Prāta Vētra (Brainstorm)

“There is this beautiful thing that great bands have something… Identity and I think BrainStorm has that,” Anton Corbijn

For the past several years, BrainStorm has been the top band of its native Latvia. The last four of their records and the“Best Of” sampler  have reached platinum sales; every radio single goes straight to number one;, every time they are nominated for the Latvian Music Awards, they walk away with several prizes. BrainStorm play crowds as big as tiny Latvia can gather; the closing concert of their latest Latvian tour on August 21, 2005 saw an audience of 40 000 and is the most attended Latvian concert ever.

Sooner or later it is time to go international, and BrainStorm are the Latvian ice-breakers: if not the first, they are certainly among the very first bands from Eastern Europe to enter the Western music marketTheir breakthrough came in 2000 with the hit single “My Star” and was followed by the album “Among The Suns” (with releases in 18 countries, including the UK, Germany and Scandinavia); their album “Online” released in 2001 stormed all over Eastern Europe (Gold in Poland) and Scandinavia with the ethereal and catchy melody “Maybe”. “Colder” and ‘A Day Before Tomorrow” were the singles played around Europe from the band’s 2003 release  “A Day Before Tomorrow”.

For over five years the band has toured Europe on their own and as an opening band for such popular favourites as “The Rolling Stones”, “R.E.M”,  “The Cranberries”, “Depeche Mode”, and “Supergrass”.

BrainStorm’s new album “Four Shores” is set for international release at the beginning of 2006.

Born and raised in the former Soviet Union, having experienced the weight of the so-called “iron curtain” and then Latvia’s return to Europe the members of BrainStorm share the same background that permeates the music BrainStorm makes. Singer Reynard recalls: “Among the very first influences on BrainStorm I will have to name Russian cartoons and the Latvian pop scene of the 1980s. Talking about the cartoons - I still love those songs and listen to them time after time, they have some kind of unique happiness and sadness about them that is hard to describe and that's how I also see most of Stormers’ songs. Only when we were fourteen or fifteen we began to find out what is happening  on the other side of the moon.”