Singer Marc Storace didn’t like Krokus’ album ‘Change of Address’ at all once it was completed

Singer Marc Storace didn’t like Krokus’ album ‘Change of Address’ at all once it was completed

Krokus frontman Marc Storace was recently interviewed by Andrew DiCecco for Vinyl Writer Music.

Storace joined Krokus back in 1979 after the Swiss rockers had already released three studio albums.  The singer handled the lead vocals on Krokus‘ next five albums before the group took a more commercial direction with the record Change of Address, which was released in 1986.

In terms of what prompted Krokus to change their sound with Change of Address, Storace indicated (with slight edits): “Well, it was the whole changing-face of the business. You know, shifting sounds and bad advice, if you like. Because Chris [von Rohr] was right; he was fighting for that. He had his negative stuff happening at that time, too. That was mainly part of the reason why later on he was kicked out of the band; he was a founding member. But he was right in saying, “We just sold platinum with Headhunter. We’re successful with the way we are. Why do you want to change us? We don’t want to change.” So then, there was a bit of a revolution happening there.

Then things got worse, personal things started coming up, and in the end, there was a feud between him and Fernando [von Arb]. Chris came back to Switzerland and he spilled the beans on a lot of internal secrets and got us into trouble. I was living in London at that time because I joined Krokus on the agreement that they don’t expect me to live in Switzerland again. After all, I had my share during the TEA days, and I had my own thing going in London family-wise. So, the headlines Chris did here, I didn’t suffer directly from them. It was all rock ‘n’ roll in the end, anyway.”

With respect to his thoughts on Change of Address once it was completed, Storace stated: “I didn’t like it. I didn’t like it at all. During The Blitz, it stayed in the back of my head that we had our biggest success with Headhunter, and now we were being changed into a band that was slightly more glam because the record company wanted us to attract more girls. We were writing differently; I was singing differently and using another dimension of my singing archive. I have a wide spectrum of singing possibilities; I can go from blues to jazz if you like. It goes that wide. And even classical. So, I have to really careful sometimes about where to go and stay aware of which shop I’m in. What are we selling? What do our fans expect from us when they fork out their hard-earned money and buy a record? In those days, I took that really seriously. Then, we were at Bob Ketchum’s place — the first time writing songs for The Blitz – and I didn’t feel really comfortable. I thought the songs were too fast; there was no kick anymore in the guitar sound. But I had agreed, with Fernando, that we go in this different direction, so I couldn’t complain.

And with Change of Address, it got worse. I thought maybe it’s because we had another producer now. During the recordings, the week before I have to go in and record my vocals, my father had this stroke, and I had to fly to Malta. I dropped everything at the drop of a hat and flew in to say farewell to my dad. So, I came back feeling real bluesy. So, you feel that in the way I’m singing. But it wasn’t good for Krokus. The whole music wasn’t really good for Krokus; the arrangement; not enough distorted guitars and bombastic stuff. Although, when I look and listen sometimes today, I think if they were differently produced, a few of those songs would stand up next to some others if you gave them that bombastic sound. For example, take “Russian Winter” on the Headhunter album; there’s the classical side of me. If you take that and then take, say, “Say goodbye but never deny/All the love you’re leaving behind;” that’s another hymn. So, the instrumentation is all different, though. But it goes to show, you can take a melody and make it sound jazzy, classical, rocky, or bluesy; it depends on how you produce the thing.”

You can read the rest of the interview with Marc Storace at Vinyl Writer Music‘s website.

Krokus performing “Let This Love Begin” at Music Hall in 1986 to promote their Change of Address: