Quiet Riot’s new singer, 23-year-old John Torra, has said he applied for the Skid Row vocalist job before joining Quiet Riot. He sent Skid Row an audition tape and never got a response, according to Rolling Stone.
Torra still dreamed of something bigger. Skid Row announced a search for a new lead singer in February, and he sent in his tape. He didn’t receive a reply. That didn’t stop him from trying again a few months later. He had learned Quiet Riot wanted to replace frontman Jizzy Pearl.
“A lot of people were saying, ‘The first thing I thought of was you’ when they put that ad out,” John Torra said. “So I didn’t hesitate. I didn’t waste any time. I got into my practice mode, learning Quiet Riot songs, just really listening and just studying it. I mean, every little detail. And the following day, I recorded myself.”
He went on to describe how he submitted his audition and what happened after he posted it online.
“I emailed them the videos with my description and my contact information,” Torra continued. “And then I was saying to myself, ‘Doesn’t hurt to post [on Instagram],’ not thinking much about it. My phone is almost exploding with text messages, likes, followers. I had gained thousands of followers and thousands upon thousands of views overnight.”
Torra also shared his reaction to the offer from the band.
“Regina Banali told me to, ‘We’d like to welcome you to the Quiet Riot family,'” he said. “I was trying not to cry. It really had sunk in because this is what I’ve been searching for and working hard at for almost 10 years, and it was happening.”
Torra’s story is unusual because of the scale of the competition he faced and the band history he is stepping into.
Quiet Riot picked Torra from more than 700 submissions after it opened its search for a new singer. The online response he describes helped his audition stand out in a very large field.
He replaces Jizzy Pearl, who fronted the band from 2013 to 2016 and again from 2019 to 2026. Pearl announced in July that he would leave after fulfilling his remaining commitments. That left the band with a vacancy to fill ahead of its next run of shows.
Torra comes from Long Island. He previously fronted the New Jersey metal group Fire ‘N Ice. He is far younger than the band’s classic-era lineup. His hair-metal fandom runs through his story.
His first show with Quiet Riot was Oct. 1 in Siloam Springs, Oklahoma. More dates are booked through November. A mostly South American tour follows.
