KROKUS Frontman: 'We're Just Happy To Be Rocking And Making Ends Meet'

Music and photography site From Out of Nowhere recently conducted an exclusive interview with KROKUS frontman Marc Storace. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow:

From Out of Nowhere: The big question people have been asking is, "Where's Fernando [von Arb, ex-guitarist]?” Let's talk about his replacement, Mandy Meyer.

Marc Storace: "It's no big question, it's a normal question and lots of people have stepped down during the history of this band and actually the new lead guitar player is no new lead guitar player at all. He (Mandy) stepped down in 1981 and I called him immediately when Fernando stepped down and asked him to rejoin the ranks. He was real happy that I called him, we stayed buddies (through the years),we barbequed, we partied and drank a few beers every time we met. He knows my family and I know his family, so on and so forth. We only live one hour apart and now he's back and we're on the road, going through the test, you know, and it's working and I'm happy with the new band."

From Out of Nowhere: So KROKUS is in this (U.S. market) for the long haul, it's not a one-off tour?

Marc Storace: "No, it's not a one-off, we're gonna leave our stateside gear here to save on shipping and freight and slowly re-establish ourselves. We're happy to be here with just our skeleton crew and really basic needs, we're not doing any big arenas or anything like that. If we did, it would be like a spontaneous thing, 'Hey, someone has dropped off a bill, would you…' If anything like that turns up… I just talked with my old friend Alice Cooper, maybe if his opening act would drop out (laughs)… That's only an example; it's really great to be back here. My heart was yearning for this for years."

From Out of Nowhere: It's great to have you back, I thought that "Rock the Block" was a real breath of fresh air as far as a straight-ahead rock record goes. It reminded me of early '80s KROKUS.

Marc Storace: "Thanks, we aimed for that, we just said, 'Let's just be ourselves…' Even the new guys in the band, they actually liked to go for what we were known for best. Give the people what they want. So it was very satisfying when we realized that we achieved the goal and saw the results of our hard work. For the first time in KROKUS' history we achieved a number one with a bullet hit in our own country. It's no matter of fact in the land of banks, watches and chocolates, it's quite a conservative country, everyone loves rock and roll but it's still different. The whole scene was going through this kind of confused time, so many new, different music styles including techno, house and hip hop, stuff like that. So, actually, it meant that people's dollar was being split in so many different ways than it was twenty years ago. So one doesn't expect to have the same amount of sales as one hoped to achieve in the '80s, you have a more humble attitude. We're just happy to be rocking and making ends meet.

"This tour is like a break-even tour and if the merchandise sales are very phenomenal then we'll have a little bonus, which I think everybody in this group deserves. We're traveling long distances, spending nights on the bus; it's really back to the roots. I think that's good for the music, good for the attitude, good for the shows. The shows are really kicking ass and it reminds me of the beginning days before KROKUS entered the glam era."

Read the entire interview at FromOutOfNowhere.com.