Quiet Riot practically sabotaged their shot at stardom after they entered the studio to document 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 lift 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, enjoying the identical patently unhip exhausting rock that didn’t ignite Quiet Riot’s profession. The band DuBrow appeared doomed to the same destiny — till their singer was visited by an angel within the type of producer Spencer Proffer.
Proffer had gotten his begin working underneath Clive Davis at CBS Information, later shifting to United Artists Information and in the end founding Pasha Information 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 might discover the fitting band for it.
“I used to be driving round L.A. engaged on an Eddie Cash single as a day job, making an attempt 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 ebook Nothin’ however a Good Time. The British glam rockers’ music had topped the charts of their native U.Ok., 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 might discover a band to sing this music …’ Then I would be capable to get CBS, who I had a take care of, 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 path. He met DuBrow on the Nation Membership in Reseda, Calif., and made him a proposition.
“I mentioned, ‘I am going to let you know what — I am going to offer you studio time,” Proffer mentioned. “In case you do a music that I feel might be a success, I am going to do three of yours. I am going to pay for it; I am going to document it. I simply made a label take care of CBS, I feel I can put it via the system. Would you do that?’ Nicely, little did I do know they’d been handed on by all people within the enterprise. They went up and down the Strip, they performed the Troubadour, they performed the Roxy. Everyone handed on them. However Kevin mentioned OK, so I made a take care of them.”
DuBrow and drummer Frankie Banali recruited guitarist Carlos Cavazo and re-enlisted Sarzo, who had misplaced his pleasure of performing and give up Osbourne’s band after Rhoads’ loss of life in March 1982. Not all people 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. Nonetheless, Kevin was furious on the concept. He noticed himself because the consummate songwriter. He did not must do outdoors materials.”
The band members allegedly got here up with a plan to sabotage the recording, neglecting to observe the music in order that when it got here time to hit the studio, their efficiency could be so disastrous that Proffer would hand over 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 of 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 enjoying what grew to become the intro. Rudy joined in, after which Carlos joined in. Kevin was sitting on the nook of the studio, simply laughing, ready for this huge 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 once we had been executed, 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 nearly dislocated my shoulder. He says, ‘What the hell was that?’ And I mentioned, ‘I do not know, man. I simply began enjoying it!’ He says, ‘Nicely, what am I alleged to do now?’ And I mentioned, ‘Nicely, you may at all times sing it shitty, cannot you?'”
DuBrow as an alternative turned in a rousing efficiency that sounded much like Slade’s Noddy Holder. CBS reluctantly agreed to let Proffer end making the document that may turn into Steel Well being, underneath 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 grew to become 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 grew to become the primary metallic album to high 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 business 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 a giant hit with the music,” Holder advised The Fort Value Star-Telegram in 1984. “We had been at all times satisfied that if the fabric was good, it might 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 Situation Vital.
