Just a quirky little bit of the story of how Torrent became the name of the band. It could have been worse… much worse..
They were still doing a lot of covers, but Jon and Mike had written a few songs that they’d managed to pull together – they could use a bit of polishing, but they were original and showed promise.
The band was still without a name, and they were quickly coming up on their first live show at the campus pub. Various assorted names were tossed about – Boris Karloff’s Great Adventure, Vicars In Tutus (Chris’ suggestion, which was shot down inside of thirty seconds), Nucleon Number (yelled out in a fit of frustration by Mike), and UnAngelic (Lori). Finally there was silence.
“Can we just call ourselves Untitled? Make everything easier?” Mike wondered.
Everyone went silent again, thinking in their own little spaces.
“We want something catchy, something that describes us, something that describes our sound.” Jon mused.
“Well, what is your sound? Define it for me.” Lori, who was leaning up against him, questioned.
“Big, amazing, kind of ‘wow”. Just like you’ve been out walking and all of a sudden you’ve been hit by a torrential rainfall – something big and surprising.”
“Well, why not that?”
Everyone looked at Lori with questioning looks on their faces.
“Jon, think of what you just said about the sound of the band, the bit about rain.”
“Torrential?” he perked. “Torrent! That’s fucking brilliant – like a fucking torrent of sound just hit you!”
He leaned down and gave Lori a kiss. “Thanks love.”
She rested her head gently on his murmuring “You can thank me later.” with a wink. Mike cleared his throat, breaking their reverie, bringing attention to the matter at hand.
“So, Torrent? Chris, you got any suggestions, objections or whatever?”
Chris straightened, as if stung by the allusion that he wouldn’t like the name. “Nope, I actually really like it.”
Jon smiled. “So. Torrent. Huh. We’ve been arguing over this for how long? And Chris – what the fuck is with Vicars in Tutus?”
Chris blushed. “I figured we were all giving the most ridiculous names we could. Didn’t think anyone would take that as an actual suggestion.”
The group laughed as one. A large hurdle was down, and now more practice and their first live show loomed ahead – the largest hurdle next to getting a bass player.
Chris checked his watch. “Time for one more song, then call it a night?”
Everyone nodded. They’d been working most of the day – voices were getting raw, fingers sore and it felt much later than it actually was.
Mike counted them in, and as one, they launched into their last song of the night.
Every time he heard them sing, Jon was amazed that they all fit so well – vocally, musically and otherwise. The odds were definitely against them being a functioning group pretty much out of the gates. Most groups had problems getting or keeping one member, and this case it was true in part, but their bass player was there knowing he wouldn’t be a permanent addition. He didn’t want to be in a band permanently, he enjoyed playing with them, but not enough to keep with them any longer than it took to find a competent replacement for him.
When they finished up there was an air of accomplishment and exhilaration in the air.