METAL GODS WHO BEAT THE ODDS

METAL GODS WHO BEAT THE ODDS

"I want to have a great time too, but there's a time when work is work." —Kevin DuBrow

J. KORDOSH

PART ONE America Vs. England

I think the funny thing about what we've done is that—totally unintentionally—we've crossed over. I think that we've probably become the first teenybopper heavy metal group in history. This might alienate some people, but it's not meant to.

—Kevin DuBrow in a private conversation, late 1983

Well, tch, tch and gosh almighty. Heavy metal? Teenybopper? Whoulda thunk it? Outside of Bobby Sherman, of course— his new LP, Hey, Little Woman, Please Scream In Hell should be out any day now.

When you think about it, though, this does pretty much explain the amazing New Wave Of Metal everybody here at CREEM keeps writing about. I actually thought the whole thing was one of Rick "It's" Johnson's last-minute ideas to justify anybody letting him near a typewriter. But now it's clear that there's actually some substance to the New Wave Of Metal

"Artistes, my ass! Get out there and rock and DuBrow proposition. And I'm glad I found out...what the hell, it's only my fourth story on the subject.

Plus it explains why I can't tell the difference between Def Leppard and Duran Duran. I mean, they're all very, very beautiful people. HM has become pretty! And just in time to save the genre, thank God. Everybody's gotten tired of metal bands bearing a ridiculous physical resemblance to their songs! Oh, happy day.

Which brings us to Quiet Riot, the band that came out nowhere and digested the charts. I'm particularly glad to be writing about Quiet Riot for a number of reasons. First off, they've only done one album so far, which means even I can analyze them with Quiet Confidence. Second of all, they're cool guys. Finally, they're Americans. You know, the good guys. Def Lep didn't go to # 1 on their first album, so nyah, nyah to Limey Metal. In fact, nyah, nyah to Limey everything. For a country that's made exactly two outstanding contributions to music (the Beatles and lipstick), they sure get a helluva lot of P.R.

Well, I might digress, but Kevin DuBrow doesn't. He has the keen overview so typical of American bands that slave for centuries to become overnight smashes. "When I say teenybopper, I mean we attract a lot of females," he said. "Van Halen is another teenybopper heavy metal group. Metal is notorious for appealing to a predominantly male audience, which Van Halen and Quiet Riot do not. And, we attract very young kids. It's great, because they grow with you, if you can grow."

Can Quiet Riot grow? Sure, if their second album gets to #'/2. And if they can find another "Cum On Feel The Noize" to translate into American. According to DuBrow, their producer—Spencer Profferinsisted they do the song for Metal Health and that the band actually thought it was a quote, joke. "Slade were great songwriters but they couldn't play their own material," he said. Uh huh. But Slade were also a teenybopper band...they came into our land, they helped us party down. Why don't we make that three contributions, just to be fair?

PART TWO Quiet Riot Vs. Van Halen

This one's inevitable—they were contemporaries, L.A.-style, during the mid'70s—but it also has the schmaltz of human interest behind it. Van Halen were a megaband while Quiet Riot were perfecting their adjective, biz-wise. It's only the vagaries £ of fate that VH became legendary figures J before QR took the country by storm. And j don't think that Quiet Riot doesn't know m this—when I asked DuBrow what he thought of Roth's singing, he made the"so-so" gesture with his hand and muttered, "Eh." That's a powerful endorsement.

"What did you think about Diver Down, then?" I asked him.

"I liked it, but I don't think there was a lot of effort put into making it." This only proves he can hear, of course. I mentioned that many sanguine critics came down pretty heavy on Diver with about the same observation.

"Well, they're lazy," DuBrow said. "They're very, very lazy."

"But Roth is hilarious."

"He's real funny. I want to have a great time, too, but there's a time to have fun and there's a time when work is work.

"The reason their first couple of albums were great is because they had all those songs they'd written in the bars. And they just got real lazy. I think they realize it, though, from what I understand—they're taking a whole lot of time on their next album."

Van Halen's new album turned out to be 1984. Teenybopper metal. I wasn't slayed but maybe Quiet Riot was.

PART THREE Metal Vs. The World

Despite the apparent satisfaction with Sunday's show, Stephen Wozniak expressed second thoughts about whether the hedonistic spirit of the heavy metal bands had been in keeping with the uplifting concept of the US Festival.

—The Los Angeles Times

As you might know, the uplifting spirit of last year's US Festival led to uplifting things like death. Quiet Riot played early that Sunday, so I asked DuBrow about his hedonistic spirit and why Stephen Wozniak had second thoughts, to use the word charitably.

"Wozniak had many things to say because of the problems that happened with the people dying," DuBrow said. "Which tended to get blamed on our day, when the actual incidents happened the day before. See, somebody got stabbed, something like that—that went down the day before. But the guy died on the day we played. So, automatically we killed him."

I'm not sure if any band—metal or not— has had a hand in premature demises as much as uplifting concert promoters, but I'm willing to keep an open mind about it. If you mull it over, though, it really doesn't seem sportsmanlike to blame hedonistic metal for senseless tragedies. Ninety-eight percent of these bands can caterwaul about hell, death and vengeance for a couple of decades and never come close to what Talking Heads have done for mass depression. So why the bad rap?

"They certainly always use heavy metal to shift off every evil and every bad thing that happens to today's youth," DuBrow said. "We are the whipping posts, bigtime.

"I saw Dan Rather on the morning news and he said rock 'n' roll is really bad for young people. And—of course—who do they have playing in the background? Us doing 'Feel The Noize' from the US Festival. Thank you."

You're welcome, Kevin. Isn't it fun to be well-known entertainers?

PART FOUR The People Vs. MTV

OK, Quiet Riot did very well with the video to "Feel The Noize." Very well indeed. It must be a lot of fun making a smasheroo video, huh?

"Videos? I hate making-them," DuBrow said. "I don't like them. People seem to fucking love it (QR's video), though," he muttered beneath his breath (the tape recorder picked it up, gang).

This proves DuBrow is sane. The box of 64 Crayolas usually yields greater creativity than what is seen (and seen and seen) on MTV. But, since he's sane, he knows he must use the evil tool if QR is to make lotsa moolah.

"Yeah, they're a necessity now—there's no two ways about it," he admitted. "To me, they take away the mystique—I mean,

I never saw Led Zeppelin do a video. But there's no two ways about it and I should be the last to bitch, because they helped break 'Feel The Noize.' The thing is, the making of a video is the most un-fun thing I could ever possibly imagine."

"But what if a musician is also an artiste?" I asked.

"Artistes, my ass. Get out there and rock V roll! It's not an art. It's a gas; it's supposed to be fun. Rock V roll is rock V roll. Art is people that paint. I can't even draw, y'knoW?"

Not even with Crayola crayons?

PART FIVE Quiet Riot Vs.

Themselves

Even though DuBrow (and QR) identify themselves with what we must—for lack of a better word, not to mention things to do—call Metal, he projects a schizo denial/acceptance of the label. This is one area the New Metal and Old Metal musicians can agree on—they don't want to be called Metal, once they're turning a few bucks.

Their producer, Noize-minded Spencer

Proffer said: "Unlike the vast wasteland of Americans pretending to play metal, these guys really have a true understanding of what metal rock is all about because they live and breathe the real thing." Now that sounds like they're pretty Metal, huh?

"Yeah, well, Metal's a funny word," DuBrow said. No, it isn't. Chutzpah's a funny word. Land O' Lakes are three funny words. But Metal? Funny music, sure, but as far as words go, where's the yuks? But I digress again.

"The description of what Metal means is up to who's saying it. When I was a fan listening to things, I called it hard rock. I mean, to me—I listened to the Who last night, I listened to Live At Leeds—and I thought it was the most heavy metal thing. This made Iron Maiden sound like John Denver. People don't associate the Who as being a 'heavy metal' group, but, my God! They were on the verge of violence in everything they did. They were so intense and so unnnh! They were the ultimate headbangers."

"Videos? I hate making them!" —Kevin Dubrow

Yep. And to further disassociate himself from HM, DuBrow added: "A lot of heavy metal singers are influenced by Ian Gillan and Rob Halford and that sort of thing. (What's he mean by "thing" here, anyway? Just wondering—the author). I'm influenced by Steve Marriott, who's total blueeyed soul. And I'm influenced by black singers."

What are they, total brown-eyed soul?

"See, I love R&B vocals, but I don't like R&B music that much. And I don't like heavy metal singing. So I try to use some R&B licks in a heavy metal band."

Yeah, so are they Metal or not? Was the album title a ruse, albeit a successful one?

"I think we live and breathe rock V roll as opposed to metal," DuBrow said in reference to what Proffer said. "I'll leave it to other people to decide how metal we are."

What's going on here? Ten minutes ago, he tells me they're teenybopper metal and he ends up telling me they're not metal at all. I've been tricked! Quick, kill the story.

"We're just out there to entertain," DuBrow rambled on. "It's the old entertainment concept. You pay money to see a show, which is a form of escapism.

"Besides, if I breathed metal, I'd really have a funny-sounding voice. Gargling razor blades."

He's right. Dammit. Maybe we can use the story for the "Seems To Be New Wave Of Metal" special. Or the "Remotely Possible It's The New Wave Of Metal" special. I know! The old "Since The Readers Don't Know, We'll Trick 'Em And Call It The New Wave Of Metal' special. Or did we already do that?