Storm Durr-Behrens may be recognised around Stellenbosch as the rising star in Afrikaans band GSTRiNG, but the 21-year-old guitarist is far more complex than his growing reputation suggests. He spoke to SMF News’ Ella Bosman about finding meaning in solitude.
Storm Durr-Behrens sits outside Taste coffee shop, Stellenbosch. The 21-year old musician is part of Afrikaans indie band, GSTRiNG. PHOTO: Ella Bosman
It’s another scorching day in Stellenbosch. The streets are packed with people searching for ice-cold drinks.
Storm Durr-Behrens is already seated at Taste, a coffee shop. He has a guitar case resting beside him, and a Kindle and notebook in front of him. Open on the Kindle’s screen is Homer’s The Iliad. At a nearby table, a group of teenage boys begin giggling. “Dis rêrig hy,” [it’s really him], they whisper before approaching hesitantly to ask for a picture.
At 21, Storm is part of a new generation of Afrikaans musicians reshaping the language’s indie music scene – despite not growing up Afrikaans himself. But behind the rising recognition lies a story shaped by solitude and an almost obsessive devotion to music. To understand how he got here, it helps to go back to where it started.
A formative solitude
Storm grew up on a farm outside of Paarl, spending his early years roaming the fields, where his family grew sweet potatoes. It was a landscape he describes as beautiful but isolating. Born to an Afrikaans mother and an English father, Storm grew up straddling cultural lines. Without siblings, neighbours, or friends nearby, he spent long stretches of time alone. For him, that solitude was formative.
“It was part of the circumstances that birthed who I am now,” he says. With so much time alone, he turned inward, developing an imagination and sensitivity that would later shape his music.
Storm shifts back in his chair as he remembers his parents telling him to start piano lessons at the age of eight. He refused. “I wanted to play the guitar,” he says. The love for music came later when he realised he could play the songs he actually enjoyed. He was twelve at the time.
“From then on, I was just in love,” he says.
It is no surprise he fell in love with music. Storm’s grandfather, Richard Behrens, was a composer and organist who helped construct the Endler Hall in central Stellenbosch – a building whose foyer now bears his name.
Yet Storm says he only came to appreciate that legacy much later, as music shifts from a pastime to something closer to purpose.
South African musician Storm Durr-Behrens has spent years experimenting on the guitar, writing and finding his voice. PHOTO: Ella Bosman
A curve in the road
Storm suffers from scoliosis, a condition that causes the spine to curve abnormally. As a teenager, he underwent corrective surgery, a moment that dramatically altered the trajectory of his life. The recovery forced him to leave a traditional school and move to a smaller online Cambridge learning programme, offering the same level of in-depth study as a South African Matric certificate.
“It was really a turning point in my life,” he says, referring to his surgery.
Until then, Storm had focused intensely on music but also harboured ambitions of becoming a long-distance runner for South Africa. The surgery changed that.
“That forced me into a really reflective place.”
“Music became my solitude,” he says.
He spent hours experimenting with loop pedals, writing songs and refining his sound. The quieter environment also allowed him to complete school earlier than expected, in 2022. Finishing school early, at the age of seventeen, left him with something rare: Time.
Musician Storm Durr-Behrens enjoys going to Stellenbosch Botanical Garden, a place where he finds moments of quiet away from the stage. PHOTO: Ella Bosman
Lost between borders
Before coming to Stellenbosch, Storm spent a year travelling Europe. What began as a short trip slowly turned into something more open-ended, guided more by instinct than by plans.
On a train travelling between countries, backpack in tow, he crossed a border checkpoint with a dead phone and his accommodation still three kilometres away. The journey had been smooth up until that point – train rides blurring into one another, each stop much like the last.
He asked a guard if he could charge his phone. The guard paused, asked for his passport and delivered the unexpected news.
“You’re not allowed to be here,” says the guard.
Storm lets out a nervous chuckle and takes a long pause before continuing, as if still weighing how much to say. Within minutes, the uncertainty escalated. He was escorted into a police van and taken to a refugee holding facility, far removed from the easy freedom that had defined his travels up to that point.
“That was the most alone I have ever felt in my life,” says Storm.
Stripped of movement, routine and control, time seemed to stretch. The details of how long he stayed and how he eventually left are things he chooses not to dwell on publicly. What he does return to, however, is the feeling: disorientation, isolation, and the quiet effort to stay calm in a situation he couldn’t fully navigate.
That night he had only one book with him: Viktor Frankl’s Man’s search for meaning, the famous memoir about finding purpose in suffering.
‘I wrote to myself a lot,” he says. “Just reminding myself to stay level-headed.”
Eventually, he made his way out – back across borders, back home. When he arrived in South Africa, the reunion with his family was overwhelming.
“They were [just] incredibly relieved,” he says. The experience is something he brushes off lightly now, but the pause before he speaks suggests it left a deeper imprint.
After returning to South Africa, he spent several months regrouping before departing for Stellenbosch University (SU) in 2024.
For Storm’s closest friend, Benjamin Shirley, moments like this reveal something essential about him. When asked to describe Storm in one sentence, Shirley says: “The first true artist I’ve ever met – true genius.”
He pauses, then adds that it’s not just about talent, but about the way Storm moves through the world – drawn to intensity, to experience, to meaning – even when it comes at a cost.
That instinct – to feel deeply, to reflect, to translate experience into something creative – would soon find a more tangible outlet in Stellenbosch.
Storm Durr-Behrens, member of the Afrikaans band, GSTRiNG, has always found solace in his music. PHOTO: Ella Bosman
Finding GSTRiNG
Storm arrived in Stellenbosch in February 2024, searching for something new after his travels. He started with a BA PPE (Politics, Philosophy and Economics) at SU, and is currently in his third year. But in his first year already, Storm’s mind was buzzing with music.
On his first day at SU’s Helshoogte Residence, he met another Helshoogte first-year resident, Neelsie van Dyk, during a game of two truths and a lie. Neelsie joked that he was a part of a famous band called GSTRiNG. Storm laughed: “Hey Neelsie, I’m a guitarist, let’s jam.”
It was a casual remark, but for Storm it sparked a connection he hadn’t felt for years: The chance to play with someone who shared his energy and curiosity about music.
For the rest of the week, the two wandered through residence corridors with acoustic guitars, knocking on doors and playing music for anyone who would listen. The impromptu sessions drew small crowds, and the energy was contagious.
“I realised that playing together changed everything,” Storm says. “Music suddenly felt alive in a way I hadn’t experienced alone.”
Later that month, he met Neelsie’s friend, Wilhelm Warmenhoven, a bassist who shared their appetite for experimentation. The trio quickly discovered a creative chemistry: Storm’s reflective melodies, Neelsie’s rhythmic intuition, and Wilhelm’s deep bass lines intertwined naturally. It just clicked, Storm recalls.
“We started to play and just kept on playing random gigs,” he says.
By the end of 2024, the band released their first album, Sonvlug.
“There is something new about the sound,” Storm says. “Almost a disregard for tradition.”
After one performance at Aandklas, a bar in Stellenbosch, Storm realised that things had shifted.
“It was the first time I’ve played and people wanted me to,” he says, pausing. “For so many years I had just been playing by myself, for myself.”
The enthusiasm of the audience opened a door he hadn’t known existed, and for the first time, his music felt like it was part of a larger conversation.
Storm finishes the last sip of his coffee and pulls out his guitar, playing softly. Taste manager Neil Lambrechts approaches, curiosity getting the better of him. When he hears the band name, he raises an eyebrow.
“What is G-string music?” Lambrechts asks, amused. Storm smiles.
“It’s a very good name,” Lambrechts says. “People will always wonder what it means.” He listens for a moment. “Very beautiful.” Then he walks away.
Niel Lambrechts, owner of Taste, a restaurant in Stellenbosch, takes a photo of Storm Durr-Behrens playing the guitar at the restaurant. PHOTO: Ella Bosman
Storm packs up his notebook and guitar and heads towards the Stellenbosch Botanical Garden. At the gate, the attendant recognises him immediately and waves him through. He wanders along the paths until he finds a quiet place among the trees. Storm mentions a line by Bob Dylan that he often returns to: “I contain multitudes.”
There, surrounded by silence, Storm once again begins to play – alone, but no longer only for himself.