RUMFORD — Rumford native Torrey Viger, a longtime fan of the Irish rock band U2, is still talking about the opportunities he’s had the past 6 months to participate in shows via the band’s SiriusXM radio channel and its private Facebook page.

In July 2020, the broadcastings company that provides satellite radio and online radio services launched a U2 channel. One of the shows, “Desire,” is a 30-minute segment hosted by U2 fans.

“The premise is that the fan picks their five most desired U2 songs and tells the story of why the track means so much to them,” the Enfield, New Hampshire resident said during a recent interview via Facebook. “I sent an email in with my five songs and was thrilled to have been selected as one of the deejays.”

That led to another 30-minute segment on the band’s SiriusXM channel.

“This was a proud moment for me,” Viger said. “As a lifelong U2 fan … I got to tell my story to not only thousands of strangers but also to hundreds of the people whom I refer to as my U2 family – the other fans who have become an important and integral part of my life.”

Further, on Christmas Eve, he did a show over U2’s private Facebook page. Simon Hewson, cousin of U2 band leader Bono, was in attendance.

“I used that opportunity to raise money,” Viger said. “We raised $1,700 for the Regional School Unit 10 school nutrition program in Rumford.”

Born in Rumford in 1967, Viger said he’s had a love of music for as long as he can remember.

His great-great-grandfather was a music educator for Cincinnati, Boston and Louisville (Kentucky) school systems and also commissioned by the emperor of Japan to teach American modern music to Japanese.

Viger’s grandfather, Horace Irish, a Rumford native, owned Irish’s Market on Pine Street and was a piano teacher.

“Early childhood memories are of holidays spent around the piano with Horace and my grandmother, Lillian Irish, playing, and my family singing along. They were very happy times,” he said.

Viger attended Rumford public schools and enjoyed theater and acting from a very early age. In junior high school, he sang in a rock ‘n’ roll cover band. While attending Rumford High School, he sang with the Varsity Singers, a group of mostly varsity athletes.

“I fondly remember going to shows at Muskie Auditorium, the Portland Civic Center and other local venues while growing up, Viger said. “These days my live show passion takes me further – I have traveled as far west as San Francisco and as far east as Dublin, Ireland to see my favorite band, U2,”

In 2002, after working in the golf business his entire career, he moved to the corporate world and got an offer that brought him back to the Northeast.

“It was time for me to get responsible and to start thinking about my future,” he said. “I moved back to New England and although I kept up with golfing, I found that I needed a hobby to get me through the long winters.”

In 2009, he bought his first guitar and started teaching himself to play and to write music.

“It was a passion that grabbed ahold of me immediately and for which I seemed to have some natural ability,” Viger said. “I soon found myself playing in cover bands in the Upper Valley in New Hampshire,” a region that straddles the Connecticut River between New Hampshire and Vermont and includes Hanover and Lebanon, New Hampshire. “I even released an album … called “Dog Days of Winter” via the website Reverbnation.

To hear some of Viger’s music, go to https://www.reverbnation.com/torreyviger.

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