Axel Storme

Axel Storme is an Australian dark pop artist whose music moves between cinematic ballads and high-energy EDM-gospel anthems. He writes about the things most people leave out — foster care, adoption, a marriage that broke, faith found and lost and found again — and he doesn't soften them for comfort. His work is built on the belief that a song that doesn't make you think, feel, or confront something isn't doing its job.

Storme is open about his process: he writes every lyric himself and uses AI platforms including Suno and Riffusion for production and sound design. He has been public about this from the start, and equally public about where he's headed — toward his own voice, his own instruments, and a stage.

Early life

Axel Storme was born Shane Neil Benson in Sydney, Australia, in September 1977. His early childhood was spent moving between a dysfunctional family home, foster care, and Barnardo's children's homes. At eight he was adopted by a Christian couple and his name was legally changed again.

Those years are the direct source material for Stories from the Streetlights Vol. 1, an album that blends what he remembers with what he imagined to survive it. The faith he was introduced to at eight — resisted for decades, returned to later — runs underneath most of what he's written since.

Music was there the whole time, if only as an escape. His taste has always been indiscriminate: opera and heavy rock, Amy Grant and The Weeknd, Phantom of the Opera and NF. That refusal to pick a lane is audible in everything he makes.

Career

Storme didn't write his first lyric until 2023. He was in the collapse of his marriage, writing letters to his then-wife because he couldn't say it out loud, and eventually recognised that what he was writing had a shape to it. By 2024 the letters had become songs.

He had been building beats since childhood — Dance eJay, then FL Studio, then Mixcraft — but production had always outpaced his ability to finish anything. When his eldest son showed him Suno, the missing half arrived: lyrics he'd written could finally become records. Riffusion followed for sound design and genre experimentation.

Thirteen albums and more than sixty singles followed in under two years — including three albums inside a single month in early 2025, the result of a backlog of finished writing and, as Storme readily admits, not yet knowing how release schedules worked.

Broken & Remade (May 2026) and Not the Monster (June 2026) are the clearest statement of where he is now — two records about being taken apart and put back together differently. The first is direct worship. The second takes the long way round, using vampire mythology to tell the same story at a remove: pride, guilt, a darkness chosen and defended, and a light that refuses to let go. Storme is careful to call it creative testimony rather than autobiography — the events are invented, the truths underneath them aren't.

He has also released collaborations with L'Noir Scarlett and Talon Creed, going back to 2024.

Sound

Dark pop as a foundation, with synthwave, alternative rock, cinematic orchestration, EDM-gospel, and emotional R&B moving in and out. Gritty, soulful Australian vocals. Big dynamic swings — a track will go from a whisper to a choir inside thirty seconds, and often does.

The common thread across genres is theatre. Storme thinks in scenes and arcs rather than singles, which comes directly from a lifelong love of Phantom, Jesus Christ Superstar, Hamilton, and Wicked. Most of his records are concept records whether or not they're labelled that way.

Core influences: P!nk, Sam Smith, NF, Imagine Dragons, The Weeknd, DC Talk, and cinematic composers.

Discography

Albums

Not the Monster - Jun 2026

A cinematic concept album using vampire mythology as metaphor — one soul's journey from darkness, pride, and guilt through surrender to redemption. Creative testimony rather than autobiography.

Broken & Remade May 2026

Raw Christian worship — brokenness, surrender, redemption. EDM-gospel meets solo piano.

Sunburnt Christmas Dec 2025

Twelve tracks. An Australian Christmas record — heat, not snow.

Pages I Learned to Burn - Sep 2025

Sixteen tracks of unfiltered aftermath — the record most listeners find him through.

Letters I Never Sent - Jul 2025

Fourteen tracks. The things said only after there was no one left to say them to.

It's Raining Cheese - Apr 2025

A deliberate break from the heavy material.

Breaking the Shell - Feb 2025

Confronting an abusive marriage and reclaiming a voice.

Grace and Mercy - Feb 2025

A reckoning with the faith he was handed at eight.

Still Worth Fighting For - Feb 2025

Written hoping for reconciliation. Vulnerability and endurance.

Threads of Eternity - Dec 2024

A "what if" concept album on legacy, fate, and inner strength, shaped by the orchestral sweep of The Lion King's score.

Celestial Christmas - Nov 2024

Seasonal themes through a cinematic lens.

Stories from the Streetlights Vol. 1 - Nov 2024

His early childhood — real memory woven with invention.

Boundaries Broken - Oct 2024

The first release. Resilience and reinvention, seven tracks.

EPs

Unconditional (Oct 2025, 7 tracks)

Collaborations

"How Do I Say It" with L'Noir Scarlett (2026) · "Invisible Echoes" with L'Noir Scarlett (2024, credited as Chloe Lamont) · "Rising With The Sun" with Talon Creed (2025)

Most played

"Footsteps in the Dust" · "Dear Her Family (You Never Asked Me)" · "Your Grace Still Holds Me" · "Name in Her Mouth" · "Burn the Letters, Not the Memories" · "Still Here Somehow"

Recent singles

• "The Heat" (Aug 2026)

• "Not Meant To Be Alone" (Aug 2026)

• "How Do I Say It" — with L'Noir Scarlett (Aug 2026)

• "Press Play" (Jul 2026)

• "The Only Place" (Jul 2026)

• "Not Myself Today" (Jul 2026)

• "Last One Loved" (Jul 2026)

• "Tides & Freedom" (Jun 2026)

• "Endless Blue" (May 2026)

• "Still Here Somehow" (Mar 2026)

Plus more than thirty earlier singles, including "Loud & Unapologetic," "I Just Want to Be Loved," "No More Eggshells," and "36 Places Still Searching."

What's next

Storme has been explicit that AI-assisted production is a stage, not a destination.

In 2026 he began training a vocal model on his own singing — recording full performances of his own songs, his own breath and phrasing — with the long-term aim of moving track by track toward fully live vocals. He is taking formal vocal lessons alongside it. Current releases are increasingly hybrids: real takes layered under and around the model, with more of the real take surviving each time.

The same applies to instrumentation. The strings and keys across his catalogue are currently produced; he's returning to piano, which he learned as a child, with the intent of playing those parts himself.

The destination isn't a stage. It's a record where the voice you hear is his — no deadline attached, and no interest in rushing it to meet one.

"AI is a great tool and it's served me well so far, but I really want to bring my music to life with my own voice — the way I hear it in my head."

"I might have started late, but what is age? I always tell my kids to learn as much as they can. Life is short, but it's what you make out of it that counts. I want to leave a legacy for my kids — to show that even if you start late, you can still get it done. There's no such thing as 'too late.' The only time it's too late is when you give up. And giving up isn't an option."