Like A Storm: Already a Cyclone of Success

Melodic heavy metal band Like A Storm blows into The Aquarium Monday night, December 21, in support of their first release, “The End of the Beginning.” Fresh off Creed’s Reunion Tour where they also played with Puddle of Mudd and Staind, Like A Storm is headed back out on the road with Shinedown in early spring, 2010.
Like A Storm is made up of brothers Chris (Vocals/Guitar/Programming/ Didgeridoo), Matt (Vocals/Guitar/Programming) and Kent (Bass/Vocals/ Programming) Brooks and drummer Thomas Karanasos. Originally from New Zealand, the brothers moved to Canada four years ago to pursue their music.

Why did the brothers pick Canada instead of the United States as their musical base? “We’re Canadian citizens as well as New Zealand citizens,” Matt explained, “so we could move here and spend as much time as we wanted meeting people who shared our vision and wanted to write the kind of music we wanted to write. A lot of our favorite bands came from Canada.”
“We came to Vancouver not knowing anybody and started slogging away at the club circuit. But at the very first show we did in Vancouver, the guitarist from Tommy Lee’s band Methods of Mayhem [Kai Marcus] was there. He hadn’t been out in six months but he said that for some reason that night he felt like he needed to go out to this bar and he just loved the show. It was Kai who introduced us to Mike Plotnikoff (My Chemical Romance/Buckcherry) who we worked with over the next couple of years and Mike and Igor Khoroshev (former Yes keyboardist) ended producing our record. The whole thing was really kind of serendipitous. We moved to Vancouver as a stepping stone but that led us to Los Angeles, where Mike lives, and we ended up living in L.A. for two years making our debut record.”
Like A Storm’s first album, “The End of The Beginning,” was released September 29. From their first club show, where they connected with Marcus, to moving to L.A. and recording with Plotnikoff, to touring with artists most bands can only dream about, things have flowed smoothly. Did the band expect this? “No - we really didn’t” Laughed Matt. “We moved to Vancouver not knowing anybody and expected that it was going to take some time to get noticed. We expected that we would come here and be blown off the stage every night and that was part of the reason that we wanted to move. We wanted to be in this pool with all these great bands and we wanted to be able to meet people that inspired us and helped us grow as artists. We didn’t expect that on the strength of the first show we would develop this relationship with Mike and then Igor. But once we started working with them it really felt like that was what we were meant to do…we transplanted ourselves from the other side of the world for our music so for us it was important to make something we believed in.”
The band just came off of Creed’s Reunion Tour and will head back out with Shinedown in early 2010. Matt described how it has been for Like A Storm to tour with these well-known artists so early in their career. “Honestly, for us growing up in a tiny country of three or four million people at the bottom of the world to be touring arenas with bands like Creed, Puddle of Mudd, Staind and Hoobastank, it was amazing. It was the best time of our life being out there, getting to play every night and meeting so many awesome people and seeing so much of America. It was just this incredible experience that we didn’t think we would be doing for years.”
And now that they are playing smaller clubs with Veer Union? “Clubs are really different than arenas.” Matt said. “But they both have their positives. At arenas it’s a pretty electric experience in that you get an opportunity to play for a lot of people at one time. It’s like the scale of everything is enormous. But at a club, it’s a lot more relaxed, a lot more intimate, people are physically closer to you and you can hang out with people afterwards. We love the Veer Union guys – we’ve known them for a few years because they’re from Vancouver. For us to be coming out and touring the States with them is awesome and now we’re going to get to play for people who saw us on the Creed tour but in a more intimate club setting.”
The brothers, all in their mid-twenties, split their influences between Canadian and American music. “Our Lady Peace…Moist…I Mother Earth.” Matt said. “We grew up on a lot of American rock but also a lot of Canadian music. Our dad’s Canadian so that was always an influence for us. It was really cool to move to Canada and we’ve got to meet and become friends with a lot of guys that we listened to so it’s been a cool experience for us.”
“We’ve always been influenced by guitar rock. Bands like Nirvana, Silverchair, Metallica, A Perfect Circle. But we also love electronic music so bands like Massive Attack, The Prodigy, really influenced our sound. And then we’re huge fans of songs and songwriting so bands like the Beatles and Crowded House, who are from New Zealand. We grew up as music fans and were exposed to a lot of different kinds of music so our influences come from a wide spectrum.”
According to the band, the title of their first release, “The End of the Beginning,” means exactly that. “To us, ‘The End Of The Beginning’ is a metaphor for our metamorphosis.” Matt explained. “We felt like when we finished the album that it was the end of four years of writing and playing and developing as a band. We spent two years in Vancouver and then we went to L.A. for two years and we felt that upon finishing that album it was the end of the first chapter and the start of the second.”
“When we made ‘The End of the Beginning,’ the rule was we didn’t have any rules. So all of us, plus Mike and Igor, wanted to sound different. We used a wide range of instruments and so certainly for us there are going to be things on the next album that are Like A Storm. Big guitar riffs, textured music, harmonies. But certainly for us, it’s important for us that each album is like an evolution. We wouldn’t be doing ourselves or our fans justice if we just made the same album again. We want our music to be honest…”

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INFO:
What: Like A Storm, opening for The Veer Union
When: Mon, Dec 21, 5pm
Where: The Aquarium
Cost: $10, early show all ages