Rich
Blue ~ Guitar, Vocals
Bruce
Bowen ~ Piano, Guitar, Vocals
Frank
Johnson ~ Bass, Vocals
Orville
Johnson ~ Guitar, Vocals
Stephen
Rock ~ Drums
Mike
Thorpe ~ Drums, Vocals
The Torpedoes played the Rainbow in the U District as well as other clubs in the city and Vashon Island... a quirky little feet New Orleans sounding band that also played a wide variety of original music!Rich Blue, December 2005
Steve Rock
I moved to Seattle and joined the Torpedoes around 1980. The first night in the big city I got a DUI and didn't drive for the following 3 years. We had five vocalists who could sing lead. Our vocal practices, led by Orval Johnson, were the highlight for me. He has such an ear and phenomenal range. We sang My Girl with an accapella intro snapping our fingers.
I lived on Vashon Island and almost starved with the band doing mostly benefits. There was plenty of good musicians in Seattle but it seamed that the number of places needing bands had started to decline at that point and of course the pay also dropped. The benefits were fun to play because the audience was all musicians. I remember Rich Blue singing 'Lucile' by Little Richard as no white boy ever had.
Those were the days,
Michael Thorpe, December 2008
