a perfect fit. She aims to be a repeat customer, she says, "when I'm rich."

Flair for theatrics

Storm's voice can alternate between sultry ferociousness and quiet vulnerability.

Part of the theatrics her Portland fans have come to know from songs such as her cover of Olivia Newton-John's "Hopelessly Devoted to You" can be tracked to her associates degree in performance at New York's Academy of Dramatic Arts.

The Southboro, Mass., native headed west in 1989 to dive into bands with a less traditional and more punk sound. In 2002, she moved to Portland and formed her band the Balls.

She auditioned for "Rock Star" last March in Seattle. A second audition in L.A. cemented her place in the cast. She is the oldest.

She's been living in the Hollywood Hills mansion since.

On the show, each contestant earns $1,000 a week. Handlers hold it for each performer, doling out cash as needed. The cast has their meals catered. They have no housework or chores in the mansion to speak of, other than doing their own dishes.

If Storm wins, she will earn $5,000 a week, plus possible bonuses. The recording of the album would begin almost immediately, and the first gig of the Supernova world tour is scheduled for New Year's Eve at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas.

Last season's "Rock Star" winner, J.D. Fortune, fronted a revived INXS. The Australian band's new album has sold 370,000 copies. The band performed last January at the Chinook Winds Casino in Lincoln City.

Even with touring and recording, Storm says she'll stay based in Portland. She likes the "roots" she has. And she hopes to pay off the $98,000 on the house she shares with boyfriend Davey Nipples (Portland native David A. Loprinzi II), who is the bassist for the Balls.

Win or lose, she plans to marry Loprinzi. "Probably two ceremonies," she says. "In Portland, for all the . . . friends, and a quieter one back home in Southboro -- for Dad."

Storm clouds gathering

Despite its late-night feel, "Rock Star's" competition episode is taped -- surprisingly -- on a Sunday afternoon. A line of rockers, tourists and hard-core "Rock Star" fans waits outside the gate of CBS Studios. They'll soon enter Studio 36, today a mix of goth and tall red curtains. It's right next to Bob Barker's "The Price Is Right" studio.

In the makeup room, beer and wine sit untouched on a snack table. There is a buzz of nervous energy. Giggles punctuate the tension. Storm is now wearing the rock couture "man suit" as she sits in the chair with makeup artist Stacy Stern.

Did the bawdy lounge singer ever imagine she'd be in spot like this -- fawned over by a small army of beauty engineers?

"You know, yes," she says. "I think I always knew. Inside it was always there. But it's still incredibly weird. I wasn't a pretty kid, I was tall and overweight, but yeah, it was there."

The confidence belies an emotional lapse -- her first of the series. A day earlier, Storm broke down in tears in rehearsal with her vocal coach, Lis Lewis.

Now with the live taping minutes away, Storm goes through a warmup with Lewis. In a mirrored room just outside the cast's dressing room, the coach runs Storm through the scales. "La la la LA la la la."

"Sing that top one again," Lewis asks.

Storm hits the highest "LA" again, louder.

"Beautiful," says Lewis. Her hands rest on Storm's sleeves. "You don't have to be afraid of that note, Storm," she says.

Storm lowers her head, and then raises it, smiling.

Twelve minutes to airtime in the dressing room, the cast is subdued. Contestant Toby Rand of Australia listens to an iPod. Ryan Star from New York breathes in clouds of pure air from a portable steamer. Iceland's Magni Asgeirsson looks through digital photos of his wife and child who had been allowed to visit him two weeks earlier. "I don't think I would have survived another week without them," Asgeirsson says.

What about the "Rock Star" family?

"(Storm) is the anchor in the house, you know. Storm is the mommy, and I'm the daddy. She's the queen," he says smiling. "And I honestly think she should win this."

The battle begins. What follows is an afternoon of incredible performances.

Rand delivers a furious and hugely received acoustic cover of Peter Gabriel's "Solsbury Hill." Star creates an intense version of Gabriel's "In the Air Tonight," and Lukas Rossi from Toronto and Dilana Robichaux from South Africa earn huge praise for their acoustic sets.

And though fans on the floor clapped along with Storm's cover of the Gaynor song, the judges give her across the board thumbs-down -- a first for Storm on the show. In a day of rock, she gave them disco.

"Rock Star" co-host Navarro shakes his microphone and head. "It just didn't work, Storm. I hated it," he says.

There is a raucous mansion party after the taping, full of music played not for judges, but for sheer joy. Storm is especially lucky in that the show has allowed her boyfriend to visit. They have not seen each other since June, and the visit will be conjugal.

The party is one free-swinging jam after another. Cameramen from CBS, the crew of the show, music journalists, producers, musicians and guests of the show pack the main room. There's an open bar. The catered food is carried to all on silver trays. Robichaux and Storm sing "Me and Bobby McGee," with Robichaux ending up dancing on a table. Everyone takes turns backing each other and jumping in on favorite instruments.

Later, near midnight, the live party music is gone and everyone has moved onto a lawn in the back of the mansion. Hushed chatter melds with piped-in soft rock music. Storm's arm is around boyfriend Loprinzi. He has smuggled in a photo for Storm, a crowd shot taken at Dante's by her fans, who have been watching every episode on the club's big screen. She introduces Davey to folks at the party -- a woman from Urb magazine, then Richard Blade, a legendary British DJ.
Then they are gone.

"Where is Stormy?" one of the cameramen filming the night wonders.

The mansion is haunted

Monday afternoon and the mansion is quieter than the convent it used to be.

Rossi sits with a crew member, spilling out his primal need for companionship. He hasn't been with a member of the opposite sex since leaving his home in Toronto in June.

Three German shepherds bark at something driving by, but never up to the house. A guard is posted at the driveway gate.

On a tour of the house after interviews, Storm says it is haunted. She and roommate Zayra Alvarez of Texas have had close encounters with a few ghosts. Girls are speaking to her. She's awoken to strange feelings and sounds, but she's not scared anymore. Unlike contestants picked off once a week, the ghosts are constant company to her.

Before the quiet time can continue, Storm is pulled away for an "OTF," or "on-the-fly" segment for the cameras, a question-and-answer period when she speaks to a camera about a topic. Today she's asked to talk about the harsh words from the judges the day before.

She throws it off with a light laugh. "It was good TV," she says. "Or maybe they just think it's time to spank me. It was a sucky song. But I did it the best I could."

With the OTF over, Storm heads to the mansion's sun room, where she meditates facing north. She confesses to loneliness, just like Rossi. The conjugal visit with Loprinzi was brief; he did not stay overnight. "They pulled him away," she sighs. But she remembers what he said on the morning after her last night in Portland.

"We were at the airport and I was crying," she says, plopped down cross-legged in a room of Indonesian cushions and furniture. "And I just remember him holding me in his arms, and he said, 'Babe, things will be different after this. But not between us.' "

She smiles. The look is camera-ready, but straight from the heart

"This is an enjoyable process but really hard," she says. "You're without friends, family . . . but it is worth it. If I do win, the band is going to get one helluva rock star. One who can sing on a moment's notice, won't run off to party every night, and one full of piss and vinegar who is ready and wants to rock the world."

Thursday, August 10, 2006
Reality show singer thrills friends
By Rushmie Kalke TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF
Courtesy of telegram.com

It is a Tuesday night, and usually Daphne Phalon is at home doing laundry, putting her kids to bed or catching up on work. But on this night, amid the noisy clatter at JJ’s Sports Grill in Northboro, the 37-year-old mother and wife has morphed into a rock ’n’ roll groupie.

Mrs. Phalon, who lives in Southboro, wears a fitted T-shirt that reads “Storm Large and The Balls” imprinted with a woman’s silhouette in pink. There are others who wear the same shirt, symbolic of a tight inner circle of friends who knew and listened to Storm Large’s band before anyone else did. In the crowded sports bar, people wait patiently for 9 p.m. when the big screen television will tune into “Rock Star: Supernova,” a reality talent show on CBS.

Some fans are clad in newly designed T-shirts that say “Storm Watch” and many are riding a high that comes from seeing the Southboro native sing Queen’s “We are the Champions” on national television.

“Is that the girl?” asks a gray-haired man about each female contestant. “No? How about her?”

When Ms. Large, 37, takes the stage, everyone bursts into applause, but no one louder than the friends she grew up with. They slap high-fives when she hits the tough notes and exhale collectively when she nails the song’s intensity.

“She did unbelievable!” exclaimed friend Elizabeth Baldelli after the performance. “She took an impossible artist to replicate and she did it. She totally pulled it off.”

For the past five weeks, Ms. Large’s close friends from childhood have met at each other’s homes to watch the show. As the circle grew to include spouses, co-workers and friends-of-friends, they decided to meet at the bar, making fliers and T-shirts to rally support.

“We go right home at 10 to vote,” said Karen Connell Morgan, 37, of Southboro, who met Ms. Large at Fay School.

Mrs. Phalon, who has been best friends with Ms. Large since they were both in diapers, said she and her husband stay up for almost two hours after the show to cast numerous online votes. Mrs. Phalon said that she also sends out reminder e-mails so others don’t forget to vote.

In its second season this summer, the show dangles in front of 15 contestants the ultimate opportunity of becoming the lead singer for Supernova — a new band with legendary bad boy and once Motley Crüe drummer Tommy Lee, former Metallica bassist Jason Newsted and Gilby Clarke, the ex-Guns N’ Roses guitarist.

Viewers cast votes for their favorite performer after the show, and on Wednesday nights, the three with the fewest votes perform in another hourlong show, after which Mr. Lee usually axes one of the bottom three.

As she had in the five preceding weeks, Ms. Large survived elimination this week, when two performers were ousted last night.

After the group is whittled down, a winner will be selected to record the band’s debut album and begin touring, according to the show’s Web site. “The first night (of the show) I cried, I was so excited,” Mrs. Phalon said. “Every now and again it really sets in that she could win.” The members of Supernova seem to be fans of Ms. Large as well, especially Mr. Lee, who flirtatiously gives his praise.

Storm Susan Large (her real name) does indeed have a large voice and presence on stage. Standing 6 feet tall with long blond hair, turquoise-colored eyes and an angelic face, she looks like she should be gracing the cover of Vogue instead of rubbing elbows with the heavy metal crowd. But as soon as she sings, her chocolaty smooth voice tinged with raspy edginess proves she is a serious rocker.

“She has always been singing, and has had aspirations of being famous,” Mrs. Phalon said. “Nobody can sing ‘Hungry like the Wolf” like Storm.”

Ms. Large’s roots sprouted in Southboro. She attended the town’s public schools before going to St. Mark’s School, where her father, Henry, has taught history.

She earned her associate degree in performance at The American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City in 1989, but after realizing that theater wasn’t her true passion she moved to San Francisco to start a band called Flower SF, according to her bio on the show’s Web site. Eventually she moved to Portland, Ore., where she has continued her music career with a band she formed called The Balls.

“What I really want people to know is that she’s not some badass rock and roller. She can be all that, but she really is the nicest, sweetest person,” Mrs. Phalon said. “She is goofy Storm who lays on my couch, reading stories to my kids. When she comes home she visits with family and always stops in Philly to visit her grandparents.”

Ms. Large hasn’t been able to communicate with her support system because contestants are sequestered from discussing the show and are permitted only one 15-minute phone call a week, her friends said. She has been in contact with her boyfriend and her father, who was in Los Angeles watching the taping of this week’s episode.

Five of her friends plan on visiting her in Los Angeles next month.

“We are that confident that she will still be on the show,” Mrs. Connell Morgan said.

Fame might change some things in Ms. Large’s life, but not her friendships, Mrs. Phalon said. There might even be some perks to those who can say they knew her before she became a star.

“I think she’s fabulous,” said family friend Bea T. Ginga, 73, of Southboro, on Tuesday night. “When she went away to Hollywood, she said ‘If I win, I am going to get you a car.’ I think she did a super job tonight, so I think I am getting closer and closer to a new car.”

By George Rush and Joanna Molloy
Courtesy of nydailynews.com

If Tommy Lee was trolling the Internet for a certain babe the other night, he could have been stunted by his own show's rules.

The Motley Crue drummer, who recently got the news that ex-wife Pamela Anderson will marry Kid Rock, was so wowed by Storm Large, a contestant on his show "Rock Star: Supernova," he seemed to want her to star in his next honeymoon video.

"I want to see more of you," Lee oozed after the Amazonian singer performed "Just What I Needed" by The Cars in a bid to front Lee's new band with former Metallica bassist Jason Newsted and Gilby Clarke from Guns N' Roses.

"I've got six letters for you," Large retorted without missing a beat. "G-O-O-G-L-E."

But Lee and any viewers calling up the sinewy singer's site with her band The Balls would see the following message: "Some of the links on this site are inactive during Storm's appearance on 'Rock Star' per rule of the Powers-That-Be in Hollywood. I know, we're as bummed as you are, but we cooperated."

Lee, along with reality-show king Mark Burnett and co-host Dave Navarro, are executive producers of the CBS show.

"We don't comment on individual contestants" so as not to show favoritism, said a spokesman for Lee.

Large explained that all 16 contestants were asked to sequester their sites until the show was over - but lucky for Lee, the pink-tressed punkette has friends who posted their own sexy snaps of her.

"There are some pictures out there, but nothing gynecological," Large told our Deborah Newman. "Let me put it this way: My father is a very conservative teacher, an ex-Marine, and there's nothing - no pictures out there - that I'd be afraid of him seeing."

And what of the on-set chemistry with Lee?

"[Tommy's] a big flirt," Storm laughs. "He flirts with the girls. … He flirts with the furniture. He's just like that. … Underneath all the tattoos and crazy behavior is a sweet, excited kid who loves music more than anything in the world."

Still, she's not counting on sex to sell herself.

"I want to be a singer. I do it with my gut, not my skin."

And underneath that impressive 6-foot frame, Storm Large may just be the next rock star.

Portland chanteuse Storm Large hangs on in the reality TV competition to join Supernova
Tuesday, July 18, 2006
LEE WILLIAMS
Courtesy of oregonlive.com

Portland's Storm has breezed through two rounds of eliminations. But the sultry singer's quest to lead the rock supergroup Supernova is far from done.

"It's nerve-racking," says Storm Large, on a call from the Hollywood Hills mansion where the cast and contenders of CBS TV's "Rockstar: Supernova" have been holed up since June 27. "But that's the reality of this reality show," she says, referring to the weekly voting-off process that follows the Tuesday night performance episodes of "Rockstar." "Every performance, every show, I'm just tryin' to do my Portland peeps proud," Storm says.

To catch up the uninitiated, the 37-year-old Storm, backed by her band the Balls, has been wowing Portland fans with her theatrical, velvet-voiced renditions of classic torch songs since 2002. On June 23, the producers of "Rockstar: Supernova" announced that the statuesque, 6-foot-tall singer had won a place in its cast, who live with and contend against each other on the "Survivor"-like series.

From an original cast of 15 hard-rocking singers culled from around the world, one will be chosen to lead Supernova, which comprises none other than Motley Cre drummer Tommy Lee, former Guns N' Roses guitarist Gilby Clarke and former Metallica bassist Jason Newsted. After the series, Supernova will cut an album and tour worldwide.

As on "American Idol," viewers vote for their favorite singer each week. The three artists who have garnered the fewest votes are pulled from the cast. Storm fired off a rendition of the Who's "Pinball Wizard" in week one, then sang Cheap Trick's "Surrender" last Tuesday. So far, Storm has not been among the bottom three.

A fact she's very much thankful for, she says.

But saying goodbye to the other rockers? "Heartbreaking," she says, citing the artistic bonds quickly forged among the cast members/contestants.

For Storm, the oldest member of the cast, it's especially difficult. "Magni (Icelandic singer Magni Asgeirsson) and I are the mom and dad of the house," she says. "And you can't help but feel like these are your kids. . . . Everyone you see performing is as cool and as sweet as they are talented."

Storm works out in the house's gym with Texan Dilana Robichaux, and already counts roommate Jenny Galt (from Canada) and Texan Patrice Pike ("an amazing singer") as close friends.

Though Storm hasn't hit the bottom three, she has had to take some lumps.

Last week, her dramatic rendition of "Surrender" had judge Dave Navarro, the Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist, comparing her performance to a Broadway musical.

"He compared me to 'Cats,' " Storm says. "It was inaccurate. But his point was that my facial and physical expressions were overtaking the song." Storm says she has taken the criticism and will apply it to tonight's performance. "More rock, less walk. That's what I'm working on this week," she says.

In Portland, "Rockstar" has been the buzz at rock venues around town, particularly Dante's, where, before Hollywood's call, Storm and the Balls had played shows each Wednesday night for four years. The spot now hosts free Tuesday and Wednesday big-screen viewings of the show.

Each week's song choice is crucial to success. Storm says choosing the material is a "very high-stress time" among the cast. "There's been some fighting, but nothing that's killed any relationships," she says. "Producers, everyone, tell you that you have to be very careful about the songs you pick. It has to showcase your vocal range, vocal ability and creativity."

Already she's had to make do with leftovers. "I took 'Pinball Wizard' because it was the only one left on the board," she says, referring to the first week's episode. "I said, 'OK, I'll do it, and I'll go out there and sing it as best I can, (as if) I wrote it."

This is her only strategy, she says: "Just be fearless."

Song choice, and fashion choice, made a splash last week, big time, when Spain's Jill Gioia sang a version of Courtney Love's "Violet" while wearing a wedding dress and combat boots, much like the cover art for the album by Love's band, Hole. Gioia was rapped by the show's judges for copying the look. But Gioia denied ever having seen the Hole CD. While in the Northwest, where the CD dots many collections, this seems unfathomable, Storm says Gioia was telling the truth.
"She was thinking Madonna, 'Like a Virgin,' " Storm says. "She was trying to show the judges a different side and that she could be aggressive."

For tonight's song choice, Storm says she expects to get a bit of flak herself.

"I know (the judges) are going to ask, 'Why did you pick this song?' " Storm says, though she won't reveal what she'll perform.

Wowing the judges isn't always foremost on her mind. Storm says she came into "Rockstar" to "challenge and push myself, and win or lose, I want to leave here a better artist."

That, of course, is not enough for her many Portland-area fans, who are collectively wishing our star goes Supernova.

Courtesy of barflymag.com

Storm Large makes her debut this Wednesday, July 5th (8pm) on CBS's rock-and-roll reality series, Rockstar: Supernova! Check out a preview of the series online at http://rockstar.msn.com. Here's the here-to-fore unpublished rest of the BarFly Profile interview I did with Storm way on back in 2004 - rereading it now, makes me all the more excited to see her going balls out on national t.v. Hope you enjoy it, too!

When did you become Storm Large?

It was my birth name. My father is Henry W. Large, my grandfather, Henry W. Large, brothers John and Henry Large, and mom, Susie. My real name is Susan Storm Large. Susan, after my mother, and my mom had a friend in town named 'Storm Dumont'. She thought the name Storm was soooo cool. And her name was Susan growing up. It was such a normal name, there were all these different Susans in her school, and she wanted me to have a really....I was the only girl, and the boys got Large family names and so she wanted to name me something kooky and weird.

So, you've been Storm Large since day one...

Since 1969, baby!

When did you start singing?

I could always sing, but no one ever in my life told me that that was worth anything. Like whenever I would sing, like, at camp, or in church - I was in choir for a little while in high school, and I would take solos and whatever. And I was in plays, and stuff. From when I was in fifth grade, I was the lead in all the plays, and I'd sing and whenever I'd try out, they'd be like, "Oh, Storm's gonna get the lead, blah blah", but no one ever told me like on 'Behind the Music', like with Pink and all those fucking bitches and shit, "We knew right away! And we'd tell her, oh my god, she bah bah bah..." But, um, no one ever did. They were like, "she can sing, that's great. She better fuckin' learn how to add up a tab on a bar bill. Learn how to spell. Figure out how to make a bed..."But, um, it wasn't until, god, I went to acting school, in New York City. They were really into my voice, a lot. But, still, I thought, acting is more of a trade, not singing. But I was a shitty actor. 'Cause I was 19, and just queasy and you know, what do you know? I was such a late bloomer, and so emotionally retarded. I look at people now, like young Hollywood or young people that I meet, my teenage cousins, and stuff like that, and I'm like, man, I was so stupid, for a long time. I lost my virginity really young and I was really into sex like stupid early, like 12, 13. And I knew sex was going to be a big part of my life. Either in the sex industry, or you know... I didn't consider myself pretty, no one ever told me I was pretty. I was overweight. I was like one of those punk rock girls with all the hair over one eye and the fishnets and the army jacket. But I'd fuck, and people knew that I'd fuck, and so I made friends that way. But I was just emotionally retarded, and you have to have some level of maturity to act. I'd always fall back on singing, and they'd be like, oh, my god, the voice on her. But, again, no one ever said, "Have you ever thought about just singing, recording music?"

After I graduated, I moved to San Francisco - I don't know why, someone was driving there and they wanted someone to help drive, and I'd never been to California, so I did, and I arrived with garbage bags full of stuff, and stayed for eleven years. Someone heard me sing something, and asked me to sing a song with their band. As soon as I did one song, "Heartbreaker" by Pat Benatar, like five people at that show were like, "are you in a band? Do you want to be in a band? Want to be in a band with me?" So, I started playing music with this guy. Who I slept with, and then I dumped him, and then I was in a band with other people, and it kind of went on like that for a while. I'd just fuck people in bands, and then they'd leave. That was bad. I mean, but, it's like you're working with someone, like in the workplace. I don't want to fuck anyone I don't have anything in common with, and I like I feel better with someone, we're not gonna have a kid, but we're gonna make music together and we're gonna be around each other so frequently, so constantly, that we might as well start fuckin', cause I like a lot of sex, all the time!

The Balls are such a great band - everyone's a rockstar - but you're the superstar. What are you doing wasting your time in Portland? Why aren't you in L.A. or New York, making it big?

I'm a jaded, ex-almost-superstar. If I had a fucking nickel for every goddamn person who's like, "Why aren't you super famous?", I would be famous. It was never my goal to be super famous. I always liked to be loved and popular, like, who doesn't? But, everytime I got close to that world, it was just gross. And I'd sabotage it, maybe. I don't remember consciously sabotaging it, but maybe I did. But, I love my band, now. Though, when I moved here I was gonna quit music, and be a caterer or a chef, go to culinary school. I was tired of trying to be a superstar, cause everytime I tried to be just a musician, it would turn into a superstar thing. Either, people would hate me because they thought I was trying to be a star, or people would be angry at me because I wasn't trying hard enough to be a star. And then, I'm sitting there going, do I want to be a star? Or do I want to be a good songwriter? 'Cause I'm an okay songwriter, but I'm not great. But, everytime I start trying to write songs and perform, people are like, you're a superstar and I'm gonna make you famous! And other people are going, you're a fucking rockstar and fuck you! I'm this totally wanting-to-please-everybody kind of woman, so I'm like, no, what do you mean, I'm totally down. "No, fuck you, record labels, I don't want anything to do with you."Am I down enough? Then I'd try to be ugly. Then I'd try be pretty. I don't know. I was like, you know what, I'm not strong enough to do this. So, I'm gonna be a cook. And I moved here, and started bartending, and looking into the Culinary Institute. They still call me, because they read about me in the paper.

I wasn't built for speed. I was built for comfort. People equate being famous with validating your work. And I get infected by that. And people infected me with that from the moment I ever touched a mic as a rock musician and I tried to go for that brass ring of getting signed. I had famous people coming to my shows. Nikki Sixx loved me, and Rick Rubin loved my voice.

So, where do you see your life going from here?

[laughing] Down the tubes, totally in the sewer. Fuck, I'm so day to day, I can't plan. I'd like to be kind of like the Gen-X Bette Midler of my day. Kind of put shows together, like what the Balls are doing, maybe this is just wishful thinking, but we're so like the Cliff Notes of our youth. Bringing an easily digested version of our punk rock thrasher days, toning it down for our older years, but keeping it current. Keeping it political and funny. Still being a little bit edgy with whatever commentary that I pull out of my ass when I'm wasted on Jager onstage. I don't know. I'd like to do what like Bette Midler, or Bernadette Peters, or Frank Sinatra did. My stongest suit is performance, and not the crafting of songs. I leave that to the Patty Smiths of this world, the writers. I'm a ranter. I take what's already been said and amplify points, and that's kind of my skill, and I want to do that until I lose my voice. Pray to god, it never happens, but age does set in. And that changes things.

Do you have any trepidations?
A lot of my stuff is self-imposed. I should have more money, I should be more like this, I should be more like that. But, truth is, I'm doing really well. I'm like the type of person - this was my day off. I got my toes painted, I got a haircut, I walked around Lloyd center and I looked at shit. And I didn't answer my phone. I was on the computer for a minute, I did a little bit of work, not much. But, all the while going, I should be writing something, I should call somebody, I should be doing something. As artists, we don't have a nine-to-five, so we think we're lazy. It's in our heads, in society, that we're lazy and we're not doing anyting, not contributing anything. But we're working constantly just by living, and breathing. But, um, so all my little sniggly anxieties are self-imposed and phantomous. But, physically, I've never looked, or felt, better. I was an ugly, chubby, miserable teenager. Punk rock with the black stripe across my eyes, I dyed my hair black, it hung in my face, it looked terrible. I didn't have a mom. My mom was crazy, always in institutions, so I didn't have a woman to take me shopping or buy me make-up or show me how to put on make-up, or dress me, or anything. So I wore my brothers', or my dad's clothes.

So, I like, recently just came into my own femaleness. I have girlfriends, now. And I've kind let this brittle guy bravado thing kind of ebb off a little bit. Part of the show now is that I wear dresses. I always wanted to be in a show where I wore fantasy clothes, because it's so not like me to dress fancy. But it's cool, and it's leaking into my life, and I'm being all feminine, and painting my toes, and I got a manicure last week. I broke a nail already, but...

Does it freak you out that everyone falls in love with you? Have you had any bizarre freaky fan experiences?

You know, because I was gross when I was growning up, I still kind of feel like that person. I get all like, you know, I'm just a ham, thanks, thanks. I always show my appreciation, but sometimes people look at me like they put this emphasis on what they see in me, and how they would feel if they were me, their projections. And, like, men think immediately that I would be a bitch. Automatically, they figure automatically, she hates men. And some women feel intimidated by me. I don't get a lot of catty, bitchy stuff, but I get a lot of really insecure, like they yammer at me, and want my approval. They massage me, and try to get on me. And I have really small boundaries with people. I let people touch me. And that can be dangerous.

Some people think that I'm so special. And they think about me, and it gets in their head, and either they love me, love me, love me, and they think I'm amazing, and oh, "I love you so much and and I want to be closer to you and I want to be your friend." Or they think and think and think about me, never meet me, never talk to me, and hate me. Hate me because I have all this stuff. It was interesting. I was walking around the mall today. I'd just got my toes done, my hair done, I'm looking at stuff, and I felt hot. Hot. I was walking around, kind of strutting, like, yeah, I look good. Whoo yeah, teenage boys! I'm thirty-five, whatever, fuck you, you think I'm nothing. Yeah, I'm going to Jamba Juice, I'm going to Hot Topic and look at earrings, and you know, being a girl. And I noticed men looking sometimes, and they're with their girlfriends, and they look at me and it feels good, but I'm like, men are men, and men look. Then I noticed women looking. And I saw a teenage girl, must have worked at Nordstrom's. She was going down the escalator as I was coming up. And I saw her kind of look at me, and not want to look like she was looking at me, and I saw... sadness. She was young, must have been 17, kinda chubby, she still had babyfat, you know. And looking at me, just kind of seeing my confidence, maybe, I don't know, maybe I was reading into it, and was jealous and just kind of looked like, dejected, like wow, she's amazing, and I'll never look like that. 'Cause I'd felt like that. And maybe she wasn't even thinking that, maybe she's like, it must be nice to have a fucking day off you lazy whore! You know? But I remembered feeling like her, and all of a sudden, I started to walk differently, and I was like, okay.

Then, as I walked through the mall, on the way to the bookstore, I saw an older woman in her fifties, walk by me, and look at me. In her face, I saw "wow if I looked like that when I was your age." Looking at me like, "I wish I could start over again." And I felt another kind of jealousy. I'm like, is this what we do as women? Do we covet? And do I have all these powers that I'm supposed be changing the world or doing something different that maybe I'm not doing? Am I gonna get older and regret my wasted youth? Or am I working, am I doing enough? I read this interview with Gloria Steinem, and she was like, "We lose power as we get older, cause our power is in our sexual prime, when men are attracted to us." I'm like, is that true? That's awful. You know cause I'm like, well, here I am right now, and all I'm doing is walking around the mall looking at shit. On my day off. And I just want to hangout and have a nice day and feel confident. And I don't feel hot because men love me. I just feel good today. I feel healthy. I don't care about the fact that I ate spaghetti last night. I'm not counting my calories and carbs and how long did I ride my bike, and how much do I weigh. Today, I'm gonna leave myself alone. And not everyone, but a couple of women are upset by that. It's weird. Because I look in the mirror now, and I see the performer when I'm putting on make-up and stuff. And I'm like cool, genetically, god was good to me. I didn't think so five years ago. I saw a picture of myself when I was 19. And I look the same! When I was 19, I was like, god, I'm so big. I used to pray, pray, so hard, that god would make me small and skinny and quiet. God make me shorter, make me shrink, may me skinny and make me quiet, I'm so loud, please shut me up. Just teach me to shut up. People will like me if I'm quiet. And thank god, he never granted my wish.

Storm and The Balls discuss re-mix, next record, and being in The Balls
By: Alex Steininger
Courtesy of inmusicwetrust.com

With a glut of original music out there these days, ranging in quality from piss-poor to borderline-genius, music consumers now, more than ever, have so much music to choose from. Too much music, some might say. However, with so much new music out there and not enough time to experience it all, some music fans have reverted back to playing their favorite records from their youth, or re-discovered records from bands since disbanded.

Thus, the market for novelty cover bands seems ripe these days. Mini Kiss, a midget Kiss cover band, Hells Belles, an all-girls AC/DC cover band, and others thrive in small clubs across the U.S.. If you can think of the idea and make it unique, even covering songs that are hardly at a lack of being covered, it seems you can find an audience.

However, one band, Portland, Oregon's Storm and The Balls, have taken the concept of a novelty cover band to a new level, reconstructing the novelty aspect of it and creating fresh, new versions of old favorites - and making it sound like their own.

They aren't the epitome of a cover band, and lean more towards the creative aspects of an all-original band, but, it is with this attitude that the band has garnered a devoted west coast following that is rapidly expanding by word of mouth.

Consisting of an all-star cast of Portland musicians - Davey Nipples (Sweaty Nipples and Everclear) on bass, pianist James Beaton (Jeff Trott Band and Everclear), drummer Brian Parnell (Motherlode), and, of course, the six-foot sex appeal of front woman Storm Large. It wasn't hard for Storm and the Balls to get their feet in the doors of the Portland music scene, quickly earning a weekly gig at Portland's esteemed rock club Dante's.

From there, crowds started pouring in and the buzz spread as crowds down the coast started experiencing what The Balls are all about.

The band self-released their debut, Hanging with The Balls in 2003, to a much-deserved fanfare. Including songs such as "Van Ministry", "Star Strangled Pushernoia", "Can Your Pussy Do the Dog?", "I Want You To Want Me", and "Sacred Love". The band took old favorites, turning them quirky hybrids that incorporated as much jazz and lounge as it does rock and heavy metal, self-describing their sound as "loungecore" or "lounge turned up to 11".

The band followed up Hanging with The Balls in early 2005 with Vasectomy, a re-mix record of tunes both found on, and cut from Hanging--.

Vasectomy was much different than Hanging--, however, sounding more ambient than jazz, more electronic than rock. It did, though, showcase the diversity and depth in which The Balls are more than capable of.

"We were more worried when the second record was going to be an old reggae record," says Beaton, when asked if the band was worried if fans would reject Vasectomy for being so different from their debut.

"We had a Christian record we were working on too," jokes Storm. "But every time we tried to record it some weird-ass act of God thing would happen and make the console blow up."
It is this kind of humorous, carefree nature that fuels the band. Though, make no mistakes, they are very serious about the music they create.

"I kind of did, but it was so much in the vain of our un-professionalism, our professional un-professionalism," Storm tells me. "Most artists who put out remix records, it's the last record they put out. And this is our second record. So it's kind of funny.

"We're really professional and really take our jobs seriously. We try to do as well as we can. But everything else is a joke to us and the fact is Keith Schriner [producer, mixer] played us these re-mixes because we recorded some stuff at his studio, before we did Hanging--.

"He just had these because we ended up doing Hanging-- at Kung Fu Bakery Studios with Lars [Fox]."

"Hanging-- was just this really scrappy, one day rock recording," continues Storm. "Keith told us he had all this music and wanted to know what to do with it, so we had all these music beds that he had switched around. And when he played them for us they were so cool. And we thought we should put it out."

And thus Vascetomy was born.

"We put twenty-nine some odd tracks down at Keith's, so he had a pile of stuff. Pretty much everything we did up to that point. He had it all," elaborates Parnell.

With their financial ability limited, the band had scrapped, bartered, and saved to see Hanging-- released. Knowing it would be like that for their next full-length, the idea of the re-mix record, and working with the tracks that Schriner had, seemed to be their best bet, as it had been nearly two years since their last release.

The band, who was in the middle of planning for their next record, knew that some of the songs that they really liked wouldn't be making it on to the next record, but they wanted some version out there for their own enjoyment.

"Keith did a lot of work and put a lot of time into it pro-bono, so we decided we'd put this out while working on the next record," Beaton informs me.

"It wasn't like we should just remix Hanging--," adds Storm. "We started thinking we could put on some of the tracks from Hanging-- and remix some of that. And that we should write another original so that every Balls, mash-up, lounge-core, whatever, we should have at least one original on it. So we would have more body of work than just one disc."

Once the plan was put into effect, though, the band came up short. Schriner took everything he could from his original sessions with The Balls, and even though he had all the original songs The Balls had done for their debut, the quality wasn't good enough for what he wanted to do with the album. Thus, the solution was to write a song to fill out the album.

The original song was an instrumental track that Schriner wrote to melodies that Storm had sang to The Balls playing "Lean on Me". Initially, Schriner took Storm's vocals, wrote the track around them, and when the outcome wasn't what they expected, the vocals were scrapped and Storm wrote new lyrics to the music bed.

"I had to sit with the track, without any vocals on it, for awhile because when you hear a song with lyrics and music your brain associates the two together and they're kind of, you can't disassociate one with the other if they're both playing simultaneously," Storm recalls. "So I had Keith take the vocals out and sat with the track for a little bit."

"I've been writing music for a really long time and The Balls is the first band I've been in where the thrust is assembling music from elsewhere," she continues. "I've always written my own music. In having done that for so many years I've learned that with my technique the first idea is the best idea. If I sit with it and think too long, it's done and goes to shit. I have to just get it out and my first idea is usually the strongest. It was like, 'how does this track make me feel?'. I have this mouth full of lyrics and this one line that I'll build off of. It came out really cool."

Now with Vascetomy out, the band is hoping to tour more throughout the west coast and further develop their building audience.

"Our fan base is growing in L.A. It's getting bigger. Tacoma, Washington, Concord, California, and Mill Valley, California, they love us," says Storm of the band's key markets outside of Portland.
"Our next goal is to get into Vegas, Seattle, and Vancouver," Beaton informs me. "And we just got an e-mail from Fairbanks, Alaska about bringing our band up there to play."

Right now, Storm has not only been busy fronting the band, but also acts as the band's booking agent, until they can find someone to assist them with those duties.

"We're a self-sufficient type of band. We have some help in other states with stuff like promotion and press, but for the most part I do all the booking," Storm tells me. "It's grueling and takes so much time away from writing, playing, and takes time away from making the next record. We're looking for an agent, someone who can put us on the road. We make money for people."

Besides touring, the band plans to enter the studio soon to record the next full-length, and hopes to have it out by late summer/early fall.

"We'll record the next record by spring and have it out by summer," insists Beaton.

"We're gonna spend more time on it than either of the first two records. Try to muster up a bit more time for it. Two days instead of one," he says while laughing.

When asked what the record will sound like, Davey Nipples, who has kept quiet most of the interview, answers the question for me.

"It will be more along the lines of Hanging--. Like Hanging-- volume 2. A more progressive version."
When asked if Vascetomy's influence will be felt on the next record, Parnell informs me it won't.
"I don't see us incorporating aspects of Vascetomy in there. That's not the direction of the band. That's something we wanted to check out and try. We've carved out our sound," says Parnell.
"We have about eighty percent of the next record planned out already, and though you never know what is going to pan out--" he continues. "You have to over shoot. You don't know what is going to work out until you're there on it. Something could surprise you and be really good and something you have high hopes for might not pan out. We'll have to wait and see".

The band doesn't have a title picked out for the next record, but has been bouncing a few around. Nothing concrete yet, they tell me. They do know, however, that when they record an all-originals record the tentative plan is to call it The Balls Shoot Straight, to which Davey Nipples jokes, "Maybe we'll have one cover on the originals record."

And so goes the story of The Balls.

An irreverent, naughty band in tow, Storm Large gathers steam
BY MICHAELA BANCUD
The Portland Tribune Nov 14, 2003
Courtesy of portlandtribune.com

There’s nothing subtle about Storm Large, and with a name like that it’s no surprise. The blond bombshell stands 6 feet tall and drives the kind of creepy van that children are taught to run from.
“Welcome to my third-base van,” Storm says, crossing three lanes of Broadway traffic at once, her huge hands gripping the wheel as she heads to a photo shoot.

Her given name is Susan Storm Large, but she’s always been known as Storm. She left Bucks County, Pa., at 18 and spent two years studying acting in New York at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts.

Like lots of college kids everywhere, she majored in drugs and drink.

“My best class was phonetics and speech,” the 34-year-old says. Acting was tougher; she lacked life experience. “All I knew about was being a punk rocker,” she says, green eyes narrowing behind black mascara.

But she knows more now. Recently, she got a small part in a Hollywood film that stars Amy Madigan and Christopher Lloyd.

Dante’s nightclub owner Frank Faillace recruited Storm from San Francisco after he saw her band perform at the Cafe du Nord. Afterward, he extended an open invitation for her to move to Portland and gave her a regular Wednesday gig at Dante’s.

Once Faillace persuaded Storm to make the move north, she and pianist James Beaton decided to “bastardize the standards Ñsing ‘Inna Gadda da Vita’ over an Abba beat.” No song Ñnot “The Star-Spangled Banner” nor the Sex Pistols’ “Anarchy in the U.K.” Ñ is sacred. She and her band, the Balls, take aim at jazz standards and rock anthems with equal enthusiasm and plumb the depths of songs such as Billy Idol’s “White Wedding” and Pat Benatar’s “Heartbreaker” to find new levels of nuance, not to mention perversity.

The Balls Ñ bassist Davey Nipples (Sweaty Nipples, Everclear), pianist Beaton (Jeff Trott Band, Everclear) and drummer Brian Parnell (Motherlode) Ñ bring a jazzy, downbeat vibe to each number.
Recently, Storm and the Balls took their lounge-core act aboard the Portland Spirit. The cruise, a boozy and wickedly fun two-hour ride on the Willamette River, has been extended “for as long as she wants,” according to Spirit Cruise Director Rick Lewis.

As a recent performance aboard the Spirit illustrated, Storm doesn’t so much sing as attack. She does unmentionable things to the microphone, swears like a truck driver, sings like a gospel choir of one and prowls the stage like Courtney Love on a bad day.

Dressed in a floor-length, backless dress and the word “lover” tattooed in baroque black ink across her back, Storm also plays the part of a wisecracking, rough-and-ready soul mama. Part Janis Joplin, part Mae West, she’s got arms and shoulders like a linebacker and hella-powerful singing pipes to match.

Drama aside, Storm’s voice is incredible. She sighs, whispers and hollers over songs such as Soft Cell’s “Tainted Love,” the national anthem over a “Super Fly” beat and the Pixies’ ballad “Where Is My Mind?”

She can’t resist cracking jokes before and sometimes during a song Ñ applying a thick layer of irony over an interpretation that might hit a sincere note, and it keeps you guessing. This mostly works. Other times, she jumps the shark. Her banter about riding in a convertible and pretending to be retarded goes down like a shot of Drano.

But when she sings the “Grease” musical classic “Hopelessly Devoted to You” from the point of view of a dangerously deranged female, she creates a truly pathological scene. A final shiver ripples through the crowd as the passengers are delivered safely to shore, seeking, heaven help them, shelter from the Storm.

No song is sacred when it comes to fiery singer and her band
BY JOHN CHANDLER
The Portland Tribune Jul 4, 2003
Courtesy of portlandtribune.com

After a yearlong residency of Wednesday nights at Dante’s, Storm and the Balls have established themselves as a hot ticket on a night-life menu loaded with “same old, same old” options. Fronting a snazzy trio, savage and smoldering chanteuse Storm Large totally dominates the stage, and those who’ve caught her act soon return with friends in tow.

Whether dressed in a nun’s habit or in a mere wisp of a slip, Storm stomps around engaging in R-rated banter with both band and audience, like a punk-rock version of Sophie Tucker. (“I gave you the best eight minutes of your life!” she bellows at a hapless audience member.) But it’s only when she raises the mike that one realizes that this is no performance-art poseur.

The combo’s debut album, “Hanging With the Balls,” isn’t a substitute for seeing Storm and band demolish a stage, but it does underscore their uncanny musical adaptability and arranging skills that occasionally get lost amid all the patter, raucous laughter and hoopla.

Essentially, the modus operandi here is the fusing of popular song lyrics to the tunes of other songs, or taking a song and giving it an unlikely ethnic treatment.

Stapling “The Star Spangled Banner” to Curtis Mayfield’s funk classic, “The Pusher,” or singing Billy Idol’s “White Wedding” to the tune of Led Zeppelin’s “In the Light” may not be high art, but it achieves a wigged-out groove and proves vastly entertaining to rock blockheads. But after a few spins, the notion that you’re listening to some kind of parody fades out, and the hybrid songs become diggable all by themselves.

When Storm goes south of the border for a Latin-jazz take on “Anarchy in the U.K.,” the result is scintillating, but it’s her mad tango version of Black Sabbath’s “N.I.B.” that really heats up like a tamale in the devil’s microwave.

Yet perhaps the highlight of the album is her gripping rendition of Olivia Newton-John’s cheese-ball tearjerker “Hopelessly Devoted to You.” In the live setting, Storm seems positively deranged during this number, and the recorded performance is every bit as amazing.

Sure, you can’t actually see the escalating madness in her eyes, but you can definitely hear it as she shreds the song like an obnoxious “Dear John” letter. The message on this one is clear: You can run, but you can’t hide. It’s a love song delivered like a scary late-night message on the answering machine Ñ and probably grounds for a restraining order.

The band Ñ Davey Nipples on bass, piano player James Beaton and drummer Brian Parnell Ñ never lag behind the blistering Storm. Beaton’s piano parts are crisp and tidy as he shifts effortlessly from pounding rock to silky jazz to thoughtful accompanist. Nipples and Parnell keep it cool until called upon to raise a classy racket as on the Sabbath and Zeppelin numbers.

The whole business could be dismissed by the casual observer (or PC sourpuss) as raunchy lampoonery or, worse yet, irony, but that dog won’t hunt. Storm and the Balls are not a lounge act equivalent of “Weird Al” Yankovic. Their musical permutations are interesting entities in their own right and far more challenging than mere parody.

The musical contortions that went into conjuring up these lively juxtapositions deserve our hopeless devotion.

Storm Large and the Balls - "Hanging With The Balls" 
(Fukco/45 RPM Records 2003, CD)

From Aural Innovations #24 (July 2003)
Reviewed by Jerry Kranitz
Courtesy of aural-innovations.com

They call it "Loungecore", and I couldn't have coined a better term myself for the Balls' jazzy showtune style of morphing and mangling old songs (note the blender on the CD cover). Storm is an excellent singer with an expressive vocal style that I'd think would win her roles on Broadway, and the Balls are a solid performing ensemble.

The CD opens with "Star Strangled Pushernoia", introducing us to the Balls idea of the cover song thing with the Star Spangled Banner sung to the funky grooves of Curtis Mayfields' "Pusherman", with dashes of The Kinks' "Paranoia" thrown in. And if that sounds like the weirdest damn thing you ever heard I can assure you the Balls skillfully bring the two together. And that's only the beginning. My hands down favorite of the set is "Abba Gadda Davida", which gives us Abba's "Take A Chance On Me" and "Dancing Queen" sung against the classic Iron Butterfly riff. Another highlight is "Anarchy En Espanol", which is a jazz and Salsa rendition of the Sex Pistols' "Anarchy In The UK". Storms takes the Latin-jazz influence to the next step on "N.I.B.", the Balls' tribute to Black Sabbath. And how can you not love a punchy Broadway showtune styled interpretation of the Olivia Newton John... errrr... classic "Hopelessly Devoted". Other fun tunes includes "Can Your Pussy Do The Dog", which is credited to The Cramps, Cheap Tricks' "I Want You To Want Me", and Bad Brains' "Sacred Love". Other examples of the Balls penchant for oddball blending is "Van Ministry", in which Van Morrison and Ministry are glommed together Balls style. And in less than two minutes the Balls pay a fiery jazz tribute to Goth on "Deathrock Stomp", the only indication of its roots being the CD credits to Bauhaus, Siouxsie & The Banshees, Nine Inch Nails, and The Cure. We also get one track, "I Want You To Die", which is actually credited to The Balls. I think this may end up getting my vote for the most FUN album of the year.

by Pure E staff reporter
Courtesy of pureeonline.com

Storm clutches the mike, rubs it over her crotch first and then a final herky jerky movement over her rear end. She thrusts the microphone out before us and nonchalantly offers, "wanna smell it?" Although this crass overture would seem to turn any neophyte Storm and The Balls observer off, it doesn't. She giggles sincerely at herself and the ridiculous gesture. Her giddy, nervous laugh washes through you. All bets are off. That's her signature style: coy, crude, charming, lewd, and tattooed (the word LOVER is splayed across her back, 8-inch tall letters spanning shoulder blade to shoulder blade). With Storm what you see is what you get, but what you see can depend as much upon you as it does upon Storm.

The Balls take the stage first and Jimmy Beaton's electric piano channels a mix of Lischt and Beethoven. As Storm appears the riff rolls into a rollicking rendition of Chicago's 25 or 6 to 4 and Beaton's piano is joined by Davy Nipples on bass and Brian Parnell on drums.

Storm struts on stage in a black halter top dress and calf-high black leather boots. She is all attitude and bluster, an impeccable, dynamic frontwoman. At first blush it might appear The Balls have a tiger by the tail but they are up to her challenge and back their diva with energy and aplomb. She is one part cabaret and three parts interactive Janice Joplin. But the hook is the music and Storm's stunning vocals. She leads us on a roller coaster ride of subtle nuance and unexpected inflection. Notes held impossibly long entice and beckon, at once seductive and satirical. Rock and roll standards such as Van Morrison's Moondance and Iron Butterfly's In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida are warped and reshaped the Balls' way. You sense the classic rhythms like a teasing echo down a long hallway. But it's the strange incorporation of punk and alternative influences that haunts and confounds, eating away at your guts, leaving you thinking, I know that tune. The reason you can't place it is because Storm has cross-pollinated the music you remember with Ministry or Abba. The result is something altogether invasive, captivating, and original.

On the surface Storm's presence seems as rife with contradiction as the musical styles she co-joins. She flows seamlessly from subtle seductress to psychotic borderline personality. From bawdy burlesque to screeching harpy. She balances a powerful, cock-sure stage presence and husky voice with details of a girl's backstage trials and tribulations. How she attempted hairspray for the first time this glorious Seattle evening. She offers a fan a chance to feel her new sticky strange, "doll hair." She marvels at the wonders of women's beauty rituals and transformations and then offers her beautification credo, "I'm very new to this ‘woman' stuff. One of these days I'll know how to do it. I'll be a woman." Of course she is nothing but.

She channels a cross-section of Axle Rose, Eddie Vedder, Carrie Akre, and L.L. Cool J from a vast vortex of musical genius, adding a little Latina Lisping of unidentifiable source. Maybe Shakira? Her head falls back and eyes dart psychotically to and fro. The viewer is confused, intrigued, titillated, and shamed all at the same time. Grinding, gyrating, and hand gesticulation that can only be identified as Jacksonian-Type seizure movements are her hallmark. Obsessive, over-the-top Girls Interrupted sprinkled with political anthems fuel her creative vision. A cover of Hopelessly Devoted from the movie Grease, turns Olivia Newton-John's whiny Sandra Dee-esque pining into a creepy, unnerving amalgam of the villain/heroines from Play Misty for Me, Fatal Attraction, and Basic Instinct. She extends this theme of devotion-cum-psychotic obsession with between song tales from a one night stand bar encounter that results in 28 voice messages on her answering machine to Prussian Blue, a white supremacist cult tutoring young girls to blow away African-Americans. In a conversation after the show she discusses how she was hooking into an investigative journalist's report about two girls that were singing about "something very important to them." The girls grab their children's guitars and with choir-girl sincerity sing about the third Reich. Storm looks at me intensely, "that is real" she says, "can you believe it?" I can't. Nor can I believe Storm's performance which is an awe inspiring night of overwhelming energy released from this six foot woman talking about everything from peeing standing up to her size twelve boots. Extending this theme she launches into A-ha's, I Will Follow Him, and you can feel the pull of religious conviction that yields stalkers for Jesus. Cheap Trick's I Want You to Want Me and Storm's own I Want You to Die echo it as well.

Juxtaposed to these clinging, troubled characters is a brassy, bawdy rocker best represented in Can Your Pussy Do the Dog and a twisted Sex Pistols Anarchy En Espaniol. She easily sheds the co-dependent for an in-your-face explosion of sexuality. A tension accompanies her delivery. She titillates, seduces, while at the same time satirizing her ability to seduce and our desire to be seduced. It is a subtle point she makes within a performance as subtle as the impact of a Japanese super train.

The show closes with a cover of ABBA's dancing queen, the now-revered, iconic pop tune from the 70s supergroup. As the song closes, Storm segues into a demented Kermit-the-Frog singing The Rainbow Connection. Eyes deep yet vacant, her face forms an expression as haunting as the Balls twisting of the happy little banjo tune and you cannot help but be led by her theater to that terrifying Carrie-esque place we all have buried within us. This is Storm and her Balls. Humor, sexuality, bad ass rock and roll, beauty, intelligence, psychosis, and 70's kitsch enveloped in a stunning voice. She is exactly what she appears to be and she is much, much more. She is not to be missed.

San Francisco Rocker Girl, Storm Talks About Rock! (Storm Inc.)
By: Alex Steininger
Courtesy of inmusicwetrust.com

San Francisco's six foot blond rocking machine, Storm is ready to rip the world apart with her raw, relentless rock album she is conceiving in her head. Ready to get rid of the pretty girl pop image people have tried to mold her into, she recently re-located to Portland, Oregon and plans on writing and recording a pure, growling rock record sure to make you squirm.

We recently got together at a bar in Portland and talked about her major label attempts, her previous bands, and her plans to sit back and just rock.

"I haven't done anything but singing and writing songs since Halloween of 2000," Storm says of her musical career. "I sing for other people. I can imitate sounds really well. I also can sing in different ascents. I've been singing back-up for people and get decent money for doing gigs in San Francisco."

Storm's latest band is Storm Inc. We talk about this for a bit before we get into the heart of our music conversation.

"The band name is a joke," she says with a smile. "We were having business meeting after business meeting and one day I said, 'fuck, let's call it Storm Inc.' It's like a company that creates chaos.

"But, apparently there is a band called Storm Inc. out there, a hip-hop act. It doesn't matter to me, because we're not on a major label and no major label has come sniffing up my skirt for that record. I can call this band whatever the fuck I want. I was in Storm and Her Dirty Mouth and that was a band. There was no other band with that name, but Storm Inc., which is a really common thing to call something...

"Since it is my given birth name I think there is a glitch in the law that says I can use it. It's my birth name and I can do whatever the fuck I want with it. If we went to a major I'm sure I'd have to call it something else, though."

She quickly adds, "San Francisco was being taken over by dot coms so we thought the name was appropriate."

I ask Storm about her previous band, Storm and Her Dirty Mouth, and that is when she starts to tell me all about how everyone has tried to mold her into the perfect pop princess, even though her heart just wants to rock.

"Storm and Her Dirty Mouth was a really sensible pop band. I formed that band and did what everyone wanted me to do, which was release a nice pop record and try to get signed to a label.
"We then got signed to a minor label, Pop Mafia. It was a stupid idea. They had no advertising budget and no tour support. They only had two releases, one of them being our EP, which wasn't me. It was so low-key and so nice.

"I tried to write some punk rock songs for the band and there were two members who were complete jazz heads and they thought it was a backwards step for the band. I was like, 'Who's band? Oh, are you taking about my band?'

"A lot of people called me, including Art Alexakis [of Everclear], and said, 'I really like your voice, but I want to hear you fucking rock.' I told them all that I did too and I missed it, so that band ended. Then Michael, Ubi, and I went and started Storm Inc. and wrote a bunch of rock songs."

The result of Storm Inc. is The Calm Years, a slick, produced pop-fueled rock record.
"The Calm Years is a collection of a bunch of songs, some of which we had released before, and some we had written recently. The only cohesive line is the players, which is OK, but I like a little more cohesiveness in terms of tempo. Some of the songs are mellow. I've got a short attention span. I don't like some of the songs on the album. I only put them on there because we had them. It's a great record for an indie release, for the amount of time and money we put into it. It's a great record. The songs just get better each time we play them live. I wouldn't mind doing a Calm Years live CD, because the live set is night and day between what you hear on the album and what you hear when you come see the band.

"The record still has a lot of pop in it, which is from the producer, who wanted to carve a few hit pop songs," Storm says with a little disappointment. "Everyone should want to record a few hit pop songs, because that is where the money is. But I still want to record a rock record."
Storm pauses and then elaborates, " The Calm Years is a rock record, but I want to record ten songs that are really toothy, and that is what I'm going to do now that I'm living in Portland, record a saber-tooth rock record. I'm an old school punk rocker from Boston, sitting on the street spare changing, ripping hood ornaments off of cars, running, and being a little shit head. And I think when you're a shit head in your teenage years that forms all your tastes, and that is like The Ramones, The Sex Pistols, and Blonde."

A few labels, including Art Alexakis' Popularity Recordings, have talked to Storm about signing, but all seem to come to the same conclusion. "They don't like my band," Storm says. "My band is very talented, but for one reason or another, labels just didn't like this member or that member, so nothing ever happened."

Now that Storm is in Portland, Oregon, Storm Inc. is on a hiatus as she writes and records her next record, the rock record she has had brewing in her mind for the past few years.
"Michael, Ubi, and I have been playing together for seven plus years. Michael and Ubi are playing with other people and I'm going to be playing with other people. We're both going to try other people out. My band members are great, but the last thing I want is to play in a band. I'm just going to write and record music for awhile."

By Sarah Quelland
Courtesy of metroactive.com

ON A TYPICAL NIGHT, she steps onto the stage dressed tightly in black, her sexy 6-foot frame boosted even closer to the ceiling with thick platform shoes and her hair a fiery mist surrounding her striking face. Smart, articulate, witty, outspoken and provocative, singer Storm Large is all woman, and there's no doubt she's a performer at heart.
The statuesque 29-year-old vocalist fronts Storm and Her Dirty Mouth, a five-member San Francisco rock band that combines a distinctive rock, R&B sound with a hard, heavy edge. The band has been together for about one year and just released its first EP, Storm and Her Dirty Mouth (PopMafia).

Storm and Her Dirty Mouth evolved from the band Flower SF, which Storm describes as "really loud and very dramatic [with] all the loudness of Led Zeppelin and the cabaret of Queen." "I'd usually end up naked and heaving," she adds.

After being together for about five years, Flower SF felt pressured to sign to a label and disbanded, only to later regroup in the form of Storm and Her Dirty Mouth. Storm, guitarist Michael Cavaseno and bassist Ubi Whitaker are the remaining original members; guitarist Geoff Pearlman and drummer Dan Foltz round out the group.

The band members write the guitar-driven music while Storm pens the lyrics--and her subjects come alive as she sings. On "Geraldine" the pain of loss becomes tangible: "I don't love as easily since you were taken away/Things are looking so different today/The summertime isn't as sunny/and the spring it ain't so new/And nobody can be funny or hold a candle up to you/I called God a greedy old bastard/Taking you away was mean/Oh, Geraldine."

Storm's crisp, clear voice can move from a sweet melody to an emotion-filled scream, and she puts it to good use on "Ima Yora," a fully charged rocker that begins with Storm conspiratorially whispering, "She's a whore/And she is evil to the core/She's a whore/That's what she is/If that is what you think about her."

The emotion, expression and sheer intensity of Storm's performances are compelling. "Storm's incredibly charismatic," Foltz says. "Women tend to really relate to her and really like her. What they see in her is not really sex, but strength. People tell me she's really inspiring. I don't know what could be better than that." He adds, "I think she sort of scares men, but in a way, they're kind of enchanted by her."

The word "LOVER" is tattooed across Storm's back in big, bold letters. "It's what I am essentially," she explains. "It's what I do. It's how I am. My feelings and my heart drive me more than anything."

HER ACTIONS echo that statement. Storm is a dedicated activist and Storm and Her Dirty Mouth has done several benefits for causes like Rock Against Rape and Food Not Bombs. "I'm a sucker for a good cause," she says, "[especially] anything having to do with the little guy not getting a fair shake." It's evident that social concerns mean a lot to her, and she's willing to put herself on the line to make a difference.

That doesn't mean the band focuses solely on social issues. Of late, Storm and Her Dirty Mouth has been busy promoting its six-song EP, which Cavaseno refers to as a "little taste" of what the band has to offer.

Produced by Thom Wilson (Offspring, Iggy Pop, Dead Kennedys) and recorded at the Plant Recording Studios in Sausalito (where Fleetwood Mac recorded 1977's Rumours and Metallica recorded 1996's Load), Storm and Her Dirty Mouth's EP took about six days to record according to Pearlman. "We really just burned through it," he says. "It was very quick and very painless."
It opens with the catchy pop song "I'm Not Alright" in which Storm declares, "When I say I'm alright/Don't look in my eyes/Or you'll see I'm not alright."

She explores her fears with "Superman," imploring the Man of Steel with "Hey, listen, Superman/Please answer my call/You see, I'm just a little girl/and only human after all/Believe me I've tried to battle hate and greed/But it's beginning to look like John [Lennon] was wrong and love is not all that we need/Tell me, what do we need?"

Storm says she knows how to flirt and flaunt and be sexually courageous onstage, and those abilities are not lost on the EP. On the racy love song "Lust," Storm pulses with "While I'm holding your hands, I'm only thinking of your fingers." And "Crazy Love" is a sexy number soaked in heavy breathing and moaning on which Storm takes a seductive turn: "I imagine you're the lather when I take my evening bath."

To promote the EP, Storm and Her Dirty Mouth is taking a tour along the West Coast, starting with the Wilma Festival in Seattle, billed as a festival for women who aren't afraid to rock.
Whitaker sums it up well when he says, "We're basically doing what feels natural to us. I can't do anything else. I feel like this is what I'm supposed to be doing. If I don't do it, I miss it."

The Usual - San Jose, CA - 1999
Courtesy of kaos2000
Written by © 1999 Philip Anderson

Through the seasons we hear of all types of storm systems that do their thing and dissipate, but this year we will hear of one Storm from the music system of San Francisco Bay Area that is sure to stick around. Storm & Her Dirty Mouth. When this Storm fills her lungs, she packs a wallop that sends you flying.
 
Although technically one might consider Storm's music to be along the lines of adult contemporary, there are flairs of jazz along with some balls-out rock 'n' roll. Though the band itself is an amalgam of fine musicians garnered from several other Bay Area bands, the front and center of it all tends to be Storm. From the most subtle note to a bloodcurdling scream, Storm knows how to handle her vocal style with precision. Aside from her vocal talents, Storm's stage presence is unmistakable with her slender and statuesque build. She maintains an energy and almost theatric mesmerization. From an innocent little girl to the most sultry sexual diva, Storm's visuals are a mainstay while fronting Her Dirty Mouth. Not to forget the immense tattoo of the word "Lover" scrawled in Old English lettering across the upper third of her back, along with the intrinsic design on her lower back, Storm is not soon forgotten in any way.
 
Sexy. Loud. Inviting. Dangerous. Opinionated. Caring. Storm is all these things and more. We recently had a chance to meet with Storm at a local show and exchange a few words and thoughts.

K2K: To start, who is who and who plays what in the band?
SL: Ubi "Doobie Doo" Whitaker plays bass. Michael "Kava" Cavaseno "Yohimbe" plays guitar. Dan Foltz plays drums. Geoff "The Riff" Pearlman on guitar also.

 K2K: Storm is what you're known as. What is your real name?
SL: Storm Susan Large.
 
(at this point, guitarist Michael Cavaseno joined in with his comments)
Michael: This is Michael "Yohimbe" Cavaseno and I just want to say that we want to live to rock your world and that's all that we want to do. We really do want to live for it because there's a lot of people out there who don't want to live for it. We want to live for it and make every moment real.
(and then he ran off...)
 
K2K: Do you think that people like MTV's Jesse Camp are a bad influence on kids these days by "keeping them stupid"?
SL: Every advertiser banks on it. Some kids know it [that they are being fed stupidity]. It starts way before Jesse Camp though. "You're a stupid idiot. All you want to do is smoke pot and fuck teenage girls and skip school and make pipe bombs." Right? You can't blame him. He's a total product of what's going on. You know the ads? "Women will shit your d*** if you smoke Kamels. And "women will leave their boyfriends and let you fuck them in the a** if you smoke Kools. Have you seen that? In every ad, the girl's sticking her butt out and the guy is pointing the Kool at her butt. He [Jesse Camp] is a product, not a contribution. If there was no market for him, he would not exist. He didn't rush onto the set and say "I'm going to influence these people."
 
K2K: Let me reword the statement then. HE is not the bad influence, but what he represents is.
SL: Yes, yes. It's bad to support that kind of thing. When I was a kid, I didn't have any heroes. I liked people who were underdogs who were struggling to be different and and were happy being different. I actually didn't have any respect for myself or anyone else growing up. It's part of the hormonal rage of being a kid and growing up. You think that your problems are totally unique and no one has any idea how to understand you and that just compounds the misery. Everyone goes through this misery no matter how old. I mean, the older I get, the more that I see that everything is like high school. All the way up to middle-age and all the way beyond middle-age. I see like high school type social behavior and it's just your hormones and your emotions and your mind are a little more firing precisely. Your a little calmer. Things aren't as desperate. Everything isn't "the last most important thing". (with sound of desperation) "I'm going to love you forever and if I don't get to be with you one time in the locker room, I'm gonna die." "If I don't get an A, my dad is gonna kill me." "My nails!" These girls who are like, "I'm fat!" and they weigh 80 lbs soaking wet. You know, they still do that.
 
(Suddenly the topic turned as others entered the room and started discussing a legendary Bay Area musician, Mirv, with some candid descriptions.)
 
SL: I'm telling you, he's got staff. Mule dick. Javelin Boy.
 
(The story changes to details of some supposed amazing intimate tricks that Mirv is capable of. Promptly thereafter, the term Graffenberg along with its benefits is explained to Storm.)
 
SL: G-Spot? Graffenberg? That sounds like a plane. That's a great stage name though. I'm going to have to call myself like that or something. Greta von Graffenberg. Elektra von Graffenberg.
 
(Somehow the story switches again to the mating rituals of elephant seals at a local beach in CA.)
 
SL: ...The young males come up first and wait for the females to come. The older males take their time. The young males are nuts and will [mate] anything because they've been in the water for, like, nine months. And they're big. One would fill this room. They're like pachyderms. The guide at the beach told us don't go near them. If you mess with their kids, they will charge you. One woman got too close to a randy young male and tried to take its picture. It crushed her trying to [mate] her. A human. It killed her down on the beach. She got crushed to death. He wasn't trying to attack or kill her, although they will, he was just trying to get some. She must've been a big, fat woman and he thought it was an elephant seal. It was years ago before they got strict now.

 K2K: It's not an attractive sight to watch them mate either.
SL: No, no. It's like watching two spare tires melting together in an earthquake.
 
(We then are able to get back on track of the subject of the band...)

K2K: So, how long have you been together?
SL: Two years.
 
K2K: What was the band before this?
SL: Flower SF. We were only a band after we broke up. This is funny. You know, I was in LA and wanted to go to the (painter) Van Gogh show at the museum. My friend told me that he heard it was very expensive. I thought how expensive could a museum be. I figured, Van Gogh, a traveling show, maybe $20. - $40. It was $80! I was thinking Vincent Van Gogh never even saw $80. first of all. Secondly, they were sending a clear message that only a select crowd can come to see this art. "This is not for you to see." I felt like protesting but I didn't know what to wear to a protest in Beverly Hills.
 
K2K: That's like the KISS convention were it was $100., $150. to go. They said that it's for the "real fans." Only real fans would pay that much and would do anything that it took to get the money.
SL: That sucks.
 
K2K: Who are your influences?
SL: I have many, many influences. My major influences were, when I was a kid, my dad had an 8-track. I wasn't an avid music-seeker-outer. I was, like, whatever was in my reach and I liked it... My first favorite record was a old 30s blooper record.
 
K2K: I get the impression that you like classical and jazz somewhat as well.
SL: Umm, I'm not really into project jazz. Coltrane I like, but sometimes he goes a little fast for me. I like sort of a groove. I like Charles Mingus. Group C. Miles Davis I like sometimes, but sometimes he also goes out. It's a little too heady for me. I'm a little primitive-minded that way.
 
K2K: What about vocals?
SL: Jazz vocals? Ella Fitzgerald. Nina Simone is jazzy. I actually have been listening to her a lot.
 
K2K: I just got the idea from your style that you got some influence from jazz.
SL: Really? It's true. I was never really influenced, I would say, my blues. I mean, rock 'n' roll is basically blues.
 
K2K: Even though the 70s leave a bad connotation in some people's minds, your music seems to have a lot of the great songwriting structures from the 70s. Like [the song] "Maryanne". That had a nice change in it. But, if you write something with a great change, it catches critically but the public doesn't quite catch on. You have a nice flow in the songs.
SL: There've been songs that have played out and gotten good response, but I wasn't happy with the structure at all. It wasn't working. It has to be so solid that you can play it with an acoustic guitar and vocal or bass guitar and vocal straight. Just the basic foundation. It has to flow good and primitive in my thinking because I'm so new at songwriting. I've been doing it seven years.
Michael and I write and Ubi.
 
K2K: How much time do you spend on structuring songs as opposed to everything else?
SL: Michael spends hours. There's a lot of stuff on the 4-track that we've had years ago. A lot of stuff comes up spontaneously. It's about half-and-half in the set. Some of the set is spontaneous. Like "I'm Not Alright" came all at once. I started singing the guitar part, Michael and Ubi jumped on it, Dan jumped on it right away and I immediately had a very strong verse melody for it. The rest of it I sat down with Geoff and worked out the chorus and that came around spontaneously. "Ima Yora" came spontaneously in my head and I wrote it on bass. The blues stomp swampy. "Lust" was, like, seven years.
 
K2K: Do you play anything yourself?
SL: Never live. I'll play bass one of these days. I can play drums. (Someone mentions Storm playing the other night with the band.) No, that wasn't Storm & Her Dirty Mouth, that was Storm Playing Drums With Too Many People.
 
K2K: OK, more important than your music - Why did you do those tattoos and how bad did they hurt?
SL: A lot. I liked the idea of having a beautiful word look really hard and painful. It was very painful. But, I like pain a little bit.
 
K2K: How would you describe your music? How does it fit on radio?
SL: It's up to them. The band never chooses. We're not indie or punk enough for college radio. We're a little too pop and too popular. San Francisco is such a small scene that they get kind of resentful if you're popular. It's all "sellout." We had a yard-sale trying to make rent, selling all my clothes and stuff. And someone came up and we were on the cover of BAM [Magazine], and they were like, "What's up rock star?" I was like, "Rock star"? "You wanna buy some socks, bitch?"
 
K2K: What are your plans now?
SL: Take a couple of days off, write songs. Go into the studio in August or September and have a full-length release by January [2000].

By Jolie Lash
Posted Sep 12th 2006 1:27PM
Courtesy of aolmusicnewsblog.com

She may have left the 'Rockstar: Supernova' mansion on last week's episode of the CBS show, but Storm Large will hit the studio today to record a new version of her original track (and fan favorite) 'Ladylike.'

Though Large will be spending the day in L.A.'s Pulse Studio, away from her fellow contestants, she tells AOL Music that her support is behind the final four. "Those kids know that I love and support them 9,000 percent, so I don't have to have any face time to prove anything," she says. "That's the only reason I would be there -- if I felt they needed me to support them."

Though she's not sure when, exactly, she confirms that guitarist and 'Rockstar' judge Dave Navarro will be featured on the new version of 'Ladylike,' expected to be out by the end of the month. "He's a busy guy, and the show isn't over yet. The beauty of studios today is he could come and do it afterward," she notes.

The original version of the single, backed by Storm's band the Balls, is currently available on CDBaby and iTunes. She says she'll be one of the finalists supporting Supernova on tour next year, and she already has one live solo appearance lined up for Sept. 26.

"I [get to] sing the National Anthem for 'The Contender' finale, which is live at the Staples Center," she enthuses. "All the rockers in the mansion, every Tuesday we would watch 'The Contender,' and we'd all be crying and biting our pillows. It's a great, great show."