Jimmy Kay from Canada's The Metal Voice recently spoke to Quiet Riot leader and drummer Frankie Banali. Banali spoke about the new Live Album (Live in Milan), unreleased Quiet Riot songs, Kevin Dubrow, Randy Rhoads and gave an updated on the new studio album. QUIET RIOT's performance at last year's Frontiers Rock Festival was released last month on CD/DVD and Blu-ray under the title "One Night In Milan". Watch here
When asked about the new Quiet Riot Live album in Milan "We recorded it April 28th of 2018 in in Milan, Italy. When Frontiers approached me about playing the festival they also wanted to know if if I would agree to have it recorded for live album and DVD. It was gonna be Quiet Riot's first time performing in Italy so that was special but I also wanted the label to understand that I'm a real big believer in if it's going to be a live record it has to be a live record. I'm also a really big believer in the guys in the band, Chuck Wright on bass, Alex Grossi on guitar and James Durbin on vocals and that we could do a live show and not have to go into the studio and fix things. A live record by definition is live, without any fixes, live without a net . I didn't even let the guys know that I had opted not to fix anything until the morning of that show. Since I joined the band when I first started working with Kevin in 1980 the band always revolved around live performances, we have been very successful at various levels over over the years but everything always revolved around being the best and tightest live we can possibly be. I always tell the band play to the best of your abilities because not everyone plays great every single night but as long as you go out there and try I think people can see that, I think people can hear that and I think people can can feel it. Since it was our first time in Italy the setlist I put together I made sure that it included all the songs that I think they wanted to hear off the Metal Health record some songs off of Condition Critical, QR3 some deep tracks from, the Down To The Bone Album and Terrified and two songs from Road Rage." When asked if there are any unreleased studio and live material from the Kevin Dubrow years "I have a lot of unreleased Quiet Riot studio material as well as live songs that were recorded. The problem is with releasing something like that is that it just gets bootlegged to such a degree that that it's almost pointless. I mean, you have to go in and go through the masters and if the tapes are really old you have to bake the tapes. There's a lot of time, there's a lot of expense, there's a lot of expertise that goes into something like that. Then you release it and it gets bootlegged out there on sites that will just rip it off. Those sites have their subscribers and they're making money off of it but the artist isn't. So I'm not that inclined to do so at this point in time." When asked if Randy Rhoads ever heard the track Thunderbird and what he thought of the song prior to tragically losing his life "Here's the chronology of Thuderbird as a lot of people have a mistaken idea of how the song and why the song was written. Kevin Dubrow originally wrote the song not about Randy's passing but about Randy leaving the first version of Quiet Riot in 1979 to join Ozzy. Kevin had already asked both Rudy Sarzo and Randy Rhoads to come in and play. Randy had agreed to do so but it wasn't until Randy's untimely passing that Kevin rewrote the last verse to reflect Randy's death. Randy was indeed scheduled to come in and and play on that track but I don't think Randy heard the song prior. I would imagine that he didn't because we hadn't demoed the song until after Randy had passed so I don't think he would have had an opportunity to have heard it but I could be wrong. That would have been a great question for Kevin Dubrow that to my knowledge no one ever asked. " When asked about Kevin Dubrow's home being robbed after he had died and were Quiet Riot 1 and 2 masters stolen "His home was robbed actually twice after he passed away fortunately because I started managing the band in 1993 all the archives have always been with me. What they what they stole were personal effects, clothes a lot of his CD collection and a lot of his vinyl collection. I think they basically stole things that they could sell.I had a professional facility that all of this material was stored at and then after its passing that facility was actually going out of business and I retrieved all the material and in turn took it to another secure facility." When asked about the musical direction off the new studio album and the timeline "All the drums, bass and guitar tracks are done. About half of the vocals are done so it's a matter of finishing the other half of the lead and background vocals. Then the the mixing process will start. We're still working on on the art and on all those components so I think best-case scenario fall 2019 or worst-case scenario early next year. From my perspective, it is the most varied Quiet Riot record I have ever have ever worked on. It's gonna cover a lot of bases, I think is going to surprise a lot of people and I hope it'll be a pleasant surprise, it's the most varied record. My first consideration when I'm writing something and when I write together with my writing partner Neil Citron is what would Kevin Dubrow like this? The greatest thing about Kevin is he was so open-minded and he had such a broad taste in music that there were there were very few things that he didn't like. " When asked about him watching the original Quiet Riot with Randy Rhoads " I used to see Quiet Riot at a club called the Starwood in Los Angeles, it's because they they drew more girls than any of any other band I had ever seen. so that was my that was my first priority. My second priority but it's a close to one was the fact that Randy Rhoads was the most amazing unknown guitars that I had ever heard. He was incredibly talented, he was also an incredible showman, he was like the complete and total package. And then Kevin was the most energetic singer I had ever seen, I mean he was all over that stage and and the way he dressed and the way the band presented of themselves they actually have production, when local bands for the most part never have production, it was a great package. And then of course Rudy Sarzo at that point had joined the band he was the bass player in the band at the time and you know we're now talking you know late 70's Rudy and I had known each other since 1972 so there were there were a lot of great reasons for me to go see the first version a Quiet Riot there were no bad reasons. James Durbin is doing some some writing on this record as well so as far as lyrics are concerned so yeah he's he's you know definitely an active part of the right process insofar as lyrics and vocal melodies and background vocals." What asked about what he remembered moist of Randy Rhoads "I knew Randy and the funny thing about about Randy was he never didn't have a guitar in his hands, he constantly has a guitar in his hand and he was constantly working on something. Randy would hold a conversation with you and be very engaging and very endearing but the entire time you know half of the brain was working on something musical on that guitar. I owe both Randy and Rudy Sarzo a debt in that Randy after he left Quiet Riot he told Kevin he should get me as the drummer. Same thing Rudy Sarzo told Kevin, so I owe them both the debt of gratitude for pointing me in Kevin's direction."
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