Marc Storace: MILESTONES ALONG MEMORY LANE
Founded originally in 1971, the 3 members of TEA [the name came about by taking an initial from each of their names] decided to look for a vocalist and found me as the perfect man for the job.
In order to promote the new band formation, we created a huge, over 6 foot tall poster with portraits of each musician, taken by our Manager Peter Waelti, as well as individual posters. We placed the picture of bassist Turo Paschayan instead of the “T” in the Name “TEA?”, Drummer Roli Eggli’s picture over the”E”, guitarist Armand Volker’s picture over the “A”.
The marketing idea was to promote the brand name further and to create curiosity about the ‘mystery’ man on vocals. Who is he? Where did he come from? The “M” of Marc was close enough to the word ‘question mark’ and thus we used the “?” symbol.
The huge poster [left side] was placed on billboard like poster pillars that were popular in those days, also as display in record stores and even fashion boutiques.
TEA went on to a successful career not just in Switzerland but also all over Europe. Three studio albums [TEA, The Ship, Tax Exile], released between 1974 and 1976, one ‘best of’ album in 1978 and another one in 2009 that included also 2 songs that were never released on an album [Reloaded] tell the story.
And the rest is [music] history!
