Driven by a rather adventurous spirit, Like A Storm looked at metal and thought, “This needs more didgeridoo!” Plugging in an ancient wind instrument alongside modern distorted guitars, the New Zealand trio of brothers selflessly pioneered “didgeridoo metal” to push the genre into unfamiliar territory.
“We’ve always been drawn to the sound of the didgeridoo and how it can be used to push and pull the music in different directions,” guitarist Matt Brooks tells Hammer. “We had no idea what we were doing, we just thought it was worth trying and it came out sounding so cool!”/o:p
As a band of three brothers – Matt, vocalist/guitarist Chris and bassist Kent – the band have “always had this amazing musical connection,” Matt says. “To be able to tour the world and share this amazing experience with your family is really cool. We got to write, record and produce the album ourselves, we got a chance to show people exactly the kind of music we wanted to make. Listening to music is an emotional experience, so if you’re fortunate enough to make music that makes other people feel things as well, it’s like a dream come true.”
Evidence of a refusal to be pigeonholed, the band’s third record, Awaken The Fire, flirts with both riff-driven hard rock and contemplative melodic ballads, but with the added bonus of that insistent didgeridoo drone adding an entirely unexpected vibe.
Musing on the video for didge-laden Love The Way You Hate Me, which went viral earlier this year, Matt laughs: “There’s no shortage of people in the music industry telling you what they think you should do, but the more we’ve been allowed to do what we wanted, the more successful it’s been. We feel really lucky. The song Never Surrender was written when we were going through a period when we really had to fight to play the music that we wanted to. But if something’s worth doing, it’s always going to be hard. We’ve always had that spirit of following your dreams no matter how hard it is.”
Clearly fond of taking a risk, Like A Storm have followed in the footsteps of Falling In Reverse by recording a cover of corny Coolio rap classic, Gangsta’s Paradise! “It speaks about our attitude, where we’ll just give anything a go,” says Matt. “That’s what we love about creating – being challenged. Instead of going to sleep like normal people [while recording the album], we would open up Gangsta’s Paradise and start working on it in the middle of the night. By the time we’d finished the other songs, it had come together sounding so awesome that we couldn’t leave it off the record!”
AWAKEN THE FIRE IS OUT NOW VIA ANOTHER CENTURY. LIKE A STORM PLAY DOWNLOAD FESTIVAL IN JUNE/o:p
