CUM ON, TOP THE CHARTZ: A QUIET RIOT GOIN' ON

CUM ON, TOP THE CHARTZ: A QUIET RIOT GOIN' ON

J. Kordosh

Room 237 at the Holiday Inn in Southfield. Michigan is pretty much like any room at any other Holiday Inn. Towels and occupants are changed. but not much else. On November 11. in the late afternoon, the occupants happened to be Kevin DuBrow and Carlos Cavazo (musicians), a couple of guys named Warren and John (managers) and myself (me). I carry a pen.

DuBrow was finishing up a phone con-versation with CBS. a company hot to release Quiet Riot's second single. CBS wanted "Breathless" (the studio cut off Metal Health) to be the B-side: DuBrow favored—make that insisted on—an unreleased live version of "Bang Your Head." He told me CBS's idea was "a fuck-ing rip-off." as in everybody's already got the album with the same song. I agreed. Things are tough all over.

MARCH '84—The most stunning success of 84? This special! But aside from that, we'd have to say Quiet Riot did OK, too! Speaking with L.A.'s latest metal-monkeys is none other than the famed J. Kordosh, who caught them the week the LP was about to top the charts and make them happier than their wildest dreams! They're so funny it hurts, he later commented!

But not so tough, perhaps, in Room 237 on November 11. Quiet Riot were a surprise to the music business. In real life, a surprise is winning the Irish Sweepstakes or getting killed by a meteor on your honeymoon. In the music business, a surprise is a band’s first album going to the top of the charts. Actually, when it’s a band of no particular renown, it’s more of an astonishment. And when it’s a heavy metal band, it’s practically a visitation from God. In all this world’s history, only one H.M. group has cracked the Top 10 with their debut disc—that was Led Zeppelin. They went on to some success.

So Quiet Riot were making more noize then anyone expected, maybe even more than a lot of people wanted. Being #1 can arouse envy and other bad feelings in people. Being #1 in a hurry can make you enemies even faster. DuBrow—tall, slender, talkative—and I sat across from each other at a patented Holiday Inn table and talked about it. I told him I was surprised Metal Health was (1) going great guns, and (2) pretty good.

“So was everyone else,” he laughed. “They thought it was gonna be another heavy metal piece of shit. But it’s not, and that’s because we never really were a heavy metal group. We still aren’t, really."

Of course they aren’t. A band calls their album Metal Health because they certainly aren’t metal. It’s a cherished trick in the music biz, you know. I’ll admit I agree with DuBrow on this point, though: the LP is more-or-less rock as opposed to metal. Check out “Slick Black Cadillac,” the best song Slade didn’t write on the album, Whoish enough to be on Sell Out or Happy Jack (“I was trying to write a heavy metal Beach Boys song,” said DuBrow). Or “Thunderbird,” which—unlike most H.M. ballads— isn’t ballast. When you get right down to it, it’s a good record.

But good enough to be the #1 record in the United States of America? We’re not talking about America’s favorite member of the Masters of the Universe here, we’re talking about America’s favorite record. Important stuff. Money. Fame. Rumors the singer has died. The whole thing.

(The week we met, Metal Health was *2—“with a BB,” said DuBrow—to the Police’s Synchronicity. MH went to the top the next week, which proves there’s a God, or at least an eye of the tiger.)

“Is it political to get to #1 or not?” I asked. You do hear stories.

DuBrow laughed. “You just happened to ask the right question at the right time. I don’t know if I should say this in print. It’s something that—if I say it—I can’t prove it. But I know the politics. Let’s put it this way: from what I understand we outsold the Police last week. This is their fifth album, so therefore there’s a lot more politics to them remaining #1 than there is to us getting to that spot.”

“I would go further than that,” I said, going further. “I think there’s a vested interest in the Police being They’re like, the group of the world right now.”

“Right. So therefore, even if we outsell them, it’s advantageous to keep them there as long as it is possible. I complain about it because—if we really did outsell them—I want #1. But it’s my first album ever and we never expected to get to the Top 30. So the fact that we are **2 is like—praise Allah!” DuBrow made a few happy motions. “Shit! #21 We did like it; that’s why we never thought it would do anything.”

Well, like I said, Metal Health went to #1 about nine days after I met Shush Mush, so all’s well that begins well. The week after that Lionel Richie became the top banana. It’s a great country, no doubt about it.

☆ ☆ ☆

Quiet Riot started in L.A. in 1975, eight years before going triple platinum. 416 weeks before winning MTV’s weekend “Video Fights” five or six weeks in a row with a pretty unadventerous video. 2.900 + days before having the unusual distinction of simultaneously being. #1 and opening a tour for Black Sabbath.

Weren’t those the days? QR was started by Randy Rhoads, who went on to play with Ozzy Osbourne. Rhoads and DuBrow were best friends and continued as such until Rhoads’s death in 1982. And things looked pretty good for the incipient Quiet Riot when their fellow L.A. metal band, Van Halen, signed with Warner Brothers. I asked DuBrow how he felt back then.

“We were more popular than they were.”

“How’d they break, then? Was it just Templeman (Warners big-shot) hearing them?”

“Yeah. They had a better rhythm section than we did, too. Big-time producers look for things like that when they hear a band, because that’s one thing that translates to records. We had a great guitar player, they had a great guitar player. As far as the songs, who knows? Templeman saw them and I thought for sure, after they got signed, we'd be next. You know how they do it. But we weren’t. The funny thing is now that we’ve got signed, they’re signing every dimwit heavy metal band out of L.A.”

“So you were frustrated?”

“Oh. 1 was furious! I couldn’t believe it! 1 said: ‘Wait a minute, we thought we were the heir apparent for sure.’ We’d be the next ones. Ha! Wrongggg. And that’s the way the cookie crumbles: nothing we could do about it.

“And we remained together till the end of 1979 and said enough is enough. Randy got offered the Ozzy Osbourne gig and he took it because nothing was happening—that was part of the reason. Also, here was an opportunity, much as he thought Ozzy was a putz. He can’t sing, you know, and he has definite personality problems—he’s not very together. The thing was that like or dislike Ozzy, Randy found an opportunity to expose his talent to a wide audience. He was being trapped in L.A. 1 was upset about him leaving, but after a couple of weeks I realized it was the best thing for him to do.”

Meanwhile, Quiet Riot changed their name to DuBrow for a spell, with bassist Rudy Sarzo shuffling to and fro between Oz’s Blizzard and the group, drummer Frankie Banali joining with Sarzo’s recommendation, and guitarist Cavazo replacing Rhoads. They put out a couple of indie records that were ostensibly big in Japan (“We weren’t any kind of phenomenon in Japan,” DuBrow noted, giving his record company’s promo credibility a shot in the arm), but nothing happened (“The records were crap,” explained DuBrow). By then, they were back to being Quiet Riot, not that anybody cared.

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But—as we all know—persistance and hard work always pay off in these United States. The guys finally linked with CBS sublabel Pasha and, voila, Metal Health, starring Sylvester Stallone. “The only thing 1 can say to our credit is that—frustrating as it’s been—I don’t look back now and say ‘Ha! I’ve shown you all!’ ” said DuBrow. “1 don’t give a shit. I’m only concerned with now, not then. The motivation wasn’t to prove people wanted to do. We’re kind of like the band that everybody had in their hometown that everybody was friends with," he added. “That they wanted to make it and they didn’t."

But Quiet Riot have made it, at least for this year. And DuBrow can have interesting conversations with CBS about B-sides. “It’s a fuck-up business,” he told me, to my immense astonishment. “People who listen to music and buy records know music. Not people who get all the records for free (e.g., DiMartino, Holdship, et. al.) and don’t listen to them. It’s not really run like a business—if it was run like McDonalds’, where you tastetest something to a certain amount of people—that's a business. You’re talking about a situation where you have vegetarians trying to sell meat.”

Well, there’s always room for Spam, I say.

One thing about being on top is that you can have a lot of fun while it’s happening. Back in Room 237, 1 asked DuBrow if he thought heavy metal was a parody of classical music. (The notion wasn’t mine, some record industry person came up with that one. I think heavy metal’s a parody of audience behavior.)

“A parody of classical music? I can see that,” he said. He looked over at Cavazo, who was fiddling with a guitar. “Carlos, what do you think of that?”

“I wasn’t listening,” he answered on cue. What the hell, a guy’s gotta get used to not listening when he’s playing every night.

We boarded the tour bus for Cobo Arena and the guys continued to engage me with their good-natured brand of humor. “We spent most of the day yesterday calling retailers around the country, thanking them personally,” DuBrow told me. “A lot of them didn’t believe it was really us. Nobody else does that. Journey would rather send their gold albums to every radio station and every person that’s ever shined their shoes.” So that’s why they’re so well-polished. The bus chugged on with the tapes of Jeff Beck and Van Halen playing. “Actually, we listen to a lot of Van Halen on the road,” Sarzo admitted. I didn’t remember there wasn’t all that much Van Halen to listen to until later.

As we approached the arena, DuBrow did a few scenes from “Concerts We’d Like To See,” ala Mad Magazine. Holding an imaginary mike, he sang, “C’mon, feel the...(long pause)...naw!!” throwing up his hands in mock dismay. Then the guy driving the bus couldn’t figure out how to get to the rear entrance of Cobo Arena. The managers asked me, but 1 couldn’t help them, seeing that I’ve only lived in Detroit all my life. After we circled the arena four or five times, Sarzo and Banali asked (in unison); “How do you get to Cobo Arena? Practice!” What a bunch of cards.

The good times continued to roll at the arena. I asked Carlos about their future recording plans. “Next will be the live LP,” he boldly predicted, “Then the Greatest Hits LP. We’ll be the band that doesn’t have enough material to properly headline a show. (DuBrow DeFrayed that idea earlier. “Remember, a band that took this long to get signed has enough material for two more albums in the can,” he said. Sure they do. Ask the Knack; the little girls understand. “We know everyone’s gonna knock the next one, anyway,” DuBrow said. Listen, Kevin,

1 know I’m gonna be in there pitching.)

Ah, but I kid QR. I kidded then when — as they posed for pix—that, no matter what happened, they’d never be as big as Michael Jackson, or some part of him. “Fuck you, Kordosh." DuBrow cheerfully replied. Yes the repartee was unstoppable. I wish I could say the same for Banali, who practically took my head off when I suggested to some girl backstage that she could be talking to Loverboy in a more perfect world. Just kidding, Frankie, I really meant Culture Club.

Yeah, they’re a lot of fun. DuBrow did speak: “I got into the business to have fun, man. The idea of living is to be as happy as you possibly can be. And that’s a job. It’s much easier for people to look at the negative side of things for some reason. People would always rather look at the down side: this fucks, this sucks, this is that, this is that.

“Robert Hilburn from the (L.A.) Times says any musical form is not worth shit unless it has some statement to make. Statement?? To me, it’s supposed to make enjoyment.”

I agree, and I can’t say that I don’t know why anymore.