by Jenna Swetz

Out of all of the musicians and bands that Tacoma has hosted and raised over its long history, one of the most influential of those bands has to be The Sonics. Known for their loud, wild, and raw sound, The Sonics are considered the progenitors of the grunge subgenre of rock & roll. Founded in 1960 by a teenage Larry Parypa, The Sonics started out as an instrumental combo featuring Larry’s older brother, Andy Parypa, on guitar. For a brief time, another of Parypa’s brothers, Jerry Parypa, played saxophone for the band, while their mother occasionally played bass during rehearsals. The Sonics’ lineup would change a lot in their early days, but their membership finally became solid in 1963, when drummer Bob Bennett, sax player Rob Lind, and keyboard player Gerry Roslie left their original band, The Searchers, to permanently join The Sonics. Larry Parypa would remain as lead guitarist, while his brother, Andy, would shift to bass guitar. They would go on to play covers of Little Richard and Chuck Berry songs, as well as their own original songs with roaring guitars, thundering drums, and the raw howls of lead singer Gerry Roslie. While The Sonics were already a popular band in the Tacoma teen club scene, their new line up would lead to an explosion in their popularity, becoming the most talked about band in the Northwest!

In 1964, The Sonics were able to sign with the local label Etiquette Records after impressing Buck Ormsby, the bass guitarist for the Northwest superstars The Fabulous Wailers, into becoming their manager.  For their first single, The Sonics took one of their few original tunes and changed it from a song about a dance craze into a song about a woman who was cruel to her boyfriend, culminating in one of their most popular songs, “The Witch”.

“The Witch” was originally paired with a manic cover of Little Richard’s “Keep A’Knockin’”, but once the single became a major hit in the Northwest through smaller markets, The Sonics recorded another original song, “Psycho”, for the B-side rather than continue to pay royalties to Little Richard. The next year, The Sonics recorded their first full-length album, “Here Are the Sonics!!”, becoming even more popular throughout the Northwest. They were even invited to play in some of the biggest and most prestigious venues available to local rock bands of the time! In 2017 interview with Rob Lind, he describes what these performances were like in the 1960’s, stating, “People didn’t come stand in front of the band. They were dances; people came to meet girls and meet guys, get hooked up and stuff. KJR was the big rock station, the disc jockeys would come down after a basketball game or something and spin records.”

In 1966, The Sonics released their second album, featuring several more hits like “Cinderella”, “Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark”, and “Shot Down”. Even though The Sonics had reached the peak of popularity in the Northwest, the relative failure of their third album, “Introducing the Sonics”, and their cover of Frank Zappa’s “Any Way the Wind Blows” in 1967 led to the band falling apart.

In the 1980’s, The Sonics were considered one of the top vintage garage rock bands and would go on to influence many different artists in the budding grunge scene, including Mudhoney, Green River, and quite possibly one of the most famous grunge bands of all time: Nirvana. Kurt Cobain himself stated, “The Sonics recorded very, very cheaply on a two-track, you know, and they just used one microphone over the drums, and they got the most amazing drum sound I’ve ever heard. Still to this day, it’s still my favorite drum sound. It sounds like he’s hitting harder than anyone I’ve ever known.” The Sonics would influence more than just the grunge genre, they also inspired nuevo-garage bands like The Whitestripes and The Hives. Many artists, including Iggy and The Stooges, Bruce Springsteen, and The Melvins have performed covers of The Sonics. It is safe to say that without The Sonics, the grunge subgenre may have never become the popular subgenre it is today.

Fortunately for music fans, 1967 would not be the end for The Sonics! In 2007, a whole four decades later, Gerry Roslie, Larry Parypa, and Rob Lind would get back together for a reunion show as a part of New York city’s Cavestomp garage rock festival. Ricky Lynn Johnson, formerly of The Fabulous Wailers, filled in for the drums and Don Wilhelm, from the Daily Flash, filled in for the bass guitar. Their show was a wild success, which prompted The Sonics to begin playing regularly at clubs and festivals throughout Europe, the United Kingdom, and the United States. In 2008, Bob Bennett briefly rejoined for a performance in Seattle. Later on in 2009, Don Wilhelm parted ways with The Sonics and Freddie Dennis became their new bassist. In 2010, The Sonics recorded and released their first new material since the 1960’s! The EP called “8” contained four new songs and four live tracks. In 2014, The Sonics, featuring a new drummer Dusty Watson, recorded a full-length album called “This Is the Sonics” which was released in March of 2015. Shortly after, during performance in Seattle, Krist Novoselic, the bassist of Nirvana, joined The Sonics for their album launch show. In an interview with Larry Parypa, he had this to say, “Sometimes it’s still hard to believe that just a bunch of guys pounding their instruments back in the ‘60s would influence so much and that we would be back 50 years later doing it again.” Since then, The Sonics have gone on to tour in multiple locations across Europe, the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Australia, and even Japan. It is simply amazing that a little garage band from Tacoma, Washington would go on to not only help birth an entire subgenre of rock & roll but become international rock & roll superstars in their own right 50 years later.

About the Author

Jenna Swetz prepared this article as her final project for TARTS 225: Musical History of Tacoma, taught by Kim Davenport at the University of Washington, Tacoma. At the time she took the class in Spring Quarter 2023, she was a senior majoring in biomedical sciences.