Leo Davadi Sundli is the rising star whose music you absolutely need to know. At just 16 years old, the prodigious Mr. Sundli has now unleashed his debut album under the Storm banner, which is aptly titled Join the Storm, via the celebrated Indie Recordings. That glorious offering first rocked listeners on August 22nd. Join the Storm amounts to a wondrous triumph, a refreshing highlight of 2025. This must-have record fuses elements of metalcore, rock, pop, punk, rap, EDM, experimental music, and so forth. However, Storm stands as a genre-defying entity that can’t be pigeonholed. Storm brings audiences the best of all worlds, and the result is thoroughly authentic and utterly enrapturing.
The completely cohesive Join the Storm provides incredible variety and beautifully showcases Storm’s gargantuan talent. This surprise-packed journey combines lethal catchiness, ear candy, aggression, and depth. For Join the Storm, Storm collaborated with a remarkable mix of seasoned professionals to compose 10 thrilling gems. Storm also penned the lyrics. As an immensely charismatic performer, Storm is explosive yet possesses great finesse and intuition. The fact that Storm also co-produced Join the Storm is nothing short of astounding, considering the results.
With the help of established filmmakers, Storm created a stunning video for “Suffocating,” an addictive number that features Fixation, whose Martin Stenstad Selen works closely with Storm and had a big hand in shaping the album. This video is just one example of how Storm has perfected all visual components. Within the context of the album, “Suffocating” is presaged by the suspenseful “Asphyxiate,” a breathtaking, wordless composition that demonstrates that Storm not only serves up awesome tracks but keeps the greater whole in mind. The painfully emotive “Running from My Heart” ultimately gives way to the finale, the brilliantly wild and unique “Fever Dreams,” which includes a guest appearance from Canadian rapper Snak the Ripper.
Even prior to the release of Join the Storm, Storm had already more than proven himself. He has amassed millions of views on TikTok, performed on the talk show Lidmo on NRK, Norway’s leading broadcasting company; has acquired radio fame; earned the honor of GAFFA Nordics’ “Name of the Month”; and has wowed crowds at major events, such as Download Festival and Tons of Rock.
We were delighted to have the opportunity to discuss Join the Storm with the artist himself. We hope that the next time we speak with him, he’ll already have celebrated many more milestones, as we think he deserves to be a household name and has all the qualities to become one.
I’m blown away by Join the Storm. You’ve obviously received a ton of positive attention. Could you please speak a bit about that and what release day was like?
Yeah, first of all, thank you so much. It’s been truly amazing. The album has been in the works for so long, and it’s so nice that it’s finally out. It feels kind of surreal, you know, because the release date used to feel so far away. I love to see that people like the album. I don’t want to have any expectations at all when I release stuff, but, of course, when people actually like it, it’s a big compliment.
You worked with some great people for Join the Storm, so I was wondering if you could take me through the process of composing this record. I know that you wrote one of the tracks on your way home from school, for example.
Yeah, all those songs have so many stories, but I write most of my songs in the studio with a guy called Erlend Torheim. He’s a great guy, and we just click together. We like to compare ourselves with Jordan Fish and Oli Sykes from Bring Me the Horizon because they had a connection, and we also have that. So, I love working with him, but I have this studio at home where I’m sitting right now. Many of the songs are just made here as well. Like you said, for one of the songs, “Walking Dead,” I just got the whole idea in my head while I was going home from school, and I just had to record it on my phone. I went straight to the studio, tracked it, and just got the song out. I used to send stuff to Erlend because we always work together, and he’s like, “Hell yeah, let’s work more on it!” And sometimes, it’s the other way around: He comes up with ideas, and we work on them. But most of the songs are written here in my basement. It’s a kind of long process. I know some artists like to produce the songs just to get them done and get them out, but we’ve kind of done it the opposite way: We’ve been working on a lot of songs at the same time to kind of get all done together so that they’re not from completely different eras. So, yeah, we made the songs on the album all together, and that takes time. Some of the songs are from around 2022, but it’s definitely worth it. I love that process because then I feel like all the songs get the work that they deserve.
That’s a really smart way of working. I’m going to skip ahead for a moment because I think it’s awesome that you have a home studio. If an artist can record at home, I think that it often adds a greater sense of closeness and whatnot for the listener and can help ensure that intentions are fulfilled. You co-produced Join the Storm, so could you please tell me more about the production process?
I would say most of the songs start right here. I make demos. I produce myself. I have this vocal booth over here, and I just track my own vocals. Then, I send them over to my guy, Erlend. If we want to finish the song more, I head over to his studio in Oslo. Or, sometimes, he comes here. We can switch it up a little bit, but most of the time, I go to Oslo, and we finish the songs together. He’s so talented, and I love to work with talented people. I used to make the MIDI drums, track the guitars, make MIDI basses, but I work with this guy called Martin from the band Fixation. I have an understanding of all of the instruments that are relevant for my genre, including piano, but Martin is the one that tracks the guitars, and bass, and finishes the MIDI drums — we don’t track the drums. He’s fucking amazing; he’s so good. So, I send him my riffs, you know — send him the guitar stems, and then he just makes them a little bit better. He just adds his professionalism to the drums, and the bass, and the guitar. So, yeah, he’s an amazing guy to work with, and he also mixes the songs.
He did a perfect job with the mixing. Did you two have a lot of conversations about the mixing or not really? The production sounds so perfect, and that’s really amazing, considering all of the different types of things going on in the music.
I always try to make the best production I can before I send anything to Erlend, and he tries to make the best production he can before we send it to Martin again. So, we try to make the best mix possible, and get our vision out, and make it easier for everybody, even before he gets it. But he always likes when he gets the stems. I’m more excited to hear his mixes than I am on Christmas Day because he always pushes the songs to the limit. Of course, we go back and forth a lot, and we discuss a lot, but we know each other’s wishes pretty well because we’ve worked together for such a long time, both me and Erlend and me and Martin — he’s been there from the start. I’ve worked more with Martin, actually, because he helped me produce my first ever EP, so we just understand each other, and that’s what’s beautiful because then we always make something that makes everybody happy, and everybody loves it. But, yeah, I try to do as much as I can. When I make demos, I try to make them as finished as possible. If I’m not working with Erlend, then Martin and I are doing it together.
Clearly, you have such a unique blend of styles: metalcore, pop, a little bit of punk, electronic, rap, and so forth. Could you please speak about finding your own unique artistic voice?
Yeah, the thing is that I don’t think too much about it. I’m influenced by so many different artists — everything from Post Malone to Bring Me the Horizon, Falling in Reverse, Billie Eilish… I could talk about that for hours. So, yeah, there are so many different genres that inspire me, and, therefore, I don’t want to put myself into some kind of box or say, “I’m going to be a metalcore artist.” I don’t want to be that — I want to do whatever feels right that day. That’s reflected in the result of the album because, one day, I want to make pop; one day, I want to try to rap. I just want to be myself. It’s chaos, but that’s how my head works. I switch up every day, and I want to try out different stuff. So, my producer says it’s kind of hard to know what I want to do because, again, one day, I’ll call him and tell him that I want to be a rapper; the next day, I’ll call him and say I want to make a pop album. But I feel like that turned out to be my thing, and I couldn’t imagine myself saying that I’m just going to do one thing because I have so many visions, and I just like to test out stuff. There are a lot of genres that didn’t make it to the album because it didn’t work out, but I just love to test out all different styles.
It’s amazing how you can make all of the styles fully your own — like “Alien Perspective” is more on the hip-hop end, but it’s still a great mix of things and also original. That’s an incredibly catchy song. And “Fever Dreams” is a phenomenal song with crazy twists. I love that you have some exotic vibes mixed in. So… this is probably a silly question, but Trondheim has the best black metal in the world, so would you ever consider maybe adding some black metal elements?
That would be kind of sick. I should really dig more into that because that’s part of Norwegian history and our town, but I feel like the Norwegian people have almost forgotten it. Now, there’s just like party music everywhere, and none of the people my age know about the dark history of the black metal music era. I don’t listen to a lot of black metal because, actually, some music gets a little bit too heavy for me, but you never know. When I started out, I never thought I would do any kind of rapping or anything like that, so I switch up all the time. So, I can promise you that one day I’ll probably want to do a black metal song. We’ll see.
In terms of education, I know that Marita Hellem, and Brage Kråbøl, two very talented musicians, attended Trøndertun folkehøgskole, a special music high school. If you’d be willing to talk about it, I’m curious about your musical training.
Oh, of course, I can talk about that. I’m in high school, and I didn’t want to choose the music line. I chose media and communications because I feel like otherwise that kind of would have made me feel burned out by the time I came home from school and sat down here. I wouldn’t have the same joy in making music, I think. I don’t know, but I think so. Also, I wanted to learn more about media because I’ve done music since I was eight. I’m not trying to sound like I know too much, or I know everything I need to know. There’s definitely more to learn, you know — you never get fully educated on music. There’s always going to be more. But I felt like I didn’t have a lot of experience using cameras and stuff, and I have kind of that now. That’s become such a big part of music now, the media part, and I wanted to learn more about it.
Speaking of media, I was really impressed because even a lot of very big veteran bands don’t necessarily have all of their visuals in order… But your photographs are beautiful and artistic — they suit their purpose and match the music perfectly. And you also have things figured out in terms of music videos — “Suffocating” and your other videos are awesome. Is there anything you can say about finding the right people to help you fulfill your vision for Storm’s visuals?
You know, I love the visual part. I love that as much as making the music, to be honest. I don’t know why, but I love having photo shoots. I love making music videos. I feel like it’s a gift after all the hard work. I kind of burn for that. Of course, I work with very professional people. With the photo shoots, for example, I’ve always worked with a girl called Elisabeth [Jacobsen]. She’s such an amazing photographer. I just try to get out my visions, the pictures I have in my head, and she makes them real. So, yeah, I just love that part. It’s become such an important part of Storm.
Your versatility as a vocalist is incredible. Is it at all challenging for you to switch between the clean vocals and harsh vocals, keep your voice healthy, and perform live?
I’m going to be honest, it’s something I’m working on because I do damage my voice sometimes when we work too long. I’m happy with what I’ve done, but it definitely hurts sometimes, so I’ve been to a vocal teacher a lot lately. But I learned to sing by myself. I never had a teacher before. The screaming thing just came to me. I have a technique that works, and it works for doing concerts, but it’s definitely something I’ve been working on since after the album. I got pretty exhausted from all the studio sessions, and I realized I had to do something about it.
Your vocals and your transitions sound perfect — I was just asking because I was surprised to hear that Tomi Joutsen, for example, started taking vocal lessons because he wanted to make his way of singing more comfortable because everything from him seems effortless as well. So, you start off Join the Storm with the AI voice, and you incorporated some similar types of things throughout the record. And “Asphyxiate,” for example, is such a cool track and a great way to change things up…
Yeah, thank you so much. “Asphyxiate” was actually part of “Suffocating,” but it became way too long as an intro, and I wanted to make it even longer. So, I was like, “You know what, let’s make these two different songs just so the ones that listen to the full album can have that experience.” We did the AI voice on a lot of songs, and then we were like, “Oh, this kind of goes through the whole album.” So, we were like, “What if we start with an AI voice?!” And it says, “Join the storm,” and, “Thank you for joining the storm,” and that’s what this whole album is about — joining the chaos and embracing chaos instead of being afraid of it.
On the topic of themes, one thing that I wanted to mention is that you have the song “Fame,” for example, and, in “Moonlight,” you have your little Hollywood criticism. You had mentioned in writing that you’re making music for the passion and not attention, and so I think that’s part of what makes Storm such an exceptional project and also what makes a lot of bands from Trondheim so great — a lot of my favorite bands are from there. But I do wish you a lot of fame, and I hope that you’ll become as big as Yungblud.
Of course, we want to make the project as big as possible, but that song is also kind of ironic. I’m not looking for fame, but the song also has the meaning behind it that I feel like it’s too normal in the music world to just do music to become famous and rich. You see this type of rap dominating music right now that’s just about bitches, money, and fame, that’s all, you know. I have a lot of respect for rap and hip-hop, but, lately, there’s just a lot of stuff that’s just…man, did you put any emotion in this!? So, that’s kind of what the song is about. I want to be myself. I don’t want to change myself, and I want to do it for the passion. If it’s not for the passion anymore, I feel like it’s not real, and there’s no point in doing it, unless you just want to become rich and have all this stuff.
Agreed. I have to say your English is obviously as good or better than any native’s, so does the language pose any kind of lyrical challenge? Based on the results, I would assume not…
Yeah, kind of, but writing in English feels better and better, and I feel like I’m getting better and better. I learn more and more, and I work a lot with my stepmother, actually. She’s just good at everything that has to do with writing, so she helps me a little bit to find the right synonyms to express myself more in-depth. But also, I tried writing some Norwegian songs with my friends, just for fun, and that’s kind of hard for me now because I’m so used to doing the English rhymes.
Norwegian is one of my favorite languages, and I love Seigmen — they’re one of the bands that uses Norwegian best, in my opinion, and they’re on Indie. Indie is such a fantastic label. Robbe Madsen is another amazing artist, and he’s fabulous at what he does for the label. His promos are the best. Could you please share a bit about your experience with Indie?
Yeah, they discovered me at such an early age, so I’ve kind of grown up with them. I was 12 when I signed my contract, and they’ve been so amazing from the start. They were, at the start, really like, “We don’t want to make you a child star. We’re not here to make money off you at first. We want to make this a growing project where you can grow as an artist.” And I’m so glad they had that kind of mindset because, in the beginning, I was like, “No, I want to do everything now. I’m going to play everywhere. I want to get big.” And they were like, “Yeah, but calm down. You have so much time, so let’s just take our time and work hard.” I think Indie’s the only bigger metal and rock alternative label that’s kind of making it in Norway right now because it’s hard, because all these major labels are dominating the scene. I have enormous respect for them, and I work so much with those guys. It’s not like a thousand workers; there are a few of them that I have really gotten to know while I’ve been working with them. And also, they have so many great bands that I got to know through them — that’s how I got to work with Fixation. For example, I got to know Robbe there. I’ve been working a lot with him, and I’ve seen his band a lot of times. It’s just amazing. And now, Indie is kind of growing. They’re making the label bigger, and they’re going to build more studios there that I’ll probably be using. I want to move to Oslo when I become 18, so I can just be there in the same place as them because I work so much with them, and I could probably work there. So, yeah, I love those guys, and I’m so glad that we made the decision to go with this label.
You’ve played at some big fests, so I was wondering if you want to talk about your ambitions concerning live shows… And you would be great for Eurovision!
That would be a sick thing to do. This year, I haven’t played any concerts. In 2024, we had a good festival summer, and that was so amazing. I had so much fun, but, this year, we’ve been working a lot with songs in the studio, not the ones on this album, but with new stuff. I think we wrote like 40 songs this summer. So, we’ve just been grinding on. We have a concert now in Trondheim here, like a release concert, in about two weeks. That’s going to be amazing. I love to play. I don’t often play in front of my home people, so I’m excited to do that. And then, we have a concert with Fixation in Oslo, so that’s going to be amazing too, and we’re kind of trying to plan what’s going to happen next year. I didn’t think I would play at Download Festival before I did it, and I didn’t think I would play at Tons of Rock before I did it. These surprises just keep on coming. Being a support act on a European tour would be crazy. That would be amazing; something like that would be sick. So, we’ll just have to wait and see.
I thought it was really cute that you took your little brother onstage, and I might have heard that you come from an artistic family, so I was curious about that because I think it’s a really cool thing.
Yeah, of course. I grew up at my dad’s nightclub when I was smaller, and then he reunited with his band that he had a long, long time ago — it’s called Gåte. And then, I got to join them on the tour bus, and I got exposed to so much music. And my mother, she’s Spanish, so she and my grandfather played a lot of flamenco music. And, at first, I was a Michael Jackson fan. I was dancing at my dad’s nightclub and singing Michael Jackson songs. Growing up in a musical family has been so amazing because it’s what I love to do. It’s helped me a lot, and I’m so grateful for the opportunities that I’ve had, like joining my dad on a tour — I got so much inspiration from seeing that. And also, since my dad has been in the music industry, my family supports me so much. They just say, “Go for it!” As long as I have fun, they want me to go all in, so I’m really grateful for that. And with my little brother, it’s like that as well. He picks up lyrics faster than me, and he doesn’t even know English, so it’s amazing. I try to influence him a little bit. Sometimes, I take him to the studio, and he loves my music, so that’s a great thing. He never stops talking about that time when he joined me onstage. I think that was a really big moment for him. I just remember from when I was a kid, when I got to see my dad on the stage, I got that proud feeling. So, yeah, we are a musical family, but maybe he doesn’t want to be a musician. No one’s going to push him to be a musician, so we’ll just have to wait and see what he wants to do, but I’m going to support him if he wants to be an artist one day. And also, what I respect so much about my family is that they never pushed any genre; they didn’t push me to make music because, at one time, I was very shy, and I wasn’t too hyped about it. But then, I kind of found it myself again, and I found my own genre. I found my own thing. That meant it didn’t feel like my dad made me do this, or my mom made me do this. It felt like this was my thing.
That’s amazing! Since Trondheim has so many top-notch bands from so many different genres, I would like to ask: Has growing up in Trondheim and around that music community influenced you?
You know, I don’t know… Trondheim is kind of parted in two, and I’m not in a super musical part. I missed out on that. So, my friends and the guys I grew up with were all playing sports and stuff. When I was a kid, I didn’t think there was anybody else in Trondheim that liked bands like Bring Me the Horizon and Falling in Reverse. I thought I was the only one because I’d never met anyone that knew those bands. So, I remember when I was in Oslo the first time to visit my label and stuff, I was like, “What the fuck?!,” because I saw a guy with a Bring Me the Horizon T-shirt! That’s crazy! But recently, over these past two years, I’ve gotten to know a lot more of the music community here in Trondheim, and I love that. I feel like that’s amazing. But I also love all those guys I grew up with. I’ve always appreciated growing up with people who are doing completely different things than me. I feel like that’s worked a lot for me. But, yeah, I’ve started discovering more and more new bands, and there’s a lot of great stuff that I didn’t know about. I get surprised a lot. There’s an artist that I just found called Anakin Justin. He’s a rapper. And I just saw him by accident, and I was like, “Hell yeah!” I didn’t know there was this kind of good rap in Trondheim and started discovering more in that kind of genre, and I found a lot of sick stuff. Yeah, you know, it’s really a super musical town. We have a lot of stages, a lot of sick music, and it’s just recently that I’ve discovered that, but I love it, and I love to discover new stuff.
Again, obviously, I think and hope Storm is going to be huge, and it’s really exciting to hear that you have like 40 new songs that you’re working on. So, is there anything more that you can reveal about your plans for Storm?
Yeah, I just want to take Storm as far as possible. I want to reach everybody that would like my music. I just want to reach them all. So, as of right now, we have some plans that are going to be a lot of fun, but I don’t want to focus too much on that. I just want to make a lot of new songs and learn more about myself and what I want to do, just like I did with this album. So, what’s coming next? I don’t know. We’ll see. We’re getting somewhere right now with some stuff, but I just want to keep on writing songs — I love to do that. We’ve had studio sessions where we’re like, “Alright, let’s use one hour per song.” And then, we end up with like seven different ideas in a day. It’s amazing, and I’m just going to keep on working. And I want to play live; I want to get out; I want to release new music. It’s probably not going to be a long time before new music comes out again. So, yeah, I just want to keep it going, and I won’t stay quiet!
I’m really looking forward to seeing and hearing what you’ll do next. We’ve covered a lot, but is there anything we didn’t touch upon that you would like to include here?
One thing I want to say to those people that want to check out this new album is that almost all the songs are about connecting. The album and the songs are about finding yourself and not being afraid to stick out. I just wanted to say that because we’re humans, and we’re crowd animals. We like to fit in. We like to be together, but sometimes it kind of gets to the point where you can’t be yourself anymore… especially like growing up as the only guy with eyeliner and bleached hair among all the soccer guys, you know. You kind of feel different, and then you get the urge to fit in because you want to be a part of the crowd. And I understand that mentality because it’s hard to stick out. People are going to try to drag you down at first when you stick out, but you don’t want to impress those kinds of people. Be yourself. I think people should just say, “Fuck that shit!” So, I just want to say to people that are reading this: “Stay true to yourself.” We don’t want to all be the same. The beautiful thing about people is their differences.
Beautifully stated, and, again, I can’t say enough how impressed I am not only by the music but the full package. Everything comes together so seamlessly.
(Buy and stream Join the Storm here.)
