Friday, June 25, 1999 | 10:05 a.m.
Quiet Riot details
What: Quiet Riot.
When: 8 p.m. today.
Where: Sunset Station Amphitheater.
Tickets: $12.50, $17.50, $22.50.
Information: Call 547-7777.
It's the stuff those wildly popular cable music video channel documentaries are made of.
Heavy-metal rock band Quiet Riot lived large during the 1980s: Big hair, big hits -- "Mental Health (Bang Your Head)," "Cum On Feel the Noize," "Mama Weer All Crazee Now" -- and big bucks.
Then, in the early '90s, mainstream rock music's tide changed, sending the group -- fronted by Las Vegas resident and one-time local radio personality Kevin DuBrow -- out to sea.
But DuBrow and his bandmates, who have been together for 25 years and perform today at Sunset Station, somehow managed to (just barely) keep their heads above the water and in the public eye -- even if it wasn't always under the most flattering of circumstances.
First there was DuBrow's dismissal -- or resignation, depending on who's telling the story -- in 1997 from his post as morning show co-host at local rock station KOMP 92.3-FM.
That same year guitarist Carlos Cavazo survived a harrowing experience when he was hog-tied and managed to escape from robbers who invaded his Southern California home.
And earlier this year DuBrow made national headlines when he was arrested at an airport in Charlotte, N.C., on contempt of court charges stemming from a lawsuit filed by a fan who claimed she was injured during a Quiet Riot concert years earlier. DuBrow ended up spending a night in jail.
"It seems like we get publicity for the weirdest things," he said during a recent call from South Bend, Ind., where Quiet Riot was performing in preparation for the "Rock Never Stops 1999" tour, which kicks-off Wednesday in Albany, N.Y. Also on the bill: guitar legend Ted Nugent, '80s band Night Ranger and Las Vegas rockers Slaughter.
Such strange fodder certainly intrigued the bigwigs at VH1. That's why the band will be profiled on an installment of the channel's hit prime-time biography show, "Behind the Music," airing July 12 on the channel (Cox Cable Channel 33).
Previous "Behind the Music" subjects have included Leif Garret, Fleetwood Mac, David Cassidy, MC Hammer, Rick Springfield and Def Leppard.
"That's a big deal for us," DuBrow said of being chosen for the drama-laden "Behind the Music." "That's probably the best and biggest thing that's happened to us in 10 years.
"We have pretty much all of the ingredients the show needs: We've got sex, controversy, rock 'n' roll, we've been ripped off by every major record company."
(It probably didn't hurt, either, that the show's narrator is also the godfather of drummer Frankie Banali's daughter.)
The program's timing couldn't be better, since the group released a new disc, "Alive and Well," earlier this year.
"All of the groups (that) have done ("Behind the Music"), it's given them a huge adrenaline shot for their careers," DuBrow said, citing a 60 percent increase in record sales.
To research the show, each Quiet Riot member was interviewed for six hours. "Then they start interviewing everybody else," including former managers and even old girlfriends, DuBrow said.
VH1, he said, has "an investigative department that's unbelievable. I couldn't believe the people they dug up. I don't know where they got their phone numbers from -- people I haven't talked to in years."
For his part during the interviews, 43-year-old DuBrow said, "I was pretty much up-front about my stupidity or my reactions to stuff ... before anybody else had a chance to say it about me."
The episode, he said, will examine his nearly year-long stint co-hosting the "Rock 'n' Roll Morning Show" with Craig Williams at KOMP.
Following a two-sided round of finger-pointing and accusations between DuBrow and the station's management -- ranging from his missing several days of work to some concert tickets that were allegedly stolen -- DuBrow contended that he was asked not to return to his job.
Meanwhile, station General Manager Tony Bonnici told the Sun, "He actually just stopped showing up."
"A lot of my life (has been) a series of self-inflicted gunshot wounds to the feet. This was one of them," DuBrow said of his time at the station.
"It was a great gig. The problem was ... a lot of musicians get into rock 'n' roll because ... nobody wants to have a real job, and that turned into being a little too close to a real job. After doing it for a year, I kind of got burnt."
Of his handling of the situation, he admitted, "My modus operandi for years (has been) when I get angry about something, I sort of go into self-destruct mode. ... That's why I'm still playing with the same band, because these guys are the only people who understand me."
DuBrow said that he and KOMP's staff have since "kissed and made up. ... I'm on good terms with everyone there."
Still, "I wouldn't say the whole thing was my fault, but I'll say I behaved like (expletive). I didn't want to do the radio show anymore and the way I got out of it (was) stupid. I figured that everybody would just bow to my whims and I was proved incorrect."
But DuBrow contends he is correct when it comes to the specifics of a lawsuit that was filed against him by a fan in 1994.
According to a report on MTV's website (mtv.com), DuBrow was arrested at Charlotte/Douglas International Airport on Jan. 12 in relation to a suit filed by Susan Pilot Hawkins, who was in the audience of a Quiet Riot concert in the city five years earlier.
She claimed to have suffered a broken leg and other injuries when DuBrow tossed a fan, whom he had pulled onstage during a song, back into the audience. Pilot Hawkins was awarded a default judgment of $105,000.
"What she said I did would be impossible," DuBrow contended. "In the court documents, she said she was 20 feet from the stage. The Olympic long-jump record is 18 feet, so it's absolutely impossible" that he could have thrown a fan that far into the audience, he said. "So it's obviously a case of ambulance chasing, sue-the-rich-rock-star."
Upon deplaning in Charlotte (DuBrow was scheduled to perform there that evening), he claims he was arrested by six sheriff's deputies and spent 22 hours in jail, where he was fitted with prison scrubs, ankles chains and segregated from other inmates.
"Everybody in the courthouse knew Quiet Riot, and they were all singing 'Cum On Feel the Noize,' " Dubrow said, explaining that he was continually asked to autograph his mug shot.
He testified and had his financial records examined by prosecutors. "They found out that (he didn't have) the millions (of dollars) they thought were there." (DuBrow claims the group has not been paid royalties by Sony Music since 1986 and has recently filed a federal lawsuit against the company.)
According to the MTV website report, DuBrow claimed he owes some $54,000 in back taxes and only earns up to $250 for club performances with Quiet Riot.
"The judge said, 'Sir, I wasn't really aware of who you were until your attorney mentioned the song 'Cum On Feel the Noize,' and then I realized that my wife used to do aerobics to your songs,' " DuBrow recalled.
"I said, 'There is a God!' "
His bond was reduced from $210,000 to $1,000 and he was released. DuBrow is working to get Pilot Hawkins' judgment overturned -- hopefully, he said, by later this summer when the band's tour is scheduled to stop in Charlotte.
If nothing else, Dubrow is right about one thing: There's plenty of controversy in Quiet Riot's past to keep viewers glued to the TV for the hourlong "Behind the Music" broadcast.
"Our story is our story," he said. "If you've been a fan of the group, you know that it exists."
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