Paul Rogers remembers the days of "restaurant raids," before his rock band made it big. Well, bigger than he ever thought an all-accordion band playing original and classic rock songs could get.

Rogers, lead singer and songwriter of Those Darn Accordions, spoke with the West Seattle Herald over the phone from Miles City, Mont. on his way home from the first leg of his band's Midwest tour, which started in Milwaukee, Wis.

The tour will span 20 cities to commemorate the band's two decades of music, which brings them to West Seattle's Admiral Theater on Sept. 12.

A Port Townsend resident of six years, Rogers has spent most of his life in the Bay Area, where the rest of his six-member band lives now.

"We're basically a San Francisco band," said Rogers, who flies to the Bay Area at least every four to five weeks to rehearse and play shows.

It will be his and the band's first time playing in West Seattle and at the Admiral Theater.

"I was thinking, 'West Seattle is kinda like Seattle, I guess,'" Rogers said jokingly.

Back in the 1980's, Rogers played piano for a different San Francisco band until he heard about a group of musicians who set up on street corners with accordions. Intrigued, soon after Rogers joined up and the infamous "restaurant raids" began.

It wasn't unusual for the accordion players to burst into restaurants nearby where they were playing on the street to entertain the diners inside with their tunes. Sometimes they got kicked out, but more often than not, they got asked to come back.

Pulitzer Prize-wining San Francisco Chronicle columnist Herb Caen, now deceased, got wind of the stunts and began writing about the accordion group. In large part due to that exposure, the musicians moved from the street corner and restaurant raids to paid gigs at nightclubs.

"We thought, 'well, we'd better write some songs,'" Rogers said.

Things started to get serious after that and the band was booking shows at major festivals like South by Southwest in Austin, Texas and Bumbershoot in Seattle. Here, Those Darn Accordions have played famous venues like the Tractor Tavern and The Crocodile.

Over the years, the band has been whittled down to its six, perhaps more dedicated, members. Rogers said it's become a "smaller, but tighter," group.

He characterizes Those Darn Accordions as "rock accordion." They have original songs, but they also like to perform covers from classic rock groups like ACDC and Led Zeppelin.

Fans of Those Darn Accordions "really run the gammut" between old and young, Roger said. Some aren't quite prepared for the band's unique style and instead expect muted, traditional polka entertainment. But Rogers said those people still seem to have a good time.

"It's a hard band to walk by and not stop," Rogers said. "You go, 'what's that?' We're not a quiet band by any means."

Touring can be exhausting, but the payoff comes from having a great show with a lot of enthusiastic fans, Rogers said. A recent highlight of the tour for Rogers was the show in Chicago, when the band was called back to the stage four times for encore performances.

"They wouldn't let us leave," said Rogers. "Something like that kinda makes it all worthwhile."