VIOLENT STORM - Mick Away From Yngwie
by Martin Popoff

Having been raised in Argentina, moving to the UK, then California for 18 years and now back in the UK, Yngwie Malmsteen bassist Mick Cervino has seen all sorts of weather. Now storm clouds are on the horizon, as Cervino gets set to launch the debut album from his side band, Violent Storm.

A description of the project reveals the friends in powerful places this classical-steeped bass wizard has at his disposal. "Well, it's hard rock, metal, but not comparable to most bands. It doesn't really sound like anything, as far as I know. It has my roots on it - Deep Purple, Sabbath, everything else - and there are hints of that, but I have Yngwie playing on two of the songs, so it has a touch of an Yngwie style, and those ones are 'Pain Is For Me' and the other one is 'Fire In The Unknown'. And then K.K. Downing from Judas Priest also plays on two songs; those are 'War No More' and 'Deceiver' - and that's not the Judas Priest song; it's an original. So yeah, all the songs are mine, except for one, which is a Ritchie Blackmore song, 'Storm' (Cervino has also played with Blackmore's Night). The name of the band is Violent Storm, so we thought it would be appropriate."

It seems that K.K. Downing will also go down as Executive Producer of the album. "Yes, K.K. Downing played guitar initially, and then he got into the project more than we expected. You know, he really liked the music and he wanted to have more of an input than he did initially. So I welcomed his ideas on this album, and he also used his producer, Roy Z., to remix the album, so yeah, his contribution has been great."

Delving further into the album's sound, Mick offers that "it's a funny thing, because I didn't want to sound like an old '80s band, so maybe it points to try to be contemporary at the same time. I attempted to have hints of Marilyn Manson, and you know the singer's voice (Matt Reardon) is like Soundgarden's voice. My idea was to try capture the audiences from my generation and also the new generations. I think new bands don't really have what the old bands had. But if you do strictly old band-sounding stuff, it sounds old. So by mixing a bit of the two, I thought it would be more of an interesting proposition."

All in the family, as Mick ties up label deals. Mick is married to his manager Denise Love, who is also... Yngwie's tour manager. And Yngwie is married to Denise's sister, which makes for Cervino's position as Yngwie's fat string specialist deeper than just music, even if these two cats have huge musical similarities.

VIOLENT STORM - Mick Away From Yngwie Page 2