PS: How did you learn to play?

NG: I started out playing the alto sax in high-school.  My dad and grandfather (also great grandfather, great uncles etc) all played guitar, banjo, basically anything with strings; so I grew up around people making music and was always interested in playing.  Once I had a job and saved up, I picked up my first drum kit and started trying to play it.  I couldn’t keep it at my house at first and stored it in a friend’s basement.  Eventually I got the basic hang of this kit and got into playing for the school bands.  I learned most of what I know about technique and playing with other people from those experiences.

PS: Who are your earliest influences?

NG: I remember as a young kid being able to sing along to all the classic rock songs that came on the radio, that love has always stuck with me.  When I was learning to play I was really into nu metal and alternative so I formed a lot of my early style from bands like Korn, incubus and the like. The first song I ever learned to play was ‘Brainstew’ by Green Day.  Basically I was drawn to anything with guitars bass and drums.

PS: How would you describe The Stormalongs?

NG: The Stormalongs as a band are like a bull-mastiff dog that thinks it’s a pug.  We play huge fuzzy blistering rock without the typical mentality/attitude of traditional heavy musicians.  I think what we try to do is make music that makes you feel something.  Happy, sad, angry, it doesn’t matter so much.  Good art (in this case music) should make you feel something.

PS: What was your worst/strangest performance?

NG: I once played a show at a county fair next to a tractor pull.  We had to compete with a giant tractor deathmatch!! We did pretty well for ourselves, until the pull ended.  Then came the demolition derby.  We couldn’t compete with that…. Too much crunching metal and I guess the chance of an explosion or bodily harm was too much to resist for our crowd.

PS: What is your favourite record of all time?

NG: My favorite record of all time has changed over the years.  If you’d have asked me that a few years ago the answer might have been “Sgt Pepper’s…” or even incubus’ “s.c.i.e.n.c.e”.  Today I’d have to settle between 3:  QOTSA ‘Lullabies to Paralyze’, VU’s “White Light/White Heat’ and The Stooges ‘Raw Power’.  Essentially I like music that leans toward the heavy and moves me.

PS: Name something you cannot live without.

NG: Oxygen?  Sleep? Food and water? Shelter?… I could probably live without shelter but it would suck…

PS: Name a band/artist that people love, who actually suck.

NG: I’ve got a real problem with Katy Perry.  She’s an awful singer and the songs are garbage, yet she’s got like 5 singles on the radio right now.  Open your ears people!  It’s not just that it’s not my style.  She is genuinely BAD

PS: What is your most crucial piece of music gear?

NG: I think probably my bass pedal.  As a drummer playing indie shows sometimes you have to share gear to save turnaround time between bands.  I can adapt to different kits and sounds and configurations, but I have to have my pedal.  Playing with someone else’s pedal is like taking a driving test in a hummer when you’re used to driving a miata.  There are nuances to it that you need to be used to.

PS: How many………….?
NG: 42. How can’t it be????

Shadows Reprise (full version)

In about three weeks, on Thursday October 27th, the boys in The Stormalongs will be performing at Toronto’s legendary club El Mocambo. This is a big deal for the guys, since many historic concerts and live recordings have happened there.

Also, this show has been booked by a well-known promoter in the Toronto area, and The Stormalongs need as many people as possible to come and rock out, to show this promoter that the boys have got the goods! So beg, borrow, and steal people away and help us get a good turnout. The band, as always, will give the performance everything they have. Your fandom will be rewarded tenfold.

Details about this show will be announced soon- we’re just waiting for info from the promoter.

Everything you need to know is now on the poster above!!

Yours in rock solidarity,
Pat Stacio

Time for another update on the goings-on in the world of The Stormalongs. It’s been a while since we’ve posted about the band’s adventures, so here’s a little round-up of the last few month’s worth of activity:

• On June 19th, the lads traveled to Ottawa ON to perform during the final day of the ACORN National Conference. The Stormalongs were the only musical act of the evening, and performed at the invitation of their friend Peggy Cooke (thanks, Peggy). It was definitely a different audience than the band normally plays to, but The Stormalongs will play for anyone who will listen. Check out ACORN; they are a great organization.
• July 2nd was The Stormalongs’ Four Year Anniversary Show at The Cameron House in Toronto- an excellent rock show by all accounts. The Stormalongs began the night with a brief ‘mellow’ set, where they were joined onstage by friend and former Stormalong Adam Morello on acoustic guitar. Noah Mintz of legendary alt-rock band hHead played a beautiful opening set, and even played a solo version of “Collide” from hHead’s first album Fireman (which he said he hadn’t played live in about 12 years). Toronto’s avante-garde country-punks Soup Kitchen Lineup also rocked the house with their quirky, rambling tunes. Then The Stormalongs took to the stage and played nearly 20 songs without pause, bringing the night to an exhausted, sweaty climax at 2AM.
• The Stormalongs returned to The Legendary Horseshoe Tavern on July 29th for their TENTH performance at this most venerable of Toronto venues. Saigon Hookers put on an amazing set at this show, and The Stormalongs were left completely blown away by their authentic 70s hard rock. If you want to know how this kind of music should really be done, check out Saigon Hookers- they are riff wizards.
• On August 5th and 6th, the band went back to The Gas Station studio for their first studio recordings of 2011. They recorded five songs over two days with Dale Morningstar behind the control board once again. They are currently deciding on the title and artwork for this set of songs, which will probably form an EP release sometime in the next few months.
• Another great show at The Painted Lady on August 16th, with awesome opening sets from Danny Gorman and Ryan Warner. Both of these men are amazing singer/songwriters with great tunes and lots of charisma. The Stormalongs closed the show with a 90-minute set, bringing the crowd at The Painted Lady to its feet with blissful Toronto Rock and Roll.

In the next update we’ll post some photographic evidence of all of this. Until then, don’t let it bring you down. It’s only castles burning.

Part of my role here with The Stormalongs is to help improve the content of their website, and to actually provide some insight into why you should give a f*** about this band. To that end I’ve constructed a brief questionnaire (in no way affiliated with this one), in order to quickly fill the shocking and inexcusable gap in official interviews with The Stormalongs.

I am open to suggestions and question submissions for future interviews, although I make no promises that the questions will be related to their answers. Interviews, by their very nature, tend to be stupid, so let’s not ask anything too ‘deep’, okay? Musicians have a hard enough time talking as it is…

Without any further preamble, I present to you my interview with Colin James Gibson, singer/guitarist for The Stormalongs. I met him at their rehearsal studio, late at night during a thunder storm, and afterward we exchanged stories about our grandparents while drinking Cognac with our socks off.

PS: How did you learn to play?

CJG: I learned to play because of my grandfather, who was a minister with the Anglican Church. He also had an amazingly powerful baritone singing voice. He had a country-style string band, and he would travel around to various isolated Northern Ontario communities, mining camps and Native reserves mostly, and entertain people and minister to them. He would do everything from Hank Snow to traditional hymns, and do his sermons in-between the songs. So I learned to play acoustic guitar from him and the guys in his band, picking up chords by ear, and before I was really old enough I was travelling around with them playing folk and country and religious music to anyone who would listen, all over the North. I didn’t play any rock and roll songs l until I was about 14 years old.

PS: Who are your earliest influences?

CJG: Neil Young was the first guitar player and singer that I was consciously aware of; I think that a lot of other musicians in Canada could probably say the same thing. Gordon Lightfoot’s “Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald”- that was the first time I ever became conscious of a guitar “lick” or “hook” and how it could set the mood, hearing that song. I was also really into Debussy at one point as a youngster- the Etudes blew my mind. We had a teacher who introduced me to Debussy and other classical guys, and then immediately after he played me an AC/DC record for the first time.

But my very first music-related memory is the marching hammers from Pink Floyd’s “The Wall”. Apparently when I was a baby and I couldn’t sleep, my dad would put that movie on.  My parents were so into the Floyd they almost named me after David Gilmour. Instead, I got the same name as this guy.

PS: How would you describe The Stormalongs?

CJG: The Stormalongs are a gang of booze-guzzling, sweaty rock and roll pirates, with a fetish for distortion and classic old sounds. The music is dark and heavy and melodic and slightly strange, and generally the songs are about the various factors that threaten human sanity in the modern age. The Stormalongs are elite ambassadors for Toronto Rock and Roll.

PS: What was your worst/strangest performance?

CJG: The worst “performance” I’ve ever been a part of was a nineteen-hour marathon jam that occurred in 1999. There was a group who I was friendly with that was trying to set a world record for most consecutive hours spent playing an instrument while on a trampoline. They asked me to help by jumping and playing ukulele. We didn’t get the world record due to a technicality- it was so disappointing. I will never bounce again, professionally or for recreation.

PS: What is your favourite record of all time?

CJG: My absolute favourite record ever is ‘Dark Side of the Moon’, but ‘Rust Never Sleeps’ is also pretty high on my all-time list, along with several other Neil Young albums. ‘Welcome to Sky Valley’ by Kyuss was a truly life-changing album for me- it actually changed the way I thought about music at the time. So those are some of my favourites. There are too many others…

PS: Name something you cannot live without.

CJG: The Stormalongs. And strong coffee.

PS: Name a band/artist that people love, who actually suck.

CJG: The Beach Boys- seriously, they were never good. People just think they’re good now for some reason, but they always sucked.

PS: What is your most crucial piece of music gear?

CJG: The index finger of my right hand is absolutely crucial.

PS: How many………….?

CJG: I’m going to say 13- that’s the minimum number of albums I hope to record in my lifetime. Only 11 to go!

Like the Phantom of the Opera, Zorro, and any other famous masked hero, Patrick prefers to keep his appearance a secret in order to better navigate the shark-infested waters of the modern music scene. He also has deep concerns about the proliferation of personal information and the dissemination of facial images via the internet, due to his long association with various mysterious and clandestine groups (the picture you see above is the only one he’d allow us to post). Rest assured that he has been a fan and supporter of The Stormalongs since the beginning, and we are proud to have him on board as friend and chief counsel. Pat is a living encyclopedia of music and rock politics.

Pat will be taking over business matters for The Stormalongs, as well as managing the content for this website. He’s said that he has plans for band interviews, fan contests, and other fun/random stuff.  So check back often and maybe you’ll be able to kill some precious time, and stuff your ears with some great Toronto Rock and Roll.