“My life has been extremely crazy,” Stormy Strong laughs. “I don’t know, maybe it has to do with my name!” The local rock ’n’ roll singer-songwriter associates the word “crazy” with a variety of things—from relationships to the number of near-death experiences he had as the son of a commercial fisherman. “Crazy” also perfectly describes the music video for “Jumpstart the Heart,” off his latest EP, Take Her Down, which features vintage footage of daredevils doing acrobatic tricks on the edges of skyscrapers.
“‘Jumpstart the Heart’ is just about going for it,” Strong explains. “Being on the edge of chaos is invigorating. In skiing, when you’re ready to take the challenge of going down a black diamond slope, you usually don’t get hurt badly. It’s usually amazing and scary, but you get down there. For the video, it just made sense to have people doing off-the-wall stuff.” Take Her Down also features a raucous cover of The Pixies’ “Where is My Mind?” “I’ve always been averse to doing covers,” admits Strong. “I just didn’t want to do it. Then I thought, ‘If I’m going to do a cover, I want to do one of my favorite songs of all-time.’ It’s weird because that song is kind of like a decoder. People who are on the fence about the music we make, when they hear that song live, they understand where we’re coming from and what the influences are. It’s a good ice-breaker.” Strong and his band plan to play a mixture of new and older material at The Catalyst Atrium on Friday (possibly with a surprise vocalist), but he says he’s always thinking about how to make their live shows better. “The long-term plan is to have water tanks on each side of the stage with mermaids taunting the audience,” Strong laughs. “But that’s still a ways down the line.”
INFO: 9 p.m. Friday, August 2. Catalyst Atrium, 1011 Pacific Ave., Santa Cruz. $5/adv, $8/door. 423-1338.
