What The !@#$%^& Happened To The Storm?

[Final Frontiers]

I've been trying to do a bit of research on The Storm. But I can't seem to find anything more than what the people around here know and think. From what I remember when they were out it was the '90s and the brief age of the supergroup. The articles I read in general entertainment magazines lumped them together with Bad English and Damn Yankees. Were there any covers or articles in rock or music magazines like Rolling Stone, Billboard, etc?

Whenever Bad English was written about, they always mentioned John Waite. Whenever Damn Yankees was it was Ted Nugent. Whenever The Storm was it was just members of Journey & Santana. Kevin Chalfant was NEVER named as lead singer or pushed up front as an up and coming star. Does anybody else remember it differently? Why didn't Interscope and their management push Gregg Rolie as the name brand star of the group? The Voice people were familiar with? I keep going over it in my mind and the only answer I can come up with is that they were trying to go back to the '70s feel of a "faceless, corporate band". Which wouldn't've worked in the '90s Video Is King era. Did The Storm ever appear on any talk shows? Bad English went on Arsenio Hall.

The other thing is: Why Has "I've Got A Lot To Learn About Love" Been Completely Forgotten?" I have XM Radio and have listened to the 90s on 9 for 7 years, and have listened to Classic Rock and Classic Rewind for 6 months. I've never had that song. AT ALL. EVER. NOT ONCE. I never heard it when it was a hit either. I had to consciously watch out for the video on VH1. I saw it once. Which was the exact opposite of "High Enough" and "When I See You Smile". They were all over the place. I still hear WISYS a lot. I just heard HE on Classic Rewind. Yet, IGALTLAL is never played not even on the "5 CD set on random" obscure cut. Of course, I don't hear any other Damn Yankees or Bad English songs either.

[SF-Dano]

Why didn't Interscope and their management push Gregg Rolie as the name brand star of the group? The Voice people were familiar with?

One factor to remember is ....... other than one extremely obscure solo cd, Gregg was out of the seen for more than a decade. Plus the unfortunate turn towards grunge that was beginning to happen at the time also. I just don't think they made a big enough splash back then.

[Journey/Survivor]

Members of The Storm have said that shortly after Interscope signed them to a contract, that the label started focusing more on Rap groups, and didn't give The Storm enough promotion.

Not to mention, like SF-Dano said, Grunge came along, and killed real music as far as radio was concerned.

I remember that the two times that I saw The Storm in concert, it was Ross Valory that got the most applause during the band introductions of any of the members. I had expected Rolie to get the biggest response from the crowd. But I guess that Valory got the bigger response because he had been in Journey more recently than Rolie?

[Final Frontiers]

But it's not that rap and grunge happened. It's like they've been purged from pop culture. Like they never existed. If I were a conspiracy theorist I'd say that Interscope erased them from history and made sure no one else played their music once their format changed. Like IGALTLAL and Chalfant were both blacklisted. If the song were as popular as its claimed to be around here, someone, somewhere would still play or request it. Or you'd be able to download it some way. It's not on Freegal. Is it on Itunes or Google Play? Actually, I just looked up The Storm on Google Play and.... there's someone else using that name and when you look it up you get Gregg Rolie's info and listing, but someone else's picture and songs!

https://play.google.com/store/music/art ... getw35jx4m

C-O-N...spiracy!

My other theory was that The Storm wasn't "bringing it" visually. What I mean *Ahem* they weren't "selling themselves" not in the same way that Damn Yankees and Bad English were. I remember their videos, DY were running around in vests with no shirts, John Waite wore a jacket and no shirt in one video and everyone else in BE wore costumes. Yet, The Storm were all dressed like dads. It's a miracle they weren't on stage in Dockers . I know at that point almost all of them were married dads. But still, they were rock & rollers. Gregg Rolie knew from his days in Journey and Santana that "sex sells" and wore all his shirts unbuttoned or just wore a vest in most of the old pictures I've seen. In The Storm, it looked like they didn't have a look or style. Interscope and their management should have told them, "Look you need to step it up".

Of course how much sexing up can be done to Kevin Chalfant? Honestly, he could work out and get the body of Jon Bon Jovi and still have his face . Gregg Rolie looks perpetually unhappy in all his pictures over the last 50 years. Nobody looks like they're having any fun.

[StoneCold]

I heard The Storm's single on the radio and immediately heard the Journey sound. I called the radio station to find out if it was new J album.

I didn't hear it a lot after that but it did get some airplay at the time.

There've been a lot of great tunes that got lost amidst the flavor of the moment hits so not surprised this happened.

[The_Noble_Cause]

Interesting post topic. I agree. The Storm has all but been forgotten. I have never heard IGALTLAL on the radio - ever. Maybe someday Frontiers could throw a bunch of money at Rolie and KC and do a third Storm album. But I wouldn't hold my breath.....

First album - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YK63wsJ0u5A

I am an even bigger fan of their masterful 2nd album - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nekWZ8A3pps

[Art Vandelay]

I remember reading about The Storm in the Journey Force newsletter, when they were planning to release their first CD. I was actually surprised (and thrilled) that they had made as much noise as they had at the time, only because of the musical changes that were happening. Also, because Rolie, Smith and Valory weren't really heard from in the rock world for quite a few years, and I wasn't sure how well accepted they would have been. I still remember buying their CD, and there was a promotional cut-out in the store of the man on the cover holding the umbrella. I kept asking if I could have the cut-out when they were done with it...but I never got it. Got to see them with Bryan Adams...I still have their souvenir t-shirt packed away with my Strange Medicine t-shirt.

[brywool]

man, remember how cool things were before MTV?

sigh...

[Final Frontiers]

I was watching Time-Life's Star Vista infommercial for "The Best Of Soft Rock". I don't know the name of every song, band, and singer I hear and it's nice to be able to put a name/face with a song. There's tons of bands and people in the collection including Toto, Phil Collins, Player 10cc, Air Supply, Rickie Lee Jones, Heart, Foriegner, Christopher Cross etc. The collection spans from the '70s all the way into the early '90s with Extreme and Wilson Phillips. Why isn't "I've Got A Lot To Learn About Love" on one of these Time-Life collections? Or any compiliation?

http://timelife.com/products/the-best-of-soft-rock

Who's in control of The Storm's first album? Whoever it is, isn't policing the content since somebody else is using the name and Gregg Rolie's info. It can't be Kevin Chalfant because if it were he'd have it on his website.

[Aaron]

The first The Storm cd got a few songs of airplay. The follow up cd was much later and was not well supported so it recieved almost 0 airplay. Plonkers on this site, including me, bought it but few others have seen how good it is.

Interscope imploded after the The Storm was released focusing on rap crap music. The Eye of the Storm follow up was never released by interscope. Music for Nations released EOFTS a few years later but the steam was lost. If Cobain would have killed himself a few years sooner The Storm would have likely done much better.

The bottom line: Rolie goes off to do his own band. Ross rejoins Journey. Chalfant carries on as Two Fires with Ramos for a while which was cool. Chalftant carries on further without Ramos as Two Fires that sucked. Ramos joins Hugo for a decent cd called Ramos/Hugo. Ramos has contined to work with others but I've lost track of the lastest shite. I listened to the latest singer (Laverdi?) and I'm over it. not impressed with the rotating singers. Ramos is really good but needs a good singer with stability in my mind (give me a call Josh! lol). Smith is doing his own thing in a jazz fusion group. THE END

I've not seen anything post ROR that can compete with The Storm from Journey.

Now if you need anything in addition that's good, look up anything Valentine or Hugo. Their stuff has been harder and better than Journey since ROR.

[Final Frontiers]

Here's a really old school review of "The Storm".



The Storm are a prime example of a makeshift musical project built for instant success, but even that aspiration fell short from this group of mainly ex-Journey members. "I've Got a Lot to Learn About Love," with its clichéd power-ballad recipe, managed to crack the Top 30 in 1992, reaching the number 26 spot, but that was all the fame that the Storm would ever achieve. The remaining tracks suffer from unimaginative, pre-constructed, post-arena rock redundancy. The guitar playing via Josh Ramos is laborious, and even the talents of Rollie, Smith, and Valory fail to administer any musical redemption. Kevin Chalfant's vocals may be the only attribute to the album, but songs like "In the Raw" and "Show Me the Way" reveal the album's lack of songwriting strength and creativity. This hurried, shoddy-built bit of predictable guitar-ballad rock is best left forgotten. ~ Mike DeGagne Additional Tracks; Special Edition Recorded at the Village Recorder, Santa Monica, California and Skywalker Sound, Nicasio, California. The Storm: Gregg Rolie (vocals, keyboards); Kevin Chalfant (vocals); Josh Ramos (guitar, background vocals); Ross Valory (bass, background vocals); Steve Smith (drums). Additional personnel: Tim Pierce (guitar); Bret Douglas (background vocals).






http://www.cduniverse.com/productinfo.a ... tyle=music

Once again, what band is that in the picture labeled The Storm. Cause that ain't them.

[scarab]

The Storms 1st CD was very good, minus the average Rolie songs and In the Raw.
You keep me waiting, Cant live without love, and especially You're gonna miss me are near perfect AOR.
The 2nd one only has one Rolie song, IIRC and much more straight forward AOR. The ballads are much better as well.
I agree, one of the best post 80's AOR CD's. I give the nod to the Sign's first for the best.
Was hoping for similar greatness from Two fires which for most part was a watered down version of the Storm, with only the first (name escapes and last track (River of Destiny) I liked.

Wish I would have caught them when they toured with Bryan Adams, at the time though I thought they would only platy a couple songs and passed.