“Hollywood Cowboys” is the latest album from rock legends Quiet Riot and it was released on 8th November by Frontiers Music. The album was the second to feature the vocals of James Durbin, but he had announced even before it was released that he would be leaving the band to focus on other projects. He certainly went out on a high as there is plenty to like about “Hollywood Cowboys”. The tracks “Don’t Call It Love” and “Heartbreak City” were included on the Friday NI Rocks Show during September followed by n and “In The Blood” on 1st November.
The original Quiet Riot line-up was active from 1973 to 1980 and featured Randy Rhoads as well as Rudy Sarzo. In 1982, singer Kevin DuBrow reformed the band and it went on to achieve enormous success with the “Mental Health” and “Conditional Critical” albums in 1983/84. The history of the band over the next 35 years has been fairly tumultuous, with internal disputes, line-up changes etc. Following the death of DuBrow in 2007 there was a another hiatus before a new version of the band emerged in 2010.
The new Quiet Riot line-up featured only one member from the “Mental Health” era – drummer Frankie Banali. He and two other band members from 2010 remain with the band – bass player Chuck Wright (who has played off and on with the band since 1985) and guitarist Alex Grossi (who first joined in 2004). There have been a few changes in vocalist – Mark Huff (2010-12), Scott Vokoun (2012-13), Jizzy Pearl (2013-16), Seann Nicols (2017-19) and then James Durbin (2017-19). I recorded an interview with Durbin in 2017 just after he was unveiled as the latest singer – http://www.rockradioni.co.uk/interviews/3099-ni-rocks-interview-with-james-durbin-from-quiet-riot.html.
Durbin sings on the latest album “Hollywood Cowboys”, but has since been replaced by a returning Jizzy Pearl. Unfortunately, Banali has recently announced that he has been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.
About “NI Rocks Recommends”
This is purely a personal recommendation and some information about the artist and the album; not a traditional ‘review’. Most of the recommendations posted are for albums that have been sent to us digitally by the record label or promoter. Quite often I’ve also bought the album on CD or vinyl as well and sometimes I just feel the need to post a recommendation for an album that I’ve bought myself. Essentially these are albums that I like and which I’ve played some tracks from on the Shows on Rock Radio NI!