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Marc Storace (; born 7 October 1951) is a Malta-born Switzerland musician. His career in music started in the 1960s. He is most noted for his position as the lead singer and songwriter of the Swiss hard rock band Krokus from 1980. Before joining Krokus, he sang with the Swiss progressive rock band TEA. He has also since undertaken a solo project, duets, an acoustical project, and many guest slots. He also had some close encounters with the classical meets rock world and has worked with a few other rock acts as writer and a singer.
Storace has a high-pitched raunchy voice, which has been compared to AC/DC's former lead singer Bon Scott and Led Zeppelin's Robert Plant. Since he began singing professionally in the 1970s, his style and voice have remained largely the same, with a noticeable increase of character, through maturity and years of live and studio experience.
He played a major role in the Swiss-Germany films Anuk and Handyman, in which he acted, as well as contributed his writing and singing to songs for both the film's soundtracks.
As of January 2019, Storace was still active in rock projects as well as his "ongoing" semi-acoustic one. Krokus embarked on their "Farewell Tour" that April.
Wanting to follow his dream of making a career as a rock musician, Storace was forced to leave his island home. He moved to London in 1970.
Further on in his career, after joining Krokus, many people who heard Storace sing thought that he sounded like Bon Scott of AC/DC. He did not take this as a compliment at the time, saying that, with all respect to Bon, he had his own singing identity (proof of this is on ballads and other songs he recorded with TEA & KROKUS) Storace was later approached (by a production company used by both AC/DC and KROKUS at the time) to audition for the frontman job with AC/DC after Scott's death, but Krokus was enjoying a fast increase in success whilst, at that point in time, AC/DC was not that huge, so Storace preferred to stay with his new bandmates.
In 1976, TEA performed their last tour, taking Krokus on-the-road as supporting act. The seed was sown for what followed later on. Meanwhile, he returned to London and formed the band Eazy Money. Their song "Telephone Man" was included on a Metal-Music-Compilation album called Metal for Muthas Vol.2. In 1979, he received a call from Krokus founder Chris Von Rohr, who told him they were looking for a new singer and invited Storace for a "weekend jam" in Switzerland. One exciting long weekend session later, Storace decided to join Chris, Tommy, Fern and Freddie in their quest for success.
A comeback in the USA happened in September 2005 with Mandy Meyer on board, replacing Fernando Von Arb (the latter having undergone surgery to his hand) on lead guitar. It was a very intense Club-Tour in which the band played 22 Gigs in 30 days. The Tour served to enhance the team-spirit in the new line-up before their coming song-writing phase for the follow-up album "Hellraiser". The Hellraiser formation toured Europe as Guests of the Swedish Metalband - Hammerfall. They played places where Krokus had never visited before including Greece and Malta.
In 2007, four members from the old Metal-Rendezvous album line-up: Marc, Fern Chris & Fred, came back together for a three minute slot on a Swiss TV show, Die Grösste Schweizer Hits or The Biggest Swiss Hits. Their short medley was received with a standing ovation by the TV-audience present. This rekindled the band's early 1980s spirit and was followed by a comeback concert of the originals at the "Stade De Suisse" in Bern. Since then a reborn Krokus has given us two more studio-albums: "Hoodoo" and, after a quick line-up change, "Dirty Dynamite". For the latter Storace's vocals were recorded at Abbey Road Studios in London. The third "live" album to date called Longstick Goes Boom, was recorded during five consecutive shows at "Kofmehl" in the band's hometown of Solothurn, Switzerland.
In 2015, Krokus flew to Miami to embark on a promo-tour for their new "live" album, playing the "Monsters Of Rock Cruise" in the Caribbean and then continued with several US dates. They ended their Longstick Goes Boom Tour with two shows at Whisky a Go Go in Los Angeles.
In 2016, Storace's name appeared on various "Lists of Singers" considered as best candidates to replace Brian Johnson as lead vocalist of AC/DC. Krokus were working on a new album at the time.
BIG ROCKS, a collection of covers by artists who influenced individual band members since their teens, was released by Krokus in January 2017. It went to No.1 in the Swiss Chart.
Storace has been Krokus' vocalist/frontman since October 1979, and has sung on all but five of the band's studio recordings.
In 1993, Storace joined as guest with the Swiss rock band China. A live album of the band's one and only tour with Storace in 1993 was eventually released on the CD called "Alive!" in 2000. (This concert was a "live" Swiss radio broadcast of their gig in Sempach released by Phonag Records).
With China's guitarists Freddie Lawrence and Claudio Matteo, Storace formed Acoustical Mountain that same year. This unplugged trio, performing without drums, played rock and roll classics around Switzerland but never released any albums, making them a "live-only" project. They split and then reformed in 1995, this time with China's bassist Brian Kofmehl replacing Lawrence, who moved on to join Swiss melodic-rockers Gotthard. In the meantime Brian was replaced by Charly Preissel on second guitar. Storace and Matteo still perform as a duo at "Private-Events" as Acoustical Mountain, and sometimes with Charly Preissel.
In 1994, during a break in his Krokus reunion duties, Storace joined Manfred Ehlert's Amen to release an album in the same year. Glenn Hughes sang on some tracks. Storace's second album with Amen was Aguilar (1996) with Storace singing all but one track.
In 2003 during another break from Krokus, Storace wrote and recorded with Los Angeles based metal rockers Warrior. This collaboration resulted in the one-off album The Wars of Gods and Men. Released in the USA and Switzerland in 2004, it was Storace's first collaboration with an American band. Working with guitarist and founding member Joe Floyd the album was recorded in Los Angeles.
November 2004 saw Germany producer Michael Voss invite Storace to collaborate on the new album of the band BISS titled "Face-off" that was released in 2005. It was a melodic rock album and Storace said the songs were "refreshing".
The following year, 2006, saw yet another release by BISS featuring Storace on the album X-Tension.
As of February 2016, Storace has starred in the Rock opera "TEST" in the role of Luke (premiered on 20 February 2016)
During the same year, he recorded the album Muscle & Blood with Billy Stokes and friends in Tucson, Arizona. The album also featured Pat Travers, Les Dudek, Frank Marino and Damon Barnaby on guitars.
| Metal Rendez-vous | CH 1980 |
| Hardware | UK 1981 |
| One Vice at a Time | UK 1982 |
| Headhunter | USA 1983 |
| The Blitz | USA 1984 |
| Change of Address | USA 1986 |
| Alive and Screamin' | USA 1986 |
| Heart Attack | CH 1988 |
| To Rock or Not to Be | CH 1995 |
| Rock the Block | CH 2003 |
| Hellraiser | D 2006 |
| Hoodoo | CH 2010 |
| Dirty Dynamite | CH/UK 2013 |
| CH 2014 | |
| Big Rocks | CH 2017 |
| TEA | TEA | D 1972 |
| TEA | The Ship | D 1975 |
| TEA | Tax Exile | D 1976 |
| Marc Storace | The Blue Album | D 1991 |
| Amen | Amen | CH 1994 |
| Amen | Aguilar | CH 1996 |
| Marc Storace & China | Alive | CH 2000 |
| DC/World | Tribute:Bon & AC / DC | CH 2000 |
| Storace/Haslinger | One World | CH 2000 |
| Warrior | Wars of Gods/Men | USA 2004 |
| Biss | Face-Off | D 2005 |
| Biss | X-tension | D 2006 |
| Billy Stokes | "Muscle & Blood" | USA 2016 |
| Storace | Crossfire | USA 2024 |
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