Interview: Brian Storm

Photo from Loudwire

Interviewed by: Kristal Solis 

*Note: This interview originally ran on Kriss' own sites, which you can find HERE and HERE . Thanks for letting us run it on Shuffle Beat as well Kriss! 

1: Your channel on YouTube “Massive Metal Covers” has close to 16k followers. If I’m correct you’ve been doing these videos for about a year now, why did you decide to start doing this and is this something you see yourself continuing to do in the future? 

I have been doing cover songs for about 7 years now through various projects. Initially, Jonathan McEwen (Massive Metal Covers) and I would make some pretty awful covers using PC microphones to record instruments. This was around 2008 when we first began working together. We would pay to have CD's produced with the album art and everything and give them to our friends. Jon ended up moving away for a little while and I found Andrew Baena online after I saw a Linkin Park cover he did that I liked a lot. We started out with some pretty low quality stuff and got better the more we did it. The videos started performing really well. One of our videos has about 3 million views and has been played on the Howard Stern Show. I think on his channel alone we have done about 10 million views. After all of this growth, we learned about branding and content strategy and decided to form one central location where people could see our videos - as opposed to many different YouTube channels that I was featured on in the past. I'm really happy with how it's going.

2: At first I had no idea you did song covers, I just thought you were someone who happened to get featured at Metalsucks. When your video “ 16 Things in the Modern Heavy Metal Scene That Need to Stop Right Now” was published on on Metalsucks, were you apprehensive about the feedback or “hate” you would receive for creating that video? 

I wasn't worried about people who would "hate" that video. I have a lot of friends in bands and various music projects, and those that truly know me on a personal level are well aware that I'm portraying a character. In some of these videos I have worn wigs, and said things like "Stop It Dad!" If that upsets people, that is unfortunate... but my strategy is simple.... I make things that legitimately make me laugh. Maybe my screening process is wrong. Maybe I should make things to appease others, but I've gotten to put out some really stupid stuff that I find to be hilarious. Axl and Vince give very good critiques and they definitely let me know if they don't like something. 

3: On March 5th, 2015 you joined the Metalsucks team along with Axl Rosenberg and Vince Neilstein, how did you get that opportunity and what kind of content can viewers expect from you? 

I released a video called Things Elitist Metal Fans Say on my own and they liked it a lot, and wanted me to produce more videos like that. We had spoken a few times over the years, and they were nice enough to cover a few videos I did. They actually didn't beat me down in the articles they wrote about me, which, as a fan of their site made it even cooler. I have been doing some fun interviews lately and we have more planned. Beyond that, I hope to continue making videos that make me laugh. 

4: As I was writing this interview I actually came upon an article on Loudwire, where Mayhem Festival Organizer,John Reese, revealed that there would be no Uproar Festival this year because there wasn’t a headliner big enough to promote and attract sufficient fans to the event. As a fan and as a music blogger, it hurts to see such a big festival disappear. Several blogs,podcasts, and musicians have spoken about the extinction of “hard rock/ heavy metal” because there’s going to be no one to “carry the torch”. Eventually, Slayer, Megadeth, Metallica, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest,Van Halen, ACDC,Alice Cooper,KISS, Rob Zombie, and a few others are going to have to retire. We are already seeing arena-headlining bands such as Motley Crue and Black Sabbath calling it quits, do you think this type of music will “disappear” from the public eye? Whether people love them or hate them the only “heavy” band out there that I can see headlining a festival is Avenged Sevenfold and mayyybe Volbeat but that’s pretty much it, every other band can be support for the bill but not the main attraction. 

Metal will never disappear although it will evolve over time as with any form of art. The music industry is constantly changing but as long as there is still good music to be heard, the rest of the chips will fall into place. The best part about the modern state of the industry is that (although there is a saturation of bands) it's never been easier to categorize and discover new music. In the past, you were given what your local radio station would play - and that is what boosted many of these major bands to iconic stature. Year round hourly radio play would make just about anyone iconic. These days, the listener is empowered to discover music in the deepest corners of their genres of choice - and to me, that's a positive point for the future of the industry. 

5.) Lastly, in hard rock/heavy metal there seems to be an issue with validation. Everyone has to “prove” that they’re a real fan and not a poser. Do you think this prevents people from even wanting to listen to the music and do you have any advice for anyone who wants to give heavy metal a chance but are hesitant to do so because they feel the people within the scene are too judgmental? 

When I was younger, I was very worried about not being a tr00 m3t@l fan. There was a time where Slipknot was getting a ton of hate from people for some of these reasons. Now, they have sort of an iconic status - and it makes you wonder if people just felt dumb for disliking them or there was an elaborate PR campaign to turn the tide. Now, I think people are STARTING to loosen up a little bit. Babymetal is huge and people seem to really enjoy their act, but there will always be an element of hate towards bands as long as the Internet is in existence. 

Thanks for doing this interview with me Brian, I really appreciate it. Best of luck in whatever you choose to pursue in the future!

Thanks for having me! 

You can follow Brian at:
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