Kevin DuBrow R.I.P.

Kevin Dubrow was found dead in his home in Las Vegas yesterday at the age of 52. Like many other high school kids, I was enthralled with Quiet Riot’s breakaway album Metal Health; it was one of those albums that seemed to be in everyone’s tape case.
The hysteria also prompted me to check out the band on the Metal Health tour that ended up just a few miles from my home. Although I was more impressed with the openers, Axe, I remember a few things about the headliners.
The drummer put on the infamous mask featured on the cover of Metal Health. Guitarist Carlos Cavazo did an extended guitar solo (“Battle Axe”) that seemed to go on forever. And Kevin DuBrow provided an obligatory soliloquy to original guitarist Randy Rhodes immediately before the band went into “Thunderbird.”
Ten years later, Quiet Riot again came near my hometown, only this time in a small-town bar that barely held 100 people. It represents how low the band had gotten in terms of respectability…and it shows how relentless DuBrow was in terms of making sure his career remained as the lead singer of a hard rock band.
For all the shit that he’s received (and admittedly, DuBrow was himself to blame for a lot of it), you’ve got to hand it to a guy that did everything, from playing in front of a nudist camp to playing in a tiny bar in Fort Madison, Iowa, to keep his dream alive. I’m sure that, like most of us, DuBrow would try to change things a bit to try a prolong Quiet Riot’s sales streak, but I’m fairly sure the guy died knowing that his day job, regardless of the venue, certainly was a helluva lot more awesome than the day job you’re in now.
The video below is almost verbatim like the show I saw them do in ’83, including the annoying DuBrow banter.
Inspriational Verse: “Wanna kiss your lips/Not the ones on your face”