‘The Gillan band was a great experience, from being no body to sort of famous in a fairly short time’, he states. By all accounts he had a reputation on the punk scene where his energy allowed the punks to overlook his musicianship to some extent. But it was an inspired move by Gillan to choose him. ‘Ian was a very charming guy, I was in awe of him at first…’ But it wasn’t long before Torme noticed the singer’s propensity to sit up all night with ‘two bottles of whiskey’ and some cigarettes. Some nights ‘he wouldn’t be able to sing AT ALL…..he used to pretend the mike was broken.’ Torme started to get disillusioned, especially on behalf of the fans who ‘paid his wages.’ Recording and even writing material also became problematic because Gillan was almost always ‘up the pub’ and the band took to finishing entire songs without him. There were also mounting business problems making life very hard for Torme. He found himself in an incredibly successful act, receiving very little money. Whilst he concedes that on a good night they were ‘unbeatable’ he describes Gillan as ‘loveable but flakey. But a great singer.’

After his tenure with Gillan had ‘run its course’, he did his power trio Electric Gypsies, for awhile before getting the call to replace Randy Rhoads in Ozzy Osbourne’s band. "They really were in a dreadful situation because of Randy’s death……they did not want someone screaming about how great it was to be in the band…..it must have been very difficult. In a nutshell I loved Ozzy and everyone in the band…….but I did not want to step into a dead man’s shoes. I would have felt that by doing it I was trying to erase Randy’s memory, however unsuccessful I would have been at that…….also the actual stage set up was not conducive to playing an enjoying it. It was basically a pantomime, shit sound……castle, dwarves…..’
It was also a matter that he literally had no time to learn the set.
‘Learning the stuff was hell, I could not remember all of the arrangements or order of the arrangements for the first few gigs. But it’s a good way to learn, trying to play stuff that you don’t know in front of 10,000 people. It was a great honour to get the chance.’
He decided to once again forego the high profile sideman’s role and do his own thing.

The self titled band Torme followed with Phil Lewis on vocals. Originally conceived as being a bit of a jam fest, the lineup seemed better suited to pop metal, which Torme professes to hate. Still it was the late 80’s and his ‘prince of darkness’ publisher wanted commercial viability. They were by all accounts a massive live band that could fill the Marquee like no other but after two years Lewis departed for the LA Guns – ‘we were the wrong band in the wrong place at the wrong time’. Initially gutted Torme soon realised it was for the best, especially when he got a call from Dee Snider, formerly of Twisted Sister. The resulting band, ‘Desperado’ also featured Iron Maiden’s Clive Burr and showed all the promise in the world. But it all went belly up due to industry machinations that even Torme seems mystified by. Apparently it was a great band and he still considers Snider a ‘mate’, but a period of illness and the advent of a family meant he took a bit of a break in the early 90’s.