Dave Storm
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
David Otto Storm (born December 28, 1970 in San Francisco, USA), is a musician, painter, writer, voice over artists and media producer. In addition to producing commercials, music, videos, and in-game entertainment for the Cincinnati Reds he plays guitar, sings and writes songs in Screaming Mimes, does a wide variety of music and voice work for companies all over the world.
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[edit] Early life
Storm was born to a young artistic family in the fading hippy environment of San Francisco at the end of 1970. Two weeks later his family relocated to New Mexico where his father painted. A year later the early foundations of an art program were beginning at Northern Kentucky University in Highland Heights, Kentucky and his family relocated to a small house in Alexandria nearby. David found this to be a lonely existence with few early friends scattered about the small horse farms nearby. In 1975 his father began constructing a home in Fort Thomas, closer to the neighboring Cincinnati, Ohio. It was here that David spent the next 20 years.
Growing up on a steady diet of passed-along comic books, David developed a love for drawing and created many comics of his own. His grandfather gave him a video camera at a young age and David spent much of his time doing pardodies of popular movies in the style of Saturday Night Live, though not nearly up that quality. These moments laid the groundwork for what would become his career in adulthood.
[edit] Early Music
At the age of 15 his parents bought him an Atari 800 and a music composing program. Despite it's erratic interface, David fell in love with the ability to create music. Within a year his other grandparents bought him his first guitar, after much begging, and David was off and running. With no idea of how to play songs he heard on the radio or taped of MTV with his dictating tape recorder, he began writing his own immediately. A few months later he formed a band with his high school friends Jason McClung, Glenn Gorny & Garth Gorny and they played a show of all-originals in the basement of St. Catherine's Church in Ft. Thomas. Despite these awkard beginnings, David fell in love with songwriting and performing and would continue playing in bands for several more years. With a base of Beatles and Tom Lehrer records, David began purchasing all the progressive rock he could find, focusing on bands like Van Halen, Yes, and Rush. After graduating from Highlands High School David played in the band DXM with his friends Richard Kimzey and Glenn Kukla (formerly Gorny). They wrote a few hours worth of complicated, progressive songs but garned little attention from the local music scene. During this time David enrolled in Northern Kentucky University as an Art Education major with the goal of making enough money as a highschool art teacher to build a recording studio. DXM broke up a short while later and David formed Empty Envelopes with Scott & Tara Dill after answering their ad. It was during this time that David's songwriting skills were refined and his affection for a catchy melody and ironic lyrics flourished. He began to fall in love with bands such as XTC, Joe Jackson, Blake Babies, 10,000 Maniacs, Primitives & Crowded House.
[edit] Adulthood
David met his future wife during this time and they became closely connected. They took several classes together and eventually rented a house in Dayton Kentucky. They soon married and gave birth to a beautiful son. Empty Envelopes had long since broken up but David continued writing furiously until his son was born. For a year he several songs a week, recording them as quickly as he could. Songs like "TV" "Medusa's Garden" & "Man On The Phone" were written during this time. For a time David played the songs in local coffee shops but grew weary of the distracted audience. His guitars were packed away and David concentrated on finding a career. Elvis Costello and Robin Hitchcock were his musical staples.
[edit] Career
Returning to college after a few years, David finished his Art degree and debated whether or not to continue on the path to becoming a teacher. During this time he had a revelation and enrolled in NKU's media program, finding a degree that combined so many of his interests and talents. While at NKU David impressed many of his professors, including Russ Jenisch. In 1996 David interned at a video production company called Paradigm Communications Group in Clifton next door to the University of Cincinnati. Here he met his good friends and future bandmates Randy Campbell & Preston Price. Shortly before his first daugther was born, David was hired full time and worked in the tape machine room loading tapes for the editors and making dubs. In the evenings he taught himself the latest graphics, audio & editing software and worked to make himself indespensible. Downtime during the days was spent showing Randy & Preston some of his songs, like Rex Dance, Thanks A Lot Mom & TV. Randy invited David into the vocal booth one afternoon to do some cartoon-like voices for a line of toys called Silly Slammers. For the next two years David was the primary voice for this toy line and many others, and began doing more corporate and commercial voice overs. Jingles and music soundtracks soon followed. Bolstered by his new found confidence and thriving career, David began writing again and played a few shows at a small bar called "Cake's on Broadway" in Cincinnati. Preston & Randy would often join him for these shows, playing a mix of XTC songs and originals. With all of this downtime the inevitable happened and Paradigm closed, splitting up the daily friends and sending them scattering to different companies around town. David found a job at as a project producer for a local multimedia company but found the work and the environment crushing. The only solace came from a former professor, Russ Jenisch, who had been hired by the Cincinnati Bengals to direct their gameday scoreboard production. David was brought on board to design the audio, write music and record elements from the game, but eventually he became involved in the graphics and producing there as well. David purchased a home studio system and began demoing and recording some of the new songs he'd written. Here David honed his skills at entertaining a crowd, learning what worked and what didn't with a mass audience. In early 2001 Randy, David & Preston began looking for ways to play together again. Randy organized a birthday party for his girlfriend and asked that the three of them perform at the show. Working up some new songs (Wedding Day, It's Not Me) and various covers they had a blast playing together that night. The quest for a drummer began, ultimately answered by Jim Farmer in 2002. Spending the spring working up arrangements to David's songs, they recorded their first demo in July of 2002 with songs like TV, Man On the Phone, Backroads, Bleed, Honestly, Wedding Day & Medusa's Garden. Jim soon left the band, feeling that he needed a more eclectic, darker musical path. Tom Jansing joined soon after and the band played their first show at Head First in Cincinnati a couple weeks later. In October of 2002 David was fired from his job for refusing to sign an excessive, illegal non-compete document. With his wife expecting their 3rd child soon, he began working for independent production work and started toying with the idea of forming his own company, Brainstorm Media. During one of the Bengals games Russ Jenisch approached David with the idea of doing the same work on a full-time basis with the Cincinnati Reds. David was hired by the Reds in December of 2002 and his second daughter was born a few days later. Working with the Reds became a dream job of constant challenges and rewards, entertaining fans, working with the players and creating media for every aspect of the team. In 2004 David & Russ won three awards for their scoreboard work in an unprecedented sweep.
[edit] Screaming Mimes
From the second show on, David, Preston, Randy & Tom decided on the name Screaming Mimes for the band. Writing, gigging and recording took over much of their free time and in a short while they had 14 songs recorded. These became the basis for the album Live My Life. Difficulties at shows led to the unfortunate decision to part ways with Tom. Randy's son Matt subbed on the drums for a few shows until Jim Farmer came back into the fold. Live My Life was released shortly after that on February 18th, 2005 and garnered frequent radio play on local radio and great reviews. Their fanbase growing, Screaming Mimes began working on new songs and played some of the biggest shows in town, including MPMF and Earth Day.
