Remember When: Quiet Riot Became the First Metal Band to Go No. 1 in America

Quiet Riot played an important role in heavy metal’s commercial viability in the 1980s. The raucous L.A. quartet—vocalist Kevin DuBrow, guitarist Carlos Cavazo, bassist Rudy Sarzo, and drummer Frankie Banali—were part of a hard rocking revolution that had been brewing early in the Decade of Decadence.

In 1982, Judas Priest opened the door for mainstream metal mania with Screaming for Vengeance and regular MTV airplay. In 1983, bands including Iron Maiden, Krokus, and Mötley Crüe gained more acceptance—hard rockers Def Leppard also broke big that year, albeit with a less heavy sound—but Quiet Riot had the right mixture of commercial hooks and metal crunch to propel them to the top of the charts.

Metal Health Days

DuBrow and company seemingly became stars overnight once the first single for their third album Metal Health, a cover of Slade’s “Cum on Feel the Noize,” gained considerable airplay on radio and, more importantly, MTV. The album arrived in February 1983, but the single would not come out until July. However, it would sell half a million copies by year’s end. The heavier follow-up, the album’s title track with its performance video also featuring the straitjacketed character on the cover, further blew their success up to multi-Platinum album sales—4 million in total by 1986 and 2 million more by 1995. Metal Health also sold 300,000 copies in Canada.

It had been a long road for the band, which had originally solidified in 1975 and recorded two albums with original guitarist and co-founder the late Randy Rhoads in 1978. Both of those discs only ever saw release in Japan, and the band broke up in 1980, with Rhoads joining Ozzy Osbourne’s band. But in 1982, the newly reformed group with guitarist Carlos Cavazo in tow recorded Metal Health with producer Spencer Proffer, and while it took a few months for the album to gain some attention, by October it was certified Platinum and their status only grew.

No. 1 in the U.S.

Metal Health roared to No. 1 in America—staving off The Police’s Synchronicity and Michael Jackson’s Thriller—and No. 5 in Canada. “Cum on Feel the Noize” went to No. 5 in the U.S. and Top 10 in Canada and Australia. “Bang Your Head (Metal Health)” reached No. 31 but garnered a lot of MTV airplay. The group opened for commercial heavyweights like ZZ Top, Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, and Judas Priest throughout the year.

Quiet Riot’s success would be short-lived. The follow up album Condition Critical was released in July 1984 with the lead single being another Slade cover, “Mama Weer All Crazee Now.” That song and its follow-up “Party All Night” did not fare as well as their predecessors. The album hit No. 15 and did go Platinum, but that was a disappointing showing given what had transpired over the previous year.

Given the massive success of Metal Health, it could be argued the band should have taken more time to release their next album. Drummer Frankie Banali has stated as much. But this came at the tail end of the time when rock bands were expected to release an album per year. The ‘80s saw a lot more rock bands go multi-Platinum and embark on longer tours, and this changed the game plan for album releases.

Internal Strife

A black cloud also loomed over Quiet Riot. For various reasons—perhaps jealousy, insecurity, even alleged unhappiness with the record deal they had signed—DuBrow by mid-1984 started bad-mouthing other L.A. bands and various media outlets, and he also reportedly mocked Ozzy Osbourne’s vocal style. That public vitriol created tension with his bandmates, other hard rockers, and some fans.

Sarzo departed the band in March 1985. In 1986, QRIII flopped, and the group replaced DuBrow with Rough Cutt frontman Paul Shortino for the 1988 album QR, which did not fare well either. Most of the classic lineup minus Sarzo reunited in the ‘90s, although the famed foursome released Alive And Well in 1999 and Guilty Pleasures in 2001. Sadly, DuBrow died from a cocaine overdose in 2007, and Banali, who had kept the group going since, passed away from pancreatic cancer in 2020. Sarzo then returned to Quiet Riot to keep it alive with other members.

Quiet Riot’s Legacy

While Quiet Riot would never again achieve the same level of success they had during that one big year in the sun, no one can take away the fact they were the first heavy metal band in history to hit No. 1 on the Billboard Top 200 album chart, and they helped popularize the genre that would dominate MTV until mid-1985 when many of the genre’s controversial themes and videos became a liability for the network. But the beast had been unleashed and was not easily tamed. “Cum on Feel the Noize” has 37 million YouTube views and nearly 400 million Spotify listens, while “Bang Your Head (Metal Health)” has 25 million YouTube views and 106 million Spotify listens.

Some people feel that Quiet Riot don’t get the praise they deserve for putting out a hit album of solid anthems that opened the door for other L.A. bands like Ratt, Dokken, and W.A.S.P. to make waves in 1984. Indeed, that was a blockbuster year for hard rock and metal with veteran acts like Scorpions, Twisted Sister, and Van Halen reaping multi-Platinum rewards, and many other bands breaking through to the mainstream.

Quiet Riot’s success came with another unexpected benefit. Their successful first Slade cover actually got that British band signed to their first American deal in years with CBS. Slade’s spring 1984 album Keep Your Hands Off My Power Supply hit No. 33 in America, with the single “Run Runaway” going to No. 20. It was actually fitting considering that both of the Slade songs Quiet Riot covered originally hit No. 1 in the U.K. back in the ‘70s. It was a hard rock win-win for both sides of the Atlantic.

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