Interview with Storm Large (done by Michael W. Dean for $30 Music School, but omitted by the publisher.)
7/8/2003
photo of Storm Large by Lisa Keating
www.lisakeatingphotography.com
Storm is a friend of mine who has been literally blowing minds of club goers on the West Coast for a decade. She’s larger than life on stage, and sweet and smart as hell off. I dig her. And Storm Large is the real name she was born with.
She currently plays in two bands, “Storm and Her Dirty Mouth” and “The Balls”.
I can’t believe she’s not signed. But I know she’s happier for it.
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MD: What does music mean to you?
Storm Large: Life, love, sex, God, not killing myself or others.
MD: Have you ever had offers from major labels? What happened?
SL: A bigwig at Sony wanted me in a threesome once....does that count?
Never had a contract on the table for anything more than a demo. I always got suggestions that I should be a solo artist and leave whatever band I was in. That in doing that, there would be an offer. I never jumped ship, so no offer.
MD: Do you have a day job? Tell me about it.
SL: I’m a sex advice columnist in Portland Oregon : “What’s Your Fucking Problem?” in Exotic Magazine.......I also write erotic true stories for some other sites,...chickshack.com is one of them. I also bartend once in awhile.
I love working....I’d feel weird if I didn’t have some other gig besides music. Right now I make enough money selling records and playing shows to get by financially....but I love the people at Dante’s (where I shlep drinks) and at my magazine(s)....It’s almost like not working at all, it’s a good time that ends up with a handfulla cash at the end of it all.
It’s all part of my life experience that eventually becomes art.
MD: What is your reason to live? What gets you jazzed about life?
SL: The people I love, my friends and partners.
MD: Do you ever get depressed? How do you deal with it?
SL: Oh yeah....I’ve visited the no-way-out-black. I ride it out. I used to do a lot of acid, and if a trip took a negative turn and I was looking down the barrel of a five-to-eleven-hour nightmare...I would say aloud “Storm, you are on drugs, this isn’t you. You will be fine in no time.”
I use the same principal in depression or anxiety.....and not unlike LSD, I believe you experience depression and other mental/emotional snags to take time to notice and learn something new. Either your perspective on an event or situation, or your need to re-examine a certain path you’re on.
MD: Do you ever want to quit music? How do you deal with it?
SL: When I moved to Oregon, I wanted to quit music. I wanted to go to the culinary institute and be a chef or a caterer or something. I was burnt out because in California I lost sight of my whole WHY of music. All the time I’d get the “ Why aren’t you signed?” and the “ Oh my GOD! You’re AMAZING! You’re gonna be SOOOO HUGE one day! I can’t believe you’re not a huge rock star already!”
Meanwhile my band was looking at me to write THAT song, get THAT gig, meet THAT guy that would make IT happen. So my focus was on the absolute opposite of why I am an artist, and all the joy went out of it for me. It became like my band were greedy puppies ripping at my wasted teats wanting more, labels and industry types were pointing guns at them and had a pretty, pretty cage just for me.
It sucked. I cried a lot.
I quit the band and came up here. Not long after moving, I met people here who wanted to just hear me sing, that my voice made them feel good, made them feel strong. So little by little I started playing again. Now my new band “The Balls” is a huge success in Portland, and it is the best musical situation I’ve ever been in.
MD: What’s it like performing before a receptive audience?
SL: Like giving head to someone who has been locked in a chastity belt for a year. They belong to me and they love it love it LOVE IT!!!
MD: Why did you leave San Francisco?
SL: Besides quitting my band and being totally disenchanted with music in general, for years SF had been squeezing the life out of the ccene by closing down clubs, pricing out artists and musicians and making it near impossible to make a living. When millionaires are dubbed middle class, it’s time to go. I was a couch-surfing bum for my last eight months in SF. I still love going there to play, Bottom Of The Hill is still one of the classiest and most rockin’ clubs in the U.S. But I like paying rent and eating.
MD: Why Portland?
SL: I have a lot of friends up here, it’s a beautiful city...tons of parks, little streets lined with rose bushes and a vibrant art scene. There’s a natural competition amongst bands, but not like the catty, cut-throat snobbery that went on down south. Up here we all genuinely love and appreciate what each other is doing and there’s huge support for us here. It’s inspiring.
MD: What advantages and disadvantages do you see to living there as opposed to a larger music town like LA or New York?
SL: No one’s telling me I need to be a horny sixteen-year-old with shiny shiny hair, a ripe round bum and a manicured white finger on the pulse of hip-hop culture.
I can survive financially without taking huge chunks of time out to do a seriously grinding day gig.
MD: Last—what advice do you have for people starting out in music?
SL: Do it because you love it. Do it because it is in you, it IS you. Don’t start out with the whole “I wanna be famous” trip, because even if you get there, your heart will break from the soulless labor it takes, and your whole identity will be what others see you being or trying to be.
Hippy-dippy as it sounds, it all has to come from a place of love.
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