I Smell Pop Culture: Quiet Riot

references and Gilmore Girls. We talk to the people that make them real. We talk to the people that bring them to life. And we are rocking out this week. Everybody. I hope you got your leather jacket. I hope you got your big boots, your vinyl, your shaggy hair. We're going into the world of hair metal this week. So here's the thing about Gilmore Girls. We all know that Sebastian Bach, he played gil He was in the band hep Alien. He is a real deal rocker. Sebastian Bach

is the real deal. Scott's talked to him a bunch of times on this podcast. We love Sebastian Bach. But there's a scene that he has in season six, episode four, the Festival of the Living Art, when he's trying out for HEP Alien and he references another band. That's who we're going to talk to you today. So here is the moment in Gilmore Girls that we are going to be exploring today. Gil's trying out for HEP Alien. He you know, there's an age difference. It is kind of weird.

He's a much older guy. He's god, he's so good. Look I rewatched this episode today, but he is such a good looking dude. But later in the episode, when they're at the festival, Lane is talking to Gill she sees in there watching the show, and he kind of admits like, hey, I know I'm not getting the I'm not getting the gig. I didn't pass the audition. I know it. And Lane reassures him, you're a great guy, Gill, You're great guitar. So someone's gonna scoop you up quick.

And Gil's like, I hope. So I'm gonna keep going no matter what, not like last time, And Lane says last time and Gil says yet he tells a story. Yes, I had another band a great band. We have the hottest band in LA. We sold out all the clubs, the House of Blues, the Whiskey A and our guys were hanging out. We had an awesome demo tunes. Then we got our big break, an opening slot on a national tour with Quiet Riot. But we blew it. We were fighting all the time over money, over chicks. We

broke up before the tour even started. What a sad tale that Gil spins in that moment. But we're going to talk to Quiet right, is of course a real band, a band that's been around. They're still touring. They have been around for decades now. And if you're not a hair metal band, if you're not into this rock and heavy music, I guarantee you know come on feel the noise. I guarantee you know that song. Come on Field no huzz don't worry. I want to sing the whole thing.

But we are going to talk to Rudy Sarzo. He was the bass player in Quiet Riot. But oh he doesn't stop there. He also played bass for Ozzy Osbourne, Blue Oyster, Cult, Whitesnake. This guy is a legend in the world of heavy metal music. And we're going to talk to him all about Quiet Riot. We're gonna talk to him about his friendship with Sebastian Bach. He knows our guy gil We're gonna get into it all here on I smell pop culture. Let's not waste any more

time before talking to Rudy Sarzo from Quiet Riot. Rudy, thank you so much for doing this. We're so excited to talk to you.

A lot of people think that that line is about skid Row, Sebastian's real life band and a spot opening for Kiss. What's your relationship with Sebastian Bach? How far back do you, guys go?

from Weissnik that were president at this party in Newport, California. Uh, the guys in the band and the Lass guy was Sebass. You you know, I mean, you don't miss him. You can't get away from him. You know, he's like seven feet tall and loud and really really good looking guy. You know. I mean, if you ever saw the cover of Rolling Stone magazine where they had him in there,

you know, on the cover. You know, I think that was the last photo that Rolling Stone published with a with an actual you know, hair band rock star skid Row. We're not really a hair band because they were a little bit grungier, a little bit more punk in the attitude, but they just happened to come out at that time, and you know how it is you know, the media and the record company. You know, they're trying to put you in a category so they can sell you, of

course to a certain demographic, you know. So they fell

into that demographic of the their band. But you know, they came up with some other future recording that actually were much heavier than their first record, you know, less valid, less pop sounding arrangements of the songs and so on back in the nineties, so they would actually tour still tour with the heavier, grungier sound from Seattle, you know, bands you know from that, from from that, yeah, from that style of music, you know, because at the end

of the day, everything melts into one thing. It's rock and roll, you know. So what happens is, you know, while MTV and record companies were dictating kind of it's like serial some kids are going to be sold on the idea of count Count Chocula. So you've got to eat this city or some kids, waitis it is for you? You know? You know, if you watch you watch morning cartoons, it was all about selling cereal and then Captain Crunch

with a little whistle. Then later somebody figured out that if you bleue this whistle into a telephone, you can make long distance calls for free. I remember, Yeah, so you know, and it's but you know, music was pretty much the same. It's like, Okay, we're gonna we're gonna go on MTV and we're gonna tell the MTV audience that if you like the Thompson Twins, maybe skid Row is not for you. They're more like, if you're like Bonjobie,

you're gonna love skid Row basically, you know. So you know, with time, now that MTV is not playing videos anymore, Uh, the new generation gets to discover on their own, you know. But it's difficult to find bands because it's kind of like going into Costco and you want to find something. You know, where is the Dysphibia, But you got to go through every aisle looking for it, you know, but eventually you will find it.

usually in director and I went through this. Let's say, I mean a band we're going there's a new record coming out, and that the first single has been picked. So we get all of these directors coming in pitching ideas, you know, and and he used the problem. So this is a young director. He comes in and he pitches you an idea that you might think like, na, it's not really for us. Later on, you're working with this director.

Now he's huge, and you're working with him in another band, and he remember you his great idea that he actually used on another band that had a big video with that idea that you passed.

on the front of the stage. Hello, Minnesota, you're Minnesota. You know and and and that to me is the best what you do. It's just like, do what you're there to do, make your music, and then just stay out of the way. Don't have opinions because opinions will get you in trouble. You might be because it will create a separation between you know, one side and the other.

You know, So the best way is to like, you know, it's almost like a like if you're living at home with your family, your mom and dad and your brothers, where do we spend most of our time in our room?

what's gonna happen? You know. So one of those nights the Moine Iowa in nineteen eighty two Diary of the mad Men Tour, somebody throws a crumpled thing thing on, Harry, Harry, fuzzy thing on. Stay. It's lands in front of me and I'm doing my you know, head banging, you know, moving the base of the head around, and I point out, Ozzie, Hey, check this out. Well, we're playing. So I just kept playing. See, I just carry off. That was in the middle of

the set. So we finished our set. Then I see an ambulance waiting for Ozzie on the side of the stage, you know, and they rush him in there and they draw it drive off, and I go to our manager and then say Sharon, and I go what happened? He says, well, somebody threw a bat on stage, and Ozzy thought that it was a toy bat, so he bit into it and bent his head off, and he freaked out and spit it out into the audience and they can't they can't find it. Now, Oh my god, He says that

we're not gonna take any chances. We're gonna get him to emergency and get him some Raby shot. So we take the tour bus and we clean up, and we parked the tour bus in front of the hospital emergency entrance, and so as he comes out and he's got this little box with monkey serum vile for him to take shots every day. And they said do not drink monkey sum because he wasn't the refrigerator along with like everything else, my yogurt, milk, beard, monkey serum, drink coffee.

name is Easton Allen. I'm hanging out here with Rudy Sarzo, the bass player, the rock bass player. If you ask me, Quiet Riot boys are cold. I mean Dio. Oh my god, some ma of these incredible bands. I want to go back to the beginning of your time with Quiet Riot though. Yeah, I read that you stumbled into one of their shows after you couldn't get into a sold out Van Halen concert. That is that true?

we're here because we couldn't come out of town. You know, most of the musicians from the Sunset Strip at that time had migrated from other cities in the United States trying to find that combination of either a whole band or some musician to put a new band together with, you know, things like that. And so I was one of them, and we all looked the same. We all we had, you know, the same haircut, the same boots, has the same leather jacket, and you know, it was

like a uniform basically, so we were easily identifiable. So, you know, so a lot of them helped me out the other guys because that was the rule of film. Be nice to everybody because someday you might wind up in a band with them. Good advice, you know, yeah, And so, you know, so a couple of the guys outside they couldn't get it there. They say, hey, you know, right down the stream, there's a place called the star Wood.

Just going there. You know, they got some cool bands playing there too, So I didn't, you know, And I walk in and there's quiet Ryot performing. And I at that time, before I got to LA in seventy seven, I have been touring the bar circuit in the Midwest, for maybe a year, year and a half, and I had seen a lot of bands that now we're gearing up to head out to Los Angeles to showcase and

get a record deal. And when I saw Quiet Ryan, I thought, well, these guys did Yeah, they are an arena band, yeah, doing an arena show, you know, performance in the club, the showcase club. And I was really impressed by everything. And so I after their show, especially Randy Road. Randy Rhodes had this his fan base girls standing in front of him worrying he used to wear a little poke with dot bow ties. Yeah, and and so they all wore little poke without bow ties, and

I go, wow, these these guys are rocal. They already have a really strong fan base, because you don't seen that when you play bars. When you play bars, people are just there to drink and pick up each other, you know. Yeah, that's why I've been married for forty one year. He was me, do you go to bars anymore? Now? I really know what I was looking for, you know, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So after their show, Kevin was walking around making the round Kevin de Brother, the singer, making the rounds, you know, saying hello to friends, and I bump into him, and I introduced myself. And this is something that I've always done, even prior to meeting Kevin. When I see somebody who who's promising, I'll let him know because sometimes this is one thing that This is the fact local bands are incubated. They are in one area. They don't know what's out there,

especially forty something years ago. This is nineteen seventy seven, so it's almost fifty years ago. There's no social media, you know, you have no reference. Nowadays, you can go, okay, let me see what's out there. When you two that, it's kind of like what we do. Ah, okay, So now you can measure what you're doing, what to improve, what to work on, how to be you meek from

these other bands, you know, things like that. So I was out there and I'm just coming to LA, so I could tell somebody from LA, Hey, listen, this is what's going on out there. These are the bands, you know, this is what they got going for that. You guys got even more than they do. So keep doing what you're doing. You're almost there and you're going to get

a record deal, which is the goal. This is this is why everybody did it, so they could get a record deal and then become a professional touring and recording band. Yeah it's the dream, yeah, the dream. Yeah yeah. So a year later, I get the phone call from Kevin. I was in New Jersey with my brother putting, you know,

getting some money playing the lounge circuit. And then you know, because you know, it can be very expensive to live in Los Angeles, and I kept running out of money and keep going back out again to make money playing Top forty and then come back. And this is this, this was the last time, because this nineteen seventy eight, I already got my ticket to come home. I get the phone call from Kevin de brother saying, hey, man,

you know we're looking for a bass play. We tried everybody out, and you know, some people say that you're the guy. And I said, listen, I'll be there next week as soon as I land. I'm going to give you a call when I come over in an audition. And I did, and I started playing with kwiet right in nineteen seventy eight. Wow.

been across the pond. I was was born in Cuba, so I was not you know, born in the United States. So yes, I came from abroad and I came you know to the United States in sixty one. But as far as going to Europe or any other country, no. I once went to Canada, but that's kind of like for a couple. So uh so here I am in England. You know, it's a whole different culture, the pub culture.

You know, back in the day forty something years ago. Uh, people were set there along watch to pub hours, telling that well it's eleven o'clock, it's open park and and it's it's the mindset that if you know it's only going to be open for two or three hours, you're gonna drink your ass off, yeah, because they're gonna take that away from you closing time. They're gonna alter it up again later, so you're gonna go back back to work, you're gonna be you know, smashed. It's okay, So he's

everybody else exactly. You know, little things like that that I had never witnessed before. You know, Indian food, Indian food which I love and all of that. But but again going back to the to the being authentic heavy metal. Uh, I was mentored by Ozzie. I was mentored by Sharon. She took me to the side and she gave me

the the don'ts. Maybe she didn't give you one due Yeah, I do stand here, do stand here, but don't do this and don't do that, you know, which is okay because it had to see Ozzie at the beginning was an extension of Black Sabbath. So certain traditional heavy metal things had to happen on stage visually and performance wise, you know, visually, image wise and performance you know, And there were some boundaries on some rules that were laid out organically a decade or and a half before Ozzie

went out as a solo artist. That became the tradition of heavy metal. Another thing that helped me out was that my ears, my heart might be expanding because uh we had Motorhead. Now Motorhead. That was really interesting. See because when I joined Ozzie, Assie was the only English member in the band, but Motorhead was full blown English traditional and let me, let me, let me, let me, let me what an I'd never met anybody like Levy before. They were like like pirates, you know, like Pirates of

the Caribbean. It was just like that, you know.

tour bus and it was like Caligula. It was like all the women all in the place, you know, naked, have naked the alcohol food, you know when I'm talking about like five day old pizza boxes. You know, you'll go to our bus for Sharon trouble with us. It was spotless, clean, everything in its place, nothing out of place. It was like, wow, you.

they were sixteen, eighteen year old year old. There's no rules written, there's nothing is like, we'll figure it out, you know as we go along. And there's certain things that happened that got in the way of the quality

of their creativity, drugs and alcohol. And this is what Sharon was trying to avoid with Ozzie, is for him to go down that road, you know, and to be honest with you, the other guys in the band, Randy, you know, was very clean compared to Motorhead, and so as Tommy Andres who have been on the road for about maybe sixteen years with Black work Arden Saw and Pat Travers and so on. He was compared to to Motohead. Yeah, he was very clean. You know, so we were not

really really it's a lifestyle. You were not your typical heavy metal band except for Ozzie. So you know, Sharon would just like monitoring him, you know, make sure he will not go off the deep end. But he needed to be Azsi, which is you know, I have to let him, let him be Aussie Goes. After all, he is a.

be interested in patronizing. Who knows. Let's try it out. It's I small pop culture. My name is Easton Allen. We are talking to Rudy Sarzo from Quiet Riot. Quiet Right gets back together in what nineteen eighty eighty two, Yes, and and that's during the time of the Metal Health album. I mean the breakthrough record. So I'm so curious, like, like, what inspired Quiet Right to cover Slade for Come On Feel the Noise? Where'd that come about?

So in September, as I am getting ready to go to New York to record Speak of the Devil, which is the Ozzie Black Sabbath era re recordings of you know, his classic you know material, yeah song you know from Black southn Okay live had the Rich in New York. Okay. So I get the phone call from Kevin and said, Hey, Rudes, we're in the studio. It's a possible record deal. How would you like to come down and record on Thunderbird as the tribute to Randy. Now I'm still a member

of Ozzie, the band is still called Dubrow. At that time, it wasn't quite a riot yet. And so I go in record thunder Bird. Frankie Banali, the drummer, I had a history with him dating back to ten years prior to nineteen seventy two. I met him on my birthday November eighteen, nineteen seventy two. He's his band called Ginger.

This is in Fulordadale area. Happened to had opened up as the last minute replacement for the opening band originally for the David Bowie Spiders from Marsh tour of the United States, and they played at this place called Pirates Work and I walk in and I see this opening band. I had no idea who these guys are, but I was blown away by the drummer. Yeah, everything about him, his drum kid, the way he played, and his attitude.

I'm just completely blown away. So the next day I met this It's my birthday at this club in full Oaddale and I'm hanging with my friends and somebody says, hey, that's one of the guys from the band that opened up for Bowie yesterday. And I make a beeline for the guy and introduced myself and I said, man, I saw you guys playing last night. You guys were amazing, especially your drummer and he's smiling. Look, and I'm going

on and on about how great the drummer is. Then and then he stretches out his hand and he says, Hi, I'm frank I'm the drummer. I had no idea it was it because I was in the cheap seats back there, you know, yeah, which at the time, the difference was like seventy five cents. Yeah, you know, about seventy five by like half half a tank of gas.

nineteen eighty two, finally in the studio with Frankie. So we had a huge history. We lived together, we toured together, we grew playing music together, and so you know, I once Randy passed away, it was never the same in the in the you know, going on stage with with Ozzy, you know, And I can pretty much say that for everybody, you know, especially especially Ozzy. I I I don't even know where he found the strength to actually do a show,

because many many times I would start crying. Like when we when we did My Mister Square Garden, I stepped on stage. You know, I see a signs and banners saying God Bless Randy. It was like a wake man, and I'm like, I just put my head down and and cried the whole night. Every time I lift my head, that's all I would see, you know, people you know with Randy signs and banners, and it was like, so you know we went through that, and I know Ozzie went through it. Tell me, Ah, dres down Airy, you know,

all the members of the band. So it's I lost the joy of making music. You know. It was just like pulled out of me. You know, because Randy was not just my former bandmate from choir Ryert. He was the guy who introduced me to Ozzie and Sharon. He's the one who put his credibility on the line with them. As far as me joining the band, you know, I owe him everything. If it wasn't for him, you know, I don't know what I would be doing, you know.

But but but as far as what I've done is because of him, and then Ozzie and Sharon believing in believing in Randy, trusting him, and then believing in me once they got to know me, because I had a resume. My resume was Rudy. He used to play with Randy in Choir Ryot and now sleeps and Kevin Dubrow's spare bedroom on the floor. That's my resume right there, you know. So here we are in the studio. So I gave

you that. That the background of me entering a studio to record one song with Dubro for a possible record deal. The guitarist Calvis Cavaso, I had never met him. We'll play with him before obviously I never met him, but he had just joined the band. The band was so cool, Dubre. I was just making a guest appearance. I said, as a member of Bonzie we used to play in Choir Riot with and I knew the songs because thunder Bird.

It was a song that Kevin wrote wrote for Randy when Randy left the Choir Riot to join Ozzie, So I was very familiar with it. So we tracked it quickly. Two takes, and then the producer goes, hey, do you remember any of the all songs like sleep Batelle, Yes, let's do it. Another two takes, and then two more songs from the dubro Erah loves a Bitch and let's

get crazy. So by the time I finished my session for a song, I'm packing up, and I hear Frankie and Kevin in the hallway outside me at the studio, you know where. We're in the recording room, and Frankie is telling Kevin, listen, don't worry, I'll take care of this. I'm gonna play as bad as possible. So so Spenser, you know, the producer gives up on the idea of us for recording, come and feel then noid And for

me knowing Frankie what an incredible drummer. I mean, like I told you the first time, my toy just blew my mind. I said, you know what, I've never heard Frankie play bad. I got to stick around for this. You know, He's going, yeah, sound like Frankie playing bad. Okay, So I'm in the control room watching the whole thing and just one take, and Frankie's idea of playing bad was basically just playing as simple and boring to him

as possible. He used to call that the wind up monkey, you know, back the they weed to have like little monkey that yeah, do that right?

When I say the band, I said Frankie and Kevin. Because I was not a member yet, they wanted to salve withas song. They just wanted to have an album full of original material and uh but but the them having a record deal depended on recording com Feel the Noise because the producer so that that was a hit, that song if it was perform the way that he envisioned it, which is pretty much what's on on the on the record, that that was going to be a big hit.

your own. So then Metal Health, I mean, that album just blows up, you guys just become it goes into the stratosphere, Like like, how did the dynamics of the band change after releasing that record?

got the audition to joining Aussie. I went from sleeping on the floor getting waking up on the floor that morning to all of a sudden, I moved in with Sharon's family up in the Hollywood Hills and we're talking and mentioned built by by Howard Hughes for Jane Russell. Yeah, it was like if megap movies start mentioned I moved

in with him. You know, this is how kind and general that day Ausie, because you know, I here, I am, I joined the band, and you know, we're kind of like hanging out and blame pool with Ozzie and he's telling me stories and and he looks at my clothes, which were actually my rock star clothe and he says, man, you look like ship. You need some rock star clothes. And he says, right right here. He went to his room, came back with his suitcake reported on the pool table

and says, take what you want. Wow, nobody has before or after that ever done that for me or anybody off. You know, I looking at you know, jackets and you know, and and all these shirts that were actually on iconic Black Sabbath album Government. I'm going to the jacket from that oh yeah, unreal, and they were always like that even after that. It wasn't just like one case scenario,

you know. Yeah, so it was it was really tough to to to, you know, move on from USSI playing, you know, but I just lost imagine how which I lost lost the joy of making music that I needed to get away that I went from the one of the biggest bands of the Complete Unknown with no guarantee that we were going to sell ten copies of that right.

we come home during the week. That's why I'm here having this conversation with you, you know, because you know I'm home and and I love it. It's it's just a balance my life now, you know that I did not have back then.

very legit. You know how disco, you know, the drum beat is doomed fa dude fa right for people to dance to. Right. So they're in the studio, uh, recording those songs that wound up on on the on the soundtrack for Saturn Knight, and they did one or two tracks, and their drummer has a tragedy in his family, so he's gotta leave. And here they are in some studio in the middle friends the chateau, recording and they're like, well,

you know, we've got to get this done. So an engineer or a producer comes up with the idea, you know what, we can make loops of the drum track, just the same beat, dude bye right. So yeah, so they start recording the song on top of it, and then then once right right before they're getting ready to do mixing, they add the remaining percussion like Kimbali's drum fills and crashes and things like that. But the layer

of the beat is constant during the whole thing. And that's how disco really but popularize.

but that's so that reminds me of Miami. And I was listening to someone dress like emotion and how deep is your love? Yes, and it takes me back to Miami. And there's a smell to it, the smell of the ocean, the smell of the pump tree and the flowers that grow in Miami and Miami Beach. That to me, it is pop culture, pop culture.