Quiet Riot practically sabotaged their shot at stardom after they entered the studio to file a career-defining cowl of Slade‘s “Cum on Really feel the Noize.”
Based in 1973 by future Ozzy Osbourne guitarist Randy Rhoads, Quiet Riot constructed a gentle following of their native Los Angeles over the subsequent a number of years however failed to draw any major-label consideration. Two self-titled albums, launched completely in Japan in 1978, failed to boost their profile.
Fed up with their lack of progress, Rhoads joined Osbourne’s band the subsequent yr, adopted shortly by Quiet Riot bassist Rudy Sarzo. Hobbled by the loss, Quiet Riot referred to as it quits in 1980.
Kevin DuBrow continued working the L.A. membership circuit with an eponymous group, taking part in the identical patently unhip arduous rock that didn’t ignite Quiet Riot’s profession. The band DuBrow appeared doomed to an analogous destiny — till their singer was visited by an angel within the type of producer Spencer Proffer.
Proffer had gotten his begin working below Clive Davis at CBS Data, later transferring to United Artists Data and finally founding Pasha Data in 1978. Pasha owned studios and had distribution via CBS, however Proffer’s former employers would not give him the time of day. Nonetheless, he had a million-dollar concept that he knew would get CBS’s consideration, if solely he may discover the best band for it.
“I used to be driving round L.A. engaged on an Eddie Money single as a day job, attempting to make a couple of dollars, and I heard the 1973 Slade model of ‘Cum on Really feel the Noize’ on the radio, on a pop station,” Proffer recalled in Tom Beaujour and Richard Bienstock’s 2021 guide Nothin’ however a Good Time. The British glam rockers’ tune had topped the charts of their native U.Okay., however Slade by no means discovered the identical foothold within the States.
Nonetheless, Proffer knew “Cum on Really feel the Noize” had potential throughout the Atlantic as properly. “This was anthem participatory rock,” he mentioned. “It invited folks to take part: ‘Come on really feel the noise, ladies rock your boys.’ And I mentioned, ‘Holy shit. If I may discover a band to sing this tune …’ Then I would have the ability to get CBS, who I had a cope with, to concentrate to me – as a result of they did not. They thought I used to be nuts.”
Watch Quiet Riot’s ‘Cum on Really feel the Noize’ Video
Proffer made some calls to search out an artist who could be recreation for his concept and was finally pointed in DuBrow’s course. He met DuBrow on the Nation Membership in Reseda, Calif., and made him a proposition.
“I mentioned, ‘I am going to inform you what — I am going to provide you with studio time,” Proffer mentioned. “For those who do a tune that I believe could possibly be a success, I am going to do three of yours. I am going to pay for it; I am going to file it. I simply made a label cope with CBS, I believe I can put it via the system. Would you do that?’ Nicely, little did I do know they’d been handed on by everyone within the enterprise. They went up and down the Strip, they performed the Troubadour, they performed the Roxy. All people handed on them. However Kevin mentioned OK, so I made a cope with them.”
DuBrow and drummer Frankie Banali recruited guitarist Carlos Cavazo and re-enlisted Sarzo, who had misplaced his pleasure of performing and stop Osbourne’s band after Rhoads’ death in March 1982. Not everyone was thrilled about recording a canopy, even on Pasha’s dime.
“Spencer needed us to do ‘Cum on Really feel the Noize,’ and I by no means had an issue with that,” Banali recalled in Nothin’ however a Good Time. “It actually did not make any distinction to me. Nevertheless, Kevin was furious on the concept. He noticed himself because the consummate songwriter. He did not have to do exterior materials.”
The band members allegedly got here up with a plan to sabotage the recording, neglecting to observe the tune in order that when it got here time to hit the studio, their efficiency could be so disastrous that Proffer would surrender and inform them to maneuver on to their originals. However Quiet Riot underestimated their aptitude for anthem participatory rock.
“We went in, there was no intro, no nothing in any respect,” Banali advised Songfacts in 2017. “There was a bit little bit of arguing as to the way it was going to start out. Lastly, once I knew the engineer was rolling tape, I simply began taking part in what turned the intro. Rudy joined in, after which Carlos joined in. Kevin was sitting on the nook of the studio, simply guffawing, ready for this large prepare wreck, and the prepare wreck by no means occurred.”
Watch Quiet Riot Carry out ‘Cum on Really feel the Noize’ in Live performance
Regardless of themselves, Quiet Riot had captured a killer take. “After which after we had been finished, the producer says, ‘That sounded nice. I want we had recorded it,'” Banali recalled. “And the engineer mentioned, ‘Come on in.’ He went in to pay attention, and Kevin grabbed me by the arm and virtually dislocated my shoulder. He says, ‘What the hell was that?’ And I mentioned, ‘I do not know, man. I simply began taking part in it!’ He says, ‘Nicely, what am I presupposed to do now?’ And I mentioned, ‘Nicely, you may all the time sing it shitty, cannot you?'”
DuBrow as a substitute turned in a rousing efficiency that sounded just like Slade’s Noddy Holder. CBS reluctantly agreed to let Proffer end making the file that will grow to be Metal Health, below one situation: Cease calling the band DuBrow. Unable to provide you with an honest various, they reverted to Quiet Riot. Launched as a single in July 1983 and assisted by a splashy video that turned an MTV smash, “Cum on Really feel the Noize” raced to No. 5 on the Billboard Scorching 100 and propelled Steel Well being to No. 1 that November, eight months after its launch. It turned the primary metallic album to prime the chart, unseating the Police‘s Synchronicity, and went on to promote 6 million copies within the U.S., igniting the glam-metal craze that dominated the music trade for the remainder of the last decade.
“Quiet Riot did not simply break via,” Twisted Sister frontman Dee Snider mentioned in Nothin’ however a Good Time. “They did not simply put a gap within the wall. They knocked the fucking wall down.”
Slade, in the meantime, responded diplomatically to the newfound success of “Cum on Really feel the Noize,” even when members of Quiet Riot suspected they had been bitter. “We’re comfortable Quiet Riot had such an enormous hit with the tune,” Holder advised The Fort Worth Star-Telegram in 1984. “We had been all the time satisfied that if the fabric was good, it could stand the check of time.”
Quiet Riot agreed, as they recorded one other Slade cowl, “Mama Weer All Crazee Now,” for his or her Steel Well being follow-up, the underperforming Condition Critical.
