1. HOW DID IT ALL START? 

Steve was trying to start an original metal band, and he met Dave and Morgan using the online forum/marketplace Craigslist in 2010. Ian joined in 2011, because he heard that they were looking for another guitarist. We went through a bunch of different vocalists early on — we had one guy for a while, Johnny, and we recorded a demo with him, but he had too many personality differences and it didn’t work out. Zach joined as the vocalist in July 2012, and we’ve been kicking ass ever since. 

2. WHY THE NAME STORMBAT?

When we first started out, we called ourself “Metal Banned,” which was sort of a joke name because of how it sounds. The name was also commentary about how metal is unseen or ignored in popular culture, and is even actually banned in some countries, but we got sick of explaining it to people, and decided we needed something more professional. Picking a name is really hard. It’s like trying to get an email address these days; all the good ones are already taken. We wanted something unique, something that hadn’t already been used, but that still sounded good. Steve brought in a huge list of suggestions, and we ended up with StormBat. The imagery was really cool to us, really identifiable. Morgan designed our bat logo when she heard the name, and there you have it. 

3. COMMENT ABOUT YOUR LYRICS AND INFLUENCES. 

We all come from really diverse backgrounds in terms of the kinds of music we like and listen to. Dave is all about classic hard rock heavy metal. Morgan plays jazz bass, and loves all kinds of metal. Steve writes most of the riffs, and his biggest influences are bands like Sepultura, Arch Enemy, Obituary, Iron Maiden, Sabbath, Slipknot, Pantera, and Death Angel, but he also loves black metal. Ian brings a more progressive rock feeling when he contributes riffs — a lot of them are in weird time signatures and complicated patterns. He usually adds a bunch of melodic harmonies because he’s a classically trained musician and he can’t help himself.

Our lyrics are dark. They have a lot to do with death and destruction, interlaced with raw anger and pure hatred. Zach writes almost all of the lyrics, probably 95%, but we can usually all identify with them in some way. We all work in various kinds of service jobs, and we have to deal with a lot of really rude people, stupid people, angry people, self-important people, stuff like that. Stormbat is a kind of psychological outlet for the things that we would never do or say in real life, and a lot of people can identify with that sort of pent-up rage and frustration. We also have some fantasy-inspired stuff, like “Dragon Var” and “Battle of Helm’s Deep,” because sometimes you’ve gotta pay tribute to the stuff that you like. 

4. WHAT’S THE BEST DESCRIPTION FOR YOUR MUSIC?

Heavy Thrash. We somewhat jokingly call ourselves “blackened thrash / progressive doom-groove,” because we have so many influences, and you can hear them all in various songs. When you hear a song like “Wicked Waltz” (coming on our next album), you can totally hear the groove, but if we were just a groove metal band, you’d never hear stuff like the black metal influence in “Det Er Noc Der” from our self-titled debut album. Another one slated for the next album is “S.O.A.F.B.G.D.I.” which is super progressive, but then there’s stuff like “Doomsday” from our first album that’s much more similar to Iron Maiden and other old-school NWBHM. It’s like we’re schizophrenic. We just play metal. There are no rules. 

5. WHAT MERCHANDISE DO YOU HAVE AVAILABLE?

We have Men’s and Women’s t-shirts with our logo, stickers with our bat and our logo text, and CDs at all of our live shows and at our website www.stormbatband.com — you can also get copies of our first album on iTunes and Amazon Music, or listen to it on streaming services like Spotify.  

6. WHAT DOES THRASH METAL MAKE YOU FEEL?

It’s actually really relaxing! Getting out all that aggression is really peaceful, but playing it is really energetic and powerful. Playing music is all about enjoying ourselves. If we didn’t enjoy it, we wouldn’t do it. 

7. TELL US A BIT ABOUT THE NEW ALBUM?

It’s going to be a little more complicated than our first album. There’s some folk metal influence too, but no change in our instrumentation. We have a lot of material to work with. There’s a whiteboard in our studio with about 30 unrecorded songs on it, so we really get to pick and choose what we think are the best things to represent us as a band. This will also be our first album recorded on 7-string guitars. Our first album used downtuned 6-string guitars, but we’ve been playing live and writing with 7-strings for a while now. Ian did all of the recording, editing, mixing and mastering for our first album because he’s a professional sound engineer, and we’re sticking with the same thing for the second album. It kicks ass to be able to do all of the studio work ourselves. We went for a classic thrash sound on the first album, we think it sounds really good, but the style is dated, so we’re going to focus on getting a really brutal modern mix for the second one. We want to punch people in the face with the production quality.

8. WHERE WILL YOU SEND ETERNITY?

Don’t understand the question. We all die. That’s that. 

9. WHAT IS YOUR LINEUP?

Zach Cox - Vocals (also social media and booking)

Ian Rusconi - Lead Guitar (also recording/engineering and all the business)

Stephen Huth - Rhythm Guitar (writes 99% of the songs) 

David Garcia - Drums (also provides the practice studio and transportation)

Morgan Rusconi - Bass (and snacks)

10. TELL US ABOUT THE SCENE IN USA?

It’s really different in different places. Our hometown doesn’t have much of a metal scene at all, but we play a lot of shows in the greater San Francisco bay area, which has a decent metal scene because it’s the birthplace of thrash. There are a ton a bands around here, and a lot of the people who come to shows are people who play in other bands. We all try to go to each other’s shows to support each other, because the scene is really whatever you make of it. We’re trying to create a better scene. A lot of people here put their money where their mouth is and try to support local music and go to live shows because we want the metal world to thrive. 

11. DO YOU PLAY MANY GIGS?

We try to average about 1 show per month. Sometimes we do more in a month, sometimes less. There are a lot of bands around here, but not a lot of good places to play. And if you play in the same place too many times in a row, people get bored with you and you may as well have just stayed in the practice studio. But if you only play a show every once in a while, people get excited. We like to have something new every time we do a show. It keeps everything interesting. We’ve probably played about 25 shows as StormBat since October of 2012. 

12. HOW ARE YOUR NEWS WORDS?

We’ve had some good reviews, but nothing really breakout. There isn’t a lot of coverage or reporting around here for metal, the popular stuff is ska and reggae and pop. Stuff gets around almost entirely by word-of-mouth. People like us though, and they always want to know when we’re going to play again. 

13. WHAT ARE YOUR FUTURE PLANS?

Record, play, repeat. We’ll start recording our second album soon. We hope to have it out by the end of this year, maybe early next year if we decide to change some stuff. More shows, hopefully some new merchandise like hoodies, mini-banners or some different shirt designs. Maybe a regional tour, who knows. 

14. THANKS FOR THE SUPPORT. ANY LAST COMMENTS?

Thanks to Marcos for the interview and the opportunity! The metal community is a global community, and this really proves it. Give us a Like on our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/StormBatBand and check out our videos on YouTube. Support underground music!