Love Thing Stealer

Zoo Freaks, the Crew just dropped the needle on "Love Thing Stealer," track five off Storace's Crossfire, the record that rolled out on Frontiers on November 22, 2024. This one clocks in around four minutes and two seconds, and it was written by Marc Storace himself, Alice Cooper guitarist Tommy Henriksen, and drummer Patrick Aeby. Henriksen produced the whole album, and Olle Romo, the engineer who sat in the room with Mutt Lange for years, mixed it. Marc put it plain when the record was announced: Tommy made time in the middle of Cooper, Hollywood Vampires, and Crossbone Skully dates, writing together felt like magic, and getting Romo on the desk was a match made in heaven. Play it loud, he said. We are.

The tune sits right in the middle of Crossfire, between "Adrenaline" and "Let's Get Nuts," and it is the primal one. She is a hard shot slamming, a Bloody Mary dancing, big black spiky heels, middle finger painted up, a cannon on the loose. Chorus comes in with the gang "han han han" shouts, love thing stealer, wheeler dealer, don't put up a fight, she's coming for you tonight. French rock writers heard Krokus and AC/DC in the same breath and called it the band on home ground, simple and tight with a chorus you can shout. A couple of reviewers thought it leaned a little close to the old blueprint. Either way it is built for a room full of people who still believe a riff can move furniture. On the session you get Marc on the lead vocal, Patrick Aeby on drums, Dom Favez and Arthur Wicki on guitars, and Emi Meyer on bass. The album band also lists Serge Christen on lead guitar, and the live lineup has been rolling with Anna Cara out front on guitar.

Marc Storace was born in Sliema, Malta, on October 7, 1951, and grew up in Switzerland. He was already singing in the late sixties, and by the end of 1971 he had joined the Swiss progressive band TEA. With TEA he cut a run of albums, including TEA, The Ship, and Tax Exiles, and the band opened for the likes of Queen, Nazareth, and the Baker Gurvitz Army. That high, gritty voice and the way he worked a stage got him noticed. In 1979 he became the singer of Krokus, Switzerland's biggest hard rock export. Metal Rendez-Vous put them on the road through the States, Japan, Europe, and South America. The band has sold something over fifteen million records, with gold and platinum plaques to show for it, and Marc's rasp is the sound most people still hear when they say Krokus.

After the first Krokus run he put together a group called Blue and put out a self-titled album in 1991, home of "You Can't Stop The Rainfall." Through the nineties and two-thousands he kept working, turned up in the films Anuk and Handyman, guested on projects with Glenn Hughes, Ken Hensley, and Sweet's anniversary shows, and came back with various Krokus lineups for more gold records. The original lineup reunion in 2008 surprised a lot of people and led to more platinum albums and tours. Krokus played a sold-out farewell at Zurich's Hallenstadion in December 2019. Malta gave him the Medal for Service to the Republic in 2014, calling him an ambassador of rock. In 2021 he started the band that carries his name, put out Live And Let Live at the end of that year in the middle of the pandemic, and has been out with the new group since May 2022. Crossfire is the second Storace album, written through 2023 and 2024 with Henriksen and Aeby.

If you want the straight story from the camp, the official home is storace.ch, with tour dates, the bio, and the band. Marc keeps his own page at Marc Storace on Facebook and at @marcstorace on Instagram, which he has called his official and only account over there. He does not keep a public artist account on X, so the day-to-day talk lives on those two. Krokus people still gather in the public group Krokus Fans Worldwide, and the old band's site at krokusonline.com is where the long history is filed. Turn it up, Freaks. She's a love thing stealer.