When you think of certified public accountants, rock and roll may not be the first thing that comes to mind.
Visions of stodgy accountants sitting at a desk, crunching numbers and poring over receipts are likely to pop into mind. But rocking a stage in front of a crowd of dancing fans – less likely.
But Auburn CPA Lorrie Rarey and her band, Disregarded Entity, are out to change your image of CPAs.
“Most people go ‘What!’” Rarey said. “Because they have preconceived ideas of CPAs and what they think they are like.”
Rarey said that people who think that they are stuffy and incapable of cutting loose however, are dead wrong.
“Beyond a shadow of doubt what people think CPAs are like and what they’re like are nothing alike,” she said. “Most of them are really fun people. Yeah, we’re kind of anal (retentive) because we have to be. But we’re just as fun and love music and football and dancing as much as everybody else.”
This past Saturday Disregarded Entity took the stage at the fourth Annual CPA Battle of Bands at Highline Community College, to raise money for the Eastern Washington University and Highline accounting programs.
It’s the fourth year that the band has performed, winning first place in 2006 and this year, and finishing second in 2007 and 2008.
Rarey said she first got involved with the band after rhythm guitarist and Battle of the Bands originator Tom Bryne, also a CPA, asked if she was interested in lending her pipes to the endeavor.
“It was his brainchild, he is one of the main organizers of it,” she said. “He got the idea from attorneys who used to do this thing called Lawyerpalooza (which features bands from several Seattle law firms).”
Rarey continued:
“He developed this idea and asked if anyone played instruments or wanted to sing. At first I didn’t even get involved in the band. The first year I joined kind of late. But we just all kind of came together, and we choose songs based on which ones we can perform pretty well. We have to pick songs we can pick up pretty quickly. And we also pick songs that we hope will bring people onto the dance floor. So every year we come together with a list of songs we want to perform.”
Rarey said her favorite song this year was her solo performance of Melissa Etheridge’s “I’m The Only One.”
“Last year I did “Blue Bayou” by Linda Ronstadt,” she added. “If we have people that want to sing their own solo song, we let them. We try to mix it up where we do one group song, one solo, one group, one solo. But we have a lot of fun songs that we’ve done in the past.”
Rarey, however, says that she prefers to do new songs every year, rather than repeat songs the band has done before.
Most of the band’s repertoire mines the late sixties and early seventies, with songs by the Monkees and a rendition of Stealers Wheel “Stuck In The Middle With You.”
Rarey said that she, along with most of the band, already had experience performing in front of people, so stage fright is usually not an issue.
“I sing in church and do karaoke,” Rarey said. “So music has always been in my life. I used to play guitar when I was a kid – for years. Now I just sing and play the tambourine sometimes.”
Although the CPA Battle of the Bands is Disregarded Entity’s raison d’être, the band has also played other gigs, including a show at Pat’s Bar and Grill in Kent and an industry cruise on the Argosy line in Seattle.
This year’s lineup included Rarey on vocals, Julie Johnson on vocals, Sam Pizzelo on keyboards, Bill Cuney on lead guitar, Dennis Shanlian on drums, Rick Thomas on bass and Bryne on rhythm guitar.
And although the name might bring to mind a heavy metal band, Rarey said not to worry.
“It’s actually an accountant term, because it started off as an all-accountant band,” Rarey said. “A disregarded entity is, it’s a long story, but if you form a single member LLC in the IRS’s eyes you’re a disregarded entity, they disregard you from taxes.”
