The Store formed when all 3 members simultaneously dropped out of their business school, after only 3 months of attendance.
“We knew each other from high school. We had no great plans for the future. We were just trying to please our parents”, they later recalled. “We didn't know any better”.
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They were so shocked by what they were being told in classes while studying the “art of commerce”, that all three of them decided to call it quits and rebel, just in time for Christmas. “That was a shitty gift to our families, in retrospect, but we just could not take it any more”.
All three members of The Store remained in Lausanne and started working as clerks while writing songs on the side. “We were very much into the post-punk/dance NYC scene of the 80’s, and we were big fan of the Talking Heads".
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It did not take long for The Store to figure out what their songs would be about: “The funny thing was that all three of us were actually getting pretty good grades in business schools before dropping out of the programs. We understood how it all worked. But we just did not care for it, and we were deeply convinced that all this shit had to be condemned for what it was: irresponsible and derisive, unkind greed. Stupid catch phrases created by advertisers in the sole intend of selling things…”
Namely, marketing became The Store’s new-found enemy, and they consequently decided to focus on trying to “raise awareness on the impact media and advertising could have on mental health”.