Storm Large yes, that is her real name provides a searingly honest account of her underage sex, drug addiction and loneliness, in between raucous rock songs, where the six-foot blonde shakes her quite remarkable body all over the stage and tender but lyrically tough love songs that give a glimpse of the innocence beneath the wild child exterior.
Storm (according to the internet she’s 41 but she looks early 30s) had reached her full impressive height by the age of 13. Combined with her lack of fashion sense, it left her alone and isolated.
She took solace in sex, losing her virginity in her first teenage year and taking countless lovers before she was 20.
Her mother suffered severe psychiatric problems and frequently attempted suicide; once, while overdosed on drugs, she served the family a dish containing bleach and detergent.
Told that her mother’s schizophrenia was hereditary, Storm lived with the threat of going crazy dangling above her head like some psychiatric Sword of Damocles.
A heroin addict for several years, she managed to quit the drug when she discovered performing music gave her a greater hit.
The sex addiction took longer to get under control and the singer slept her way through a number of bands before finding fame on an American talent contest.
Her debut single Ladylike hit the US billboard charts at number five and, oddly enough, raced to the top of the charts in Iceland, spending six weeks at number one back when the citizens of that country had solvent banks to keep their CD-buying pennies in and their volcano was |still sleepy.
A captivating stage presence, Storm is strikingly beautiful and has a voice to match her looks.
The sad tale of her childhood is told with a graphic, cautionary detail, a heavy sprinkling of profanity and a large dollop of self-analytical humour.
Storm Large has become an icon in her adopted city of Portland, Oregon. I can see why. She certainly deserves to cause a large storm in Edinburgh.
Storm Large: Crazy Enough is at the Underbelly, Cowgate, at 10.25pm until August 29.