When it was confirmed that Kevin DuBrow, the singer from Quiet Riot, has passed away of still undetermined causes, many metal musicians and fans alike acknowledged the band’s place in music history. As one fan wrote on the metal news site Blabbermouth.net, “Say what you want, but Quiet Riot put metal on the map in 1983. They got metal on the radio and started the entire L.A. invasion.”

The L.A. invasion? It may be a dubious legacy to many today, but the “L.A. invasion,” as this fan put it, wasn’t much different than the major label feeding frenzy that hit Seattle in the ‘90’s. After the success of Quiet Riot’s Metal Health, which was the first metal album to hit #1 on the Billboard charts, and reportedly sold over five million copies, every major label had to have a metal band. Quiet Riot’s success blew the door open for a number of Los Angeles bands, most notably Motley Crue, as well as Ratt, Dokken, and many others.

Quiet Riot were originally a hot club band on the L.A. scene in the ‘70’s alongside Van Halen. The band’s focal point was guitar legend Randy Rhodes, who would later go on to play on Ozzy’s first two solo albums. When Van Halen signed with Warner Brothers in 1977, many hoped it would open the door for many other local heavy rock bands, and finally put an end to disco, but Quiet Riot still couldn’t get signed to save their lives. Once Rhodes left for greener pastures, Kevin DuBrow made himself the focus of a newly incarnated version of Quiet Riot in the early eighties, and this time the mainstream was ready for them.

The year Quiet Riot broke through, 1983, was also the year of MTV’s explosion into popular culture. MTV took these bands to heights that would have taken years and years of touring. Before long, Quiet Riot, and a number of other metal and hard rock bands from L.A., were sitting on top of the charts, and playing on commercial radio along with Michael Jackson and Madonna.

“Who knows,” one fan wrote on Blabbermouth. “If it weren’t for hearing Quiet Riot’s Metal Health cassette when I was twelve years old, I may not have become the metalhead I am today.” Another fan wrote, “Quiet Riot was a part of my introduction to the metal world when I was younger.” And as yet another fan mentioned, “…you can’t overstate Quiet Riot’s role in breaking metal during the ‘80’s.”

But where success came quick in the age of MTV, often so did failure. Quiet Riot would become the ultimate one-hit wonder story, a cautionary tale for many bands who thought success in the music business would last a lifetime. After the success of Metal Health came Quiet Riot’s follow up, the aptly titled Condition Critical, which sold 1.5 million copies, and was considered a big disappointment compared to the success of Health (it was reportedly dubbed by one critic as “the platinum failure”). Soon MTV turned its back on metal entirely, and it wasn’t until 1986, with the success of Bon Jovi and Cinderella, that the network would play the music again.

But it wasn’t just MTV’s lack of support that caused Quiet Riot to falter. It’s hard to imagine this today considering how much bands talk sh*t about each other without consequence, but when DuBrow badmouthed a number of artists who got successful in Quiet Riot’s wake, including Motley Crue, the fans retreated in droves. Many years after the fact, DuBrow acknowledged the mistakes of his past, and said, “The bands I put down should have thanked me. I turned our fans against us and towards them. These people all became friends in their common dislike for me. By f*cking my career up, I helped them sell more units!

“It’s one thing hurting yourself,” he continued, “but I hurt the rest of the band, who were three really good friends of mine. That was the worst part about it, and something I regret more than anything else.”

Quiet Riot never regained the heights they hit in the ’80’s, but even when they were touring clubs, DuBrow was always the consummate front man who gave audiences 110% every night. One person writing in on Blabbermouth recalled going to see Quiet Riot in the ‘90’s “specifically to laugh at them, and they completely tore the roof off the place…it went down as one of the best shows I’ve ever seen.”

Did you also know Quiet Riot also had a video game connection? Another fan wrote that DuBrow “holds a special place in my heart” because their legendary cover of Cum On Feel the Noize played on V – Rock in GTA Vice City, “an awesome game which I still play all the time.”

It’s still hard to imagine DuBrow as no longer being with us because he had such a strong life force in him. He certainly had his flaws, and his abrasiveness was, I feel, a shield for his vulnerability. Nevertheless, it’s good to see that fans and his musical peers remember his contributions to the metal world, and may he rest in peace…