Co-fronted by Twin sisters Tanya Venom on Vocals/Guitar and Tia Mayhem on Vocals/Bass, Maddie May Scott joins on backing vocals/drums to create the power trio, Stormstress. Hard hitting yet reflective, their debut single, “Paint the Mask”, released at the beginning of the year before COVID took over and live shows came to a hault.
While in quarantine, we caught up with with Stormstress to dive deeper into the meaning behind “Paint The Mask”, the bands backstory, and how they’re handling the current state of the music scene….
Who is Stormstress? Give us your elevator pitch…
TIA MAYHEM: Stormstress is a vicious, all-female power trio who strikes with electrifying riffs, thunderous grooves, and catchy choruses.
"Paint the Mask," is about “ the darkness that lies beneath the faces we wear to gain the approval of others and the pain of silently sacrificing your own identity in order to appease.” You all seem to have a strong identity for yourselves now - is this a reflection of your journey to get to this point?
TANYA VENOM: First off, thank you so much for saying that. It honestly means a lot to us that our true identities are showing through, and strongly for that matter! It certainly has been quite a journey for us together in working towards total self awareness. The day I wrote the lyrics for “Paint the Mask,” was the day I finally was able to pinpoint exactly what I was going through and put it into words, which is to say that even a little over a year ago - when I originally wrote the lyrics - I was still desperately struggling with this issue. Even just the process of writing the song, however, was an incredibly therapeutic experience. It was a way to not only admit that there was a problem, but it was also a call to action to overcome it. Lyrically, I like to call the bridge the ‘the moment of realization’ especially with the line, “my truth is more beautiful than a lie could ever be” which occurs on the one and only G major chord in the entire song, signaling a positive change that gives the last chorus a new found strength and edge of anger as opposed to the sadness those same lyrics carried previously in the song.
Ok, so we’re a little late to the game, we know… but you released Paint The Mask in the beginning of 2020 and then COVID hit. Did you get to perform it live?
TIA MAYHEM: We count our lucky stars every day that we were able to perform “Paint The Mask” at our debut live show in February! It was the one and only show we were able to do this year before COVID swept the nation and cancelled the rest of our upcoming gigs so it seems as though the fates were on our side in giving us the chance to show the world what we’ve got before going into a forced hibernation.
How are you handling the current state of COVID + the music industry? How have you all adapted?
MADDIE MAY SCOTT: We are getting very restless and antsy waiting for the world to open back up. Because of COVID, we’ve had to put our recording sessions and tour plans on hold for much too long. To stop us from going completely insane, we have been doing as much as we can to prepare our songs for our upcoming record, and getting some online material going including Podcasts, facebook/instagram live shows and interviews, and releasing some videos we got from our debut show.
Tanya and Tia, being identical twins, do you think that plays a part in how “in tune” you are with each other when creating and also playing on stage together?
TIA MAYHEM: We are certain that being twins plays a major role in our tightness on stage as well as our chemistry during the writing process. Since we’ve been so close for our entire lives, we can pretty much read each other’s minds and we like the same kind of sounds and movements in our music. With just the right look, we can send messages to each other while on stage and quickly adapt to any situation!
How did the two of you link up with Maddie and form the band?
TANYA VENOM: The three of us made up the rhythm section of a rock band called Flight of Fire. It was the beginning of 2017 when Flight of Fire started the search for a new drummer and we came across Maddie’s submission in the Hit Like A Girl international contest for female drummers. We were totally blown away by her skills and her vibe! When we found out she was local, we invited her to audition and hired her immediately upon discovering our outstanding musical and personal chemistry. Flight of Fire disbanded in early 2019 but the three of us kept in touch. We loved performing and touring together so much that our connection couldn’t be broken. Our shared love for heavy music, our powerfully linked ambitious spirits, and our shared dream of achieving great things while sharing our message of self empowerment to the world, made starting a brand new band together a no brainer! And thus, in October of 2019, Stormstress was born.
Who are some of your inspirations? Which artists inspired you to start a hard rock / metal band yourself?
TIA MAYHEM: Growing up, Tanya and I were most inspired by classic hard rock bands such as Led Zeppelin, Rush, The Who, Aerosmith, Journey, and Queen, all whose talents were instrumental in innovating the music industry as well as in the expression of pure, unmatched rock n roll energy at their live shows. As we continued to grow as musicians, our love for hard rock evolved into a love of heavy metal so together as a band, some of our top musical inspirations include Halestorm, Avenged Sevenfold, Ghost and Judas Priest.
You recently started a podcast called The Storm Report. Clever! What kind of content can we expect there?
TANYA VENOM: Thank you so much! We deliberated over a handful of weather puns before landing on that one haha! We have a whole list of topic ideas for episodes of The Storm Report ranging from a wide variety of music-related discussions all the way to existentialism and the vastness of space. At the moment, The Storm Report Podcast is one of the many pieces of content available exclusively for our Patreon subscribers at patreon.com/Stormstress. Patrons of Stormstress get to join our VIP community of fans, gaining access to a ton of cool behind-the-scenes content and special prizes including early access to releases and so much more, all while supporting our art at an intimate level.
Any new music to look forward to in the near future?
MADDIE MAY SCOTT: Yes, absolutely! We are very happy to announce that we have an entire album in the works as we speak! Unfortunately COVID struck right in the middle of our recording process so we’ve had to put our sessions on hold for the time being. Because of this forced time off however, we were able to complete the writing process for the remaining songs on the album and as soon we can get back into the studio, we will be able to crank out a few more singles followed by a full album release.